Confession worksheets

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Hello all, I am new here. I am returning to the Catholic Church after being away for 25 years. I am looking for info to see if anybody knows a place where I can download and print a worksheet for confession to write down my sins. After being away for so long, I want to make sure I make a good confession. A worksheet would definitely help me structure this confession. Any and all help appreciated. Thank You
 
I don’t know of any worksheets, but you can do an “examination of conscience.” Most of these are based off the ten commandments.

This is one, and as well as being based off the ten commandments, it’s also based off the seven precepts of the Church:

beginningcatholic.com/catholic-examination-of-conscience.html

I warn you, it’s an extremely thorough examination of conscience. If you are scrupulous, I wouldn’t use this one. However, if you’re confident that it won’t worry you to death, I’d use this one because you’ve been away from the Church for so long and you want to remember as much sin as possible. Remember, if you don’t remember a sin, and the priest absolves you, it’s still forgiven. If you suddenly remember after the absolution a sin you didn’t confess, you needn’t go confess it, unless you really want to, because it’s already been forgiven. However, if you’ve got a slight idea that something might be a sin, it’s better to confess it anyways, to set your mind at ease.

If you don’t like that examination of conscience, you can Google others. There are many.
 
Welcome home!

You will want to do an “examination of conscience” which is a series of questions or statements designed to help you identify your sins and areas where you need to focus on development. Usually these are based on the 10 commandments.

You can do a search on these forums or the Internet to find one. We recently had a good discussion about this with folks sharing links and complete examines.

You can certainly make a few notes for yourself to take to your first confession back. Please be sure to let the priest know how long it has been since your last confession (years) and he will guide you through.

Confess your mortal sins first, “in kind and number”. Kind being the type of sin, so all stealing, all sexual sins, etc. Number doesn’t have to be exact, but doe have to be as good an approximation as you can make it. So “I falsified my travel vouchers by $50 each time. I made about 8 trips a year for 10 years.” Or “I lived with someone I wasn’t married to for 5 years and we had sex regularly during that time. I also had sex with 10 other people over the past 5 years about once a week.”

You do the best you can with number and if the priest needs you to be more specific, he will ask. You don’t need to go into tons of detail about each sin or the circumstances around it. The priest doesn’t necessarily need to know who, what exactly you said, etc. It is absolution, not therapy. But if he does need clarification, he will ask. He may also cut you off if you start getting long-winded.

Your venial sins (not grave matter) will also be forgiven. It is a good practice to identify them and confess them regularly, but at this first confession after many years, please focus on your mortal sins and get them said, absolved, and off your conscience!
 
if you are brave enough, you can call and make an appointment, and go to confession face to face with the priest, and he will be happy to assist you as you go along. If you don’t want to go face to face, make sure you tell the priest that it has been a very long time since your last confession and need his help to make a good confession. Remember, you only need to confess the mortal sins for now, you can bring up the venial sins at another time, as you remeber them. Welcome Home! We missed you.
 
wrs0312 said:
Hello all, I am new here. I am returning to the Catholic Church after being away for 25 years. I am looking for info to see if anybody knows a place where I can download and print a worksheet for confession to write down my sins. After being away for so long, I want to make sure I make a good confession. A worksheet would definitely help me structure this confession. Any and all help appreciated. Thank You
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Was away 20 years from confession (not completely away from Church though) and had a Franciscan priest who knew there was no way to go over 20 years worth of stuff. It went much much better than I had antcipated.
 
wrs0312 said:
Hello all, I am new here. I am returning to the Catholic Church after being away for 25 years. I am looking for info to see if anybody knows a place where I can download and print a worksheet for confession to write down my sins. After being away for so long, I want to make sure I make a good confession. A worksheet would definitely help me structure this confession. Any and all help appreciated. Thank You
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Hi, I don’t know if you have found your answer, but here is a good link from the Medjugorje.

medjugorje.org/eoca.htm

God Bless and welcome home.
 
Thank you so much everyone for your replies. The examination of conscience seems to be a great tool in preparation for the sacrament. I will definitely be using. God Bless
 
There is an app for Ipod for confession. I have never used it but read about it. Also, check out The Reason for Our Hope website - Father Larry Richards has a list of sins to be confessed - could print out and use.
 
dachsiemom2 said:
There is an app for Ipod for confession. I have never used it but read about it. Also, check out The Reason for Our Hope website - Father Larry Richards has a list of sins to be confessed - could print out and use.
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I use the confession app and I’ve found it very helpful. It’s available for both iPhone/iPod Touch and Android systems now. There’s also an app called iPieta that includes various examinations of conscience as well as various other fantastic resources.
 
NID10921 said:
Hi, I don’t know if you have found your answer, but here is a good link from the Medjugorje.

linkremoved.org/

God Bless and welcome home.
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The forum rules do not allow the promotion of unapproved apparitions, this includes posting links to websites devoted to them.

This examination has some inaccuracies which would lead me to not recommend it.

7 & 10. You shall not steal and You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.

Social Sins
  1. “Have I tithed ten percent of my income, five percent to the parish and five percent to another charity?”. The Church has never required us to tithe, and certainly not 10% of our income. We are to support the parish and give to charity, but the amount is something we each should prayerfully consider individually. Not giving 10% is not a sin, and never has been. 2) “Have I volunteered my time for either the parish or the poor?” Again, here is another inaccuracy. The Church has never said we must volunteer time to the parish or poor. There may be a number of legitimate reasons for someone to be unable to do either, at least on a regular basis, due to family and/or work constraints. They may only be able to give time a few times a year, but assist in other ways. Failure to do either is not a sin. We should assist the parish and the poor regularly, but it need not always be our time; it can be an offering of a talent, or funds.
The one that YoungTradCath posted, while thorough and perhaps to be avoided by the scrupulous, doesn’t contain any inaccuracies. This one states:

Seventh & Tenth Commandments 1) "Given generously to others in need? " without stating a tithe, and…

Sixth Precept of the Church
  1. "Contributed a just amount of my time, talents and money to support my parish and the work of the Church? " which requires us to contribute according to our means. One may not be capable of volunteering time regularly, a just amount might be several times a year for someone.
Apparently not every examination out there on the world wide web is an accurate and good one. The one posted by YoungTradCath is accurate and good, the one on the website devoted to the promotion of an unapproved apparition is not (for the reasons I state above).
 
First of all, Welcome Home. I was away from the Church for about 20 years also and recently returned.

I went the low tech way 🙂 :

I printed a sheet of paper that had the Ten Commandments and also the Seven Deadly Sins and left 3-4 lines between them. Over the course of a week or so before my appointment, I did an examination of my life and wrote down, as best I could, all of my sins over the years.

When I met with the priest, I think he was quite impressed that I had everything hand-written down on paper and we went Commandment by Commandment and Deadly Sin by Deadly Sin until I was finished.

I also printed out an Act of Perfect Contrition as the short one I memorized back in CCD didn’t fit the formula as I understand it now. I didn’t know it at the time, our parish has it laminated and hanging from a chain in the confessional but I met with the priest in his office.
 
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