confession

[wondering1979]

I have a question regarding confession. I know you are supposed to confess all mortal sins. What do you do when you think a sin from the past, that maybe at that time you didn’t think was a sin, or thought it was only venial, but now as I have grown in knowledge I realize that certain sins were more serious than I thought when I was younger. For example, I know that I have committed sins with the thought that I could just confess them later. Well now I understand that is presumption. At the time I didn’t know that’s what presumption was. I feel badly about not confessing this and other sins correctly or maybe not at all. I used to have a bad habit of only confessing mortal sins. Well now in the past couple of years I can see some of those sins I thought were venial or I convinced myself were venial were really mortal. Now I try to confess every sin mortal or venial, so I cannot be worried by confusion later. Can I simply confess them now that I understand what they are or would all my old confessions be invalid?

 

[bz5]

If you confessed to the best of your knowledge at the time your mortal sins, and you were sorry and meant to reform, I’m confident your confession was valid. Just confess now to what you now know were mortal sins. Avoid the trap of scrupulosity.

 

[bearer]

Yes, feel free to confess them now, and they will be forgiven and absolved. Do penance and do not commit those sins again. If you honestly forgot to confess them before, your previous confessions were and remain valid, but the Church teaches that it is best to confess them anyway just to lift the guilt from you.

The best thing you can do going forward is to confess any and all sins, venial and mortal, to be sure that you don’t miss anything.

By the way, here’s what the Church teaches on mortal sin. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”

1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: “Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother.” The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.

1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

1860 Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest.

1861 Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.

 

[Bookcat]

Yes you are correct that we are *obliged * to confess all our mortal sins in number and kind (and circumstances that change the mortal sin).

Forgotten mortal sins…are to be confessed when remembered (in the next confession…one need not run back)

If I honestly did not know that Y was a sinful or a mortal sin and say did not even know I should find out…and I did it honestly thinking it was venial sin or no sin…and it learn later in life that it is objectively grave…such knowledge does not turn my former actions committed in honest ignorance … into mortal sins …

My advice is to bring the matter to confession and discuss it with the priest there.

Do not confess venial sins as mortal or ones you are not sure of as if you were sure…but state the doubt etc.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

If in previous confessions you honestly believed you had confessed all your mortal sins and had done everything God required for reconciliation with Him, then God will have forgiven even the ones you honestly did not know were mortal.

That said, if you realize later that there is a mortal sin, or at least a sin that is likely to have been mortal, that you committed and have not confessed you need to confess it at your next opportunity, despite it presumably already having been forgiven.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

I have a question regarding confession. I know you are supposed to confess all mortal sins. What do you do when you think a sin from the past, that maybe at that time you didn’t think was a sin, or thought it was only venial, but now as I have grown in knowledge I realize that certain sins were more serious than I thought when I was younger. For example, I know that I have committed sins with the thought that I could just confess them later. Well now I understand that is presumption. At the time I didn’t know that’s what presumption was. I feel badly about not confessing this and other sins correctly or maybe not at all. I used to have a bad habit of only confessing mortal sins. Well now in the past couple of years I can see some of those sins I thought were venial or I convinced myself were venial were really mortal. Now I try to confess every sin mortal or venial, so I cannot be worried by confusion later. Can I simply confess them now that I understand what they are or would all my old confessions be invalid?

Big confusion, no?

So, you think that God does not know your sins if you do not tell Him ?
And that God has got a list of your sins that you must tell in confession. when you say, he deletes them from the Database. If you do not say, it stays there till your memory gets good enough to say all the list and only then God deletes the database, isn’t it?

Boy, what a torture you must be suffering !!!

Confession is not about lists.
Confession is about repentance, forgiveness, will of correcting one’s ways, will of getting better and better each day towards the gowal Christ gave to us: to be Perfect like the Father is.

You are torturing yourself for things that are secondary and you should give emphasis to the main point.

Do not judge yourself. It is up to God to judge you…