Minimizing sins in Confession

[Angela77]

I’ve gotten a lot better about not minimizing my sins when I confess them. I used to sort of make excuses or make things sound less bad than they were, I think, due to embarrassment. (Although I also tend to be a little hard on myself, so there is potentially some scrupulousity going on here.)

Anyway, there are a couple of more serious sins (at least, I judge them as such) from my past (like, a couple of years ago) that I worry I didn’t confess “fully” because I was sort of minimizing them, or making excuses as I confessed. (But it was also a while ago so I don’t remember exactly.) The intent to confess them was there though, and it took me some considerable courage to work up the guts to confess them at all.

My question is, were those sins truly forgiven even if my Confession skills at the time were kind of mucked up by embarrassment moreso than they are now?

I’m not sure if this worry is my conscience or if it’s the devil messing with me by bringing up sins of the past. I really hadn’t thought about these sins at all too much since I confessed them, but then at Confession a few days ago, the priest asked me if there was anything else on my conscience. I then sort of freaked out because I wondered if he could read souls and if I was missing something I was unaware of (I was not intentionally withholding any sins). I know him pretty well, so I asked him if he could read souls and he laughed and said no, that he just always asks that. But now I’ve kind of been worrying about the possibility that I haven’t confessed sins “well enough” in the past.

Is that a legitimate concern, or am I being scrupulous?

 

[Violet_Shade]

Dear Angela, you must be exhausted with all that complicated thinking.
The best thing could be to tell your priest that you’re worried about glossing over some old sins.
Its in doing so that you’ll find peace of mind.

He won’t be the least surprised as he’d have a good idea of human nature and that people are embarrassed and that people can be tempted to make excuses for what we do wrong. Your priest would have had a good idea of what you were actually confessing under the fluffing and so the likelihood that your confession was valid…

You have advanced, f you are now managing to confess more openly, so that’s a grace to be thankful for.

I don’t think you’d need to feel embarrassed anyway, the priest may have heard a great deal worse, and he’s not there to judge anyway.

God grant you peace

 

[bardegaulois]

You confessed them with contrition and the intent to be forgiven. And so these sins are forgiven. You might not have confessed them then as well as you can today, but got makes ample provision for our infirmities and weaknesses. If you are troubled, you can always add to the end of your self-accusation in confession “for these, and for all the sins of my past life, especially [here name generally the past sins that trouble you, e.g., sins of envy, sins against the Sixth Commandment, etc.], I am truly sorry and beg God’s pardon and forgiveness.”