Returning Catholic after 10 years - Confession

  • Thread starter Thread starter Cevan6052
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

Cevan6052

Guest
I am returning to the church after about 10 years. I went through confirmation before leaving. (At 16) Now, as an adult, I feel as if I need to be back in church and seek penance for wrongs done while away. I am fully willing to do this.

However, 10 years. Wow. I will definitely need to set up a date and time to go to confession. There will be much to say. That being said, what all should I confess? I surely cannot remember every sin over the past decade. Those that are mortal sins, I am confident that I can remember. But then, how much detail should I go into? At what point do you not only give the nature of the sin, but thorough explanation?

I’m sure that all of this could be answered by the priest at my parish, however I want to begin contemplating confession now as it will be a very important next step for me in order to return.

Thank you.
 
Congratulations on returning to the church!

I spent 18 years away from confession before going again a few years ago. There are a number of people on this forum who came back after 5, 10, 20 years from confession. It’s fairly common.

Since you are required to confess all your potentially mortal sins that you can remember, I would suggest that unless these grave, potentially mortal sins stand out in your mind, you make a little list an you can burn it afterwards.

If you only did the sin 2 or 3 times you can say, “I did X 2 or 3 times.”

If it was some ongoing thing and you can’t remember every little detail, you could say something like, “From 2010 to 2012 I did sin X” or make some very broad statement, e.g. “From about 2010 to 2012, I got drunk about once a week and I usually picked up some random lady or prostitute at a bar and would have sex while I was drunk, and sometimes I drove drunk and put people in danger although fortunately I never hurt anyone or myself.” That sort of thing.

If you confess an ongoing thing be sure to tell the priest you’ve now stopped doing it, e.g. “I stopped doing this 2 years ago and I haven’t done it since.”

You don’t need to go into detail, just state the bare facts of what you did. For example, “I used drugs”, “I masturbated,” “I stole X amount of money from my friend”. If the priest wants details he’ll ask. If you don’t remember then say you don’t remember.

Good luck, you’ll feel much better when this is done.
 
Welcome back to the Catholic Church! When confessing mortal sins, you don’t really have to go into a thorough explanation but you do have to say the number of times you committed the sin. Sometimes the priest will ask for more details. You don’t want to be too vague. For example, if you watched pornography don’t say you committed the sin of impurity, be concise. I did something like that once and got really vague advice. Good luck!
 
Cevan6052 said:
However, 10 years. Wow. I will definitely need to set up a date and time to go to confession. There will be much to say. That being said, what all should I confess? I surely cannot remember every sin over the past decade. Those that are mortal sins, I am confident that I can remember.
Click to expand...
Trying to remember everything you did (never mind the number of times) over the course of 10 years is pretty much impossible and, even if you could, it’d take more than a bit of time. So just keep it to the things that, looking back over the last 10 years, trouble your conscience the most - the things that you feel you need the most healing for. Don’t forget that the purpose of the sacrament is to help and heal us - it’s not just about saying sorry to God but about seeking His forgiveness for our sake and, in doing so, enabling us to be restored to a right relationship with Him, with others and with ourselves.
 
Also, don’t be surprised if, after you’ve confessed and some time has passed, you suddenly remember something else you did in the past and failed to mention because you’d forgotten. You can mention that sin the next time you go to confession, assuming it’s soon (like within a couple weeks). After a few confessions, assuming again that you go every few weeks, you will have pretty much finished “remembering” old sins and can just focus on going forward.
 
Good advice, thank you. However, if you do remember a sin, maybe even a mortal sin after confession, was it still forgiven? Or are you still not in a state of grace?
 
If you genuinely forgot a mortal sin, then you are still absolved. You aren’t responsible for confessing sins you forgot.

If you remember it later, it’s good practice to just mention it at your next confession.
 
Well I was out of the Church for 22 years, having left at 17. So I potentially had 2.2x more sins than you to confess!

Honestly, it only took a few minutes. I cornered the priest before Mass and explained my situation. He gladly heard my confession. There’s no need to worry if you don’t remember the details. I gave him the big ticket items with “numerous times over the past 22 years”, and added “and a lot of other things I can’t remember at the moment”.

All that matters is that you sincerely confess what you remember; you don’t have to give exact number of times: “once”, “a few times”, “numerous times” or “on a regular (daily/weekly/monthly/whatever) basis” will do. The absolution covers what you may have genuinely missed/forgotten,
 
Congratulations! God is very happy you wish to return. An option to making an appointment would be to wait and be the last in line. You are only required to confess mortal sins by name and number.
I would not go into details. If you don’t know the number give the best representation as you can. The priest will ask if he needs more information. If you want to discuss something you are unsure not private message me.

You will make the priest day! Priest love to welcome back lost sheep.

God bless!
 
Cevan6052 said:
However, 10 years. Wow. I will definitely need to set up a date and time to go to confession. There will be much to say. That being said, what all should I confess? I surely cannot remember every sin over the past decade. Those that are mortal sins, I am confident that I can remember. But then, how much detail should I go into? At what point do you not only give the nature of the sin, but thorough explanation?
Click to expand...
Congrats! Welcome home!

I returned and had not been to confession for over 20 years. I didn’t make an appointment, I just want to a parish with Franciscan Friars who have daily confession and confessed my sins.

I didn’t want to make an appointment because I feared face to face confession.

Anyway, I found a list of sins online (don’t remember where) and printed them out. It was a list of many sins - organized by the 10 Commandments - in order to prep you for confession.

I checked off all the sins I made (which were a ton of them) and brought the paper with me into the confessional.

I said, “Bless me Father for I have sinned, it’s been over 20 years since my last confession. Father, if you don’t mind, I have a list of my sins, that I’m going to use to organize my thoughts.”

Father was awesome…

I did my confession and then the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders. I cried & I smiled. When I received absolution… I really encountered the Holy Spirit and felt the temperature in the confessional drop 10 degrees!

I was an amazing experience for me and today, I love confession… I hate sinning, but I love confession.

Welcome back and God bless!

BTW - today, I use a confession app to help me prep for my confessions and organize my thoughts during confession. If you have an iPhone or Android, you can get the app here for the $1.99. Best $2 I ever spent.

God Bless!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top