Ridiculously Long Confession

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believers said:
Intermediation through a man is unnecessary. Jesus is our Priest and he said we can go directly to the Father. Leave it to the catholic church to add more steps. Only making it harder to confess your sins when you can just confess them right where you are and right when it happened.
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Yeah? When was the last time you asked someone to pray for you?
 
JimG said:
It was Jesus who instituted the sacrament of confession. It was He who told his apostles, “whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them.” (John 20:23). Do you think he intended for that gift to be ignored?
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Mat 19:27
Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?

Mat 19:28
And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
 
steve975 said:
I have recently discovered that many, if not all, past confessions I have ever made were invalid due to the intentional withholding of numerous sins. Add to that the fact that I have an extremely guilty conscience, and now I have been drafting up an extremely long paper to try to confess every single sin I can possibly think of in as much detail as I can in order to satisfy myself that my next confession will be valid. I will have to schedule an appointment with a priest for this as it will be much too long for a Saturday confessional. This will also be incredibly difficult to endure with the plethora of despicable sins throughout my life, but that’s another story. Also another story is that I am facing a dilemna with trying to reconcile certain things in my life, most notably my job, with being able to get myself into a position where I can feel like I have some type of firm purpose of amendment so that the confession will be valid. This is also something I am struggling with and trying to figure out before I confess.

But my main question is this: I have to read off this entire paper in order to assure myself I have absolutely confessed to everything. Right now I’m up to 20 typed pages and it could end up longer by the time I confess. If I read my confession off of a paper, will it detract from the validity of the confession? Confession can be difficult regardless, but I keep thinking that by reading these things off of the paper I will be able to relieve some of the burden from myself by just mindlessly reading things rather than forcing myself to think of them off the top of my head. Reading them might therefore be easier and might reduce the level of humility I face during the confession. Does anyone see a problem with me reading these things in order to ensure a full confession?
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When I made my General Confession a few months ago, the Confessor had previously given me some advice on how to prepare. One helpful tip he gave me was to divide my life up by time period (from my first Confession, which for me was at age 7, until the end of elementary school, then high school, then university…we didn’t get any further than that since I just graduated from university 😃 ) and summarize sins by general patterns. I suggest doing this for venial sins - instead of listing each instance of you committing this sin, you can say something like “during my high school years I often looked at members of the opposite sex lustfully”. Of course you should list mortal sins by kind and number, but turning the venial ones into more of a pattern than a list might help you trim down your 20-page list of sins.

As far as the length of time a General Confession takes (since some posters have brought this up), for me it was about an hour, and this is usually the minimum, according to my Confessor. This is because General Confession is not only an opportunity to confess sins, but also to really see the patterns that those sins have formed in our lives and break out of those patters, as well as to receive healing from past hurts which were either caused by those sins or which led us to them. My Confessor encouraged me to include even sins that I had already confessed in order to have this healing experience - it felt great! 👍
 
making a general confession was one of the most healing experiences of my life.
what i did was i took a notebook and wrote 'em all down as they came to me. i did this in Church so as to be in front of our Lord. then when i made the confession, the sins God wanted me to confess just came to the forefront of my mind.
this is how we must trust the Holy Spirit. ask Him to convict your conscience, to convict your heart and to show you your sins during examination and during confession.
God is more aware of your sins than you are, but He doesn’t wish to condemn, but to forgive.
its a sacrament of joy. for you and for all of Heaven.

God Bless
Mordocai
 
I think the twenty pages is fine, but also think that you could perhaps shorten it - not taking out any of the incidences, but consolidating some, i.e., “On 14 or more occasions I acted selfishly by…” and, i.e., with a big one, just naming it and having a word or a phrase concerning your motivation. I think if you edit, you could get it shorter without removing any of the sins - just taking out as many extraneous words and phrases as possible.

For my big long general confession in 2000, I had many pages, which I consolidated much as I suggested to you, and had a few things I felt I needed to explain more. It was a long confession, but I made it at a Trappist Monastery, where I made an appointment, explaining it was my first confession and might be long. They set me up with a Monk who had just been ordained – and it was his first confession, too!

May God bless your confession!
 
porthos11 said:
Which still does not add up to 20 pages worth.

"I’m 34 years old and since I was 16 I’ve had pre-marital promiscuous sex with different women about 3 nights a week on the average. After I got married 8 years ago, I continued having affairs with three different women about the same frequency. Moreover, I robbed three different banks when I was 18, shoplifted around a thousand dollars’ worth of goods from different stores, sorry I can’t remember how many, maybe ten thereabouts, have had constant thoughts of killing my mother, lied more times than I can remember, but two or three of those times I badly damaged another person’s reputation. Also from time to time I disrespected my parents. I was also a serial rapist and killer; I raped and killed 20 women between the time I was 24 and 29.

“But I found the Lord last year and I truly and sincerely turn from my sinful life. I am truly sorry for having offended God and I firmly intend to make reparations to the best of my ability and never to sin again.”

There you go. How many commandments have I hit? That’s over a decade’s worth of sins, and you can do that in a few seconds, and this confession is integral in both kind and number. Some phrases indicate difficulty in remembering, but only an approximate is needed in such cases.

Five minutes should be more than enough.
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I have never read anything so brutally truthful. ** I thank you **for sharing with us what must have been so hard for you. 😦
Praise Jesus that you found him. 😃 God is wonderful isn’t he? He forgives the unforgivable if we are truly sorry and i believe that you are. I am sort of in disbelief when i read what you have done, as it does not seem possible, but i do believe you. Alot of people laugh at people in jail (gaol) when they find Jesus, but i think it’s cool…Solitude can do amazing things. Better to be on his side than against him. I hope the people and families involved have forgiven you, although the main thing is that God has. I forgave the man that molested me for years, it is a hard thing, but good for the soul i believe. Anything is forgivable, if we ask God to help us.

God bless you on your new journey and for your honesty.
 
um, yea…I’m pretty sure that was just an outrageous fake example to display how such a confession could be done in a short amount of time.
 
agapewolf said:
um, yea…I’m pretty sure that was just an outrageous fake example to display how such a confession could be done in a short amount of time.
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Agapewolf,

I am new to CAF, and took things literally…🤷 I am on an emotional rollercoaster with all the sadness on this post. It has opened up alot of old wounds. 🤷 :eek: :signofcross:

I have just read it again. Forgive my naivety.:ouch: I was emotional.
 
Maybe it was fake, but who really knows? That was a very loving and Christlike post, and God bless you, Tweety, on your journey. Christ doesn’t want anyone to be lost, and His precious blood can cover any sin.🙂
 
Luvadoxi said:
Maybe it was fake, but who really knows? That was a very loving and Christlike post, and God bless you, Tweety, on your journey. Christ doesn’t want anyone to be lost, and His precious blood can cover any sin.🙂
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Luvadoxi,

You have no idea what your little post has done for me today. It has been a day of sorrow, heartache, depression and lots of memories and stuff that i do not want to remember or think about.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

❤️ Tweety
chirp chirp
 
Regarding the original post, I recommend that a person find a faithful priest and accepts his guidance about these matters. His guidance could be sought both in confession or to determine a need for confession.

Regarding your employment, it is not uncommon especially in this society that our employment may have aspects that aren’t right.

Examples:
  • Cable TV companies provide ETWN but also pornography.
  • Some importers may exploit the poor.
    The list could probably grow quite a bit.
What does one do - quit their job? If not sure, do you think confession is invalid while we’re trying to figure out the best paths!? I don’t think so as long as we are sincere.

Take the advice of the priest and go in peace. That is my advice.
 
Luvadoxi said:
Maybe it was fake, but who really knows? That was a very loving and Christlike post, and God bless you, Tweety, on your journey. Christ doesn’t want anyone to be lost, and His precious blood can cover any sin.🙂
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Er, it was an outrageous fake example. Sorry to get your attention like that. 😃 Note that the example is enclosed in quotes.

I’m actually only 33, married only 5 years, never had affairs, never had sex before I got married nor raped or murdered anyone. I love my mother dearly and never even fired a gun, much less rob a bank. Don’t drink, don’t smoke. Oh, sure I have the occasional mortal sin here and there but I go to confession ever week or two, and usually under 5 minutes each.

I was just trying to show that even a lifetime of sins can be properly confessed within a reasonable amount of time. A general confession can be scheduled by appointment. But during the regular time, people shouldn’t be kept waiting too long.
 
porthos11 said:
Er, it was an outrageous fake example. Sorry to get your attention like that. 😃 Note that the example is enclosed in quotes.

I’m actually only 33, married only 5 years, never had affairs, never had sex before I got married nor raped or murdered anyone. I love my mother dearly and never even fired a gun, much less rob a bank. Don’t drink, don’t smoke. Oh, sure I have the occasional mortal sin here and there but I go to confession ever week or two, and usually under 5 minutes each.

I was just trying to show that even a lifetime of sins can be properly confessed within a reasonable amount of time. A general confession can be scheduled by appointment. But during the regular time, people shouldn’t be kept waiting too long.
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I am sorry that i did not realise at first, i was pretty emotional that day and didn’t obviously read it correctly. Second time around i did see it… But no harm done - i prayed for you anyway! 😃
 
Tweety said:
I am sorry that i did not realise at first, i was pretty emotional that day and didn’t obviously read it correctly. Second time around i did see it… But no harm done - i prayed for you anyway! 😃
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Thank you. I’m certain I will benefit much from your prayers. Praying for you too and your healing.
 
porthos11 said:
Which still does not add up to 20 pages worth.

"I’m 34 years old and since I was 16 I’ve had pre-marital promiscuous sex with different women about 3 nights a week on the average. After I got married 8 years ago, I continued having affairs with three different women about the same frequency. Moreover, I robbed three different banks when I was 18, shoplifted around a thousand dollars’ worth of goods from different stores, sorry I can’t remember how many, maybe ten thereabouts, have had constant thoughts of killing my mother, lied more times than I can remember, but two or three of those times I badly damaged another person’s reputation. Also from time to time I disrespected my parents. I was also a serial rapist and killer; I raped and killed 20 women between the time I was 24 and 29.

“But I found the Lord last year and I truly and sincerely turn from my sinful life. I am truly sorry for having offended God and I firmly intend to make reparations to the best of my ability and never to sin again.”

There you go. How many commandments have I hit? That’s over a decade’s worth of sins, and you can do that in a few seconds, and this confession is integral in both kind and number. Some phrases indicate difficulty in remembering, but only an approximate is needed in such cases.

Five minutes should be more than enough.
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You had me going for a minute, Porthos. That woke me up faster than any coffee ever could have. Had I been drinking anything, my computer would be soaked right now.
 
For my first confession when I converted, I came in with the “sin list” (oh, how I hated even touching that thing!) it was one page of small handwritten sins.

My first list was much longer, until my husband pointed out to me that “sexual sins against the virtue of chastity” (while redundant) would cover a great deal, spare the priest the grusome details of my debauched past, and prevent me from the twisted version of “The Cari Show” that my original list became. As another poster noted, pride can take twisted forms, and a “ridiculously long confession” can be one of them.

One more thing to think about- keep in mind that Perfect Contrition is when one loves God so much they’re in pain thinking about their offenses against Him- make sure your confession is more about love of God than wanting to “cover your behind” by making sure your future confessions are valid.
 
steve975 said:
But my main question is this: I have to read off this entire paper in order to assure myself I have absolutely confessed to everything. Right now I’m up to 20 typed pages and it could end up longer by the time I confess. If I read my confession off of a paper, will it detract from the validity of the confession?
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That is WAY too long. There are only 10 commandments, and 7 precepts of the Church- there are only so many ways you can break them in a way that is mortally sinful that must be mentioned individually. Name what you did and how many times you did it- each thing should only take 10 seconds at most to name. I don’t imagine your confession could take more than 15 minutes or so (if it’s going to take longer than 10 minutes, you definitely should make an appointment). You don’t have to assure yourself that you confessed everything- don’t second guess yourself. Think about what your intentions are in going to confession, and sincerely try to confess all mortal sins and be sorry for them- your confession will be good. Pray to the Holy Spirit for the grace to make a good confession, spend some time (probably a pretty long time, if it’s been awhile) before you go, thinking about each commandment and precept of the Church, and how you have broken them.
 
Another thing to remember is that you don’t have to list every instance of a sin, just the sin itself and an approximation of its frequency i.e I stole a great many things *versus * I stole this from my mother, and this from my brother, and this from my boss, and that from my friend, and…etc. etc.

This might help make it a few pages shorter?
 
There’s nothing wrong with reading all of your sins. Like some have said, you might want to contact the priest and tell him that you’d like to make an appointment outside of regular confession times so the others who need to go can get there’s heard too. Also, you might want to actually talk to a priest ahead of the confession about confession. This might help you to make the best one possible. I’d highly recommend an Opus Dei priest if they are in your area. They’re great at confession.
 
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