O
odile53
Guest
A general confession isn’t required during the course of the Spiritual Exercises, it’s merely recommended, especially nowadays. Oneofthewomen touched on the graces she encountered, I’ll share what my experience was with the general confession: I was able to identify patterns of sin, and patterns of my own vulnerabilities to temptations of various kinds.
Sure, a lot of those sins I confessed during the general confession had already been absolved. But by going back through my life, as far as I could remember, I could identify the major patterns, and some more subtle patterns, of sinning, behaving badly, doing just plain stupid stuff, falling short, missing the mark, and so forth and so on. I was also able to identify my motives in many of these things.
Probably everyone in the world has a tendency of hiding a bad motive someplace underneath a superficially good action. God knows our hearts, and He gave us an intellect. Isn’t it time we try to know our own hearts and minds, our own sinful tendencies, and our own failings?
The graces I received from the general confession I did during the course of the First Week Exercises were threefold: A greater awareness of my own tendencies, a better chance of avoiding sin when I perceive myself being tempted, and a much keener appreciation of the mercy of God. Quite frankly, nowadays (post exercises,) when I’m starting to go down the wrong road spiritually and trying to justify that kind of thought and action to myself, I no longer believe my own half-baked attempt at self-deception to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, devil take the hindermost! That in itself is a great grace! And if the price of them was a rehash of about fifty years of pretty garden-variety sins and there was a priest willing to sit there long enough to listen to all of this junk, even though they had been absolved, most of them many times over, it was a small price to pay for those graces.
Leaving the confessional, I not only experienced a sense of greater knowledge and awareness, I experienced a greater sense of purpose and direction. Sure, most of us are apprehensive in an examination of conscience. But look at it this way–we’ve already done this stuff, or at least thought it. God knows all about it. The priest has heard worse, most likely. He isn’t going to be impressed. Sure, it’s embarrassing at times. But you know what? I’d rather be embarrassed for a little while here on earth than stand in front of the Throne of God and have to explain precisely why I wasn’t willing to take advantage of this marvelous holy sacrament in at least an attempt to improve my life! This is my eternal soul I’m talking about here, along with trying to develop a pattern of living that will only improve my temporal happiness as well. I don’t understand people being gun shy about examination of conscience, or confession for that matter. I never did understand it, when you think about what the stakes are.
There are quite a few people who have been through the Spiritual Exercises. They wouldn’t necessarily appeal to everyone, they do require commitment, prayer, thought, and work. They were originally designed for men who were to go out on mission, sometimes to very remote places, who wouldn’t have the great luxury of having direction immediately available to them, and they were later adapted to be of utility to people from every walk of life. They do train you to discern “on the fly,” so to speak. And that, of course, is where we sin–on the fly.
Sure, a lot of those sins I confessed during the general confession had already been absolved. But by going back through my life, as far as I could remember, I could identify the major patterns, and some more subtle patterns, of sinning, behaving badly, doing just plain stupid stuff, falling short, missing the mark, and so forth and so on. I was also able to identify my motives in many of these things.
Probably everyone in the world has a tendency of hiding a bad motive someplace underneath a superficially good action. God knows our hearts, and He gave us an intellect. Isn’t it time we try to know our own hearts and minds, our own sinful tendencies, and our own failings?
The graces I received from the general confession I did during the course of the First Week Exercises were threefold: A greater awareness of my own tendencies, a better chance of avoiding sin when I perceive myself being tempted, and a much keener appreciation of the mercy of God. Quite frankly, nowadays (post exercises,) when I’m starting to go down the wrong road spiritually and trying to justify that kind of thought and action to myself, I no longer believe my own half-baked attempt at self-deception to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, devil take the hindermost! That in itself is a great grace! And if the price of them was a rehash of about fifty years of pretty garden-variety sins and there was a priest willing to sit there long enough to listen to all of this junk, even though they had been absolved, most of them many times over, it was a small price to pay for those graces.
Leaving the confessional, I not only experienced a sense of greater knowledge and awareness, I experienced a greater sense of purpose and direction. Sure, most of us are apprehensive in an examination of conscience. But look at it this way–we’ve already done this stuff, or at least thought it. God knows all about it. The priest has heard worse, most likely. He isn’t going to be impressed. Sure, it’s embarrassing at times. But you know what? I’d rather be embarrassed for a little while here on earth than stand in front of the Throne of God and have to explain precisely why I wasn’t willing to take advantage of this marvelous holy sacrament in at least an attempt to improve my life! This is my eternal soul I’m talking about here, along with trying to develop a pattern of living that will only improve my temporal happiness as well. I don’t understand people being gun shy about examination of conscience, or confession for that matter. I never did understand it, when you think about what the stakes are.
There are quite a few people who have been through the Spiritual Exercises. They wouldn’t necessarily appeal to everyone, they do require commitment, prayer, thought, and work. They were originally designed for men who were to go out on mission, sometimes to very remote places, who wouldn’t have the great luxury of having direction immediately available to them, and they were later adapted to be of utility to people from every walk of life. They do train you to discern “on the fly,” so to speak. And that, of course, is where we sin–on the fly.
). I definitely wouldn’t give these penances for the milder confessions, however, if I hear confessions that resemble the past few I’ve had, I’ll at the very least give one Mystery of the Rosary to the person. I don’t know, maybe I just like intense experiences too much. 
Then when I thought about it and went to my second confession and I told him that I didn’t really know what were mortal sins, except for murder. He started listing all these sins and I kept answering oh, okay I did that and that and that etc.!