Making a Good Confession (Examining Your Conscience)

Lent is a great time to go to confession. But simply going to confession doesn't guarantee that it will be a good experience. If you want to enter this season of conversion well, you're going to need to examine your conscience.

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[stevecole]

I believe the Lord truly uses you and speaks through you Fr. Casey. Your words are wise beyond your years. Thank you Father. God bless you.

[michaelgallimore]

As an Orthodox Christian, this spoke to me. Thank you Father.

[michaelorsini]

I go to Confession every Saturday...the more often I go, the more spiritually aware I become. Catholics should focus on this sacrament more than the needless controversy of communion in the hand or mouth.

[aci.]

I'm going to confession tomorrow so this video definitely helped me a lot in preparing for it.

[anonnymouses]

Thank you for giving me faith in the christian faith again. I was not raised catholic but i plan to attend my local mass this weekend.. all i seek is Absolution. I do not care what that may entail.

[Bluestar]

Thank you father Casey.God Bless You!!!

[SimplyZeyma]

I love that. Cuz yeah, I always feel like I miss stuff when I go to confession

[kemmow]

Yes, Yes, Yes, Keep it up the great work and job you do.

[bettyjames]

Thank you Father!!! Thanking God for a wonderful priest like you!!!

[robertyoung]

God knows my sins. But it is hard to state them out loud. Hence the need for confession. Is hard but necessary. Thank you for what you do. Oh and this new book. WOW.

[leeveronie]

Thank You Father !!!! God Bless what You do for us !!!

[ninageorge]

Amazing Father !! You’ve just voiced exactly wat ive felt. I’ve also thot that the examination of our conscience can’t be limited to the Ten Commandments only, but to everything Jesus has sed in the Bible. In fact going against anything Jesus has sed is a breach of Law, even something ‘as small as’ wasting food (in the sense that that line would hardly be noticed as a ‘breach of Law’) when we know our poorer brothers n sisters in so many parts of the world r struggling for the same. I don’t mean it’s wasted intentionally. Jesus says ‘let nothing be wasted’ and the food was even gathered into baskets! Shows how much Our Lord valued that. So we should in the same way. If one can’t ‘physically’ visit the sick, I feel one can call up and enquire and/or pray for them. Basically do all the good that we can possibly do, which is in our scope or limitation.

[gabrielherrera]

Reconciliation is a awesome sacrament, source of immense grace that we can visit regularly, I always feel a sense of renewal and  strength for the journey, until and when i am called home to God, I always try to convey to others and young people the awesome nature of a loving, merciful God that made us for Himself in His image of love for eternity...

[isaiah]

You always bring the right videos at the right time. Thank God for clergymen & religious like you!

[paulomatos]

I´m a 50 year old man and I recently discovered your beuatiful contribution to the sprad of the Good Word in a way that is fresh, yet accurate and available to some diversity. As a man who used to be confessed 2 or 3 times a year and been missing Confession for 3 full years, how I yearn for a conversation with a man like you, Father, who I think the Holly Spirit inspired to talk about faith in a world where faith is considered obsolet and reason for mockery. Yes, I have some theological difficulties I cannot, til this day, have the light of the Lord to be taught and educated well. I disagree with some points regarding pristhood and women, with celibacy and even with more profound theological teachings...but never with the Truth that Jesus is our Lord and our salvation, that the Holly Trinity is a fact I clearly accept without needing to understand it scientificaly because God laid His eyes over me, not for my deeds, no, but opened my eyes at least for these Truthes that feed my soul. Father, how I need spiritual guidance to overcome so many doubts, how can I help my 17 year old daughter who lives with her mother, who is an atheist, but who still agees to go to mass each Sunday with me. nevertheless, she does not feel any will to confess, surely by my miserable example, but even younger, still in the Scouts, she never felt that urge for purification and acknowlodging herself as the only person within her school mates who accepts being a Catholic....does not help ether. I´m trully sorry for this long text and I even apologise to whever loses his/her time by reading this personal confession wonderful and brave first Christians were by confessing themselves in a reunion of all the members of the group with whom they lived.... How heroic and pure that was and how I feel so far away from those models of virtue.

[kselwood]

Thank you! I always struggled with using the 10 commandments for my examen. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

[michaelangelomateo]

I hope you'll also make a talk about our Mother Mary. Thank you Father.

[thomasgibbons]

Very wise words, especially the need to focus on Catholic Social Teaching and the Beatitudes.

[Memetchi]

During the years I've tried many tools and readings to examine my Consciousness, including meditations on the Scriptures. As I do love Ignatius spirituality, I think the most efficient and powerful one is St.Ignatius' Daily Examen of consciousness. Giving thanks to God for its daily gifts and admitting my own failures helps me to see which opportunities and calls I've missed during my day, but also what God gave me generously and I wasn't able to notice. Tools base on ten Commandments aren't so helpful to me because it seems like making a list and putting a flag on the sins that I've committed. Once a priest told me that I sin when "I miss the mark". In other words, as my Confessor suggested me, the three questions before going to bed: what did I do well during my day? What could I have done better? What didn't I do well? I like the fact that, as Pope Francis said, two spouses should go to bed only after reconciliation ...the same happens with God.

[karinbennett]

Father Casey, I appreciate and feel very enlightened by your videos. As you speak of examining our conscience, why don't you please compile for us a booklet or something we can print out that will help us to make an excellent confession? You are so knowledgeable and a faithful, loving servant of the Lord that I am positive that you could compose what we should be asking ourselves before Reconciliation. Thank you for always assisting us in becoming better people.