It’s not really an art. I just thought that wording made a good title.

The basics of making a good confession are easy to describe, but sometimes hard to accomplish.

1. To make a good confession, the penitent must confess all the actual mortal sins that can be remembered after a diligent examination of conscience, and these sins must be confessed in kind and number.

The kind of sin is the type of sin in terms of morality. Don’t tell the priest-confessor a story. Admit what type of sin you committed. If you committed adultery, do not say that you lied to your wife and grieved her. You must admit not only that you sinned, but the type of sin with its implied gravity. You can say “adultery”, or you can say that you are married but you slept with another woman, or you can say that you cheated on your wife. But you have to be clear, in whatever wording you use, as to the type of sin.

You also have to confess anything about a sin that makes it a more serious type of sin. So if you cheated on your wife by having sex with a man, that makes the sin of adultery more serious, and so it must be confessed. The basic principle here is to make a full concise admission of what you did that was seriously wrong. You don’t need to tell the priest all the details. And your explanation should not contain excuses, such as that you were under a lot of stress and so you cheated on your wife. Just the mortal sins, in kind and number, are required. Confessing venial sins is helpful, but not strictly required for a good Confession.

Confessing sins in number can mean saying how many times you committed that serious sin since your last confession. (You don’t need to confess venial sins at all, and so when you do confess venial sins, the number is not required, but may be helpful.) Often the confession of the number of sins will be an approximate number, such as “many times since my last confession one month ago” or “many times since my last confession 30 years ago”. Notice that the length of time since your last confession can affect number. This is one reason why confessing your sins begins with the length of time since your last confession. You can confess number by saying something like: “4 or 5 times,” “several times,” “a few times”. You do not have to say “one time” if you only committed that sin once since your last Confession. This is because the reason for confessing number is to present your mortal sins fully to the confessor. So when you confess that you committed a sin, it is implied that you did so at least once. You would not be withholding anything by not saying “once”.

Spend some time alone thinking about your sins. Consider different categories of sins. You can use the Ten Commandments as a guide. You can also find online or in print some written guides to making an examination of conscience. An actual mortal sin is a sin that has grave matter and is committed with full knowledge of its grave immorality and with full consent of the will (called full deliberation). A sin that is objectively grave, but was committed with what the penitent understands in his conscience to be clearly less than full knowledge or full deliberation is not strictly required to be confessed. However, such judgments by the penitent can err, and so such sins should be confessed.

An example would be a Protestant who converts to Catholicism and is making his first confession as an adult. He may have used contraception without believing (without full knowledge) that contraception is gravely immoral — which is what the Catholic Church teaches, but not what Protestant denominations teach. Such a sin might be mentioned in confession, but is not required to be confessed.

If you have not been to confession in many years, and you are concerned that your confession might be very long, remember that you only need to confess kind and number. Don’t explain the situation to the priest, unless he asks for a clarification. There are an infinite variety of ways to sin, but there are relatively few types or categories of sin. So confess the types of sin and approximately how many times. This should not take a long time, no matte how long since your last confession.

2. You must have at least imperfect contrition in order for your Confession to be valid. Imperfect contrition is sorrow for sin motivated at least by an ordered love of self, such as the desire to avoid Hell and obtain eternal life in Heaven, the desire to become a better Christian, etc. Perfect contrition is sorrow for sin motivated by love of God and neighbor. We usually say it is motivated by love of God, but remember the teaching that if you do not love your neighbor, whom you can see, you really do not love God, whom you cannot see. Many sins harm other persons, and perfect contrition will certainly include sorrow for that harm.

Perfect contrition, expressed to God at any time, immediately forgives all sin. However, Confession is still required, as no one can be certain that their contrition is the type called perfect contrition. This contrition need not be literally perfect; it is termed perfect as love of God is the most perfect motive. But we always say that the person who receives forgiveness by perfect contrition must have the desire, at least implicitly, to go to Confession when or if it is available. A person who is dying, makes an act of perfect contrition, but can’t reasonably expect to get to Confession, is still forgiven.

During confession, the penitent is asked to make an act of contrition. You can find different prayers of this type online or at your local parish. During the form of confession one’s sins, it is useful to speak in this manner:

“Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It has been [length of time] since my last confession. My sins are…. ”
and then at the end of admitting your sins in kind and number, say:
“For these and all my past sins, I am truly sorry.”

3. The priest will give you absolution (“I absolve you from your sins….”) and then will give you a penance to perform, such as saying certain prayers. Some priests give overly complex or vague penances. You can substitute your own choice of penance, such as praying the Rosary or reading Scripture, etc.

You have a moral obligation to do penances. However, strictly speaking, if you do not do the assigned penance and even if you do no penance at all, you are still forgiven by the Sacrament. But, seriously, do your penance. It reduces the time and suffering in Purgatory, and helps you avoid sin in the future.

What is sorrow for sin?

This is not the emotion of sorrow. True repentance from sin often, perhaps usually, includes the emotion of sorrow, from which it takes its name. But no particular emotion is required for a valid Confession.

The Council of Trent: “Contrition, which holds the first place among said acts of the penitent, is a sorrow of soul, and a detestation for the committed sin, with the purpose of not sinning any more. Now this movement of contrition was at all times necessary to obtain the pardon of sins.”

So the parts of contrition, whether imperfect or perfect, are:
* sorrow of soul, which is a turning away from sin
* detestation of the sin, which is a hatred for the sin
* a resolve to avoid sin in the future, which is a willingness to change

The Council of Trent also teaches that we poor fallen sinners, not having a special grace like the Blessed Virgin Mary, cannot avoid all venial sin in this life. So, clearly this resolve — also called a firm purpose of amendment — is not the unrealistic intention to never sin again. First and foremost, it is the resolve to avoid all actual mortal sin, and secondly, to avoid any objectively grave sin, even if it does not have the full culpability of actual mortal sin, and finally, to avoid venial sin, as much as one is able.

Even when one anticipates, due to past failures and present weaknesses, that one may fall into these same sins again, the Confession is valid as long as the person regrets the sin, believes that the sin is truly wrong, and resolves to try at least to avoid mortal sin.

These three parts of contrition, are not three separate acts of the penitent, but are included in any true act of contrition, even imperfect contrition.

If you make a good confession, but upon leaving the confessional remember a sin you should have confessed, it is forgiven. A good confession forgives all sin, including mortal sins forgotten and venial sins not mentioned.

RLCJ