Confession
How to Make a General Confession
Preparing for Confession · 7 steps
A review of one's whole life, or of a long period of it, brought to confession with a priest's guidance at a turning point: entering a new state of life, after a conversion, or on a retreat.
7 steps · About 45 minutes
A general confession is a confession that deliberately covers one's whole life, or a long stretch of it, including sins already confessed and forgiven. It is never required and is not a repair for confessions that were valid, but the Church's spiritual masters have long recommended it at moments of new beginning: Saint Ignatius of Loyola places it in the first week of the Spiritual Exercises, and Saint Francis de Sales opens the Introduction to the Devout Life with one. Made once, with a priest's guidance and without anxiety, it can bring a deep peace and a clear view of the patterns of a life. Made repeatedly or in scruples, it does harm, which is why it should always be arranged with a priest beforehand.
What you need
- An appointment with a priest, arranged in advance, and about forty-five minutes
- Several days of preparation, using the Examination of Conscience guide period by period
- Written notes, which you will destroy afterward
- The Act of Contrition
When to pray it
At a turning point: before marriage, ordination or religious profession; after a conversion or return to the faith; during a retreat; or once in a life, when a priest agrees it would help. Not as a regular practice.
Steps
Step 1: Know when a general confession helps, and when it does not
It helps when a life is turning: at conversion, before a vocation is embraced, on a serious retreat, or when someone realises that past confessions were made carelessly or with a sin deliberately withheld (in which case it is not merely helpful but necessary, because those confessions were invalid). It does not help the person who is anxious about whether past confessions 'counted' despite honest effort, nor the person who wants to feel clean by repetition. In those cases the remedy is trust and obedience to a confessor, not another list.
Step 2: Ask a priest beforehand
Speak to a priest, ideally one who knows you or who is giving your retreat, and tell him you are thinking of a general confession and why. He will tell you whether it is wise, arrange enough time, and may suggest how to prepare. Never attempt a general confession in the ordinary Saturday line; it is unfair to those waiting and to the priest.
Step 3: Examine your life by period
Over several days, take the Ten Commandments through each stage of your life in turn: childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and so on to the present. Look for the serious sins you remember, their kind and rough frequency, and for the deeper patterns and roots: pride, lust, resentment, dishonesty, fear. The prayed each day of the preparation is a good companion. Do not force memories, and do not despair at what you find; you are looking at it with God, who has seen it all along and still called you.
Step 4: Write brief notes
Write a short outline, by period, of what you intend to confess: kinds of sin, approximate numbers or durations, and the main patterns. Notes keep the confession orderly and calm, and let the priest follow. Keep them brief and keep them private; destroy them once the confession is made.
Step 5: Confess by kind and number, period by period
Begin as usual: 'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been [a month] since my last confession. With your permission I would like to make a general confession of my life.' Then go through your notes in order: 'As a child and teenager, I... In my twenties, I... In my marriage, I...' Give kinds and numbers as honestly as you can. Say which sins were never confessed before, if any. When you finish, add: 'For all these sins, and for all the sins of my life that I cannot remember, I am sorry.'
Step 6: Receive counsel, penance and absolution
The priest may help you see the shape of what you have said, the mercies as well as the wounds, and will give you a penance. Pray the . Then he prays the words of absolution: 'God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.' Answer: 'Amen.' Everything you have named, and everything you have forgotten, is forgiven; whatever was forgiven long ago is confirmed; whatever was never validly confessed is now absolved.
Step 7: Leave scrupulosity behind
Do your penance, thank God, and destroy your notes. From now on, confess only new sins, and do not revisit what was covered. If anxiety about the past returns, tell your confessor once and then obey him. A general confession is meant to close a door on the past so that you can walk forward; let it.
Tips
- Ask a priest first. He may say it would help, or he may say you need something else; either answer is a grace.
- A general confession is not for people struggling with scrupulosity, and confessors will usually advise against it for them. If you doubt the validity of past confessions in general, that doubt itself is something to bring to a priest, not to solve by repeating everything.
- You are confessing patterns as much as acts: 'for about ten years I...' is exactly right.
- When it is over, it is over. Do not go back over the same ground in later confessions.