Traditional Catholic confession help

Examination of Conscience

Use this shorter examination when you are preparing for confession and need a clear place to begin. Move through the commandments quietly, stop where conscience is truly accused, and then make your confession simply.

Begin with the commandments Open the full traditional examination

Before you begin

Ask for light, then examine simply

Ask the Holy Ghost for light, sincerity, sorrow, and a willingness to amend your life.
Recall when you last went to confession and whether you completed your penance.
Look first for mortal sins, then for repeated venial sins and the habits beneath them.
Bring grave sins to confession by kind and number as honestly as you can.

Older starting questions

When did you make your last confession?
Did you take sufficient pains to awaken contrition?
Did you omit to confess a mortal sin, either intentionally or through forgetfulness?
Did you intentionally neglect to say the penance which was imposed on you, or were you so careless as to forget it?

By the commandments

A commandment-by-commandment examination

The commandments steady the conscience. Read slowly, apply only what is really yours, and do not force accusations where the conscience is not honestly touched.

First Commandment

Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.

Faith, prayer, reverence, and false spiritual substitutes.

Have you doubted in matters of faith or murmured against God in adversity?
Have you despaired of His mercy or rashly presumed upon it in order to sin?
Have you believed in fortune-tellers, consulted them, or used superstitious practices?

Second Commandment

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

Speech about God, oaths, blasphemy, and stirring others to irreverence.

Have you taken the name of God in vain or profaned anything relating to religion?
Have you sworn falsely, rashly, or in slight and trivial matters?
Have you cursed yourself or others, or made light of sacred things?

III

Third Commandment

Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.

Mass, recollection, and the right use of Sundays and holy days.

Have you kept holy the Lord’s Day and the other days commanded to be kept holy?
Have you bought or sold things, not of necessity, on that day?
Have you done or commanded servile work not of necessity?

Fourth Commandment

Honor thy father and thy mother.

Obedience, gratitude, reverence, and the duties proper to authority and dependence.

Have you honored parents, superiors, and masters according to your just duty?
Have you deceived or disobeyed them?
Have you failed in due reverence to the aged or to those placed over you?

Fifth Commandment

Thou shalt not kill.

Hatred, revenge, provoking others, and harming body or soul.

Have you procured, desired, or hastened the death of anyone?
Have you borne hatred, desired revenge, or refused to forgive injuries?
Have you used provoking language, injured others, or caused enmity between them?

VI and IX

Sixth and Ninth Commandments

Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.

Purity in thought, word, desire, company, and deed.

Have you been guilty of any sin against holy purity in thought, word, or deed?
Have you willingly entertained unchaste desires, imaginations, or occasions of sin?
Have you spoken, listened, looked, or lingered where purity was endangered?

VII

Seventh Commandment

Thou shalt not steal.

Property, wages, fair dealing, waste, and dishonest gain.

Have you been guilty of stealing or of deceit in buying or selling?
Have you been dishonest about wares, prices, weights, or measures?
Have you wilfully damaged another’s goods or negligently spoiled them?

VIII

Eighth Commandment

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Truth, reputation, flattery, rash judgment, and harmful speech.

Have you borne false witness or deliberately spoken falsehood?
Have you called injurious names or disclosed another’s sins without need?
Have you flattered others, judged rashly, or darkened another’s reputation?

Tenth Commandment

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.

Interior discontent, grasping desire, and unjust longing for another’s possessions.

Have you coveted unjustly anything that belongs to another?
Have you fed resentment, envy, or greed by dwelling on another’s advantages?
Have you allowed inward coveting to guide your speech, plans, or behavior?

The Church and repeated faults

Do not overlook neglect and habit

Precepts of the Church

Have you gone to confession at least once a year?
Have you received holy communion during Easter time?
Have you violated the fasts of the Church, or eaten flesh meat on prohibited days?
Have you sinned against any other commandment of the Church?

The fault beneath the fall

After the outward sins are named, ask what keeps feeding them: pride, anger, sloth, impurity, vanity, greed, envy, fear, human respect, or self-will. The same repeated fall often points to the deeper fault that needs amendment.

Open the ruling passion guide

After the examination

Stop when conscience is clear enough

Name what truly accuses you

Do not bring a vague cloud into confession if a plain accusation is possible. Name the sin simply and honestly.

Stir up contrition

Ask for sorrow because sin has offended God, and make a firm purpose to avoid the near occasion of sin.

Keep one amendment

Choose one concrete change for the same day: a restitution, an apology, an avoided occasion, or a contrary good act.

Get the print guide

A traditional confession preparation guide — examination, prayers, and amendment — formatted to print and keep.

Pray the Act of ContritionMove from examination into sorrow, amendment, and trust in grace.›Prepare for ConfessionContinue with the full confession preparation guide.›Full traditional examinationOpen the fuller examination by commandments, capital sins, duties of state, and accessory to sin.›

Source note

This shorter page is adapted from Novena Regina's fuller confession guide and traditional examination material. The fuller page keeps the longer commandment, capital-sins, state-of-life, and accessory-to-sin prompts in one place.