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When the shorter guide is not enough

Deeper Examinations of Conscience

Use this page when the shorter examination in the main confession guide is not enough and you need to stay longer with the commandment, habit, or duty that truly accuses the conscience.

This is not meant to turn confession into a nervous inventory. Take only what really belongs to your life, accuse yourself simply, and then return to the sacrament with humility and trust.

Begin with the commandments Return to the confession guide

How to move through it

Begin with a brief prayer for light. Then take the commandment, duty, or root fault that most likely needs attention.

If one part pierces the conscience, stay there. If it does not really belong to your life, pass over it without strain. The point is honest accusation, not a longer scroll.

A steadier order

1Begin with these preliminary questions so you can remember where your last confession and last resolutions truly stand.
2Then choose one path at a time: the commandments, the Church's precepts, repeated root faults, or the duties of your state of life.
3When the conscience is clear enough, stop there. Stir up contrition and go back to the simpler confession guide so you can accuse yourself plainly.

Begin with these 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?
Have you carried out the resolutions you made at your last confession or have you paid no heed at all to them?

By the commandments

Take the law of God slowly

Older manuals begin here because the commandments steady the conscience. Move through them one by one, and ask not only what you did outwardly, but how the habit took hold inwardly.

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?
Have you neglected morning or night prayers, or omitted religious duties through human respect?
Have you read books, papers, or periodicals of anti-Catholic or atheistic tendency?
Have you spoken with levity or irreverence of priests, Religious, or sacred things?

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?
Have you angered others so as to make them swear or blaspheme God?

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?
Have you missed Mass, been wilfully distracted during Mass, or behaved irreverently in church?
Have you profaned the day by dancing, drinking, gambling, or other disorder?

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?
Have you oppressed anyone or hardened your heart against another’s need?

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?
Have you kept back what was owed, including labor, money, or restitution?

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?

Neglect and shared guilt

Ask where carelessness became cooperation

After the commandments, many consciences need to pause over two quieter areas: practical neglect of the Church's small but binding duties, and the ways another person's sin was helped forward.

Precepts of the Church

These are few in number, but they often uncover practical negligence that the soul has started to excuse.

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?

Accessory to another's sin

Ask not only what you did yourself, but whether you helped another's sin forward, excused it, concealed it, or stayed silent when duty required resistance.

By counsel

By command

By consent

By provocation

By praise or flattery

By concealment

By partaking

By silence

By defense of the ill done

The Seven Capital Sins

Look beneath the repeated fall

These root faults matter because they keep furnishing the same sins. Use them when the conscience knows the pattern, but has not yet named the fault beneath it.

Pride and vainglory

Have you preferred your own will to what was right, lawful, or charitable?
Sought praise, resented correction, or nourished contempt for others?
Refused to admit fault, or excused yourself when you should have humbled yourself?

Covetousness and envy

Have you been grasping, hard, or dishonest about money, possessions, or advantage?
Envied another’s gifts, success, reputation, or blessings?
Been saddened by another’s good or secretly pleased by another’s fall?

Anger and sloth

Have you indulged resentment, harsh speech, impatience, or a refusal to forgive?
Neglected duties through laziness, delay, or spiritual carelessness?
Grown careless about prayer, penance, or the work God gave you to do?

Lust and gluttony

Have you consented to unchaste thoughts, speech, entertainment, company, or deeds?
Failed in modesty, custody of the senses, or purity in private?
Been excessive in eating, drinking, comfort, or bodily indulgence?

Duties of state

Examine the life God actually gave you

You are judged not only by private faults, but also by the duties attached to your home, work, authority, dependence, and present vocation. Apply only what truly belongs to you.

Children and those under authority

Have you honored, loved, and obeyed parents or lawful superiors in all that was not sinful?
Have you been stubborn, deceitful, ungrateful, or contemptuous toward those placed over you?
Have you despised correction, resisted lawful discipline, or given scandal by bad example to younger brothers, sisters, or companions?

Parents, guardians, and those with souls in their care

Have you cared for those under your charge not only in body but also in soul, prayer, discipline, and example?
Have you neglected correction when duty required it, or corrected in anger, harshness, or favoritism?
Have you made it harder for children, servants, or those under your care to hear Mass, keep holy days, or live faithfully as Catholics?
Have you pushed anyone toward a state of life for selfish or worldly reasons, or resisted God’s call in the life of one entrusted to you?

Husbands and wives

Have you guarded the sanctity of marriage with fidelity, honesty, patience, and reverence?
Have you failed to bear with one another’s weaknesses in charity, or allowed bitterness, contempt, or coldness to harden the home?
Have you neglected to help one another toward God, or failed in the duty of bringing up children in the fear and love of God?

Work, wages, and daily labor

Have you worked honestly, kept your word, and given a fair day’s labor instead of idleness, waste, or deceit?
Have you obeyed lawful directions in your work, or been false, careless, or slothful in what was entrusted to you?
If you employ others, have you dealt justly about wages, debts, burdens, and promises?
Have you made gain from another’s need, delayed what was owed, or excused unfairness under the name of business?

Teachers, masters, employers, and superiors

Have you used authority as a stewardship from God rather than as a license for pride, hardness, or neglect?
Have you failed to give those under you the guidance, correction, protection, or example they reasonably needed?
Have you made work, school, or household demands in a way that needlessly harmed prayer, Mass, or family duty?

Your actual vocation and state of life

Have you neglected the duties proper to the state of life God has presently given you while dreaming only of another life?
Have you asked God for light about your vocation, or have you chosen chiefly by vanity, fear, comfort, or human respect?
Have you ignored the means God gives for amendment in your state of life: prayer, confession, counsel, sacrifice, and watchfulness?

When the conscience is clear, stop simply

When the conscience is clear enough, do not keep rummaging. Stir up sorrow before God, accuse yourself simply, and return to the main confession guide so you can prepare for the sacrament without wandering.

Then carry only three things

1Name the sins that truly weigh on the conscience, together with number and grave circumstance as honestly as you can.
2Ask for real sorrow, because contrition matters more than a longer list.
3Choose one concrete amendment to carry into the same day.

Having discovered the sins of which you have been guilty, together with their number and any grave circumstances, endeavor to excite in yourself a heartfelt sorrow and sincere detestation of them.
This is the most essential disposition for a good confession, so ask for it with humility, fervor, and perseverance.
Consider Who God is, how good and gracious He has been to you, that He made you for Himself, redeemed you by His blood, and has borne with you so long.

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