“Did you confess? Did you have much to say?”

During our visit to Italy, where my daughter and her family live, my husband and I were blessed to attend Mass in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi. The English choir sang the words of the St. Francis Prayer, “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace,” my favorite prayer. But I did not feel peaceful—I was thinking about a difficult conversation my daughter and I had the previous day. After Mass my husband and I walked down some stairs where a smiling woman invited us to a side chapel for Confession, which was being offered in English. Confession is the common name for what is known in the Catholic Church as Penance or the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

My husband and I accepted the invitation and, after some quiet time to prepare ourselves, we each went to Confession. When my granddaughter, who is not Catholic, later learned that we had gone to confession, she coyly approached me with two questions: “Did you confess? Did you have much to say?” I gulped and answered, “Yes.” and “Not too much.”

Catholics believe if we sincerely prepare for this sacrament, verbally confess our sins to the priest, and repent, we will receive God’s forgiveness through the priest. This healing sacrament is a great gift, and, of course, we know God forgives repentant sinners in many ways outside of this Sacrament.

My topic is the preparation for confession, often called an examination of conscience. This practice calls us to consider how our thoughts, words, actions, and omissions might have offended God or others. Most religious and spiritual traditions encourage some type of prayerful self-examination, such as these:

• The Daily Examen of Ignatian Spirituality is a classic system recommended for daily use. It includes five steps, including being aware of God’s Presence, reviewing your day, expressing gratitude or sorrow as appropriate, and ending with a prayer for God’s grace.

• The Twelve Step Program is a much-loved system that includes personal examination, accountability, and making amends. Read this personal account of how one Catholic Christian relates the Twelve Steps to his faith— particularly Steps 4-7, which involve making “a searching and fearless moral inventory” of yourself.

• John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, wrote a list of questions for daily self-examination. They are very practical, like: “Do I pray about the money I spend? How do I spend my spare time? Do I grumble or complain constantly?”

• This traditional Catholic Examination of Conscience includes questions about the Ten Commandments and Seven Deadly Sins. The long list of potential sins might be intimidating, so if you are new to this, I probably wouldn’t start here.

Why bother with any of these practices? Because if we are honest about how we’ve strayed and then trust God with our failures, we open ourselves to his mercy and healing—and bring more love and peace into our hurting world.

But here is the thing. It’s hard to do an honest self-examination

Our unconscious strategies keep us from seeing and admitting how we hurt God, ourselves, and others--often by doing the same thing repeatedly. We wear blinders. We deeply bury our hurtful words and behaviors. We rationalize what we do. We don’t like the word sin. We refer to our sins as mistakes, accidents, or weaknesses. We say we are victims or too stressed out to be in control—so we think it really isn’t our fault. Or, sometimes, we feel guilty about even small failures—and cannot accept God’s forgiveness and move on.

It took me decades to see and admit to my personal failures that hurt my family. And I never would have reached that understanding if not for two actions I finally took.

1. The first was starting psychotherapy and slowly understanding the imprints I carried from childhood and how they unconsciously drove my behaviors, some of which harmed others.

2. The second was giving God time and space in my life and being quiet so that I could hear him. What helped me do this was my practice of Centering Prayer, a Christian type of meditation.

We are all different. But one thing is for sure. If you want to grow closer to God and better love him and others, you need to dedicate some quiet time for regular self-examination.

Let us examine and probe our ways,

And let us return to the Lord.

Lamentations 3:40

SUGGESTIONS:

1. Dedicate some quiet time to practice an examination of conscience.

2. How do you deal with the harm you’ve inflicted on others when you really didn’t intend to or were unaware? Do these offenses count? Much of our bad behavior is reactive, automatic, and pre-programmed. Are these actions sinful? I think our merciful and wise God wants us to ask ourselves these questions and take time to listen for an answer. I encourage you to do so. Here is what I wrote about dealing with my regrets from my earlier years.

3. As you examine your conscience, stay very close to our loving and merciful Lord, who always wants to forgive us. This will help you avoid constant guilt or scrupulosity, the unfortunate state of seeing sins where there are none. Seek professional help if you have this problem.

“The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy.

The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.” Psalm 145:8-9.

Happy Autumn.

Love, Donna

EXTRA: I smile whenever I see this blog post I wrote in 2018. For a smile and simple message, check out Are You Regular?