When you doubt your confession

Moses Medina

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Hello ladies and gentlemen of this awesome forum.

My question is on sincere confessions. I have only been Chrismated since 14 April, and though I followed the guidelines for my 1st confession of being vague and if the priest felt the need to inquire or dig deeper then disclose in more detail was followed, I still feel the need to disclose more?

I have a new Spiritual Father, and at Vespers I will be asking him in more detail on this. I want to know however what to do when we confess, if though we are sincere we still feel guilt.
 

gzt

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I'm not a priest and I'm not your priest, but here's some rough advice I've seen and heard:

1. On the level of detail - confess enough that you actually name the sin involved and don't leave out any other sin, perhaps so that if somebody knew what you actually did vs what you said they wouldn't be surprised, but not much detail is needed to get there.
2. This is one of the ways we are tempted! Thoughts coming at us like, "Oh, it can't be that easy to be forgiven," or, "You must have left something out," or, "AM I REALLY FORGIVEN?" Knowing this is halfway to winning the battle.
3. Sometimes this forgiveness in confession is a necessary prerequisite for working through our feelings of guilt. Now that you no longer have this hanging over your head, you are free to do this.
 
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gzt

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And note in the instructions after confession, at least in the Russian tradition, I don't recall the Greek, you are told, "And now, having no further care for the sins which you have confessed...".
 
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YCGP

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What I learned here on the boards is that usually you are not made to remember all of your sins because if you did you would be in despair.

I will go to confession soon and do my best to confess all my sins.

But here's a question:

If I had stolen many times in the past few years, do I need to mention every time I stole something or can I just say that I am confessing my act of stealing?
 
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Satan has two strategies—-convince the Christian he doesn’t need confession.....and if that doesn’t work, make the Christian think his confession wasn’t good enough and he wasn’t forgiven. We have to use confession frequently but not over-scrupulously with guilt.
 
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ArmyMatt

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Satan has two strategies—-convince the Christian he doesn’t need confession.....and if that doesn’t work, make the Christian think his confession wasn’t good enough and he wasn’t forgiven. We have to use confession frequently but not over-scrupulously with guilt.

bingo
 
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