What Is an Examination of Conscience?
An examination of conscience is the prayerful review of your thoughts, words, deeds, and omissions against God's moral law and the duties of your state of life. It is the Church's ordinary preparation for the Sacrament of Penance — and, practiced nightly, the discipline that forms a Catholic conscience.
“The reception of this sacrament ought to be prepared for by an examination of conscience made in the light of the Word of God. The passages best suited to this can be found in the moral catechesis of the Gospels and the apostolic Letters, such as the Sermon on the Mount and the apostolic teachings.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1454
The Latin editio typica names the Decalogue explicitly (“in Decalogo quaerendi”), and the Catechism elsewhere confirms the framework: “Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments” (CCC 1858).
Notice the Catechism does not merely permit the practice — it directs it (“ought to be prepared for”), and it names the syllabus: the moral catechesis of the Gospels and the apostolic Letters — the Sermon on the Mount, the apostolic teachings — with the Decalogue named in the Latin text (CCC 1454 in the Latin editio typica; CCC 1858). The U.S. bishops build their own published examinations on the same Commandments framework. Section four of this guide walks that exact framework.
Why does the Church insist on it? Because conscience only speaks to a man who goes inside to hear it. The Catechism warns that this “requirement of interiority is all the more necessary as life often distracts us from any reflection, self-examination or introspection,” and closes the paragraph with St. Augustine:
“Return to your conscience, question it. . . . Turn inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness.” St. Augustine, In ep Jo. 8, 9 — quoted in CCC 1779
Augustine preached that to men who never held a smartphone. The distraction the Catechism names now has a trillion-dollar industry behind it — the feed, the score, the inbox, each engineered to make sure you are never alone with your own soul. Five minutes of interior silence before God has become a counter-cultural act. The first prompt in our own examination names the enemy plainly: did prayer get pushed to “after” until “after” never came? If that question stings, the free Rule of Life field manual exists to rebuild the structure underneath it.
And where do you stand while you look? “In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path,” and “we must also examine our conscience before the Lord's Cross” (CCC 1785). Not before your ideals, your father's expectations, or your own ambition — before the crucifix, where mercy and justice meet in the same gaze.
One muscle, two trainings. The Church gives the examination two distinct uses: the focused review before confession (CCC 1454) — next section — and the brief nightly examen that keeps the account short between confessions — the section after. Learn both. They feed each other.
How Do You Make an Examination of Conscience Before Confession?
Go somewhere quiet, ask the Holy Spirit for light, review the time since your last confession against the Ten Commandments, name what you find — mortal sins by kind and number — stir real contrition, and get to confession soon. For a regular confession, five to ten minutes is enough.
- Go somewhere quiet and ask for light. The examination is prayer, not paperwork. Silence the phone. Then ask the Holy Spirit to show you the truth — neither flattered nor exaggerated. The petition our tool opens with:
“Holy Spirit, give me the light to see this day truly. Show me what You showed me. Show me where I refused You. Show me where I served You. Strip the self-flattery. Strip the self-condemnation. Show me only what is true.” The Sanctum Examination — petition prayer (cf. Ps 139:23–24)
- Set the timeframe: since your last confession. Not your whole life — that is a general confession, a different and rarer exercise. If it has been years, welcome back; give it twenty-five minutes, not ten, and tell the priest up front how long it has been. He will help you.
- Walk a framework, not your mood. Memory unaided will hand you the two sins you already feel bad about and hide the ones you have made peace with. Walk the Ten Commandments — the Church's own framework (CCC 1454 in the Latin editio typica; CCC 1858), the same one the USCCB's published examinations follow (the full framework is below). For a deeper inventory, use the seven capital sins, the classification the Church received through St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great (CCC 1866), or the Beatitudes.
- Name mortal sins by kind and number. The standard is concrete, not vague:
“All mortal sins of which penitents after a diligent self-examination are conscious must be recounted by them in confession, even if they are most secret and have been committed against the last two precepts of the Decalogue; for these sins sometimes wound the soul more grievously and are more dangerous than those which are committed openly.”CCC 1456, quoting the Council of Trent, Session XIV
Canon law states the same measure: the faithful are “obliged to confess in kind and number all grave sins committed after baptism . . . of which the person has knowledge after diligent examination of conscience” (Code of Canon Law, can. 988 §1). “I've been impatient” is a weather report; “I missed Sunday Mass twice without grave reason” is a confession. Venial sins need not be confessed in this way — but confessing them is “strongly recommended by the Church” (CCC 1458). - Include what you failed to do. Omissions are sins: “Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (Jas 4:17). The family prayer you did not lead. The mercy you did not give. The truth you did not defend. The call you did not make. Our tool gives sins of omission their own prompts, because the Lord judges what we left undone as severely as what we chose (Mt 25:42–45).
- Stir contrition — then say the Act. Contrition is “sorrow of the soul and detestation for the sin committed, together with the resolution not to sin again” (CCC 1451). Not a feeling you wait for — a stance you take. Then pray the traditional Act of Contrition:
“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.” The Act of Contrition — traditional form
- Go to confession soon — don't let the list go stale. The examination is ordered to absolution, not to self-knowledge for its own sake. A discreet note is fine if it helps; destroy it after. If you used the free Sanctum tool, there is nothing to destroy: “Your sins are never stored, synced, or saved. Nothing you mark leaves this page — when you close it, every selection is gone.”
Your lines in the confessional
Almost no guide prints these, and every man who has been away for years wishes one did. The penitent's part of the rite:
- You“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been ___ since my last confession.”
- You“These are my sins…” — name them briefly and clearly: kind, and where mortal, number.
- PriestFather gives counsel and assigns your penance.
- You“For these, and for all the sins of my past life — and for the sins I have forgotten — I am truly sorry.”
- YouRecite the Act of Contrition (printed above).
- PriestFather pronounces the absolution.
- You“Amen. Thanks be to God.”
How long should it take? Four time-bands
- Field — ≈3 minutes. Same-day prep: the parking lot, the line at the parish. Begin in Field mode.
- Standard — ≈10 minutes. The regular weekly or monthly confession. Begin in Standard mode.
- Deep — ≈25 minutes. General confession; first confession after years away. Begin in Deep mode.
- Daily Examen — ≈5 minutes. The nightly practice — next section. Begin the Daily Examen.
How Do You Make a Nightly Examination of Conscience? (The Daily Examen)
Five minutes before bed, five movements: thank God, ask for light, review the day, ask pardon, resolve one concrete amendment. The method is St. Ignatius of Loyola's General Examen (Spiritual Exercises, 43), essentially unchanged for nearly five centuries.
Ignatius's five points, and how the Sanctum tool walks them each night:
- Gratitude. Ignatius: give thanks to God our Lord for the benefits received. “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess 5:18). The tool's version: “Name three gifts from today before you name a single failure.” The man who cannot see the gifts cannot examine the failures honestly.
- Petition. Ask grace to know your sins and cast them out — the Holy Spirit prayer printed in step one above.
- Examination. Review the day hour by hour — first thoughts, then words, then acts, exactly as Ignatius directs. “Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord!” (Lam 3:40). Where did anger flare? Where did the eyes drift? Where did cowardice keep you silent? Name one moment of grace you accepted and one you refused.
- Contrition. Ask pardon for the faults (CCC 1451–1452). If something surfaced that may be grave, note it for confession this week.
- Resolution. Purpose amendment with His grace. The tool's discipline: “One moment. One specific choice. Sleep on it.” Tomorrow, at one named moment, you will choose Christ over the easier thing.
Keep the distinction clean — in the tool's own words: “The Daily Examen is not the Sacrament — it is the watch you keep in the in-between days so the Sacrament finds an honest man when its time comes.” And the habit pays into the sacrament directly: the regular confession of venial sins “helps us form our conscience, fight against evil tendencies” (CCC 1458). The tool's Daily Examen also knows the liturgical calendar — see today's liturgical day — so the watch you keep is the Church's, not a productivity app's.
What Is the Ten Commandments Examination of Conscience?
It is the classic framework: review your life commandment by commandment. The Catechism directs that confession “ought to be prepared for by an examination of conscience made in the light of the Word of God” (CCC 1454) — its Latin editio typica names the Decalogue among the texts best suited to it (“in Decalogo quaerendi”) — and it states plainly: “Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments” (CCC 1858). Below, each commandment with real questions from our own examination tool — more than 120 cited prompts.
First Commandment — faith, hope, and worship of God alone
If a doctrine itself is the sticking point, do not soften it — argue it out. That is what Sed Contra is for, and for objections to the papacy specifically, the papacy debate tree.
Second Commandment — the Holy Name
Third Commandment — the Lord's Day
And beyond attendance: did you guard the day itself from work, screens, and noise — or treat Sunday as Saturday's overflow? If the Mass has gone flat for you because you cannot follow it, that is fixable: the Mass Guide and the Missal Boot Camp are free.
Fourth Commandment — parents, children, rightful authority
Fifth Commandment — anger, hatred, drunkenness, scandal
Sixth & Ninth Commandments — chastity, fidelity, purity of heart
Christ's standard is the heart: “every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:28). On pornography the Catechism's judgment is blunt: it “offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. . . . It is a grave offense” (CCC 2354). Grave matter is not yet, by itself, a verdict of mortal sin in a particular case — that still requires full knowledge and deliberate consent (CCC 1857) — but no man should gamble his soul on the missing conditions. Name it plainly and bring it to confession.
Seventh & Tenth Commandments — justice, theft, covetousness
Eighth Commandment — truth, lying, detraction
This is exactly how the live tool is organized: each of its more than 120 prompts carries its Catechism paragraph numbers — many with Sacred Scripture (RSV-CE) — and one tap beneath each question sits verified verbatim source text or a precise pointer to the primary source, never a paraphrase. Walk the full framework in the free tool — or print this page and take it to the pew.