EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE GUIDELINES TO PREPARE
FOR THE SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION
1. I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me.
- Do I give God time every day in prayer?
- Do I seek to love Him with my whole heart?
- Have I been involved with superstitious practices or have I been involved with the occult?
- Do I seek to surrender myself to God´s word as taught by the Church?
- Have I ever received communion in the state of serious sin?
- Have I ever deliberately told a lie in Confession or have I withheld a serious sin from the priest in Confession?
- Are there other “gods” in my life? Money, Security, Power, People, etc.?
2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
- Have I used God´s name in vain: lightly or carelessly?
- Have I wished evil upon any other person?
3. Remember to keep holy the Lord´s Day.
- Have I deliberately missed Mass on Sundays or Holy Days of Obligation?
- Have I tried to observe Sunday as a family day and a day of rest?
- Do I do needless work on Sunday?
4. Honor your father and your mother.
- Do I honor and obey my parents?
- Have I neglected my duties to my spouse and children?
- Have I given my family good religious example?
- Do I try to bring peace into my home life?
- Do I care for my aged and infirm relatives?
5. You shall not kill.
- Have I physically harmed anyone?
- Have I abused alcohol or drugs?
- Did I give scandal to anyone, thereby leading him or her into sin?
- Have I harbored hatred in my heart?
- Have I engaged, in any way, in sins against human life such as abortion, euthanasia or sterilization?
6. You shall not commit adultery.
- Have I been faithful to my marriage vows in thought and action?
- Have I engaged in any sexual activity outside of marriage?
- Am I open to the transmission of new life in my marriage?
- Do I seek to be chaste in my thoughts, words, actions?
- Am I careful to dress modestly?
7. You shall not steal.
- Have I stolen what is not mine?
- Have I returned or made restitution for what I have stolen?
- Do I waste time at work, school, and home?
- Do I gamble excessively, thereby denying my family of their needs?
- Do I pay my debts promptly?
- Do I seek to share what I have with the poor?
- Have I cheated anyone out of what is justly theirs, for example creditors, insurance companies, big corporations?
8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
- Have I lied? Have I gossiped?
- Am I sincere in my dealings with others?
- Do I keep secret what should be kept confidential?
- Have I injured the reputation of others by slander?
9. You shall not desire your neighbor´s wife.
- Have I consented to impure thoughts?
- Have I caused them by impure reading, images, pornography, conversation or curiosity?
- Do I pray to remove impure thoughts and temptations?
- Have I thought of other people as mere objects of lust?
10. You shall not desire your neighbor’s goods.
- Am I jealous of what other people have?
- Do I envy the families or possessions of others?
- Am I greedy or selfish?
- Are material possessions the purpose of my life?