St. Mary's Catholic Church of Tomahawk, WI

Examination of Conscience

Examination of conscience is an act of looking prayerfully into our hearts to ask how we have hurt our relationships with God and other people through our thoughts, words and actions, basing it on the Word of God and the teaching of the Church.

To have progressive growth in our spiritual life, we need to know ourselves: our sins, our weak points, our evil tendencies, as well as progress made already. This is the most important exercise of spiritual life. The soul must carefully investigate the cause of and the motive of the failures that we have committed. Knowing our dominant passions or faults, we need to struggle to destroy the evil at its root.

The more determined we are to correct our faults, the less faults that will be committed by us. Our desire and determination for sanctity should be to please God. This is possible only through the examination of conscience and correcting our faults. This examination of conscience should lead us to the Sacrament of Confession, instituted by Jesus who gave authority to his Apostles to forgive sins by saying, “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained” (John 20:23). Ultimately it is God who forgives our sins through the Apostles and their successors, ordained priests, and makes us His children.