PRAYERS BEFORE AND AFTER CONFESSION


PRAYERS BEFORE CONFESSION

(Remember to confess your sins with supernatural sorrow for your sins and with a firm purpose of amendment. Ask your confessor to help you with any difficulties you have in making a good confession.)
 

PRAYER FOR A GOOD CONFESSION
O my God, by my grievous sins I have crucified again Thy Divine Son and made Him a mockery. For this I have deserved Thy wrath and made myself fit for the fires of hell. How ungrateful have I been to Thee as well, my heavenly Father, Who created me out of nothing, redeemed me by the precious blood of Thy Son and sanctified me by Thy holy sacraments and by the Holy Ghost. But Thou hast spared me by Thy mercy, to make this confession. Receive me back as Thy prodigal son and grant me to confess well, that I may begin anew to love Thee with my whole heart and soul, and henceforth to keep Thy commandments and suffer patiently whatever temporal punishment may remain. I hope by Thy goodness and power to obtain everlasting life in Paradise. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
 

PRAYER BEFORE CONFESSION
O my God, without You I can do nothing. You have told me, "Ask and you shall receive." In full confidence in Your promise, therefore, I beg You to accept the confession I am about to make and grant me true contrition for my many offenses. Saviour of the world who gave Yourself to the death of the cross to save sinners, look with mercy on me, a sinner. Regard not my wickedness in such a manner to forget Your pardon. For my offenses I deserve condemnation, but presuming upon the ransom of Your blood, I ask forgiveness. Heal my wounds, Lord Jesus. Send the light of Your truth into my soul so that I may worthily confess my shortcomings. Give me a contrite heart and a true sorrow for my offenses. Although I am unworthy of Your love, because of it I come to You for forgiveness. Have mercy on me, O Lord, have mercy!

 

PRAYERS AFTER CONFESSION

Let this my confession, I beg You, O Lord, be pleasing and acceptable in Your sight, by the merits of Your Blessed and Ever-virgin Mother Mary, and of all Your saints. Whatever I lack now or at any time in sufficient contrition, or in sincerity or in the completeness of my confession, do You in Your loving kindness and mercy supply, and thereby hold me more fully and perfectly absolved in Heaven; who lives and rules, one God, world without end. Amen.

I am no longer Thy enemy, O my God. By the virtue of the sacrament which I have just received, Thou hast healed the wounds of my soul; Thou hast received me into Thy favour, Thou hast revived the merits of my good works, which were dead through sin, and Thou hast changed into a temporal punishment the eternal damnation which my sins deserved. Grant me, O God, the gift of perseverance in Thy service. Ah! let me rather die a thousand deaths than offend Thee again.

O Almighty and most merciful God, who, according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies, hast vouchsafed once more to receive Thy prodigal child after so many times going astray from Thee, to this Sacrament of reconciliation; I give Thee thanks with all the power of my soul for this and all other mercies, graces and blessings bestowed on me, and prostrating myself at Thy sacred feet, I offer myself to be henceforth forever Thine. Oh, let nothing in life or death separate me from Thee! I renounce with my whole soul all the acts of treason against Thee, and all the abominations and sins of my past life.
I renew the promises I made in Baptism, and from this moment I dedicate myself to Thy love and service. Oh, grant me that for the time to come, I may abhor sin more than death itself, and all such occasions and companions, as have unhappily brought me to it. This I resolve to do by the help of Thy divine grace, without which I can do nothing. I beg Thy blessing upon these my resolutions, that they may not be ineffectual like many others I have formerly made, for, O Lord, without Thee, I am nothing but misery and sin. Supply also, by Thy mercy, whatever defects have been in this my confession, and give me grace to be now and always a true penitent. Through the same Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen.


PRAYER OF ST PADRE PIO FOR AFTER CONFESSION
O Lord! I abandon my past to Thy mercy, my present to Thy Love, and my future to Thy Providence!