Confession Quotes

Confession Quotes by the Saints

A humble confession displeases Satan and, if he could, he would make you omit Holy Communion.  - Imitation of Christ

Good Christians make an examination of conscience and an act of contrition every evening. There was a devout monk lying at the point of death; when his Superior came and told him to make his confession, he answered: "Blessed be God! I have for thirty years made an examination of conscience every evening, and have made my confession every day as if I were at the point of death." - St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

My daughter, just as you prepare in My presence, so also you make your confession before Me. The person of the priest is, for Me, only a screen. Never analyse what sort of a priest it is that I am making use of; open your soul in confession as you would to Me, and I will fill it with My light. (1725) -St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works. -St. Augustine

Go to your confessor; open your heart to him; display to him all the recesses of your soul; take the advice that he will give you with the utmost humility and simplicity. For God, Who has an infinite love for obedience, frequently renders profitable the counsels we take from others, but especially from those who are the guides of our souls. -St. Francis de Sales

The want of proper examination, true contrition, and a firm purpose of  amendment, is the cause of bad confessions, and of the ruin of souls. -St. Benedict Joseph Labre

Obedience to a confessor is the most acceptable offering which we can make to God, and the most secure way of doing the divine will. -St. Alphonsus Liguori

In the life of the body a man is sometimes sick, and unless he takes medicine, he will die. Even so in the spiritual life a man is sick on account of sin. For that reason he needs medicine so that he may be restored to health; and this grace is bestowed in the Sacrament of Penance. -St. Thomas Aquinas

If you excuse yourself in confession, you shut up sin within your soul, and shut out pardon.  -St. Augustine

Daughter, when you go to confession, to this fountain of My mercy, the Blood and Water which came forth from My Heart always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. Every time you go to confession, immerse yourself in My mercy, with great trust, so that I may pour the bounty of My grace upon your soul. When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but I myself act in your soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy. Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If their trust is great, there is no limit to My generosity. The torrents of grace inundate humble souls. The proud remain always in poverty and misery, because My grace turns away from them to humble souls.  -St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul

To do penance is to bewail the evil we have done, and to do no evil to bewail. - Pope St. Gregory the Great

You told me, Father, that after my past life it is still possible to become another St. Augustine. I don't doubt it, and today more than yesterday I want to try to prove it.' But you have to cut out sin courageously from the root, as the holy Bishop of Hippo did. -Saint Josemaria Escriva

Confession is an act of honesty and courage - an act of entrusting ourselves, beyond sin, to the mercy of a loving and forgiving God. -Pope John Paul II

The devil does not bring sinners to hell with their eyes open: he first blinds them with the malice of their own sins. Before we fall into sin, the enemy labours to blind us, that we may not see the evil we do and the ruin we bring upon ourselves by offending God. After we commit sin, he seeks to make us dumb, that, through shame, we may conceal our guilt in confession. -St. Alphonsus Liguori

Strive always to confess your sins with a deep knowledge of your own wretchedness and with clarity and purity. -St. John of the Cross

We come to confession quite preoccupied with the shame that we shall feel. We accuse ourselves with hot air. It is said that many confess, and few are converted. I believe it is so, my children, because few confess with tears of repentance. See, the misfortune is, that people do not reflect. If one said to those who work on Sundays, to a young person who had been dancing for two or three hours, to a man coming out of an alehouse drunk, "What have you been doing? You have been crucifying Our Lord!" they would be quite astonished, because they do not think of it. My children, if we thought of it, we should be seized with horror; it would be impossible for us to do evil. For what has the good God done to us that we should grieve Him thus, and put Him to death again -- Him, who has redeemed us from Hell? It would be well if all sinners, when they are going to their guilty pleasures, could, like St. Peter, meet Our Lord on the way, who would say to them, "I am going to that place where you are going yourself, to be there crucified again." Perhaps that might make them reflect. – St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars

Image taken from Wikimedia Commons