Confession

"Well, there was this drunk chick who puked all over my apartment and, yada yada yada, I decided to become Catholic."

Good luck, and have no worries!

My wife converted  two years ago and was extremely scared/worried. But she survived and the ground did not open up and swallow her. In fact, she said she felt pretty relieved and happy about it after she finished her first confession.

Have fun Foggy!  Don't be scared. A priest told me I'll find myself breaking rocks in hell because my (Then fiance) and I lived together and had pre-marital relations.  We were in our 30's !  Oh well, I'm sure I'll be breaking rocks next to some of you when the time comes...

You will feel better afterwards though, It's always good to say your shortcomings out loud....

Back when I was in high school I was walking downtown with a friend of mine, Tony, when he says he wants to stop in church real quick to say confession.  "No problem.  Go on ahead," I said.  So Tony goes into the confessional and says, "Yo bless me father for I have sinned.  I committed a dirty and unclean act with one of the girls in the parish after Sunday school."
"How dare you," angrily replies the priest!  "Was it Mary Giannini?"
"No father it weren't Mary."
"Was it Angelina Tarantino?"
"Nah, no father.  It weren't Angie."
"Was it Roberta Fontano?"
"No.  No father.  It weren't none of them."
"Well you're going to do 50 Hail Marys and you're going to have station at the cross for a week as your penence."
"Thank you father.  Thank you."

So he comes outside and I asked him, "how'd you do?"
"Eh.  Not too bad.  Gots ta do 50 Hail Marys and I got a week at the cross...
... But I got three good leads."

Maybe you should just confess to what you've done good at instead and save a whole lot of time?

You need to do what I do...find the priest with the longest line of people in it.  That's the priest who gives the shortest answers and the least amount of prayers!

Congratulations on your journey.  Got any questions or concerns, PM me.  I've been helping with our church's Confirmation Retreat for 15 years.

Welcome to the fold.   And don't sweat it, the priest isn't there to judge you, he's there to hear and remind you that you're forgiven.

It really is a weight lifted. 

Congratulations!!

Please forgive me for all the commandments, except the killing one.....I am still good there :-P

Just make a list on a scroll and then drop one end and let it roll out of the booth.

Don't sweat it.  You're really confessing to the almightly upstairs so just be yourself and truthful.  Just confess the "big ones", not the one where you took $5 from your moms purse or the candy bar from Clarke's drug store.  Maybe confess something relatively recent that may still be a challenge for you (i.e. daydreaming about melon presses, switching your competitors transition gear around etc.)

You can say 50 or 100 prayers afterwards but your true actions/behaviors afterwards will define you.

Whatever you forgot to cover the first time, you can bring those up in future confessions.  I don't think there's a statute of limitations for that.

fixed

There is no commandment against melon presses or dreaming about them! In fact, I am sure there is a commandment commanding them ... it's just not one of the original 10. But it's the one that encompasses all 10 and so much more!

Hm. Uh ... how is it, exactly, that you are dreaming about melon presses?

When I was in elementary school, we went to confession so often I didn't have time to do too much sinning!  I always sweated it out trying to figure out what I had to confess.  Many times I thought about making something up to confess.  Had I done that I at least would have had something good to confess the next time

As I got older I didn't have any problem figuring out what I needed to confess.  Like others have said, we all sweat confession a bit, but it is a big relief.  Now, what I really don't like is the face to face confessions - I like being more anonymous.

Welcome to the flock.

That's fantastic news.
Welcome home!

Did you get instruction in RCIA about how to make an examination of conscience?
There are good resources to help with that out there, including a number of apps.

You might remember a headline about a year ago
that gave the impression that the Church was now allowing confession by phone.
Of course, what the Church was approving was the use of these apps for helping
to make a good examination of conscience.

Father Robert Barron is a theologian in Chicago and posts youtubes dealing with
current cultural events.
He posted one last year about confession in light of the new app.

Most interestingly he posits that the decline in going to confession among Catholics,  
that happened some forty years ago, may have contributed to what you might call
the current confessing culture. 

It happens right here on BT all the time.

Fr. Barron suggest that maybe we're all hard wired for confession.

Don't worry. You'll be fine.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation is one of the greatest gifts we have.

I believe this also applies to member of the Jewish faith. Inherited from your mother.