Pocket Guide to the Sacrament of Reconciliation

by Michael Schmitz, Josh Johnson

  The Pocket Guide to the Sacrament of Reconciliation is a beautiful, prayerful book by Fr. Mike Schmitz and Fr. Josh Johnson which helps Catholics enter in to the Sacrament of Reconciliation more deeply. In this small but powerful book, Fr. Mike and Fr. Josh explain:  This book includes an examination of conscience and the text of the Act of Contrition. Its small size, page-holding ribbon, and durable Alpha Cowhide cover make it perfect to bring with you every time you go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation! See why Catholics everywhere are using this book to prepare for Reconciliation!

Genres: Catholic, Religion, Theology, Nonfiction, Faith, Spirituality, Reference

192 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 15, 2021

About the author

Ordained for the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota in 2003, Fr. Michael Schmitz is currently the Director of the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry for the diocese. Fr. Michael is known nationally for his inspiring homilies, his presentations and talks to university students, and his tremendous sense of humor. (IgnatiusPress.com)

Reviews

[Ruth D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please read this book. If you're new to the faith, read it. If you're a long time on the journey, read it. It will renew you with good reminders and new insights and plenty of meditations on the good, the true, and the beautiful.

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sacrament of reconciliation (or the need for going to confession) is explained in greater depth and in more relatable language than I remember ever reading before. Highly recommend this book for anyone who is on the fence about receiving the sacrament or anyone who just wants to understand their Catholic faith a little better!

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book with an emphasis on change, not shame. Fr. Mike has always been one of my favorites.

[booklady]

Doing a buddy-read on this with my friend, Celia. 💕 Still working on review....

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is nothing groundbreaking in this book which explains the Sacrament in a very straightforward manner. If you are a Catholic and haven't been to Confession (received the Sacrament of Reconciliation) for a while for various reasons, this book will be very helpful to making a decision whether to return. My guess is that if you wanted to but was apprehensive and wasn't sure, you will. If you are not Catholic this book will dispel many of the myths that non-Catholics have about Confession, what it is and what it is not, and why Catholics believe in it.

[Vicky Zambrano · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really recommend anyone to read this book. I am a Catholic that didn’t truly understand how beautiful the Sacrament of Reconciliation can be. Just reconciling with God is so amazing in itself, but this books speaks of sin and how we all need forgiveness from God. It speaks of how afraid and anxious one can feel about recognizing and realizing how sin affects our lives. It also speaks of how merciful God is, and how much God truly loves us. Lots of real live stories and scriptures are in this book. Take time to read it even if you are not Catholic.

[Jeannette Gleason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple yet profound

I would recommend this book for anyone reluctant to go to confession. After reading it you will have a better sense of why Jesus is calling you to be honest with Him and yourself. Jesus tells us He has come to save us, not condemn us. This book has helped me understand that God's mercy is the gift Jesus has been waiting for me to receive.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

First part of the book teaches you the sacrament more deeply. The second part helps you make a deeper and more meaningful confession. After I used the guide, the priest said “that was a great confession!” Highly recommended.

[Olga · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gentle, grace-filled gem. Fr. Mike Schmitz brings his signature warmth and clarity to this beautifully written guide, transforming what can often feel like a daunting sacrament into an invitation for healing and hope. Blending theology with personal insight and real-life examples, this small book radiates compassion and wisdom. A true spiritual companion: practical, profound, and deeply human. What a gift indeed!

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This pocket guide serves as a comforting reminder that no one is perfect — not even the saints! Confession is not something to be ashamed by; rather, it is a place of victory. This pocket guide gives several helpful analogies for understanding this (and it also gives various prayers and an examination of conscience).
.......................

Sometimes we think we know better than the rules and that certain rules don’t pertain to us. When Father Mike got his driver’s license, his dad warned him not to let the gas get below a quarter tank. Father Mike thought that this rule was so that he wouldn’t end up stranded in the middle of nowhere (and so that his dad wouldn’t have to pick him up). He also thought that this rule only pertained to people who weren’t good at gauging how long a car could run on fumes. Since this obviously didn’t pertain to Father Mike, he regularly drove his car until the tank was empty. Years later, while Father Mike was driving through rural Iowa to get to a wedding, his engine started behaving oddly. A mechanic told him that the fuel pump stopped working, which could be due to regularly letting the gas get below a quarter tank (since then the fuel pump has to work extra hard). “I realized that my dad’s advice was not for his peace of mind or my peace of mind. It wasn’t arbitrary. My dad’s advice was completely in line with the nature of the car — my dad was telling me something about my car that I didn’t know…. He gave me this rule because this is how cars are made. When we look at the commandments of God, I think that sometimes we struggle because we do not know the reason God is saying, ‘Don’t do this. Always do that.’ We look at the commandments and say, ‘How in the world could doing that be wrong?’ Or ‘That doesn’t make any sense to me.’ Or ‘How could that possibly be a sin? It doesn’t hurt anyone.’ Even more tricky, we might say, ‘I can see how that rule would be true for someone else, but in my case it doesn’t apply.’ …But there is a reason for the commandments, God is the designer and maker of this world. God is the designer and maker of humanity, so he knows how human beings ought to live so we can flourish” (27-28).

​Why do we thank God when good things happen if we can’t blame him when bad things happen? “We would say the sun is the source of light and heat, but the sun is not also the source of darkness. The sun is not also the source of cold. In fact, we recognize that we only experience darkness and cold when something gets in the way of the light and the heat from the sun. …In a similar way, goodness, love, joy, peace, and life come from God. God is not the source of evil. God is not the source of suffering. God is not the source of hatred or death. …We could say that, in some ways, blindness is not a thing itself — it’s the absence of a good thing, sight. We could say that paralysis is not a thing in and of itself — it’s the absence of a good thing, mobility. Even more clearly, evil is not a thing in itself — it is the absence of goodness or the distortion of a good thing” (29-30).

Every sin has consequences, even if they’re not immediately apparent or the consequences we thought they would be. Father Mike’s friend from seminary, Mark, got into a car accident when he was a teenager. It was winter and he drove the car into a ditch. “When the car came to a stop, Mark immediately unbuckled the seatbelt, threw open the door, and sprinted away from his car. Anyone looking at him would have said, ‘What in the world is this guy doing?’ But every car accident Mark had ever seen up to that point ended with the car exploding. Of course, every accident Mark had ever seen had been in a TV show or movie. He naturally assumed that car accidents automatically meant car explosions. So he ran away, thinking the car would explode. When the car didn’t explode, Mark thought, ‘Oh, I guess cars don’t explode.’ He figured that nothing was wrong, that it had all been overhyped. When he got out of the ditch and drove back home, he noticed the car was shaking more and more vigorously the faster he drove. But since the car didn’t explode and it still drove, he assumed that everything was fine — until he got home and his older brother pointed out that a portion of one of the wheels was broken. Driving on it had wrecked the rest of the axle, ultimately destroying the car almost as thoroughly as an explosion would have — without the exciting fireball. Eve says that God told Adam and her that if they ate of the tree of knowledge they would die. But she and Adam eat the fruit, and nothing seems to happen. She takes a bite; she’s fine. She hands it to Adam, he takes a bite, and he doesn’t drop dead immediately. We could be led to believe that maybe God was just trying to scare them into obedience by threatening them with certain death. But that would be like my friend Mark thinking that the only way a car gets broken is if it explodes immediately. Often we look at the seemingly limited consequences of sin. We claim that since no one is getting hurt, it can’t be that big of a deal. Yet we forget two important things: Every sin hurts us, but it might not hurt us in the way we imagined it would. It doesn’t always cause an immediate explosion” (33-34).

We shouldn’t just look at Christianity as a way to avoid doing bad things. “Sin can be accurately described as missing the mark. In fact, in the Scriptures, the term that is used when an archer misses the target is the same word that is used for sin. God has made us in a certain way, and to oppose his plan is to miss the point of the life God has given us. ‘Missing the mark’ is a useful way to think about sin, but sometimes it can be misleading. Why? It can lead us to think of being Christian as merely the attempt not to break a rule. We might think that the people who live the best and are the models for us are the ones who simply break the least number of rules. They don’t miss the target. If you follow sports at all, you know there is a lot of debate over who is the best player ever to play basketball in the NBA. People say that Michael Jordan is the greatest of all time. Or they say that Lebron James or Kobe Bryant or Scottie Pippen is the greatest of all time. In the midst of their arguments about these players, people will compare stats. What player had the most assists, what player had the most points scored or rebounds or defensive plays? But one of the stats that is never brought up in a debate about who is the greatest player of all time is who had the least number of fouls. That’s curious, isn’t it? We will compare who had the most three-pointers but not who had the least number of double-dribble fouls. We will compare who had the greatest scoring percentage from the free-throw line but not who traveled the least. This is because we realize that avoiding fouls is not what makes a great basketball player. The goal is not simply to avoid breaking the rules — the goal is to play the game excellently. Of course, part of playing the game well is playing according to the rules, but that is merely the baseline for excellence” (38-39).

​Large sins often don’t happen as a result of one big out-of-the-blue action, but rather a series of actions. It’s harder to say “no” when we place ourselves in positions where we are already opening the door to feeding the desires of the flesh. For example, consider how King David went from a man of integrity to an adulterer and murderer.
-King David first made the decision to stay home from battle.
-Then King David made the decision to be leisurely walking on the palace rooftop (instead of working on plans or meeting with people to still be productive).
-Then King David made the decision to continue to stare at Bathsheba after he first spotted her.
-Then King David made the decision to have his servants bring Bathsheba over to his palace.
-Then King David made the decision to lay with her.
-Then King David, upon hearing that Bathsheba was pregnant, made the decision to bring Uriah back and get him drunk so that he would lay with her.
-Then King David, when the last plan failed, still made the decision to not admit the truth or take responsibility. He made the decision to put Uriah on the frontlines of battle so that he would be killed.

​Unless you’re a sociopath or psychopath, you have a conscience that tells you to feel guilty when you do something bad. Feeling guilty isn’t a bad thing in itself because it lets you know when you’re off-track (so that you can get back on-track). “People with chronic analgesia are unable to feel pain. That might sound like a good thing at first, but imagine not feeling pain when you’ve broken your leg or burned your hand. The pain may be awful, but it actually prevents further harm — you don’t try to stand on the broken leg; you take your hand out of the fire. In a similar way, guilt is the healthy response to sin. Guilt is the sign that tells us, ‘Wait. Something is wrong. I need to change my course’” (70-71).

What was the love of the father like when the prodigal son returned? “The 2018 Christmas commercial by the French company Bouygues Telecom conveys the joy in a father’s gaze on his son, which helps us visualize this love. Directed by Martin Werner, the commercial begins with a dad doing a silly dance for his toddler as he gazes on the boy with delight. As the commercial progresses and the son gets older, the father keeps dancing for him and making him smile. Eventually the father’s dance embarrasses his teenage son, and the young man refuses to meet his father’s eyes. But the dance — and his father’s loving gaze — do not change. Finally, as an adult and a new father himself, the son surprises his father one night with an unexpected call, and this time both of them dance with delight. The unchanging love in the father’s gaze gives us an image of the love that the prodigal’s father had for him” (106).

​-https://youtu.be/YTZWKKeSa3U

​Don’t be too vague in confession but don’t be too specific. “You don’t have to go into the entire story of how you and Jill were best friends ever since fourth grade except for that one time you were in sixth grade you didn’t really get along because she was into sports and you were into music, and then when you were in tenth grade you overcame all that, and now … You can just say, ‘I have a best friend, and I gossiped behind her back.’ That’s it. It can be simple; just name it. Now, it is important to tell all relevant details that affect the weight of sin. I have a priest friend, Father Gabriel, who is from Kenya. He always says, ‘Do not confess that you have stolen a rope and neglect to mention that there was a cow attached to the rope,’ because the cow changes things. If you were to confess, ‘Father, I hit someone,’ that’s one thing, but saying, ‘Father, I hit my mom,’ that changes things. ‘Father, I hit my mom with the car’ — OK, that changes things. ‘Father, I hit my mom with the car three times and on purpose’ — all those details are relevant details” (117).

​Why do penance? (and as soon as possible)? “Say you have an injury to your knee. No amount of therapy, no amount of exercise, no amount of strength can heal a torn ligament, because the damage is inside. A surgeon has to open up your knee and operate internally to repair the ligament. It doesn’t just grow back. The surgery is like what Jesus does in confession. He heals something that was irreparably broken. But if you have ever had surgery, you know that you don’t get your knee operated on and then immediately go for a run the next day — you have to do physical therapy. Why? Because even though the wound is healed, there are consequences of the wound. That is where our penances come in. Confession is like going to surgery, and the penance is like going to physical therapy” (123-124).

Priests usually don’t remember both someone’s sins AND who confessed them. If he does, it’s a reminder for him to pray for X about X, and he is bound to the seal of confession (or else he’s excommunicated). Priests also aren’t “intrigued” by getting the dirt on people (because in reality, sin is just boring garbage).“Priests are God’s garbage men. Think about this. When was the last time you ever saw a garbage collector opening a garbage can and saying, ‘Gosh, look at this! Everyone come over here! Do you see this banana peel? This is the most disgusting banana peel I’ve ever seen!’ No — it’s just garbage, and it just gets thrown in the trash. Garbage collectors do not go home at night and think, ‘What did I go through in the garbage today?’ Why? Because when you get used to dealing with it, you think, ‘I’m just going to get this out of here. I’m not intrigued by it at all.’ It is just garbage” (149).

[rae mariella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genuinely such an important read for me leading up to and the day of my first confession. Super clear and easy to read/digest.

[Chloe Juwono · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtfully written for the ones who are new to Reconciliation or those who care enough to do it right!

Fr Mike and Fr Josh walk you through every dimension of this Sacrament— from how to make a good confession, to the correct heart posture of receiving it, to the Biblical context of how our Lord invites us to partake in this Sacrament, to Priestly perspectives in their role as confessors to sinners. This book felt like a friendly hand-hold through an important step within the Catholic faith that felt too large to comprehend without it.

This is an easy read. This is something I plan to read at least yearly to not forget what Reconciliation really is, which is an invitation from the Lord to be cleansed and forgiven!

[Bernadette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic confession prep tool. This little book is an excellent way to prepare your heart, mind, and soul for reconciliation. Father Josh starts out inviting us, explaining why we go, why we need to go, and how it is important for our peace of mind. I have been Catholic all my life, and I need reminders (books like these) to remind me of these reasons, and to guide me through the process. I found this book to be relatable to my life. It was an easy read, even with the scriptural and catechism references, it was not written to be 'over our head' and hard to understand. It was written with each of us in mind. I highly recommend.

[Rebecca Loomis · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone with a strong devotion to the sacrament of confession already, I assumed this “pocket guide” would be a bit entry-level for me. I was wrong, and pleasantly surprised by the rich wealth of wisdom this simple, easy-to-read book possessed. It deepened my prayer life and challenged me to grow, while also outlining some practicals that I had forgotten. This book would be fantastic for someone who is trying to go to confession again after a long time of being away, but is also great for those who go on a regular basis.

[Harry Dudley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives simple, balanced, inspiring, and helpful advice regarding the why, the how, and the what of a good confession. It about a relationship! I would highly recommend it to someone who hasn’t been to the sacrament as well as to those who go frequently. I especially appreciated the various tools provided to prepare to make a good examination of conscience. I was so impressed with the straightforward and yet depth in their writing that I read this in one sitting and intend to reread it frequently.

[Jane Gilbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a convert to Catholicism, the Sacrament of Reconciliation has always been the one sacrament I did not understand. This book not only answered so many questions, but also made me want to go to confession. I now look at Reconciliation in a completely different light. Whether you were raised Catholic or converted later in life, like I did, this book is one all Catholics should read and keep handy for when we need a reminder about why Reconciliation is so important. This would be a wonderful book to utilize in RCIA.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reference book on how important this Sacrament is and the best way to discover and choose it often. Being in a relationship requires trust and alignment of thought. Always good to re-read basic concepts that sometimes, have become automatic.

Easy to read and understand. They offer other videos & books that are helpful in understanding your religious path. References to Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska were particularly helpful.

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

"But one of the stat that is never brought up in a debate about who is the greatest player of all time is who had the least number of fouls."

If you know me well you know I'm a big fan of Marie Kondo and the act of decluttering. Reconciliation is a sacrament I've been particularly drawn because in a way it's a decluttering of the soul. Pocket Guide to the Sacrament of Reconciliation is pretty readable and a book I'll likely keep coming back to in the future.

[Glenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely beautiful and insightful book. It would make a perfect present for anyone receiving the sacrament of confirmation or being received into the Church. But it would also be a perfect present for anyone who is avoiding confession for any reason. Fr. Mike and Fr. Josh truly convey the grace and love of this sacrament.

[Rohan Felix · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book speaks to me at a personal level. Without a doubt, the best book about the sacrament of Confession that I’ve read. I recommend it to anyone having questions about whether they truly have contrition and if they are doing Confession “the way it’s supposed to be.”

[Norma Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent guidance

Helped me to big feel more comfortable going to Confession.

Anyone who has been away from this sacrament should read this book. Father Josh and Father Mike have a special gift guided by the Holy Spirit to make their messages easy to understand!

[Stacie Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book and easy to understand

I enjoyed this book. It was well written to explain and describe all points of the sacrament. Both authors are easy to understand. I recommend this book.

[Zepoi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gifted by my parish during OCIA to prepare for my first confession. The author Fr. Mike is a cool priest whom I was familiar with through his YouTube videos. The book is cool too. Warms you up to the idea of confessing, gives apologetics as to why it is done with the instructions of how it is done.

[Enzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommended Reading for Catholic Christians

Thank you Fr. Mike. This is a great book. One the books that I was able to finished reading. It strengthened my resolved all the more to go to Confession regularly as recommended.

[kitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great quick read. It was easy to read and still deep.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rated—G (my personal opinion based on content)

[Bernard B Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommend this book because of its depth in explaining the rite in a brief package!

[Ctrcynde · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE it!!! Really clarified for me just how IMPORTANT confession is and how to do it correctly to truly receive the joy and freedom it brings when you leave the confessional!!!

[Stewart M Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very simple and approachable presentation on the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It can help inspire those who are struggling to go to confession.

[Brian Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're having a hard time going to confession...this book is definitely for you!