had the power Himself, He could give it to His Apostles if He
wished, and He did give it to them and their successors. For if He did
not, how could we and all others who, after Baptism, have fallen into
sin be cleansed from it? This Sacrament of Penance was for all time, and
so He left the power with His Church, which is to last as long as there
is a living human being upon the earth. Our Lord promised to His
Apostles before His death this power to forgive sins (Matt. 18:18), and
He gave it to them after His resurrection (John 20:23), when He appeared
to them and breathed on them, and said: "Whose sins you shall forgive,
they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are
retained."

*190 Q. How do the priests of the Church exercise the power of forgiving
sins?
A. The priests of the Church exercise the power of forgiving sins by
hearing the confession of sins, and granting pardon for them as
ministers of God and in His name.

The power to forgive sins implies the obligation of going to confession;
because, as most sins are secret, how could the Apostles know what sins
to forgive and what sins to retain--that is, not to forgive--unless they
were told by the sinner what sins he had committed? They could not see
into his heart as God can, and know his sins; and so if the sinner
wished his sins forgiven, he had to confess them to the Apostles or
their successors. Therefore, since we have the Sacrament of Penance, we
must also have confession.

191 Q. What must we do to receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily?
A. To receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily we must do five things:

(1) We must examine our conscience.
(2) We must have sorrow for our sins.
(3) We must make a firm resolution never more to offend God.
(4) We must confess our sins to the priest.
(5) We must accept the penance which the priest gives us.

When we are about to go to confession the first thing we should do is to
pray to the Holy Ghost to give us light to know and remember all our
sins; to fully understand how displeasing they are to God, and to have a
great sorrow for them, which includes the resolution of never committing
them again. The next thing we should do is:

(1) "Examine our conscience"; and first of all we find out how long a
time it is since our last confession, and whether we made a good
confession then and received Holy Communion and performed our penance.
The best method of examining is to take the Commandments