was instituted.

But why, you will ask, are there different religious orders? In the
first place, all persons are not fitted for the same kind of work: some
can teach, others cannot; some can bear the fatigue of nursing the sick,
and others cannot. Secondly, when Our Lord was on earth He performed
every good work and practiced every virtue perfectly. He fasted, prayed,
helped the needy, comforted the sorrowful, healed the sick, taught the
ignorant, defended the oppressed, admonished sinners, etc. It would be
impossible for any one community to imitate Our Lord in all His works,
so each community takes one or more particular works of Our Lord, and
tries to imitate Him as perfectly as possible in these at least. Some
communities devote their time to prayer; others attend the sick; others
teach, etc.; and thus when all unite their different works the combined
result is a more perfect imitation of Our Lord's life upon earth.

Lesson 20
ON THE MANNER OF MAKING A GOOD CONFESSION

*224 Q. What should we do on entering the confessional?
A. On entering the confessional we should kneel, make the Sign of the
Cross, and say to the priest: "Bless me, Father"; then add, "I confess
to Almighty God, and to you, Father, that I have sinned."

*225 Q. Which are the first things we should tell the priest in
confession?
A. The first things we should tell the priest in confession are the,
time of our last confession and whether we said the penance and went to
Holy Communion.

*226 Q. After telling the time of our last confession and Communion,
what should we do?
A. After telling the time of our last confession and Communion we should
confess all the mortal sins we have since committed, and all the venial
sins we may wish to mention.

"We may wish." We should tell every real sin we have never confessed. If
we have no mortal sin to confess, it is well to tell some kind of mortal
sin we have committed in our past life, though confessed before. We
should do this because when we have only very small sins to confess
there is always danger that we may not be truly sorry for them, and
without sorrow there is no forgiveness. But when we add to our
confession some mortal sin that we know we are sorry for, then our
sorrow extends to all our sins, and makes us certain that our confession
is a good one. If you should hear the sin of another person while you
are waiting to make your own confession, you must keep that sin secret
forever. If