215 Q. Is our confession worthy if, without our fault, we forget to confess a mortal sin?  A. If without our fault we forget to confess a mortal sin, our confession is worthy, and the sin is forgiven; but it must be told in confession if it again comes to our mind.

216 Q. Is it a grievous offense willfully to conceal a mortal sin in confession?  A. It is a grievous offense willfully to conceal a mortal sin in confession, because we thereby tell a lie to the Holy Ghost, and make our confession worthless.

“A lie to the Holy Ghost.”  God sees every sin we commit, and in His presence we present ourselves to the priest in the confessional, and declare that we are confessing all.  If, then, we willfully conceal a sin that we are bound to confess, God is a witness to our sacrilegious lie.  If I see you in some place to which you were forbidden to go, and you, knowing that I saw you, positively deny that you were there, your guilt would be doubly great, for, besides the sin of disobedience committed by going to the forbidden place, you also resist the known truth, and endeavor to prove that I, when I declare I saw you, am telling what is untrue.  In a similar manner, concealing a sin in confession is equivalent to denying before God that we are guilty of it.  Besides, it is a great folly to conceal a sin, because it must be confessed sooner or later, and the longer we conceal it the deeper will be our sense of shame for the sacrileges committed.  Again, why should one be ashamed to confess to the priest what he has not been ashamed to do before God, unless he has greater respect for the priest than he has for the Almighty God—­an absurdity we cannot believe.  Moreover, the shame you experience in telling your sins is a kind of penance for them.  Do you not suppose Our Lord knew, when He instituted the Sacrament of Penance, that people would be ashamed to confess?  Certainly He did; and that act of humility is pleasing to God, and is a kind of punishment for your sins, and probably takes away some of the punishment you would have to suffer for them.  Often, too, the thought of having to confess will keep you from committing the sin.  There is another thought that should encourage us to gladly make a full confession of all our sins, and it is this:  it is easier to tell them to the priest alone than to have them exposed, unforgiven, before the whole world on the Day of Judgment.  Do not imagine that your confessor will think less of you on account of your sins.  The confessor does not think of your sins after he leaves the confessional.  How could he remember all the confessions he hears—­often hundreds in a single month?  And what is more—­he does not even wish to recall the sinful things heard in the confessional, because he wishes to keep his own mind pure, and his soul free from every stain.  The priest is always better pleased to hear the confession of a great sinner or of one who has been a long time from the Sacraments, than of one who goes frequently