Confessing Our Sins

As Catholics we celebrate several sacraments while growing up -- Baptism, First Communion, Reconciliation (confession) and finally Confirmation. Ryan has made it through the first two (although he still gets nervous when he goes up for communion) and tonight he will make his first Reconciliation. In preparation for this he and I had to work through an entire workbook of exercises that taught him all about what this sacrament means, how he will go about making it and what happens afterwords.

It was rather "cute" as we went though this as he learned to identify sins and the things one might confess and he seemed to grasp things quite well. The challenge for him (and quite frankly even for me!) is remembering all the "stuff" he has to do when he goes to make his first reconciliation. So now I am sitting here at lunch "cramming" for tonight so I can help him through this. I feel bad for him because things like this make him really anxious and he wants to do it right. And of course as a mom you want to help your child in any way you can. Unfortunately this isn't a time when I can hold his hand through it all. I will just have to quickly prep him before we leave for church tonight and then hope for the best. Think it's o.k. if I give him a little "cheat" sheet to hold on to in the confessional?? :-)