1. Tell your sins in all simplicity, confessing them as you know them and are affected by them at the moment.
2. Accuse yourself with propriety, in becoming words, through respect for the priest and for yourself. Enter into no detail upon the way in which you committed the sin. The way falls not under the law of accusation. It is even prohibited when there is question of sins against chastity. Tell the nature of sins of thought without recounting them in detail, without explaining them, which is never obligatory. Mention your sins of words, but without repeating the words. Be satisfied with mentioning their species, namely, against charity, or authority, or chastity. As to sins of act, tell the nature of the sin, its grievousness. In sins of omission, state what duty you have omitted.
3. Accuse yourself with humility, as a guilty man who tells his fault to Him who already knows it better than he does himself, but who wishes by making him repeat it to test his sincerity and repentance. Let your humility consist in seeing and telling your faults truthfully, and not exaggerating them. Exaggeration is often the fruit either of sloth which does not want the trouble of examining, or of tepidity which clothes itself with false contrition.
--St. Peter Julian Eymard
