Confession doesn’t just happen inside the confessional with the priest. It happens every day. In every Mass, Catholics make a penitential act. It reads: 

“I confess to almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do. Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the Angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.”

 

We should always be confessing our wrong doings outside of the confessional; to God, our friends, friends, even our enemies.

 

“Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life. . . . On the Lord’s Day gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure” (Didache 4:14, 14:1 [A.D. 70]