Part 3 (1/2)

12. You say you would wish to have contrition but cannot succeed in feeling it. Saint Francis de Sales replies: ”The ability to wish is a great power with G.o.d, and you thus have contrition by the simple fact that you wish to have it. You do not feel it indeed at the moment, but neither do you see nor feel a fire covered with ashes, nevertheless the fire exists.” The immoderate desire of sensible sorrow comes from self-love and self-complacency. A sorrow that satisfies only G.o.d is not sufficient for us, we wish it to satisfy us also; we like to find in our sensibility a flattering and rea.s.suring testimony of our love of good.

13. If G.o.d does not grant you the enjoyment of sensible sorrow, it is in order that you may gain the merit of obedience, which should suffice to rea.s.sure you as to your perfect reconciliation. Believe therefore with humility, obey with courage, and you will earn a twofold reward. The greatest saints have at times believed they had neither contrition nor love, but in the midst of this darkness of the understanding, their will followed the torch of obedience with heroic submission.

14. Do not conclude that you lack contrition or that your confessions are defective, because you fall again into the same faults. It is very essential to make a distinction in regard to relapses. Those that are the offspring of a perverse will which has preserved an affection for certain venial sins, takes pleasure and wishes to take pleasure in them,-these should not be tolerated; we must vigorously attack them at the very root and not allow ourselves any respite until they are utterly exterminated.

But those relapses that proceed from inadvertence, from surprise notwithstanding constant vigilance, from the infirmity and frailty of our nature, to these we shall remain partially subject until our last breath.

”It will be doing very well,” says Saint Francis de Sales, ”if we get free of certain faults a quarter of an hour before our death.” And elsewhere: ”We are obliged not only to bear with the failings of our neighbor, but likewise with our own and to be patient at the sight of our imperfections.” We must try to correct ourselves, but we should do it tranquilly and without anxiety. We cannot become angels before the proper time.

*”You complain that you still have many faults and failings notwithstanding your desire for perfection and a pure love of G.o.d. I a.s.sure you that it is impossible to be entirely divested of self whilst we are here below. We shall always be obliged to bear ourselves about with us until G.o.d transfers us to heaven; and whilst we do this we carry something that is of no value. It is necessary, therefore, to have patience, and not to expect to cure ourselves in a day of the numerous bad habits contracted through past carelessness in regard to our spiritual welfare. Pray do not look here, there and everywhere: look only at G.o.d and yourself; you will never see G.o.d devoid of goodness, nor yourself without wretchedness and that wretchedness the object of G.o.d's goodness and mercy.”-St. Francis de Sales. (After the examination of conscience read the _Following of Christ_, B. III., Chap. XX.)*

*Fenelon speaks in the same tone: ”You should never be surprised or discouraged at your faults. You must bear with them patiently yet without flattering yourself or sparing correction. Treat yourself as you would another. As soon as you find you have committed a fault make an interior act of self-condemnation, turn to G.o.d to receive a penance, and then tell your fault with simplicity to your director. Begin over again to do well as though it were the first time, and do not grow weary if you have to make a fresh start every day. Nothing is more touching to the Sacred Heart of Jesus than this humble and patient courage. We should not be cast down if we have many temptations and even commit numerous faults.

'Virtue,' says the Apostle, 'is made perfect in infirmity.'[5] Spiritual progress is effected less by sensible devotion, relish and spiritual consolations, than by means of interior humiliation and frequent recourse to G.o.d.”*

15. Habitually add to your confession some general accusation of all the sins of your past life, or of such of them as occasion you most remorse.

Say, for example, I accuse myself of sins against purity, or charity, or temperance. You thus preclude the possibility of there being lack of sufficient matter for the validity of the Sacrament.

16. Banish from your mind the dread of having omitted any sins in either your general or ordinary confessions, or of not having explained their circ.u.mstances clearly enough. The learned theologian Janin sets forth the following rules on the subject: The Church, the interpreter of the will of Jesus Christ, requires sacramental integrity in confession, and not material integrity. The former consists in the confession of all the sins we can remember after a sufficient examination, the duration of which should be regulated by the actual state of the conscience. Material integrity would require a rigorously complete accusation of all the sins we have committed with their number and circ.u.mstances, without the slightest omission. Now sacramental integrity may be reasonably exacted since it exceeds no one's ability; whilst material integrity, on the contrary, could not be exacted without the sacrament becoming an impossibility; for, no matter how carefully we make our examination of conscience, some sin, or some detail in regard to number or circ.u.mstance, will always escape us. In a word, all that the Church demands of the faithful is a sincere and humble avowal of every sin that can be brought to mind after a suitable examen: for the rest, she intends good will to supply for any defect of memory.

*Do not be uneasy because you fail to remember all your failings in order to tell them in confession. This is unnecessary, because as you often fall almost without being aware of it, so you often get up again without perceiving it; just as in the pa.s.sage you quote it is not said that the just man sees or feels himself fall seven times a day, but simply that he falls seven times a day: in like manner he gets up again without noticing particularly that he has done so. Hence have no anxiety about this, but frankly and humbly confess whatever you remember, and commit the rest to the tender mercies of him who puts his hand under those who fall without malice that they may not be bruised, and raises them up again so gently and swiftly that they scarcely realize they had fallen.-St. Francis de Sales.*

17. By a diligent examination of conscience you have thoroughly satisfied all the requirements for sacramental integrity; therefore banish whatever doubts and fears may come to beset you, for they are nothing but temptations.

18. Should you suspect that you failed to fulfil these requirements owing to not having been particular enough about your examination of conscience, you may feel sure that your confessor has by prudent interrogations supplied for whatever may have been wanting on your part.

And if he did not question you further it was due to the fact that he understood clearly enough the nature of your sins and the state of your soul, and this is the object of sacramental accusation.

19. How great then is the error of those poor souls who wish continually to make their general confessions over again, either through fear of incomplete examination or of insufficient sorrow; and how blameworthy the weak complaisance of those confessors who offer no opposition to their doing so! If such fears were to be listened to, every one would be obliged to pa.s.s his entire life in making and repeating general confessions, for they would incessantly spring up afresh and even the greatest saints would not be exempt from them. A sacrament of consolation and love would thus be transformed into a perfect torture for the soul-an heretical perversion anathematized by the Council of Trent.

*”I have found in your general confession all the marks of a sincere, good and earnest confession. Never have I heard one that more thoroughly satisfied me. You may rely on this, for in these matters I speak very plainly. However, if you really omitted something that ought to have been told, consider if you did so consciously and voluntarily, in which case, if it was a mortal sin or you thought it one at the time, you would undoubtedly have to make the confession over again. But if it were only a venial sin, or though mortal you omitted it out of forgetfulness or some defect of memory, have no scruples; for at my soul's peril, I a.s.sure you there is no obligation to repeat your confession. It will be quite sufficient to mention the matter to your ordinary confessor. I will answer for this.”-St. Francis de Sales.*

20. It is the teaching of the saints and doctors of the Church that when a general confession has been made with a sincere and upright intention and with a desire to change one's life, the penitent should remain in peace in regard to it, and not make it over again under any pretext whatsoever. Those who do otherwise recall to their memory things that should be banished from it, and increase the trouble of their soul by a too eager desire to purify it. For, as Saint Philip de Neri so well expresses it: _the harder we sweep, the more dust we raise_.

21. Remember, in conclusion, that according to the common opinion of the saints, the fear of sin is no longer salutary when it becomes excessive.

VI.

HOLY COMMUNION.

Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye shall not have life in you. (St. John, c. vi., v. 54.)

And he sent ... to say to those who were invited, that they should come; for now all things were ready. And they began all at once to make excuse. (St. Luke, c. xiv., vv. 17-18.)

And if I send them away fasting ... they will faint in the way. (St.

Mark, c. viii., v. 3.)

My heart is withered; because I forgot to eat my bread. (Ps. ci.)

1. Frequent communion is the most efficacious of all means to unite us to G.o.d. ”He that eateth my flesh,” said our divine Saviour, ”abideth in Me and I in him.”[6]

2. St. Bernard calls the Holy Eucharist _the love of loves_. Hence you should desire to receive it frequently in order to be filled with this divine love.