Light and Peace: Instructions for devout souls to dispel their doubts and allay their fearsQuadrupani, Carlo Giuseppe
Religion
Light and Peace: Instructions for devout souls to dispel their doubts and allay their fears
Quadrupani, Carlo Giuseppe
Christian life -- Catholic authors
*Fénelon 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 God 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 God.”*
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
circumstances 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 circumstances, 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 circumstance,
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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