With respect to frequent communion, the best advice is to follow the counsel of a wise and prudent director. But remember, that according to the spirit of Jesus Christ and his church, you should communicate frequently. Our divine Redeemer gives himself to us in the blessed Eucharist under the forms of bread and wine, hereby intimating, that as our corporal life cannot be supported without the ordinary food of the body, so our spiritual life cannot be maintained but by the blessed Eucharist, which is the food and nourishment of our souls. Hence it is that he assumes the most tender and affectionate titles of spouse, brother, friend, &c. in order to incite us to approach him frequently in this divine sacrament. The spirit of the church is further made known by the advice of the holy Council of Trent, which exhorts all the faithful to communicate often, and particularly whilst they assist at the celebration of the divine mysteries. To those testimonies may be added the exhortations of the holy fathers, the example of the saints, the practice of the primitive Christians, and the experience of all pious and devout persons in every age, as so many corroborating proofs of the happiness and advantage of frequent communion. But if it be a happiness to communicate early in life, and frequently during the course thereof, it may be also said that there cannot be a greater misfortune than to communicate unworthily; it being a most flagrant abuse of what is most sacred in religion. To avoid then so great an evil, reflect seriously on these words of St. Paul: "Let a man _prove himself_, and so eat of that bread, and drink of that chalice; for he that eateth and drinketh _unworthily_, eateth and drinketh _damnation_ to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord." Now this _proving_ consists in putting yourself into such a state, that your conscience may not reproach you with any essential obstacle to the receiving of this sacrament, that is, with the conscious guilt of any mortal sin whatever. {105} This you can answer for, provided you have endeavoured to make as exact, as fervent, and as perfect a confession as you would wish to make at the hour of death; and you should certainly be equally careful and fervent in so doing, there being not less purity required to receive Jesus Christ in this life, than to appear before the judgment-seat of God in the next. Above all things it must be remembered, that the essential point in this _proving_ of yourself, is, "_to quit the occasions of sin, and to repair the scandal it hath caused:_" without a fixed determination of so doing, the accusation and detestation of it are absolutely insufficient.