| Chapter 7. Of the examination of conscience, and purpose of amendment | ||||
1. The Voice of the Beloved | ||||
Above all things the priest of God must draw nigh, with all humility of heart and supplicating reverence, with full faith and pious desire for the honour of God, to celebrate, minister, and receive this Sacrament. Diligently examine your conscience and with all your might with true contrition and humble confession cleanse and purify it, so that you may feel no burden, nor know anything which brings you remorse and impedes your free approach. Have displeasure against all your sins in general, and specially sorrow and mourn because of your daily transgressions. And if you have time, confess to God in the secret of your heart, all miseries of your own passion. | ||||
2. Lament grievously and be sorry, because you are still so carnal and worldly, so unmortified from your passions, so full of the motion of concupiscence, so unguarded in your outward senses, so often entangled in many vain fancies, so much inclined to outward things, so negligent of internal; so ready to laughter and dissoluteness, so unready to weeping and contrition; so prone to ease and indulgence of the flesh, so dull to zeal and fervour; so curious to hear novelties and behold beauties, so loth to embrace things humble and despised; so desirous to have many things, so grudging in giving, so close in keeping; so inconsiderate in speaking, so reluctant to keep silence; so disorderly in manners, so inconsiderate in actions; so eager after food, so deaf towards the Word of God; so eager after rest, so slow to labour; so watchful after tales, so sleepy towards holy watchings; so eager for the end of them, so wandering in attention to them; so negligent in observing the hours of prayer, so lukewarm in celebrting, so unfruitful in communicating; so quickly distracted, so seldom quite collected with yourself; so quickly moved to anger, so ready for displeasure at others; so prone to judging, so severe at reproving; so joyful in prosperity, so weak in adversity; so often making many good resolutions and bringing them to so little effect. | ||||
3. When you have confessed and bewailed these and your other shortcomings, with sorrow and sore displeasure at your own infirmity, make then a firm resolution of continual amendment of life and of progress in all that is good. Then moreover with full resignation and entire will offer yourself to the honour of My name on the altar of your heart as a perpetual whole burnt-offering, even by faithfully presenting your body and soul to Me, to the end that you may so be accounted worthy to draw near to offer this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God, and to receive the Sacrament of My Body and Blood to your soul's health. For there is no oblation worthier, no satisfaction greater for the destroying of sin, than that a man offer himself to God purely and entirely with the oblation of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Communion. If a man shall have done what in him lies, and shall repent him truly, then how often soever he shall draw nigh to Me for pardon and grace, As I live, says the Lord, I ave no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted, and live. All his transgressions that he has committed, they shall not be mentioned to him. | ||||
Ezekiel xviii. 22, 23. | ||||