Chap. VII Of the Discussion of One’s Own Conscience, and of a Resolution of Amendment
The Voice of the Beloved.
1. Above all things it behoves the priest of God to come to the celebrating, handling, and receiving this sacrament, with great humility of heart, and lowly reverence; with an entire faith, and with a pious intention of the honour of God.
Diligently examine thy conscience, and to the best of thy power cleanse and purify it by true contrition and humble confession; so that there be nothing weighty to give thee remorse, and hinder thy free access.
Repent thee of all thy sins in general, and in particular lament and grieve all thy daily offences;
And if thou hast time, confess to God, in the secret of thy heart, all the miseries of thy passions.
2. Sigh and grieve that thou art yet so carnal and worldly; so unmortified in thy passions.
So full of the motions of concupiscence; so unguarded in thy outward senses; so often entangled with many vain imaginations;
So much inclined to exterior things, so negligent as to the interior;
So easy to laughter and dissolution; so hard to tears and compunction.
So prone to relaxation, and to the pleasures of the flesh; so sluggish to austerity and fervour;
So curious to hear news, and to see fine sights; so remiss to embrace things humble and abject;
So covetous to possess much; so sparing in giving; so close in retaining;
So inconsiderate in speech; so little able to hold thy peace;
So disorderly in thy carriage; so over eager in thy actions;
So greedy at meat; so deaf to the word of God;
So hasty for rest; so slow to labour;
So wakeful to hear idle tales; so drowsy to watch in the service of God;
So hasty to make an end of thy prayer; so wandering as to attention.
So negligent in saying thy office; so tepid in celebrating; so dry at the time of receiving;
So quickly distracted; so seldom quite recollected within thyself;
So easily moved to anger; so apt to take offence at others;
So prone to judge; so severe in reprehending;
So joyful in prosperity; so weak in adversity.
So often proposing many good things, and effecting little.
3. Having confessed and bewailed these, and other thy defects, with sorrow and great dislike of thy own weakness, make a strong resolution always to amend thy life, and to advance in virtue.
Then with a full resignation, and with thy whole will, offer thyself up to the honour of my name, on the altar of thy heart, as a perpetual holocaust, by committing faithfully to me both thy soul and body;
That so thou mayest be able to approach to offer up sacrifice to God, and to receive for thy salvation the sacrament of my body.
4. For there is no oblation more worthy, nor satisfaction greater, for the washing away of sins, than to offer up one’s self purely and entirely to God, together with the oblation of the body of Christ, in the Mass and in the communion.
If a man does what lies in him, and is truly penitent; as often as he shall come to me for pardon and grace; as I live, saith the Lord, who will not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; I will no longer remember his sins, but all shall be forgiven him. Ezekiel xviii.