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.
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 God. “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.
3. St. Francis de Sales says there are two classes of persons who should often receive holy communion; the perfect, to unite themselves more closely to the Source of all perfection, and the imperfect to labor to attain perfection; the strong that they may not become weak, the weak that they may become strong; the sick that they may be cured, and those in health that they may be preserved from sickness. You tell me that your imperfections, your weakness, your littleness make you unworthy to receive communion frequently; and I assure you it is precisely because of these that you ought to receive it frequently in order that He who possesses all things may give you whatever is wanting to you.
*The following words on this subject will not perhaps be considered by others as giving much additional value to the authority of the saintly Bishop of Geneva. They do so, however, in ours, because they are from the lips of a holy religious whose memory will always be dear to us——from a man whose last moments were the occasion of the greatest edification it has ever pleased God to accord us. The Rev. Father Margottet, a Jesuit, died at Nice, April 1st, 1835, shortly after his return from Portugal where he had suffered a most cruel captivity with the courage that faith alone can inspire. During the last months of his life he took great pleasure in conversing with a certain young man who visited him regularly to be instructed and edified by his pious discourse. One day this young man confided to him the confusion he felt in availing himself of his director’s permission to receive holy Communion several times a week. This was due especially to the thought that St. Aloysius, whilst a novice of the Society of Jesus, went to Communion on Sundays only. “Come, come, my dear sir,” laughingly replied the good Father, “continue your frequent Communions—you need them much more than St. Aloysius did.” It is indeed an error to consider holy Communion a reward of virtue, and, in a measure, a guage of perfection, whereas it is above all a means to attain perfection, and the one pre-existing virtue required in order to employ this means is the desire to profit by it. Our divine Lord did not say: _Venite ad me qui perfecti estis_—_Come to Me all ye who are perfect_: He said: _Venite ad me qui laboratis et onerati estis_[7]—_Come to me all ye who labor and are burdened_. (Read Chapters XX. and XXI., Part II., of the _Introduction to a Devout Life_; and Chapters X. and XVI. Book IV. of _The Imitation_.)