A Profound Reform of Heart in the School of Mary
The Medicine of the Soul
THE SOUL: Even with so many means of sanctification and salvation, I recognize, unfortunately, that I am weak and empty. At the first occasions of sin I vacillate miserably and fall. Do I have recourse to Jesus in the Eucharist? But if my fall made me unworthy of him, that food of life becomes for me the condemnation to death!
Oh how good Jesus is! He has provided for my mortal infirmity and has given me the effective remedy to cleanse me from my iniquities: holy Confession. In the Eucharist he comes to me living and true, substantially, and makes himself my food and drink; in Confession instead he has himself represented by a man invested with his power so that I may have no reluctance to lay at his feet my abhorrent burden.
I kneel at the feet of that man, but it is always Jesus who receives me … it is Jesus who makes himself anew my Redeemer, who appears to me in human vesture, who takes pity on my weaknesses, who counsels me, comforts me, helps me, heals me. I am not afraid of his presence, and even if I find it repugnant to speak to a mortal man, he changes my repugnance into expiation and fills me with secret consolation.
O Jesus, do not allow me to render so great a Sacrament vain! So many times I have gone to Confession almost by rote; perhaps I tried to minimize my faults; I found so many excuses to avoid humiliating myself for them! O Mary, Mother of grace and of mercy, accompany me to the feet of the priest and grant that I may emerge renewed by this Sacrament of spiritual resurrection.
ASPIRATION: O Jesus, give me the grace to confess well.
LITTLE WORK: Prod some soul whom you know to be in mortal sin to go to Confession.