FEAST OF ST. IGNATIUS
2 Maccabees, Chapter 15, Verse 23
And now, Sovereign of the heavens, send a
good angel to spread fear and
trembling ahead of us.
It is
said that Judas was a man who was ever in body and soul the chief defender of
his fellow citizens, and had maintained from youth his affection for his
compatriots. He believed and acted accordingly. If your faith waivers now
call upon our sovereign Lord to send the good angel to spread fear among the
world and the devil and his demons thus allowing our faith, hope and love to
grow for the battle ever rages. Be of stout heart.
Ignatius,
by nation a Spaniard, was born of a noble family at Loyola, in Cantabria. At
first he attended the court of the Catholic king, and later on embraced a
military career. Having been wounded at the siege of Pampeluna, he chanced in
his illness to read some pious books, which kindled in his soul a wonderful
eagerness to follow in the footsteps of Christ and the saints. He went to
Montserrat, and hung up his arms before the altar of the Blessed Virgin; he
then watched the whole night in prayer, and thus entered upon his knighthood in
the army of Christ. St. Ignatius strongly recommends making a daily examination
of conscience.
Examination of Conscience
Prayer before Examination of
Conscience
I am perfectly sensible, O my God, that I have in many ways offended Thy divine
majesty, and provoked Thy wrath by my sins; and that if I obtain not pardon I
shall be cast out of thy sight forever. I desire, therefore, at present to call
myself to an account, and look into all the sins whereby I have displeased Thee;
but O my God, how miserably shall I deceive myself if Thou assist me not in
this work by Thy heavenly light. Grant me, therefore, at present, Thy grace,
whereby I may discover all my imperfections, see all my failings, and duly call
to mind all my sins: for I know that nothing is hidden from Thy sight. But I
confess myself in the dark as to my own failings: my passions blind me,
self-love flatters me, presumption deludes me, and though I have many sins
which stare me in the face, and cannot be hidden, yet how many, too, are there
quite concealed from me! But discover even those to me, O Lord! enlighten my
darkness, cure my blindness, and remove every veil that hides my sins from me,
that I may be no longer a secret to myself, nor a stranger to my own failings,
not ever flatter myself with the thoughts of having repented, an at the same
time nourish folly and vice within my breast. Come, Holy Ghost, and by a beam
of Thy divine light illumine my understanding, that I may have a perfect view
of all my sins and iniquities, and that, sincerely repenting of them, I may
know Thee, and be again received into Thy favor. A Method of Examination of
Conscience, according to the threefold Duty we owe:
(I) To God. - (II) To our Neighbor. - (III) To ourselves.
I
. In Relation to God:
1. Have you omitted morning or evening prayer, or neglected
to make your daily examination of conscience? Have you prayed negligently, and
with willful distraction?
2. Have you spent your time, especially on Sundays and holidays, not in sluggishly
lying abed, or in any sort of idle entertainment, but in reading, praying, or
other pious exercises; and taken care that those under your charge have done
the like, and not wanted the instructions necessary for their condition, nor
time for prayer, or to prepare for the sacraments?
3. Have you spoken irreverently of God and holy things? Have you taken his name
in vain, or told untruths?
4. Have you omitted your duty through human respect, interest, compliance, etc.
?
5. Have you been zealous for God's honor, for justice, virtue and truth, and
reproved such as act otherwise?
6. Have you resigned your will to God in troubles necessities, sickness, etc. ?
7. Have you faithfully resisted thoughts of infidelity, distrust, presumption,
impurity, etc. ?
II In Relation to Your Neighbor
1. Have you disobeyed your superiors, murmured against their
commands, or spoken of them contemptuously?
2. Have you been troubled, peevish, or impatient, when told of your faults, and
not corrected them? Have you scorned the good advice of others, or censured
their proceedings?
3. Have you offended any one by injurious threatening words or actions?
4. Or lessened their reputation by any sort of detractions; or in any matter of
importance?
5. Or spread any report, true or false, that exposed your neighbor to contempt,
or made him undervalued?
6. Have you been carrying stories backward and forward, created discord and
misunderstanding between neighbors?
7. Have you been forward or peevish towards any one in your carriage, speech,
or conversation?
8. Or taken pleasure to vex, mortify, or provoke them to swear, curse, or any
ways offend God?
9. Have you mocked or reproached them for their corporal or spiritual
imperfections?
10. Have you been excessive in reprehending those under your care, or been
wanting in giving them just reproof?
11. Have you borne with their oversights and imperfections, and given them good
counsel?
12. Have you been solicitous for such as are under your charge, and provided
for their souls and bodies?
III In Relation to Yourself.
1. Have you been obstinate in following your own will, or in
defending your own opinion, in things either indifferent, dangerous or
scandalous?
2. Have you taken pleasure in hearing yourself praised, or yielded to thoughts
of vanity?
3. Have you indulged yourself in overmuch ease, or any ways yielded to
sensuality?
4. Has your conversation been edifying and moderate; or have you been forward,
proud, or troublesome to others?
5. Have you spent too much time in play, or useless employments, and thereby
omitted, or put off your devotions to unseasonable times?
If such as confess often fall into
any of the more grievous sins not here mentioned, their own memory will easily
suggest them, since it is impossible for a tender soul to forget any mortal
offense, which must of necessity
afflict her; and therefore it may not be necessary for them to turn over the
following table of sins, which is chiefly intended for general confessions.
An
Examination for Confession
The First Commandment is Broken
First, by Sins against Faith
1. To be ignorant of the principal mysteries of
Christianity; of the Creed, of the Commandments of God and his Church, or of
the Sacraments.
2. To give God's honor to any created being or thing whatsoever; to pay divine
worship, or to ascribe God's exclusive powers or attributes, to any being
except God himself.
3. Willfully to doubt, or obstinately to err, in any point of faith, our of
human respect, interest, fear etc.
4. To favor heretics or wicked men, in supporting or approving their opinions
or actions.
5. To endanger our faith by reading their books with pleasure.
6. To examine divine mysteries with curiosity, and secrets of Providence by pure
human reason.
7. To disrespect or deride holy things.
8. To abuse the words of the Holy Scripture, by perverting them to a wicked or
profane sense, making them subservient to jests, or other ill purposes.
9. To desire to know things to come, which belong to God alone, or things past
or present, which are hid from us, and for this end to employ unlawful means,
as fortune tellers, or other superstitious inventions.
10. To give credit to dreams, or make superstitious observations; to employ
prayers or sacred names to ill uses; to use charms etc.
Secondly, by Sins against Hope.
1. By distrusting the mercies of God, and despairing of the
pardon of our sins.
2. By presuming on God's goodness, without the least concern of amendment.
3. By deferring our conversion or repentance till the end of life.
4. By exposing ourselves to the danger of offending God either by company,
reading, or otherwise, which is called tempting God.
5. By exposing ourselves, without necessity, to some corporal danger; as
sickness, wounds or death.
6. By neglecting the remedies which God has appointed in these dangers, as
physic for the body, or prayer and the sacraments for the soul.
Thirdly, by Sins against Charity
1. By not loving God above all things, but rather choosing
willfully to offend him, than suffer any loss of honor, riches, etc.
2. By preferring the love of man before the love of God; or offending him
through fear of being jeered or slighted.
3. By omitting our duty through shame, or human respect.
4. By thinking seldom of God, or being ashamed to speak of him; or by not
hearkening to his inspirations, by forgetting his benefits, or neglecting to
give him thanks.
Fourthly, by Sin against Religion.
1. By not adoring God, or praying to him but seldom.
2. By praying without attention, and with willful distractions.
3. By a want of respect to God in time of prayer; or by talking or being
present in holy places without a becoming modesty and gravity in our looks,
words and actions.
Fifthly, by Sins against the Care we ought to have of our Salvation.
1. By a love of idleness.
2. By being too solicitous in temporal concerns, and neglecting the means of
salvation.
3. By deferring amendment of life, or immediately desisting, after having begun
it.
4. By neglecting the means of salvation; as the sacraments, prayer, good works,
or performing them without devotion.
The Second Commandment is Broken.
1. By taking the name of God in vain.
2. By swearing to what one knows or doubts to be false.
3. By swearing to what is unjust, or prejudicial to others.
4. By swearing without necessity, though the thing itself be true and just.
5. By blaspheming God or holy things.
6. By cursing one's self or others, or taking pleasure in hearing others swear
or curse; or by provoking them to it.
7. By not reprehending them when one could and ought.
8. By making a vow to do what is impossible to fulfill; or to do what is evil
and displeasing to God; or to do what one never intends to perform.
9. By breaking lawful vows, or deferring to fulfill them without just cause.
The Third Commandment is Broken.
1. By doing servile works on Sunday, or causing others to do
the like without necessity.
2. By employing a considerable part of Sundays or holidays in temporal affairs,
as is often the case with merchants, advocates, solicitors, etc.
3. By omitting to hear Mass, or not hearing it with due attention and
reverence.
4. By spending Sundays and holidays in idleness, gaming, dancing, feasting, and
other recreations.
5. By not dedicating a considerable part of those days to reading and praying,
and by not taking care that those under your charge to the like.
The Fourth Commandment is Broken.
I. By children:
1. Not paying due respect to their parents, or by despising
them either in their hearts or actions.
2. By not loving them, but wishing their death, or some misfortune; or by
forsaking them in their necessities.
3. By not cheerfully obeying them; or by obeying them in things unlawful.
4. By slighting their representations, and resisting their corrections.
5. By putting them into a passion, and not taking care to pacify them.
6. By not executing their last will and testament, or by delaying to do so.
II. By parents not discharging their duty towards their children.
1. In not loving them, and supplying their corporal necessities.
2. In not being careful of their salvation.
3. In not correcting them when it is necessary; in flattering their passions,
or indulging their evil inclinations.
4. In treating them with too much severity.
5. In not setting them good example.
6. In forcing them in the choice of their state in life.
The Fifth Commandment is Broken
1. By anger, quarreling, or threatening, or by injurious or
reproachful words, or actions against our neighbors.
2. By revenge, or deliberate thoughts or desires of revenge.
3. By provoking, striking, challenging, wounding, or being the cause of
another's death.
4. By bearing malice, refusing to salute or speak to any neighbor out of hatred
or aversion, or refusing to be reconciled to him.
The Sixth Commandment is Broken
I. By the hearing.
1. In willingly giving ear to immodest words, discourses,
songs, etc.
II. By the sight.
1. In looking on immodest objects,
2. In reading or keeping immodest books; lending them to others; or neglecting
to suppress them when we may.
III. By the tongue.
1. In speaking immodest words.
2. In relating improper stories or wicked actions of ourselves or others.
IV. By the touch.
1. In using indecent actions.
V. By thoughts.
1. By entertaining impure thoughts willfully and with
delight.
VI. By immodest actions.
1. In committing the sin of impurity; and whether effected
by soliciting, seducing with promises, or forcing; whether it be fornication,
adultery, or incest.
2. In sins against nature.
The Seventh Commandment is Broken.
1. By taking another's goods, and to what value.
2. By retaining what we know belongs to another.
3. By denying our debts, or willfully delaying payment, to the prejudice of our
neighbors.
4. By making unjust bargains or contracts, into which every trade or profession
ought to make a strict inquiry.
5. By causing any damage to our neighbors.
6. By putting off false and counterfeit money.
7. By desiring another's property.
8. By not giving alms when necessity requires.
9. By not paying dues to our pastors, or by not contributing to the decent
support of religious worship.
10. By simony.
The Eighth Commandment is Broken.
1. By witnessing what is false, or defending a false
accusation, as in lawyers and solicitors; or condemning the innocent, or
discharging the guilty, as judges and arbitrators.
2. By detraction, either in laying something false to another's charge, or
reporting for truth what is merely doubtful; or in revealing something as yet
secret and unknown, though true, to the prejudice of some third person; with a
declaration, whether it be done out of levity and indiscretion, or out of
malice or ill-will; whether in the presence of many, or in a matter of
importance.
3. By lying, or speaking what we judge to be otherwise than we say; whether out
of custom, or to the considerable prejudice of others.
4. By hypocrisy, which is a lie in action.
The Ninth and Tenth are Broken.
By all unlawful and willful desires of impurity and theft; which have been
already mentioned in the sixth and seventh commandment.
The Precepts of the Church.
I. To keep certain appointed days holy, with the obligation
of hearing Mass, and resting from servile works.
II. To observe the days of abstinence and fasting.
III. To confess our sins to our pastors, at least once a year.
IV. To receive the Blessed Sacrament at Easter, or thereabouts.
V. To contribute to the support of our pastors.
VI. To obey the laws of the Church concerning Matrimony.
VII. To participate in the Church's mission of Evangelization of Souls.
The Seven Deadly Sins
The Sin of Pride consists:
1. In entertaining too great and opinion of ourselves, or in
valuing others less than ourselves and maintaining a just and noble self-love.
2. In publishing what we think good in ourselves, that we may be esteemed by
others.
3. In arrogance, by attributing to ourselves the good we have not.
4. In presumption and ambition, by confiding too much in our own strength,
conceiving ourselves capable of accomplishing things above our abilities, and
in rashly attempting them.
5. In contempt of others, on account of the good opinions we have of ourselves,
and when this contempt is manifested by words or actions or by being severe and
exacting on inferiors.
6. In want of submission to our superiors, by disobeying them, blaming their
conduct, or murmuring against them.
7. In not acknowledging our faults; or when, in confessing the facts, we
maintain we have done well, or at least allege false excuses.
8. In contempt of admonitions and corrections.
9. In discord.
10. In hypocrisy.
11. In curiosity, which inclines us to know things prejudicial to our
salvation.
12. By ingratitude for God's benefits.
(The
sins of covetousness, luxury, and sloth, have been already examined in the
first, sixth, and seventh commandments. )
The Sin of Gluttony
In eating or drinking to excess, as far as they are prejudicial, either to our
health or our reason, or any ways scandalous, or of ill example to others.
The
Sin of Envy.
1. Trouble at the good success of our neighbor, or when we
endeavor to do him an unkindness, or speak often against him, or create an ill
opinion of him in the mind of another.
2. When we rejoice at our neighbor's harm.
The Sin of Anger.
1. Not to endure anything contrary to our inclinations.
2. To suffer ourselves to be hurried away by the emotions of wrath against
those that give us any trouble.
3. To proceed to quarrels, injurious language, oaths, curses, threats; to take
revenge, or to desire and wish to be in a capacity of exercising it.
4. To refuse to pardon injuries, or to be reconciled to our enemies, or to such
of our neighbors with whom we have had some misunderstanding, or falling out.
A Prayer for Obtaining Contrition
I have now
here before me, O Lord, a sad prospect of the manifold offenses whereby I have
displeased thy divine Majesty, and which I am assured will appear in judgment
against me if, by repentance and a hearty sorrow, my soul be not prepared to
receive thy pardon. But this sorrow and this repentance, O Lord, must be the
free gift of thy mercy, without which all my endeavors will be in vain, and I
shall be forever miserable. Have pity, therefore, on me, O merciful Father, and
pour forth into my heart thy grace, whereby I may sincerely repent of all my
sins; grant me true contrition, that I may bewail my base ingratitude, and
grieve from my heart for having offended so good a God. Permit me not to be
deluded by a false sorrow, as I fear I have been too often, through my own
weakness and neglect; but let it now be thy gift, descending from thee, the
Father of Lights, that so my repentance may be accompanied by an amendment and
a change of life, that being thus acquitted from the guilt of my sins, I may
once more be received into the number of thy servants. Amen.
Novena in Honor of Saint John Marie
Vianney
Confessor of Souls
O Holy Priest of Ars, you knew how
important
was a good confession for the Christian life. It was to procure the happy
fruits of millions of souls that you agreed to be in an uncomfortable
confessional, which was like a prison, up to 15 to 16 hours on certain days. I
will try to develop the habit of frequent confession, to prepare properly each
time and to have always regret for my sins, so that the grace of final
perseverance but also the sanctification of my soul will be assured. Ask this
grace for me. Holy Priest of Ars, I have confidence in your intercession. Pray
for me during this novena especially for ... (mention silently your special
intentions).
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be
Daily Devotions/Prayers
