Examen for annual confessions

AN EXAMEN AEEANGED BY MOTHEE DE CHANTAL,

TO ASSIST IN MAKING AN ANNUAL CONFES- SION.

In the first place, examine yourself on your progress or failing since your last retreat, which is made from year to year. Whether you have not acquired some bad habit, not previously possessed. Cast your eyes on the most ordinary imperfections, temptations, repugnances, and difficulties that you experience in the Eules, Constitutions, and Customs, seeking their source and origin, and discovering them with simplicity. Confess them, and make your renewal with courage and with the resolution to tend courageously to the perfection of your state, by the exercise of the virtues 179 that will be recommended to you in a particular manner.

How do you receive the sacraments? Do you sometimes approach them through routine and imitation, through fear, rather than through devotion? Do you lose their fruit by want of preparation?

In going to confession, are you satisfied to make yourself known as worthy of abjection? If so, you will confess your sins very simply, and in humble terms. Tou will freely tell your faults and all that can render you more confused and ashamed in presence of the confessor.

Are you faithful in correcting the faults that you confess? Do you make reiterated acts of contrition before going to confession? Having confessed, are you exact in thanking God for this grace, which is, assuredly, very great?

Do you perform some special devotion, either before or after holy communion? Some practices of virtue for this intention, to keep your mind recollected in memory of this benefit?

Are you distracted soon after receiving holy communion? Are you more humble, sweet, and cordial on the day of communion? For this is the fruit which you should draw from holy communion.

Are you careful to make your intentions at the commencement of each exercise and each important action, offering them to God for His glory and in honor of the Blessed Virgin, or for some other intention?

Are you tepid in prayer and during your practices of piety? Do they weary you? Do you sometimes find the Office long, meditation difficult, spiritual exercises laborious, the returns that you make to God painful? Do you perform your exercises with inattention? Do you resist the lights that God gives you, either to do good or to avoid evil, paying no attention whatever to them, so as to commit your imperfections more freely, and not to undertake the good that is apparent?

How do you go to the Office, and in what manner do you comport yourself while there, at prayer, and during holy Mass? In your examens, do you fail in careful preparation, and in subjecting your mind to follow the teachings that have been given you on this subject, observing what is said of it in the Custom Book?

Are you prompt in rejecting distractions? Do you give rise to them by not keeping strict custody of eyes on certain occasions, or by not keeping your mind recollected during the day, amusing yourself with trifles?

How do you observe the Rule, the Constitutions, and especially your sacred vows?

Do you obey exactly in all things; promptly, without delay; simply, without reply; lovingly, without chagrin; cordially and with a good heart, without murmur; humbly, without criticising and censuring the command? Are you more exact to an honorable command and one of importance, than to those that are trifling and abject?

Do you disobey through negligence, f orgetfulness, idleness, or stubbornness, with deliberation, without love for obedience, or for the person who commands, through want of esteem for the command, in things of small importance or otherwise? Accuse yourself carefully on this matter, for it is important.

Have you entertained aversion for the Superioress, causing you to pass unfavorable judgment on her actions and words; that she has spoken or acted through passion, self-interest, particular affection, vanity, and the like? But what would be worse, have you despised her in your heart by not esteemingher orders, her conduct, her judgment, and especially in what relates to the mortifications and corrections which she has given you? This is the true mark by which to know your defects. Have you murmured and complained of her to the Sisters, and even to seculars? In accusing yourself in confession, or in treating of your conscience affairs with a priest, have you made known her defects, or those of others, in order to excuse your own, or under pretext of being well understood? Have you failed in respect to her, by re*plying to or contradicting her through passion, with audacity, before the Sisters, refusing to obey in order to do your own will, through stubbornness or otherwise? Our obedience should be established on perfect abnegation of self-will and of our own judgment.

"With regard to holy poverty, are you, in effect and affection, a proprietor of something, no matter how small? Have you murmured when something was wanting to you, or when what was given to you was not according to your liking, whether with respect to food, clothing, medicine, bedding, warmth, or some other corporal convenience?

Have you asked for, taken, or given anything without leave? Have you desired, asked for, or retained any unnecessary article, foreseeing that it would be useful to you?

Ji you have somecharge, have you served the Sisters without choice? Have you willingly given them what was in your care, without any other consideration than that of necessity?

Have you preferred yourself in the distribution of things, no matter what? Our poverty should be stripped of all things.

Our chastity should be angelic. Examine yourself with regard to your imagination, thoughts, desires. Make the examen on this point very simple, though faithful, and accuse yourself with most generous humility and confidence of the faults which you have observed.

EXAMEN WITH EEGABD TO SELF.

Well-ordered charity will cause you to care for the purity and advancement of your soul in perfection, and to have very little anxiety for your body. The care of the latter you will leave to your Superioress.

Do you esteem yourself above your neighbor? Do you desire to be esteemed, and for this end, do you boast of yourself in some way or other? Do you pretend to understand spiritual matters, speaking of the interior, saying energetic words to maintain your own opinion, and even at times doing so stubbornly, through vanity and pride? Do you speak advantageously of yourself, of your belongings, of the good which you have done and which you are doing, proposing yourself as an example, under pretext of edifying your neighbor, or of encouraging her to imitate you? Do you speak of your relations, of your possessions in the world, of the honor there rendered you, and even of vain things, such as dances, theatres, dress, promenades, advantageous offers of marriage, and similar follies, amusing yourself by thinking of them, and flattering yourself in the vain belief that you are esteemed and loved? Do you inquire indirectly of what is said of you in your absence? or, rather, when something has been said in your praise, do you endeavor to shorten the conversation, or do you add some jocose words calculated to prolong the discourse and increase the praise, either of yourself or of those whom you love? Do you seek the society of certain persons, not on account of their merit, their virtue, and the respect that you owe them, but through vanity, because they love you, make much of you, and praise you; because it is an honor for you that they know you, that they willingly see you, that they esteem you for your mind, judgment, and conversation?

Are you delighted to speak of the conversations that you have had with some person of distinction, repeating the advice asked of you, and the replies that you have made, when you judge them apropos? All this is very vain.

Do you take pleasure in and amuse yourself by relating your dreams, and expressing your thoughts through vanity, desiring that your hearers interpret them in your favor? Are you sorry to hear others praised, or to know that they are esteemed and loved, judging that all this turns to your disadvantage? Doyou try to lessen the praise bestowed upon them, either by your words or by your silence, or what would be still worse, by relating their defects through jealousy, pride, envy, fearing not to be loved, esteemed, and preferred?

Do you resent humiliations and corrections? Do you murmur in thought or word against them? Have you diminished your affection or conceived some aversion and want of confidence toward those who have been instrumental in correcting you, or who have warned you of your faults? Are you grieved to be employed in things low and vile? Are you disgusted with having trifling employments, preferring and occupying yourself more assiduously in things that are high and honorable, desiring the first offices under any pretext whatever? This is very injurious, and an assured mark of little virtue.

Do you yield to impatience in trifles? Are you subject to feelings of anger? Do you give expression to them in word or action? or do you overcome yourself?

Are the faults you commit owing to impulse, inadvertence, or for a reason long and deliberately entertained with regard to the matter under consideration? Do you perform actions through spite upon the slightest contradictions? Are the words that you use to gratify your resentment sharp, scolding, proud, cold, dry, sarcastic, intended to annoy the person who has saddened you, or are they revengeful, showing your passion? Do you look coldly at her, reply to her in monosyllables, or pretend not to hear her, and similar defects?

Have you acquiesced in the will of seculars, and treated them with human respect, through fear of displeasing them? Have you remained away from the Office and the other exercises without necessity, in order to entertain them with vain and frivolous subjects? Have you listened long to unnecessary news and to useless things without interrupting them, through the pleasure that you take in them. Do you, although seeing their vanity, laugh at their folly, and commit acts of levity and worldliness, thus encouraging them to become too familiar toward you? Being too free with them leads to evil, and to the detriment of your perfection.

Do you multiply words? Do you use exaggerated expressions in order needlessly to testify your affection? Do you praise your friends, telling them in unrestrained terms that they are esteemed, that they are preferred, that they are spoken well of in their absence, that they are much thought of, and that people wish to see them? On the other hand, are you at times too cold, not testifying the devout, sweet, and holy cordiality of your Institute?

Do you tell trifling falsehoods through precipitation or inadvertence, to excuse yourself, to embellish your conversation? Do you disguise the truth, concealing under a specious pretext your intentions in slight and indifferent matters and for various motives? Do you often do this, especially in giving an account of your interior? or what would be still worse, does this happen in confession?

Do you resort to some artifice to show that you are not well, or that you have need of something, without saying so frankly and asking for it, for fear of being considered tender and immortified?

Do you pretend to have more regret for your faults than you actually entertain in your heart? You will know this, if you are as contrite for them when you have recognized them and when no one but yourself has seen them, as when you tell them or are corrected for them. Do the tears that you shed, or the exaggerated words that you use, proceed from pride, which is displeased that we are known to be guilty, and pleased to have it known that we ourselves recognize our faults, and have a bad opinion of ourselves, and of all that we do?

Do you make vain reflections, when obliged to give an account of the good you have done, of the extraordinary graces that God has given you in prayer, speaking only in monosyllables and pretending to be ashamed while telling your faults? All that is pride, which makes you fear that others will believe that you make much account of these matters, and that is a great defect in simplicity. Do you conceal your faults, especially when they are abject, saying many useless words to prove the necessity that caused you to commit them?

Do you testify more appearance of paiu than you feel when you are treated as a sick person, or when on some occasion you are preferred to others? The refusal that you make of viands, of some convenience, of some service, does it show vain courage and duplicity, rather than a desire of suffering the want or the inconvenience? You will know this, if your heart remains tranquil in suffering, and if you do not amuse yourself by thinking of what is wanting to you.

Do you feign to refuse some amelioration through virtue, when, in truth, you do so through immortification, the thing proposed not being agreeable to you? All this is hypocrisy and vanity. Do you play the courageous before others, when they sympathize with you about your pains and sufferings, while all the time you are anxious to discover the cause of your illness, and to seek for remedies even the most expensive?

Are you troubled when you are not thought so ill as you really are, or as you appear to be, or when similar neglects occur? Do you note even your most trifling sufferings?

Do you say words through a movement of sensuality, cunningly making known what you like and desire, so that it may be given you?

Are you fastidious in eating, whether in health or in sickness, delicate and hard to please, wishing only what is to your taste, although it may be injurious to your health?

Do you complain of not being well treated, and that your Superiors are not anxious to give you what your appetite requires, when you are ill? When the food is to your taste, do you take too much, although it may be only fruit and water? Do you worry about the length of the nights, your sufferings, and the necessary remedies? Do you obey the infirmarian or the doctor with regret, doing what they order with chagrin and complaint?

See, in fine, how you exercise yourself in the mortification of your heart, which is practised by renouncing self-will, selfjudgment, the passions and inclinations, submitting in all things, condescending cheerfully to the will of others.

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EXAMEN OF THE STATE OF THE SOUL TOWARD OUR NEIGHBOR.

Do you love every one cordially for the love of God, as well in particular as in general?

If you love your neighbor or the Sisters who are disagreeable as much as those whose qualities naturally please you, your love is good; if you love them less, it is imperfect, and frequently prejudicial. Examine whether you have an upright heart in their regard, whether you do them no harm, whether you pray as fervently for them as for those that please you. Do you fail in support toward your neighbor, either with regard to her corporal or spiritual infirmities? Do you judge rashly of her actions, particularly of the actions of her whom you do not love?

Are you addicted to suspicions on the slightest provocation? Do you criticise your neighbor's intentions, her reasons, according to your own fancy, and to her disadvantage, sometimes through passion, again through vanity, pretending to a discernment of character and natural inclinations, etc.? Do you boast of the judgment you have formed, and sometimes assert it as true, from the experience you have had yourself of similar faults?

Do you without real necessity speak of her sins, her imperfections? Do you relate her bad humors, pitying her, but through passion and with exaggeration, in order to gratify your aversion for her, or to avenge some slight received from her?

Have you experienced a feeling of joy, when those from whom you have received some contradiction have been mortified? That is a spirit of revenge. Have you repeated some trifling anecdote to the Sisters,

EXAMEit OF CONbClEKCE. 19& that they may know what they who have displeased you have done? Examine whether you have not directly told them of it from the same motive, whether you have not exaggerated the fault, or misinterpreted it to your own advantage. That would be a grievous fault against charity.

Have you despised your Sisters in thought or in deed on account of their mind, their manner, their countenance, throwing out little hints with regard to their origin, that they are beneath you? That would be a serious fault, insupportable vanity. If you yourself are of low extraction, have you in your heart or in your actions preferred yourself to others? Have you made use of disagreeable, carping, acrimonious words, which might offend and displease them, and this even to seculars, contesting and replying with impatience, arrogantly maintaining your own opinion, even in small matters? That would be a great and very disedifying fault

Have you disputed imperiously, despising the judgment and advice of those with whom you spoke? Have you taken pleas-* ure in acting in this manner, being determined to quarrel or to give offence? Have you long entertained such a thought? That is all very bad.

Are you inclined to envy, which rouses satisfaction in your heart when they whom you see esteemed commit faults, and when these faults are noticed? Do you find it difficult to allow them to be excused or consoled in anything? Examine your heart thoroughly on this subject, and acknowledge your transgressions as frankly and simply as possible. If there is anything that worries you, — doubt, temptation or difficulty — ask to be enlightened thereon.

This examen contains special direction, and gives not only a method for confession, but, moreover, one for the practice of the virtues. It is very useful once a year to see thoroughly the state of the soul, although one is not obliged to accuse herself so minutely of all these matters unless she wishes to do so. A traveller should discover the bad road to avoid it, and the good one to follow it. Self-love has spread its snares throughout the whole course of the spiritual life, so that it is impossible to escape it, unless, as says the glorious St. Anthony, by passing under it, we humble ourselves profoundly, examine ourselves seriously, accuse ourselves sincerely, and, in short, work out our salvation with a holy trembling, a chaste and filial fear, which will make us walk in simplicity of heart, in holiness, in justice, and in truth before God. May the divine goodness grant us the grace to accomplish this undertaking, through the intercession of His most pure Mother, His holy foster-father, St. Joseph, and of the holy Founder, St. Francis de Sales.