Proem

ON FREQUENT HOLY COMMUNION¹

HE who rules, let him rule with care. Rom. 12:8. For since the prophet Micah says to every man, I will show you, O man, what the Lord requires of you: surely, to walk carefully with God;² and the Apostle too says, With fear and trembling work out your salvation:³ it is plain that every superior must be the more careful and God-fearing before the most dreadful Judge, the more people he rules and the higher the perfection of virtue to which he is bound to lead those committed to him; and the more so, the greater the dignity of the persons entrusted to him, and the more the Maker and Lover of souls did and suffered for their salvation, and the more precious the treasure He spent on them. Now these persons are rational creatures, adorned with the likeness of their Creator and marked with the image of the all-glorious Trinity: for whose salvation the Creator of all things, the Only-begotten of the eternal Father, true God, was made man and underwent a most bitter and most shameful death, pouring out His most precious blood for them as their price. From this consideration that most faithful prelate St. Bernard drew these words: Had I stood beneath the cross in the time of the Lord's passion, and gathered in a little vessel the blood dripping from the Lord's body, with what care would I have guarded that vessel and carried it about! And behold, now those very souls are entrusted and committed to me, for whose redemption that supreme and all-wise Merchant poured out that same blood most abundantly.

And so, beholding and weighing these and like things, your venerable Paternity, my most dear Father, has asked my littleness for an answer to a certain question and matter (a rather intricate and fruitful one, unless I am mistaken): an answer that resolves it, clears up the doubts and sets consciences at rest. And although you yourself, with the Lord's help, could do it better, nevertheless, since I can refuse your goodness nothing that is in my power, nor indeed dare to, I will try to comply as far as I am able.