Article 1

Statement of the matter whose explanation is sought.

THE letter your most dear Paternity addressed to me said, among other things: Since I have been appointed visitor of many monasteries of virgins and Sisters, I am troubled. For in these monasteries or congregations old customs are in force which I dare neither wholly approve nor simply condemn: namely, that the Sisters receive communion very often, that is, every Sunday in Advent and Lent, at other times once a fortnight, and also on all the greater feasts of the Saints, namely of the most holy Virgin, St. John the Baptist, the Apostles, Michael, Martin and the patron. And even if during the week they have received the Holy Eucharist on a solemnity on which they are accustomed to communicate, they nonetheless communicate on the Sunday on which they are accustomed to do so.

This custom, as I have said, I do not condemn, provided they approach with due preparation, devotion and reverence. But as every fruit has a worm that spoils it, so it is with a practice laudably established, once charity little by little grows cold. Hence, as their confessors complain, men of conscience, those Sisters are so attached, or rather so obstinate, in keeping that custom of communicating, that no instruction can induce them to lessen that frequency of communion; and yet the life of some does not seem so well proven that they can be thought to approach with due reverence, or to draw from such constant communion the fruit or progress they should, since they remain stubborn and froward. And, what is graver, in their secret confessions they refuse to yield to their confessors, should these perhaps decide in conscience that they are not to be admitted to communion: indeed they would rather not confess their faults, if they knew that because of them they would be held back from communion, as has very often been found. And, as I recently heard, one Sister, well on in years, swallowed part of a sponge so as to choke herself: and this out of impatience and grief, because holy communion had been refused her.

Their confessors are distressed by these perplexities. For that custom of such frequent communion seems to have been brought in long ago, because they were then fewer in number and greater in devotion. Hence I have many times been asked by their confessors to provide them in this case with a wholesome remedy. For in either course there appears a danger. For if at the accustomed times the sacrament of the Eucharist is withheld from them, the devout and fervent Sisters are thereby deprived of their accustomed spiritual, wholesome and sweet food; and they are given great occasion to murmur, and it will be all but unbearable to them. If, on the other hand, all are admitted, their confessors are not at peace in their consciences, because of the many whom they fear, or rather do not doubt, approach unworthily. And if the imperfect and more negligent are forbidden and shut out from communion, they at once complain and say they are put to shame, since they are among the elders; nor do they bear it calmly: indeed, it is feared, they will hardly ever make a sincere and full confession. What, then, is to be done in this business, I ask you to write to me briefly.