UPON A CHANGE OF CONFESSOR.
I have told you by word of mouth, and now I repeat in writing, so that you may better remember it, that the scruple of scruples is not to dare to change one's Confessor. The Priest who should put this scruple into your head deserves to be left, as himself scrupulous, and unsafe. Virtue, like truth, is always to be found half way between two faulty extremes. To be always changing one's Confessor, and never to dare to do so, or sooner to omit Confession than to confess to any one but our usual Confessor, are two blame-worthy extremes.
In the one case we show ourselves volatile and ill-balanced; in the other we are cowardly. If you ask me which of the two is the more to be avoided I should say the second, and this because it seems to me to indicate a low tone of mind, human respect, attachment to the creature, and in general a slavish spirit which is quite contrary to the spirit of God, who only dwells there, where there is perfect liberty.
St. Paul tells us that being redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ we ought not to make ourselves slaves of men.
Possibly, however, you would more readily submit your judgment to that of our Blessed Father than to mine.
I remind you then how highly he thought of this holy christian liberty. You may be quite sure that he inculcated it on persons like yourself living in the world since, as I am going to show you, he made a great point of it with his Religious.
The Holy Council of Trent having decreed that three or four times a year all nuns should have extra-ordinary Confessors given to them to relieve them from the yoke and constraint which might ensue from being always under the direction of one and the same ordinary Confessor, our Blessed Father decreed that every three months, in the four Ember weeks the Sisters of the Visitation, of which Order he was the Founder, should have an Extraordinary Confessor, carefully recommending to the Superiors to ask for one even oftener for any Sisters who might desire or really need his help.
Blessed Teresa[1] was also very careful to ensure to her Sisters this holy and reasonable liberty, which renders the yoke of the Saviour sweet and light as it should be, and her daughters, the Carmelites, still value their privilege as she did.
Our Blessed Father used, moreover, to say that Religious men to whom the direction of nuns was entrusted, and all convents subject to their jurisdiction, would do well to observe the excellent rule and custom some of them have of never leaving a Confessor for more than a year in a convent.
He added that Superiors should reserve to themselves the power of withdrawing Confessors even before the time for which they were appointed had expired, and indeed whenever it may please them, and should not keep any Confessor longer than the time for which he was appointed, unless for some very urgent reason or pressing necessity.
To show you that it was not only to me that our Blessed Father expressed his opinion on this point, this is how he wrote about it to a Superior of the Visitation.
"We ought not to be so fickle as to wish without any substantial reason to change our Confessor, but, on the other hand, we should not be immovable and persistent when legitimate causes make such a change desirable, and Bishops should not so tie their own hands as to be unable to effect the change when expedient, and especially when either the Sisters or the Spiritual Father desire it."
[Footnote 1: St. Teresa was not then canonised. [Ed.]