2. In the ordinary, or weekly, confessions, which, in the case of religious, rarely include a mortal sin, earnest care must be taken that one or more real sins, recently or formerly committed, be confessed, so that matter be presented for absolution; and also that there be elicited an act of supernatural contrition for those sins, or at least for some one of them. Else the Sacrament would be invalid, for real supernatural contrition is one of its essential parts.
3. An annual or semi-annual review of the weekly confessions affords marked advantages, especially when it is made during the retreat: a. Faults are thus likely to be noticed which attracted little attention at other times. As when a ray of sunshine enters into a rather dark room, and reveals more dust on the furniture than was noticed before, so the Divine light of grace, entering the soul during the Exercises, discovers various defects of which there had been no clear perception. That is a good occasion to obtain pardon for them.
b. When our faults are thus seen together, they are apt to arouse more contrition, and thus secure more entire pardon.
c. Such a review gives us a clearer knowledge of ourselves and shows us what defects we should chiefly labor to correct.
II
To prepare for such a review, we should consider those sins especially which are more likely to be committed by religious. In mentioning them we shall follow the order of the Decalogue.
The First Commandment regards the worship of God. Under this head come wilful distractions or negligences in prayer, which may spoil considerable parts of our spiritual exercises; disrespectful handling of holy things, and the unworthy reception of the Sacraments. This last sin is of course rare among religious, but very grievous if it should occur; for it bears the guilt of sacrilege.
The Second Commandment requires the observance of our vows. The vow of poverty is violated when a religious disposes of any temporal goods without permission of his superior, acting as if it were his own property. That of chastity attaches to the violation of the sixth and ninth commandments the additional guilt of sacrilege. The vow of obedience is violated when a religious refuses or neglects to do what he is commanded to do under obedience, or does what he is thus forbidden.
The Third Commandment is not likely to be violated by religious.
The Fourth Commandment obliges subjects to reverence and obey their superiors when they mean to impose an obligation of conscience; and they must be supposed to mean it when the good of souls or the glory of God requires them thus to use their authority. A precept of obedience in virtue of the vow is rarely imposed; but commands in matters of some importance derive from the natural law power to oblige any subjects to obey their lawful superiors, independently of any vow. If serious consequences are likely to follow from the violation of the command, the sin may be grievous.