Dear Ben,
No he isn’t saying that. There is a comma after the mortal sin phrase.
He is just listing the ideal we for which we should strive. We already know we should aim to avoid mortal sin, overcome venial sin, and try to overcome our weaknesses.
We need the grace of the Sacraments to overcome our weaknesses, and if we waited until we didn’t have any weaknesses before going to Communion, none of us would ever go to Communion. Who can get through a week, let alone a day or an hour, unless asleep, that we are not in some way plagued by our faults? In any case any of us can accuse ourselves of an unkind thought, and impatient moment, any number of things, far more harshly than God is likely to, as God understands us better than anyone else does.
Obviously Confession is required if a person willingly and knowingly consents to a “mortal sin” but who of us can find ourselves worthy to receive Communion. No one who is honest. We go to Communion in great humility and trust and gratitude.
As for a spiritual director, most of us can only find that with our Confessor, our priest in Confession, and many of us couldn’t afford to pay for the services of an alternate spiritual director. I sure can’t!..and how does one find a spiritual director who is truly inspired by God and truly aware of who we are and our true spiritual state before God? We have to do the best we can and trust God. I have been a daily communicant for most of 30 years. If I took St Francis’ words at face value, I’d never go, not because I commit mortal sin, I just simply don’t, but I’m far from perfect.
By the way, some words from St Therese which would also render her unworthy of Communion…unless she trusted in God’s mercy, which she did:
“This desire could certainly appear daring if one were to consider how weak and imperfect I was, and how after seven years in the religious life, I am still weak and imperfect. I always feel, however, the same bold confidence of becoming a great saint because I do not count on my own merits since I have none, but I trust in God who is Virtue and Holiness. God alone, content with my weak efforts, will raise me to Himself and make me a saint, clothing me in His infinite merits."
St [Padre] Pio’s writings to his spiritual director show him to be acutely aware of his faults, in fact he often felt great darkness about himself, even at the same time that he was an extraordinary channel of God’s grace, healing, and conversion of others. If he had given into his fear about himself, he too couldn’t have gone to Communion. (I doubt, very seriously that he ever even came close to committing a mortal sin!) But he trusted in God’s mercy
