There is a story of St. Claude de la Colombiere, the spiritual director to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. At this time of this story, he was not yet her spiritual director. St. Margaret Mary is the one to whom Jesus appeared in the apparitions of the Sacred Heart, and He said to her, “These things are going to be happening to you, so you need to have a spiritual director, somebody who is going to help you through this.” He told her that He wanted her to go up the street and talk to Father Claude de la Colombiere and that he was to be her spiritual director. Well, Father Claude was no dummy. She comes trooping in and says that Jesus appeared to her and that Father Claude was supposed to be her spiritual director. He did not go for that idea too well. All you have to do is ask yourself what you would think if your next-door neighbor came over and said, “Guess what, Jesus appeared to me!” You would probably say, “Sure He did. Uh-huh.” You are going to be skeptical; at least I hope you are. St. Margaret Mary was rather insistent, and so finally after a while he said, “Fine. If Jesus appears to you again, ask Him what my last mortal sin was. If you can tell me my last mortal sin, then I will be your spiritual director.” So she went off, and sure enough Our Lord appeared to her. You can only imagine the conversation, but she got her answer and she went back to Father de la Colombiere. He asked, “Did Jesus appear to you?” “Yes, He did.” “Did you ask Him what my last mortal sin was?” “Yes, I did.” “What was His answer?” “When I asked what your last mortal sin was, Jesus looked at me and said, ‘I don’t remember.’” And so Father Claude said, “I’ll be your spiritual director.” He had confessed his sin and it was gone, so when Jesus looked at his soul, it was not there and He could say, “I don’t remember.”
