O my God, how often have I offended Thee, more perhaps than any others have done, by open want of faith, of reverence, of love, by perfidious and monstrous ingratitude. Often have I passed before Thy altars, whereon Thou dwellest in sacrament, and have shown Thee no mark of reverence! Again and again have I entered Thy churches ruffled in demeanor, my senses wandering here and there, my mind and my heart distracted, even during the holy sacrifice and the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament!
I have failed in reverence to Thy priests, considering them merely as men, without remembering that their persons are sacred, because they are elected by Thee to consecrate and to handle the Adorable Sacrament. Often, alas! I have gone to receive Thee, my Blessed Saviour, in Holy Communion, with a heart not only tepid and indifferent, but cold and frozen, without life or devotion. How often have I received Thee with a soul weighed down and contaminated by evil habits and vicious attachments, without ever seriously endeavoring to amend! Into what excess of negligence and indolence in my preparation for communion, and in my thanksgiving, have I not fallen! Many times I have communicated, but from habit, or from human respect, without drawing from it the fruit of its inestimable virtue.
Receiving so often within me the God of holiness, I ought to be a great saint, and yet I am a miserable being, loaded with imperfections and baseness, whose malice has ever impeded Thy grace. Full of shame and confusion, I acknowledge my fault, and, accusing myself before Heaven and earth, I confess that I have done evil, and have repaid with foul impiety Thy great love.