Page:Life and life-work of Mother Theodore Guerin Foundress.djvu/37

Rh allowed to receive the Bread of angels at so early an age; and it was her practice to favor the admission of children to their first holy communion as early as possible. When it was objected that they did not understand what they were doing, she replied that they would never understand, and that if they had been well instructed and the impression had been made upon their young minds that they were about to perform the greatest act of their lives, they should not be kept from the fountain of all grace and light. "Their innocence," she would say, "is their best preparation; while untainted by worldly influences they often have greater enlightenment than at a more advanced age, for sin darkens the understanding."

Mademoiselle Guérin had the good fortune of possessing in her confessor not only an enlightened director but a true friend who watched carefully over the welfare of her soul. At the time of her first communion, when she confided to him her desire to belong to God alone, the good old curé did not treat the matter lightly, as one might expect, in view of her tender years; he encouraged her to cherish this desire, and assured her that she would one day belong to God alone, if she did not take back the heart she then consecrated to Him. It was a remark that any one might make without the gift of prophecy, and we cannot say that the holy old priest was vouchsafed a glimpse into the future of his youthful penitent; but to Mademoiselle Guérin's mind her confessor's assurance carried the conviction that she was destined for a special work which would be discovered to her later. She never revealed to any one else at this time what her desires