1.3 About he who could not swallow the body of Christ before he confessed himself

We should not let pass in silence over a similar situation which happened at Charlieu. There was there a young man given over to worldly vanities; as often happens to men of this age, he surrendered himself to desire. After having so given himself up for such a long time, it happened that he began to burn for a married women known to be of a bad reputation. While he had been suspected for some time by his neighbours, there was a time when he contracted such a serious illness that it made those close to him despair for his life.

While he was bedridden and death was growing near, a priest was called to attend to him, in accordance with the custom of the Church, in order to receive the confession of the dying man and to give to him the viaticumof human salvation. When the priest was there, he immediately began to encourage and exhort the man to not be ashamed to give witness to his sins and to reveal by salutary confession the infamy of which he was specifically accused. The sick man gave in and began to confess his sins with care. When it had finished and when the priest asked him again about the said transgression, the man lied and claimed that he was in no way guilty. When the priest, driven by suspicion of this man’s proven bad reputation did not cease to question him, the man declared to him, “Might I merit to receive for my salvation the body of the Lord which you have brought, since I never descended into the sin of which I am accused.

Reassured by this response the priest gave the holy communion to him with complete trust. The moment the sacrament touched his mouth, the ability to swallow was lost to the sick man. Indeed, while previously even large chunks of food had easily been swallowed and digested, this miniscule piece of the body of Christ could not even make it into his throat, let alone his stomach. When he realized this, he made every effort to swallow. After having tried a number of times, realizing that his efforts would always remain in vain and restricted by his inability even to swallow, he spat out the sacrament close to his bed. Greatly terrified by this development, he begged that the recently departed priest be brought back to him.

The priest thus returned and, seeing the sick man, as him why he had been recalled. The sick man, contrite through the action of God’s Spirit, reconfirmed that he had acted badly, that he had lied to God and that what he had previously denied was true. The priest, seeing him repent and confess with such great signs, empathized with him who had confessed himself with such a deep sorrow, he game him the ritual absolution and sought to strengthen him newly through the body of the Lord. Having received it, the sick man swallowed it with such ease that it therefore appeared truly that it had not happened by chance, but through divine intervention by which he had been denied the power to eat it earlier. After the confession of this sin and his reception of the body of Christ, he lived for a bit longer before he “slept in peace.”

This I learned not only from two or three witnesses, but the aforesaid prior of the place (now ….