Section II. The Sacraments
Young men are sometimes melancholy in spite of their youth: but no good comes of it, as it does to the old; it is the business of youth to be happy.
I. Happiness belongs to youth.
It is natural to the beginning of life, when life is a grand and cheering prospect.
Happiness is what youth gives out, from its strong body, fresh mind, new powers and affections.
Young men mostly do best when happiest.
Religion must be your chief happiness.
Sin should be your only real unhappiness.
II. The Sacraments the grandest fountain of happiness.
Their supernatural and miraculous character.
They make us happy because they make us strong against temptations, &c.
Because they make our tastes unearthly, and heavenly.
Because of the keen sense of a state of grace.
Because they make perseverance comparatively easy.
Because they make us feel God so near.
Because they simplify religion, and pack our duties up into a convenient compass.
The peculiar joyousness which the sacra ments give:
The joy of confession as sons with a father.
The joy of communion as friends with a friend.
Thus the Sacraments give a happy life prepare a happy death make even judgment happy and then hand us on to eternal happiness with God.
THE CONVEKSION OF A SOUL FROM
SIN.
I. Creation and Conversion.
Creation 1. In a moment. 2. With a word. 3. With no semblance of eifort. 4. Or of contrivance. 5. And God rested when it was done.
Conversion 1. Long. 2. By many means. 3. With look of effort. 4. And of contrivance; and 5. There is no sabbath to that work.
II. In the fortunes of empires than in conver sions 1. The arrangement is less.
The hourly interest taken is less.
The consequences are less.
The degree and manner of divine interference is less.
III. Machinery of conversion: picture a man in mortal sin: there wants
The power of the Father to be exerted on his hehalf: the wisdom of the Son and the love of the Holy Spirit all bought by the Precious Blood.
Prayers and dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the sake of the Precious Blood.
Angelic aid earned by the Precious Blood.
Knowledge of the Gospel the doctrine of the Precious Blood.
Merit of works through the Precious Blood.
Moment of contrition foreseen from eternity and disposed for the honour of the Precious Blood.
Sacraments application of the Precious Blood.
Joy of God, Mary, Angels, Saints and Holy Souls because of the Precious Blood.
Revival of merit, and reward vitality of merits being through the Precious Blood.
All through this process how marvellously hidden is the affront to the majesty of God because of the Precious Blood!
HOW TO CONFESS WELL.
I. Before confession.
To have set times,
Frequent.
Careful examination of conscience.
See if all uncharitable thoughts are cleared out.
Good act of contrition, and prayer for contrition, before approaching the sacrament.
II. Faults in confession,
Excusing oneself.
Mentioning the faults of others,
Or the names of those who have wronged us. 4*. Introducing irrelevant matter, and even worldly topics.
Telling your own good works and pious practices. Goodness of short confessions.
III. After confession.
Thank Jesus for His Precious Blood and the easiness of pardon, 2> Do your penance as soon as you can,
Renew your purposes of amendment to Almighty God,
Do not reflect on the sins you have con fessed.
Never mention to others what you have con fessed, or your penance, or the priest s advice to you, or your own resolutions.
IV. "What passes in the soul at a good confession.
The cancelling of sins,
The pardon of eternal punishment,
The entry of grace,
The recovery of lost merits.
The conferring of new grace, From this theologians draw the conclusion, that the soul of the penitent is richer after the confession, than it was before the sin.
Eternity is too short to thank Jesus for all that is done in our souls in one confession.
IV. HATEED OF SIN.
I. The knowledge on which it is based.
Of the Divine character.
Of the corruption of our own nature.
Of our own most peculiar forms of evil.
4, Of the punishments due to sin.
- Of the immense system necessary to its remission.
II. The affections which feed it.
Love of God, to make reparation.
Desire of heaven, and eternal salvation.
Fear and distrust of self.
Devotion to the Passion.
Contrition, which stands to it in the relation both of cause and effect.
III. Its results.
Worthy thoughts of God.
Corroboration of our faith.
Enlightened discernment.
Excessive delicacy, without scrupulosity of conscience.
It makes the harder parts of the spiritual life easy. IV. Its nature.
Specially Godlike*
Interior disposition of Jesus.
Habitual state of saints.
Not natural to us, but wholly supernatural.
It continues to grow, till as it were by growth it brings us into the presence of God s purity, there to be happy for ever.
It is a great robust grace that can almost do all the sanctification of our souls by itself.
PUEPOSE OF AMENDMENT IN CONFESSION.
What is confession? Is it not then most strange, and as frightful as it is strange, that there is so little improvement in the world? Let us look into ourselves, and perhaps we may find reason there for most serious alarm. Confession is not of the lips only, but with the heart. A great missionary says, that crowds of Catholics are damned, not so much because they have no opportunity of confessing on their deathbed, or from want of examination of conscience, or from want of fall and minute accusation, but from want of real purpose of amendment. Of two soldiers on the field, one may die confessed without pur pose, and be lost, the other unconfessed with contrition and purpose, and be saved. This purpose must be
I. Firm, from hatred of sin; look now at past falls; we cannot change so rapidly.
II. Universal no reserve, no infirmity kept back no use thanking God you are free from such and such sins; the question is, are you resolved to commit no more the one you are given to?
III. Efficacious explain what it is to have a right good will. If a full grown man leans on a switch and falls, whose fault is it? the propension of his body? no, his own choice of a switch. The marks of not having an efficacious purpose are
Falling immediately, and almost without effort, into the same sin.
Thinking, Oh, I will mention it in confession: whereas confession is not a tax which God takes on sin, but a remedy to prevent it in future, and heal it in the past.
Necessity. Saying I m so poor I cannot sell my things they will laugh at me.
Habits of sin, producing
Facility to fall.
Difficulty to rise.
History of the habit horror at first of sin God has still the same horror.
- Not putting into execution the means sug gested by our confessor.
Cheer those who are making a fight: Oh the price God sets on a right good will!
YI.
THE OBLIGATION OF RESTITUTION.
How consoling are the extensive powers of the keys of the Church. What a comfort that we can bring our sins under them* One thing is beyond their power, i. e., to annul the obligation of restitution, or to make us safe while we neglect it; importance therefore of getting a clear idea of this obligation. I. The nature of it:
Who incurs it? Thieves, cheats, retainers of stolen goods, accomplices, those who use unfair weights and measures, ask unjust prices, tell lies about nature of article, &c. &c.
All the alms, fasts, pilgrimages in the world, won t do instead of it.
From all vows, censures, excommunications the Church can free you, not from this.
To die without the sacraments is a great evil, but to die without restitution is a greater.
"I cannot," necessity of rigid interpretation of this.
Broken promises 1. renew and multiply sins, 2. make confessions sacrilegious. II. The manner of it:
Masses, alms, &c., will not do instead; the words of Zacheus.1
For insensible robberies, restitution may be made to the poor, &c., but not for other robbery.
You must incur whatever expense is necessary expense does not do away with the obligation.
Infamy resulting from it is no excuse, be cause you can avoid it.
in. The time of it:
The instant you can life is uncertain heirs untrustworthy.
Before confession, if possible; great grace is gained by this.
As much as you can, if not all; and what you can, at once.
Dreadful delusion of putting off till death.
Because of uncertainty of opportunity.
Because you have no right to reckon upon grace.
Because of sins multiplying meanwhile.
Because the real sacrifice is gone from it; although the obligation is discharged, yet it is in the meanest way possible.
Curse of illgotten things in a house, like possession of devils; it works for generations in weak health madness bad deaths horrid accidents.
THE NATURE OF SCANDAL.
I. We know who the devils are, and what their office is; we cannot think of it without shud dering. Suppose we heard that there was a secret cluh among our fellow-men, who had met the devils by midnight, and had made a league with them against us, what would our view of these men he? With what horror we should avoid them! Suppose further that they took so much of the devil s work upon them, that the devils remained almost idle in hell, or wandered about the earth looking on contentedly with no need to interfere. This is scandal.
II. Why I am going to occupy the next three or four Sunday evenings in treating of scandal. State of the mission. 1. Grace of conversion. 2. Succeeding time of temptation. 3. Giddiness of young women. 4. Shamelessness of young men. 5. Indifference of parents ahout their families. 6. Carelessness about setting good example. The chief guilt lies on young men, and on their parents. The account I have to give hence my2 duty and real love of plain speaking. My determination to take every step to destroy scandals. Wish not to be forced to refuse the sacraments: beg all to come on Sunday evenings, and lay to heart this important subject.
III. Definition of scandal examples of it are
- Setting bad example. 2. Light conduct on the part of young women. 3. Wicked language among young men. 4. Neglect of exercising parental authority. 5. Protestant schools. 6. Admitting immoral company into the house: what such a house becomes a part of hell the opposite of what a Catholic Church is a factory of the devil; the angels regard it with horror the death beds of its inmates.
IV. Characteristics of scandal.
The ease of it, and its irretrievableness; pray that the overflowing of all your scandals may be stopped.
The swiftness of its spread.
The power of one scandalous person: e. g. Henry VIII. depriving a whole nation for hundreds of years of Sacraments, and the Blood of Jesus.
The difficulty of reparation.
V. Sins of youth: difficulty of keeping young persons religious. Obligations of parents what it is to communicate in other men s sins parents before the judgment seat. Horror if we knew that one was now in hell, whose damnation we had caused how his groans 5 would fight against us with God day and night, summer and winter, Sunday and weekday the opposite of the intercession of saints.
THE INJUBY IT DOES TO GOD.
Where is God? Far off? No! above us, and beneath us, and around us, and by our side! His ear is at our lips, His eye looks into ours. How wonderful is God, and how wonderful His Presence in every secret nook of land, and sea, and sky! Yet when by scandal we league with the devils against -Him, they would fain persuade us that He is far away, and that the terrors of His justice will perhaps never come nigh us. The horror of speaking and acting against one whom we believe absent, but who is secretly close to us. If when we take His name in vain, the little finger of His power were to touch us, we should fall to the ground a heap of smoking ashes. The great lesson His omnipresence teaches is that His like and dislike form the only reasonable or safe rule of action. His dislike of scandal, and the injury it does to Him.
I. His hatred of it, shewn by our Lord s calling
St. Peter Satan, and by our Blessed Lady s being espoused to St. Joseph, and by what St. Paul says of eating flesh.
II. It robs God of souls, the only thing He values. Look at Jesus on the Cross! Ah, who would rob Him of souls which it cost Him so much to buy?
III. It is greater than the sin of the Jews who crucified Jesus, as He values a soul above all His Precious Blood.
IV. The sin, quite strictly speaking, is acting the part of a devil. The awfulness of the devil s personality, carrying his hell about with him, even now in church. If you had seen St. Michael in the act of ejecting those lost spirits, and seen on the other hand the surpassing loveliness of God, would you deliberately have thrown in your lot with theirs?
V. It is worse than the devil s sin, because of the sheep s clothing. It helps the devil to do what he cannot do himself, because of his hideousness if he let himself be seen.
VI. Additional horror of sin in God s sight when the sinner gets nothing by it but the devilish pleasure of seeing Him offended, and souls lost.
VII. We cannot understand how people can come to hate God eternally, as they do in hell; yet scandal gives us a glimpse of it.
Address hardened sinners. Have you made up your minds to offend God still? Well, life seems your time, and earth your place; but God has His time and His place. Oh no word can tell, no thought conceive the heat of the fires which are there, nor the intolerableness of the anger which.
kindles them, nor the weary, weary, hopeless cruel length of that eternity through which they burn!
Address others. Think of yourselves in your mother s arms, just after baptism who would have thought you would league with devils against God? Have you done so, have you robbed Him of souls? &c. Alas! alas! yet there is hope in His Precious Blood. blessed confessional, sweet healing sacrament of penance! joyous, joyous flowing of the Precious Blood of Jesus! how it flows on and on; summer heats dry it not, and winter winds freeze it not; it needs not a Church, nor a holy place, all times and all places are its own; wheresoever there is a true priest, there it flows; it darts out at his whispered absolution, as plenteously as it darted from the side of Jesus when the spear pierced it, it leaps out as hot as the sweet and loving life of the Sacred Heart, from which it comes. blessed confessional! sweet and healing sacrament of penance! joyous, joyous flowing of my Saviour s Precious Blood! Come to it, my Brethren, come and wash yourselves in its bright red baptism, which shall wash away all spot of sin, and make you clean, and white, and innocent as when you lay just re deemed on your mother s arm, and the clear angels of our God looked on you, and loved you, and fsmiled, and prophesied good things about you 1
THE INJURY IT DOES TO THE SOULS OF OTHEES.
The value of a soul what it is its destiny the anxiety of God, the angels, the saints, and men on earth about its welfare sacraments and the like it has to leave its hody to gain it again wonderful prospect, ten thousand times more than to be king of all the world.
The injury scandal does to the souls of others.
I. It robs souls of God: what this is, and what it implies: it so far puts the soul into the condition of a damned spirit: loss of God is the worst torture of hell.
II. The sin lives, and breeds after death, while we are in hell: instances of this bad books seduction corruption of play-fellows children not corrected by parents, and not having parents example of frequentation of the sa craments.
III. Scandal shows that we value self, and the gratification of our lusts above the law of God, and the souls of others. It is hatred of our neighbours carried to a hellish excess. Can you fancy having up before you one of your neighbours, who has done you no harm, looking at all his features, scanning them over, then for your own gratification condemning him, if you could be God for five minutes, to eternal fire?
IV. Extreme and brutal cruelty of all this; what would you think of a young man who preferred to holydays and merry-makings the torture of poor animals, who loved to hear their cries, and see their poor limbs twist and writhe; what would you think if he went on to mangle and torture your little babies? with what horror would you regard him! he gluts himself with their sohs and hlood! How much more all this with souls!
V. "What pleasure can you have in damning others? do you not know that the crowd is one of hell s most terrific tortures, as expressed in our Lord s revelation to the Soeur de la Nativite 1
VI. Picture of souls complaining for vengeance before the judgment seat of God against you: a son pleading for his father s damnation, a daughter for her mother s; two young men that parted in early youth, and the wide world came between them, meet there, accuse each other, and cause each other s everlasting ruin.
Oh, how different things will look when eternity begins! How hard consciences, and blind eyes, and careless hearts, how they will be visited with the light of another world! and what men laugh at now they will weep for, aye, weep tears of agonizing fire for ever and ever!
ON THE INJURY IT DOES TO OURSELVES.
Who our guardian angel is how he loves us how sweet and tender his ministry is his feel ings, when we commit the sin of scandal. Astonishment of the holy angels in general at seeing men urging each other into the mouths of hell, and laughing while they do it.
Injury scandal does to ourselves and to our own souls.
I. The way in which it hardens our consciences, and takes away all our shame; the horror of running up an account with God without thinking of it, and almost without knowing it.
II. It sets the guardian angels and patron saints of those we scandalize against us, and also our Blessed Lady. Misery of losing any help in this hattle of life and death which we are fighting.
III. Difficulty of repentance, because of the hardness of reparation.
IV. Forgotten scandals of early youth, all noted in God s book accuse yourself of these in your next confession.
V. Deathbed, with no means of reparation.
Deathbed of Berengarius. The horrors of an affrighted deathbed.
VI. Augmentation of the pains of hell, as the sin goes on spreading wider and wider.
VII. No mention of pardon for it in Scripture, but it is spoken of as making it better for the offender to be cast into the sea. Best reparation is frequentation of Sacra ments, and good examples, pious pictures in the house, &c. &c.
God s creation of a beautiful soul its baptism all Christ does for it the splendour and sweetness of its innocence. How beautiful will be its crown and throne in heaven! a boy or girl steps in teaches it sin seduces it God is beaten Jesus worsted angels made to weep our Lady robbed the soul damned. Oh is there one here present, who has taught a boy or girl to sin? a most awful position is yours. I will not say you are not forgiven, but I am sure that if you are, it has been hardly done; and lest you should not be, Oh bewail it in confession now! and then let years roll on, and daily before God say, I perhaps have lost a soul; some one perhaps will hate God for ever in the fires of hell, and scream most dread fully in his tortures, and it is I who have sent him there! Now, my dear Brethren, my sad task is done, and when I look back on the picture of scandal which I have drawn, when I ponder its injury to God, to souls, to ourselves, when I think of the value of a soul, the Blood of Jesus, and the love of God, I shrink into myself with horror. How many of you have been the cause of souls being lost! how many of you will be lost, because of the scandals you have given, given even since Christ mas last? Come to a young man s deathbed see what it is like, look at him unable to make a confession think of the journey his impure soul is just about to take what a prospect before him! Oh hell is bright and red, and the thunder of its fires, and the acclamations of its cries and groans intolerable; and yet although there be no rest, no hope, no God, it seems but a light punishment for such a sin as scandal. My Brethren, may your Saviour Jesus Christ, your tender Mother Mary, and your own patron St. Wilfrid, be with you, and teach you so to lay to heart what you have heard, that you may carry the memory of it, and the blessing of it, up to the very minute when your soul shall sit upon your white lips, and then take its long dark flight into eternity.
Yin.
GOD S* VIEW OF OUE PAST SINS*.
Our sins are quite the most important things which have happened to us in our lives, because they have to do with our eternity, and^are now irrevocable. I. What we think of them in the retrospect.
We are amazed at their number, malice, endurance, and circumstances.
We see now, when the fit is not on us, how completely all was our own fault.
We are astonished at the multitude of neg lected graces*
We can hardly believe the patience of God, considering the outrage.
We can see nothing in ourselves meriting the grace of conversion.
II. But the question is, what is God s view of them?
He remembers them, but, lo! they are gone from His book.
He has no anger whatsoever, and they cannot influence His judgment.
He has crowns ready even for poor struggles which actually ended in falls.
He even prizes us as conquests of the Blood of His dear Son.
He is more indulgent to present imperfec tions because of past sins.
Like the saints, it seems as if He blessed us all the more for having injured Him.
He acts as if we had laid Him under an obligation in letting ourselves be converted.
III. What must be our present state, to have a right to believe all this of ourselves.
We must be truly contrite, and all that is implied in that.
We must be trying to love and serve Him for His own sake.
We must delight in humbling ourselves under His hand.
We must not let His mercies make us forget our sins.
We must rejoice, because He loves to see us rejoice.
Melancholy in a creature is a kind of injurious reflection on the Creator.
happy we! for what does it all come to? That now if we he only truly penitent, our past sins are motives for God to love us more; and for us they are the fuel with which love lights her happy cheerful fire. How beautiful is the merciful Gospel! I do not say we are to be without fear of being judged. But fear may be a happy fear, like a child s fear, and the greater I feel the weight of my passions, the more utterly and confidentially must I lean on Jesus my Saviour.
My dear Brethren, I can hardly understand what it is not to believe. I see no difficulty in the Most Holy Trinity. I exult in it. As to the Incarnation, I walk up and down in it, as a spacious garden of beautiful trees and golden sun shine, with the fragrance of flowers and song of birds. The Blessed Sacrament looks to me as plain as a clear cloudless sky in June. If I could be an infidel, it would be when I had looked over the vast boundless ocean of the patient tenderness of God; what I find it more hard to believe, that being the beast and devil which I know my self to be, I should see my God at all hours, with a smile of love and a readiness of mercy, unspeak ably, unchangeably a Father, a Friend, a Brother, Oh more, almost a Servant, whose delight in my worthless soul I can neither exhaust nor under stand.
IX. FRUITS OF A GOOD COMMUNION.
Jesus loved us to the end, not only to the end of His three- and-thirty years, hut, as it were, even to the end, the limit, of wisdom, power, and love. He left us not relics of Himself, garments and the like, hut His own Flesh to eat. Oh how awful and sublime must the Catholic religion he, when it is actually founded upon this stupendous truth, this Real Presence of Jesus.
What an important act must a good communion be! What are its fruits?
I. Foremost the increase of sanctifying grace.
II. Remission of venial sins, through the acts of love which it excites.
III. Preservation from mortal sins
By special sacramental grace*
By raising devotion.
By giving power against temptations.
By putting devils to flight.
Perhaps God keeps devout communicants oui of occasions of sin.
IV. Remission of temporal pain due* Thus, in directly every good fervent communion lessens purgatory.
V. Spiritual sweetness, which infallibly comes if we do not hinder it; it consists in a readiness and cheerfulness of the will in religious duties.
VI. Special union with Christ, the value of which we shall never fully know on this side the grave.
VII. The obtaining of glory hereafter, and life eternal.
VIII. Effects upon the body.
It diminishes the heat of concupiscence.
Excites good imaginations.
Secures the resurrection.
Consecrates our bodily limbs, as churches are consecrated.
All our Lady s communions at St. John s Mass those fifteen years. Unite yours with hers.
HARDENING OF HEART FROM SLOVENLY
COMMUNIONS.
We ought to get better as we get older, arid perhaps in some respects we do. But in others we do not. I want to point out an ugly feature in our growing older, I. It is that our hearts get harder.
Oh how much, all through life, have we put down to grace, which after all was only nature.
We get used to devotions, and feel less sensible sweetness.
We get used to eternal truths, and so are less frightened by them.
We get used to our own little sins, and so put up with them more contentedly.
So altogether we get a sort of dead, dull, professional feeling about the spiritual life, which is exceedingly mischievous.
II. Effects of this hardness of heart.
Our devotional habits sink into formalities.
What was once a holy hopeful despair about our ever attaining to perfection, has become a wisdom, a discretion, almost a consolation.
Bodily mortifications are dropped, and hours of prayer abridged.
A mitigated form of worldliness returns, but it will not be mitigated long; we must trust worldliness for that; where it comes, it comes to reign, and it will reign at last.
The result is that we look on first fervours, not as things which common sense tells us ought to have increased, but as vehemences which were never meant to last.
III. Now I will name the cause of this hardening of the heart slovenly communions.
What a communion is, and what makes it slovenly.
Very few people should have very frequent communion.
Requisites for daily communion.
Living out of the world.
Or a life of singular mortification. 8. Or a pressure of sorrows.
Or a very selfdenying almsgiving.
Or a great gift of the fear of God and of profound reverence: it was the practice of saints to intermit communions, in penance or to get reverence.
IV. Danger of communion too frequent for the life we are living it often makes all life one long broken promise.
V. Living beyond our grace is often the loss of souls.
Is it best to lessen our communions or to lift our lives? Of course to lift our lives. Well, are you prepared to try to do so? and that very notably and very bravely. If not, then I am afraid that your safety requires a less frequent communion.
XL
ON THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLIC PKIESTS OVER THEIR CONGRE GATIONS.
Called Toy God a high priest according to the order of Melchisedech: of whom we have much to say, and hard to he intelligibly uttered: hecause you are become weak to hear." Heb, v. 10,11.,
This is certainly a very wonderful thing: be cause, 1. it has always been so; 2. and in all countries; 3. when it has been departed from, punishment and curse have mostly followed; and 4. there seems no human reason ready at hand to account for it. Protestants throw it in the faces of us Catholics that our priests have so much power over us: yet surely it can be no reproach, but on the contrary it is a most wonderful thing, a kind of perpetual miracle, showing men which is the true Church, and attracting them into that true Church in a most heavenly way. St. Philip seeing the character of a priest. Character remains through eternity.
Let us enquire the causes of this influence.
I. From their being unmarried: awful solemn aspect of celibacy.
II. From their special devotion towards the poor:
priests and poor are remarkably singled out by our Lord, as the materials of His Church, and the sight of this attracts the rich as well as the poor.
III. From the confessional: lawfulness of this influence, comfort of it to penitents themselves, affectionate character of it, and its disinterested unselfish temper shown by experience and actual results: a confessor is father, teacher, physician, judge, yet judge of mercy.
IV. Supernatural. From our Lord s imparting to His priests a portion of that mysterious attractiveness of Himself mentioned in S. John x. There is something so irrespective of talent, or wealth, or power, as to be very plainly supernatural in this.
V. Supernatural. From the powers of the priest to consecrate to absolve to bless to cast out and drive away evil spirits. This power is not their own, because bad priests have it as well as good ones.
No need to prove the lawfulness of this influence, because the very causes of it show its lawfulness, and the salutary results as well: awfulness of people striving with priest. How proud then, say Protestants, must priests be! Ah! how little they know: let a priest hold up his right hand, and remember the morrow s consecration: how he will sink dow r n, and fear God, and tremble at the shadow or the name of sin, and weep like a little child at the sad thought of his own unworthiness.
XII. EXTREME UNCTION.
I. Life is a vale of tears and frequent miseries, which the Church is beautifully occupied in soothing. There is no corner of darkness into which she does not penetrate: no hiding place of the evil one, short of hell, whither she does not follow him to hinder or to heal his mischief.
II. God s Providence lovingly provides for all our trials with an affectionate minuteness: hence common sense would argue for a special sacrament in sickness.
III. Scripture argument: reality of the sacrament: outward form promise of grace institution of Christ.
IV. Effects of it.
Increase of sanctifying grace: right to special aid in temptations.
Eemission of sins. 1. Venial. 2. Mortal indirectly.
Destruction of relics of sin.
Torpor of mind.
Horror of death.
Fear as to salvation.
Low spirits.
Proneness to sin.
Belief of the body.
Sometimes cure.
Sometimes alleviation.
Neither of these to he infallibly looked for.
V. Duty of frequent prayer for a good death, and especially that we may have the last sacra ments of the Church. Ah! politics lighten not individual woes; that is the divine office of the Church: thanksgiving to God that we are Catholics.
PAET FOURTH.
Footnotes
Chapter 10 of 18