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II.3. Delicta quis intelligit?

Summary. — Death to sin, the first fruit of baptismal grace, first aspect of Christian life. — I, Mortal sin, practical contempt of the rights and perfections of God; cause of Christ's sufferings. — I. Mortal sin destroys grace, the principle of the supernatural life. — III. It exposes the soul to the eternal privation of God. — IV. Danger of venial sins. — V. To overcome temptation by watchfulness, prayer and confidence in Jesus Christ.

APTISM, by its symbolism and the grace it produces, as St. Paul shows us, marks all our Christian life with the double character of ” death to sin” and of

"life for God”. Ita et vos existimate. It is true that Christianity is, properly speaking, a life: Veni ut vitam habeant, Our Saviour tells us; it is the Divine life which flows into each of our souls from the Humanity of Christ where it is in its fulness. But this life does not develop in us without. effort; the condition of its development is the destruction of what is opposed to it, that is to say, sin. Sin is the real obstacle that hinders the Divine life from developing and even from being maintained within us.

But perhaps you will say: Has not baptism destroyed sin in us? Certainly it blots out original sin, and when it is conferred on an adult, personal sins as well. It even remits the debt of sin, it produces in us ” death to sin”. In God’s designs, this death is definitive; we ought not again to fall into sin: Et ultra non serviamus peccato.

However, baptism has not taken away concupiscence; this source of sin remains within us; God has willed it to be so. He has willed that our free choice should be exercised in the conflict and hence reap for us, as the Council of Trent says, ’a full harvest of merits*”. This ” death of sin”, brought about in principle at baptism, becomes then for us a condition of life; we must weaken the action of concupiscence within us, as far as possible; it is at this price that the Divine life will develop in our soul and this will be in the same measure in which we renounce sin, habits of sin and all attachment to it.

One of the means of attaining this necessary destruction of sin is to hate it; one makes no compact with an enemy one hates. In order to have this hatred of sin, it is necessary to know its deep malice and infernal ugliness. But who can know the malice of sin ? To be able to fathom it, we should have to know God Himself Whom it offends; and that is why the Psalmist exclaims: ” Who can understand sins”, Delicta quis intelligit ? ?

Let us however endeavour by the light of reason and above all of revelation, to gain some idea of what sinis. Let us suppose a baptised soul that knowingly and voluntarily commits a grievous sin, that deliberately violates in a grave matter, one of the Divine commandments. What is it this soul does ? What becomes of it ? We know it displeases God; that it ranks itself among the enemies of Christ to crucify Him; finally, that it destroys the Divine life within itself. That is the work of its sin. iE

Sin, it has been said, is the enemy of God.

Sin is God’s enemy because it is the negation by the creature of the existence of God, of His truth, His sovereignty, His holiness, His goodness. This soul, of which I have been speaking, in voluntarily performing an action contrary to God’s will practically denies that God is sovereign wisdom and has the power to establish laws ; it practically denies the holiness of God and refuses to give Him the adoration due to Him; it practically denies that God is omnipotent and has the right of claiming the obedience of beings that receive their life from Him; it denies that God is supreme goodness worthy of being preferred to all that is not Himself; it puts God beneath the creature.

  1. Catechism, ch. xvi. — 2. Ps. xvi, 13.

DELICTA QUIS INTELLIGIT ? 17 /A

Non serviam: "I know Thee not, I will not serve Thee”, says this soul, repeating the words of Satan on the day of his revolt. Does it say them with the lips ? No, at least not always; perhaps it would not like to do so, but it says them in act. Sin is the practical negation of the Divine perfections ; it is the practical contempt of God’s rights : practically, if such a thing were not rendered impossible by the nature of the Divinity, this soul would work evil to the Infinite Majesty and Goodness; it would destroy God.

And was it not this that happened ? When God took to Himself a human form, did not sin slay Him.

I have already said that the Passion of Christ is the most striking revelation of God’s love, Majorem hac dilectionem nemo habet*. Neither is there a deeper revelation of the immense malice of sin. Let us for a few moments contemplate the sufferings that the Incarnate Word endured when the hour came for Him to expiate sin; we can hardly form any conjecture into what an abyss of agony and humiliation sin caused Him to descend.

Christ Jesus is God’s own and only Son. In Him His Father is well pleased; all the work of the Father is to glorify Him: Clarificavi et adhuc clarificabo”; for He is full of grace, grace superabounds in Him; He is a high priest holy and innocent”; though He is like unto us, He however knows neither sin nor imperfection. ” Which of you’, said He to the Jews, ” shall convince Me of sin®” ? ” The prince of this world (that is to say, Satan)... in Me hath not anything+”. This is so true that it is in vain His most bitter enemies, the Pharisees, searched into His life, examined His doctrine, spied upon all His actions, as hatred knows how to do, and sought to ensnare Him in His speech. They could find no pretext to condemn Him; in order to invent one, they had to have recourse to false witnesses. Jesus is purity itself, the reflection of His Father’s infinite perfections, ” the brightness of His glory’”.

And behold how the Father dealt with His Son when the moment came for Jesus to pay in our place the debt due to justice for our sins; behold how the ” Lamb of God” was Stricken when He substituted Himself for sinners. The Eter- nal Father willed with that will which nothing can resist ” to bruise Him in infirmity”: Volwit conterere eum im infirmitate. A flood of sadness, weariness, fear and languor enters even into the holy soul of Jesus till His immaculate body is bathed in a sweat of blood. He is so distressed and overwhelmed by the torrent of our iniquities that, in the repulsion felt by His sensible nature, He beseeches His Father that He may not drink the bitter chalice presented to Him: Pater mi, si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste?.. On the eve of His Passion at the Last Supper He had not spoken thus: Volo Pater, ” 1 will”, He then said to His Father, for He is His equal; but now, the sins of men which He has taken upon Himself cover Him with shame and it is as a culprit He prays: Pater, si possibile est,” Father, if it is possible...” But it is the hour of justice, the hour when the Father wills to deliver up His own Son to the power of darkness: Haec est hora vestra et potestas tenebrarum *. Betrayed by one of His apostles, abandoned by the others, denied by their chief, Christ Jesus becomes an object of mockery and outrage in the hands of valets. Behold Him, the Almighty God, struck with blows, His adorable Face, which is the joy of the Saints, covered with spittle. He is scourged, a crown of thorns is pressed upon His Head, a purple mantle is flung in derision over His shoulders, a reed is placed in His hand; then the soldiers bend the knee before Him in insolent mockery. What an abyss of ignominy for one before Whom the angels tremble ! Contemplate Him, the Master of the Universe, treated as a malefactor, and an impostor, placed on a level with an infamous robber whom the rabble prefers before Him! Behold Him, outlawed, condemned, fastened to the cross between two thieves ; enduring the agony of the nails being dug in His hands and feet and the torture of thirst ! He sees the people He has laden with benefits wag their heads in scorn; He hears the malicious sarcasms of His enemies: ” He saved others, Himself He cannot save. Let Him come down from the cross and then, but only then, we will believe in Him”. Contemplate that picture of the sufferings of Christ traced long before, by the prophet Isaias: ” There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness, and we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness that we should be desirous of Him.12

Despised and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity; and His look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows; and we have thought Him as it were a leper and as one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins... The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all... He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before His shearer, and He shall not open His month... He is cut off out of the land of the living: for the wickedness of My people have I struck Him... and the Lord was pleased to bruise Him in infirmity...7”.

Is that enough ? No, not yet. Our Divine Saviour has not yet sounded the lowest depth of sorrow. O my soul, behold thy God hanging on the cross; He has no longer even the semblance of humanity, He has become ” the outcast of the people”: Ego sum vermis et non homo, opprobrium hominum et abjectio plebis?. His body is but a single wound ; His soul has melted away, as it were, under suffering — and derision. And at this moment, the Gospel tells us, Jesus cried out: ” My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me” ? Jesus is abandoned by His Father. We can never know what an abyss of suffering was this abandonment of Christ by His Father; it is an unfathomable mystery. Jesus abandoned by His Father! Yet throughout His life has not Jesus always done His Father’s will ? Has He not fulfilled the mission received by Him of manifesting the Father’s name to the world: Manifestavi nomen tuum hominibus? ? Is it not through love, — Ut cognoscat mundus quia diligo Patrem*— that He delivers Himself up? Most certainly, yes. Then wherefore, O Eternal Father, dost Thou thus strike Thy well-beloved Son? ” For the wickedness of My people”: Propter scelus populi mei percusst eum®, Christ having at this moment delivered up Himself for us, so as to give full and entire satisfaction for sin, the Father no longer sees in His Son anything except the sin which He has taken upon Himself to such a degree that this sin appears to be His own: Eum qui non noverat peccatum, pro nobis peccatum fecit®; He is” made a curse for us”:3

Factus pro nobis maledictum*; His Father abandons Him and although, at the summit of His being, Christ retains the ineffable joy of the beatific vision, this abandonment plunges His soul in such profound sorrow that it wrings from Him this cry of infinite anguish: ” My God, why hast Thou abandoned Me” ? Divine justice giving itself free course to punish the sin of all mankind has fallen like an impetuous torrent on God’s own Son: Proprio Filio suo non pepercit Deus, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit tllum ?.

If we want to know what God thinks of sin, let us look at Jesus in His Passion. When we behold God strike His Son, Whom He infinitely loves, with the death of the cross, we understand a little what sin is in God’s sight.

One who deliberately commits sin brings his share to the sorrows and outrages which fell upon Christ. He has poured more bitterness into the chalice offered to Jesus in His agony. He was with Judas to betray Him; with the soldiery to spit into His divine Face, to blindfold His eyes and strike Him; with Peter to deny Him, with Herod to turn Him into derision, with the rabble to clamour for His death, with Pilate cowardly to condemn Him by an iniquitous judgment; He was with the Pharisees to cover the dying Christ with the venom of their implacable hatred ; with the Jews to mock and overwhelm Him with sarcasm. It was he who, at the supreme moment, gave Jesus gall and vinegar to assuage His thirst... A soul who refuses to submit to the Divine law, causes the death of the only Son of God, Christ Jesus. If one day we have had the unhappiness to wilfully commit a single mortal sin, we were this soul... We can say: ” The Passion of Jesus was my work. O Jesus, nailed to the cross, You are the holy and immaculate High- Priest, the innocent and spotless Victim — and I am a sinner...” !

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Secondly, sin kills the Divine life in the soul, it severs the union that God wishes to contract with us.

I have said that God wills to communicate Himself to us in a manner surpassing the exigencies of our nature. He wills to give Himself to us, not only as an object of con- templation, but as an object of union; He effects this union here below, in faith, by grace. God is love; love tends to unite itself with the beloved object; it requires that the beloved object should make one with itself. That is Divine love.4

That is also the love of Christ for us. He comes to give Himself, and to give Himself superabundantly as befits one who is God: Veni ut vitam habeant et abundantius habeant 1; He tells His disciples to ” abide” in Him: Manete in me et ego in vobis ?.

And to bring about this union, He does not count the cost; neither the humiliations of the manger, the obscurity and abasements of the hidden life, the fatigues of His public life,. nor the agony of the Cross. To perfect this union, He institutes the sacraments, He establishes the Church, He gives us His Spirit. The soul, for its part, when it contemplates all these Divine advances, tends to respond to them so as to unite itself to the Sovereign Good.

Now sin of itself forms an insuperable obstacle to this union . Why so? According to the definition of St. Thomas, sin consists of turning away from God in order to turn towards creatures: Aversio a Deo et conversio ad creaturam. Itis an act committed knowingly and wilfully, by which man turns away from God, his Creator, Redeemer, Father, Friend and Last End on account of some creature. In this act there is a choice made, most often implicitly, but always essentially. The creature towards which we turn becomes our choice for the moment as far as that depends on us — for death may fix us in this choice for all eternity.

Such then is grievous deliberate sin : it is a choice made with the eyes open. It is as if one said to God: ” My God, I know Thou dost forbid this thing, that in doing it I shall lose Thy friendship, but I shall do it just the same”. You understand at once that mortal sin is of its nature opposed to union with God; we cannot by the same act unite ourselves to someone and turn away from him. ” No servant”, says our Lord, ” can serve two masters”, Nemo servus potest duobus dominis servire®; he will hate the one, and’ love the other”. The soul that with its free will consents to

  1. Joan. x, 10. — 2. Ibid. xv, 4. — 3. Iniquitates vestrae diviserunt grievous sin, prefers creatures and its own satisfaction to God, and the law of God; union with God is completely severed and the Divine life destroyed in that soul which becomes the slave of sin, Omnis qui facit paccatum, servus est peccati?, The slave of sin cannot be the servant of God. Between Belial and Jesus, between Lucifer and Christ, there is radical and absolute incompatibility ?.5

As the source of our holiness is Christ Jesus, you will understand too that if a soul turns away from Him by mortal sin, it turns away from life: this soul that had supernatural life only by the grace of Christ, becomes, by sin, a dead branch no longer receiving the Divine sap. This is why sin that totally breaks off the union established by grace is called mortal sin. You see what an evil it is for us, an evil opposed to our true beatitude: ” He that loveth iniquity hateth his own soul”, Qui diligit iniquitatem odit animam suam®, Sin which destroys the life of grace within us renders us powerless to merit supernaturally; such a soul cannot merit anything de condigno, by strict and rigorous right, like one possessing grace, not even the grace of returning to God. If God grants contrition, it is through His mercy because He vouchsafes to stoop to His fallen creature. As you know, all the activity of a soul in a state of mortal sin is fruitless for heaven, however brilliant this activity may appear in the eyes of the world, in the natural domain; a withered branch, by its own fault no longer receiving the Divine sap of grace, the soul that remains in this state is likened by Christ Jesus Himself to dead wood, good for nothing but to be cast into the fire to be burnt: In ignem mittent, et ardet*.

II

I have said that Christ ever intercedes with His Father that grace may abound in His disciples: Semper vivens ad interpellandum pro nobis®. But the soul that abides in sin no longer belongs to Christ, but to the devil. Satan takes the place of Christ in this soul. Placing himself in opposi- ‘tion to Christ, the devil becomes the accuser of this soul ‘before God; day and night he claims it as his own: Accu- sator fratrum nostrorum qui accusabat illos ante conspectum Dei nostri die ac nocte?.6

And suppose death surprises the soul in this state. Our Lord Himself has warned us that He will come ” as a thief and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come to thee *”. The state of aversion to God then becomes unchangeable; the depraved disposition of the will, fixed in its term, is no longer subject to change; the soul can no longer return to the ultimate good from which it is for ever separated °. Eternity does but ratify and confirm the state of supernatural death freely chosen by the soul in turning away from God. It is no longer the time of probation and mercy; it is the hour of finality and justice: Deus ulttonum Dominus *.

And this justice is terrible, because with a mighty hand God will then avenge His rights up to now voluntarily ignored and obstinately despised, in spite of so many Divine advances and appeals: Quia fortis ultor Dominus °.

Christ Jesus has willed, for the good of our souls, to reveal this truth to us: God knows all things in their depth and essence, and hence judges them infallibly with infinite exactitude, without an atom of exaggeration being mingled with His judgments: Pondus et statera judicia Domint ®, for He judges all without passion: Cum tranquillitate judicas . God is Eternal Wisdom, regulating all things with weight and measure; He is supreme Goodness; He has accepted the abundant satisfaction given by Jesus upon the cross for the crimes of the world. And yet, when the hour of eternity strikes, God pursues sin with His hatred into endless torment, into the outer darkness where, according to our blessed’ Saviour’s own words, there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth®; into this gehenna where the fire is not extinguished !°; where Christ showed the wicked rich man with the hardened heart beseeching the one who had once been the poor Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and come and place it on his burning lips, for he was

  1. Apoc. xu, 10. — 2. Ibid. m, 3. — 3. S. Thom. IV. Sentent. L, q. U, a. 1, q. I. — 4. Ps. XI, 1. — 5. Jerem. 11, 56. — 6. Prov. XvI, 11. — 7. Sap. xu, 18, — 8. This word " hatred " does not mean a sentiment existent in God, but the moral result produced by the presence of God in the creature for ever fixed in the state of sin and of rebellion against the divine law ; God’s hatred is the exercise of His justice. It is the consequence of the eternal laws following their free course.— 9.Matth. XXII, 13. — 10. Marc. Ix, 43.

Christ, the life of the soul.

“tormented in this fame”. Such is the greatness of the horror with which God, Whose sanctity and sovereignty are infinite, regards the deliberate and obstinate ’ no” responded by the creature to His commands: Jbunt in supplicium aeternum 2; this soul, Jesus Himself says, will go into everlasting punishment.

' Certainly this pain of inextinguishable fire is terrible; but what is it compared to the pain of being for ever deprived of God and of Christ ? What is it to feel oneself eternally

' {drawn with all the natural energy of one’s being towards the enjoyment of God, and to see oneself eternally thrust back ? The essence of hell is this inextinguishable thirst for God which tortures the soul created by Him, for Him. Here below, it is possible for the sinner to avert his thoughts from God by occupying himself with creatures, but, once entered into eternity, he finds himself alone with God. And it is to lose Him for ever. Only those who know what the love of God is can understand what it is to lose the Infinite. To hunger and thirst for infinite beatitude, and never to possess

Gee Discedite a me, maledicti: "Depart from Me, ye cursed ?”, says the Lord: ” I know you not”: Nescio vos *. I called you to share My glory and beatitude; I wished to fill you with all ” spiritual blessings *” ; therefore I gave you My Son and filled Him with the fulness of grace that it might overflow upon you; He was the Way destined to lead you to Truth and Life; He accepted to die for you, He gave you His merits and satisfactions; He gave you the Church, He gave you His Spirit; with Him, what have I not given you, so that you might one day take part in the eternal banquet which I have prepared for the glory of this well-beloved Son ? You have had years to make yourself ready for it and you would not; you insolently despised My merciful advances, you rejected light and life; now the time has gone by; depart from Me, ye cursed, I know you not, for you do not bear the likeness of My Son. There is only place in My kingdom for His brethren who, by grace, are like unto Him. Depart to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels ; because you chose sin, “you are of your father the devil®” and bear his image. Nescio vos. What torment to ee this sentence from the lips of the Eternal Father: Ye cursed, I know you not !7

Then, says Jesus, sinners will cry out in despair. They will say to the mountains: ” Fall upon us”, and to the hills : “Cover us?”; but all these damned, whom sin has for ever separated from God, are given up as a living prey to the gnawing worm of remorse which never dies, to the fire which is never extinguished, to the fury of demons, to the bitterest and saddest despair. Despite themselves, they are unwillingly bound to repeat those words of Scripture of which, in the light of eternity, they grasp the full intent so terrible for them: Justus es, Domine, et rectum judicium tuum *; vera et justa judicia tua, justificata in semetipsa®. ” Thou art just, O Lord ; and Thy judgment is right; the judgments of the Lord are true, justified in themselves”. The condemnation which everlastingly weighs upon us is our own work, the result of our will: Ergo erravimus *.

What an evil is that which, destroying Divine life in the soul, threatens it with so great a punishment !...If even once only,we have committed a deliberate mortal sin, we have deserved to be fixed in our choice for all eternity, and ought to say to God: It is Thy mercy that hast saved me, Misericordiae Domini quia non sumus consumptt®.

Sin is the enemy of God, and it is because God is holy that He thus condemns sin for all eternity. If we truly loved God, we should feel as God does towards sin: Qui diligitis Dominum, odite malum®. It is written of our Lord: ” Thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity’?”. Let us ask Him, especially when praying at the foot of the crucifix, to make us share in this hatred of the one true evil of our soul.

Far be it from me to wish to establish our spiritual life on the fear of everlasting punishment. For, says St. Paul, we have not received the spirit of servile fear, the spirit of the slave who fears chastisement, but the spirit of Divine adoption.

However, do not forget that Our Lord, Whose words, as He Himself says, are principles of life for our souls &, tells us to fear not chastisement but the Almighty Who has power

Luc. xxm, 30. — 2. Ps. cxvul, 137. — 3. Ps. xviii, 10. — 4. Sap.

Vv, a. — 5. Thren. 1, 22, — 6. Ps. XCVI, 10. — 7. Ibid. chant 8. — 8. Joan. vi, 64. to cast our body and soul for ever ” into gehenna”. And note that when Our Lord makes this admonition of the fear of God to His disciples, He does so because they are His friends: Dico autem vobis AMICIS MEIS*. It is a testimony of love He gives them in thus instilling in them this salutary fear.

Holy Scripture proclaims that those are blessed who fear the Lord: Beatus vir qui timet Dominum?. Many of the sacred pages are filled with such praises. God demands of us this homage of holy fear, filial and full of reverence. There are impious men whose hatred of God touches on madness. Who was that atheist who said: ” If there be a God I will undertake to endure His hell for all eternity, rather than to bow myself down before Him” ? Madman ! who could not put his finger in the flame of a candle without immediately withdrawing it !

See too how St. Paul insisted that Christians should keep themselves from all sin. He knew the incomparable riches of God’s mercy to us in Christ Jesus, Dives in misericordia *; none has celebrated them better than he nor with more force and holy enthusiasm; none has known like him, how to place in contrast with our weakness the triumph of the grace of Jesus; again, none has known like him how to inspire such confidence in the superabundance of Christ’s merits and satisfactions; and yet he says ” it is a fearful thing ” for the soul after having obstinately resisted the Divine law, ” to fall into the hands of the living God+ ”.

O Father in Heaven, deliver us from evil !...

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But you will say, why do you speak thus ? Have we not a horror of sin? Have we not the sweet confidence of never having been in this state of aversion towards God ?

This is true; and, since your conscience bears you this inward testimony, return abundant thanksgiving to the Father ” Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love'”, ” Who hath made us... partakers of the lot of the Saints in light *”. Rejoice also in that Jesus ” hath delivered

Ts LUG. Xi; 4. 2. PS) Cxi; ..-—"3h Ephess 1)94.-— 4, Hebr: x, 3T- — 5. Col. 1, 13. — 6. Ibid. 12-15. us from the wrath to come”; for, says St. Paul, we are already ” saved by hope?”; we even now hold the pledge of eternal life ®.

However, whilst awaiting to hear the words of Jesus: ” Come, ye blessed of My Father”, resound in your ears; — this happy sentence which will establish your dwelling in God for ever, remember that you bear this Divine treasure of grace in fragile vessels. Our Lord Himself tells us to watch and pray, for ” the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak*”. There are not only mortal falls; there is also — and I touch here on a very important point — the danger of venial sins.

It is true that venial sins, even when repeated, do not of themselves prevent radical and essential union with God; they, however, diminish the fervour of this union because they are the beginnings of aversion to God proceeding from taking pleasure in creatures, from the weakness of the will, and from relaxing in the intensity of our love for God.

In this matter, we must make a necessary distinction. There are certain venial faults which escape us by surprise, which often result from our temperament, faults that we regret and seek to avoid; these are miseries which in nowise prevent the soul from attaining a high degree of divine union ; they are effaced by acts of charity, by a good communion °; moreover they keep us humble.

But what must be greatly dreaded are venial faults which have become habits or are fully deliberate: they are a real peril for the soul; they are too often a step towards a complete severance from God. When a soul is in the habit of responding with a deliberate "no” to God’s will (in a small matter since it is question of venial sins), it cannot expect to remain long united to God. Why so? Because these faults, committed with cool deliberation, pass to a state of habit unstriven against, without the soul’s feeling any remorse, and this necessarily results in diminution of

  1. Exspectare Filium ejus in caelis... Jesum qui eripuit nos ab ira ventura. !. Thess. 1, 10. — 2. Rom. vim, 24. — 3. Ibid. 1. — 4. Matth. XXVI, 41. — 5. "It cannot be doubted that the Eucharist remits and forgives the slight sins which are usually called venial. All that the soul led away by the ardour of concupiscence has lost of the life of grace by committing slight faults, the sacrament restores by effacing these little faults... However, this only applies to the sins for which the soul has no longer any attraction”. Catechism of the Council of Trent, c. Xx, 1. supernatural docility, of watchfulness and strength to resist temptation’. Experience shows that, from a succession of wilful negligences in small things, we glide imperceptibly, but nearly always fatally, into grave faults ?.

I will go even further. Let us suppose a soul that sincerely sceks God in all things, that truly loves Him and yet that happens, through weakness, to consent voluntarily to grievous sin. That does occur sometimes. In the world of souls there are abysses of frailty. For this soul such a fall is an immense misfortune, for divine union is severed ; but this grave sin, being of a passing nature, is much less dangerous and above all less fatal for this soul than venial faults of habit or of full deliberation are for another. Why is this? The first soul is humbled, rises again, and finds in the remembrance of the sin it has committed an excellent. motive for remaining in a state of humility, and a powerful incentive to a more generous love and a greater faithfulness than ever *. While, with the other, the venial faults frequently consented to without remorse, place it in a state in which the supernatural action of God is constantly being thwarted. Such a soul can in no way aspire to a high degree of union with God; on the contrary, the divine action becomes ever weaker within it ; the Holy Spirit is silent ; and this soul will almost infallibly fall before long into more grievous sin. Doubtless, like the former, it will at once seek to enter again into God’s grace; but this is not so much from the love of God as from fear of punishment; then the remembrance of its sin will not be for it, as for the first, the point of departure for newly rising again towards God; as

  1. We do not say a diminution of grace itself; that would wrongly imply that grace would come to an end by disappearing with the ever increasing number of venial sins ; but a diminution of the fervour of our charity. This diminution might however produce such supernatural torpor in the soul that it would be disarmed in presence of a grave temptation and succumb to the evil. — 2. S. Thom. I-II, q. Lxxxvm, a. 3. Utrum peccatum veniale sit dispositio ad mortale. — 3." The Saints of the Lord”, writes St. Ambrose, in giving the example of David, ” burn with impatience to overcome in the spiritual combat and reach the goal of salvation. If, led away by the weakness of their nature more than by the wish to sin, it happens to them as it does to all men, to have a fall, they rise up again more eager for the race, and, under the spur of shame, undertake still greater combats. Far then from having been an obstacle for them, their fall may be considered as an incentive to increase their speed." De apologia David, L. 1, c. 2. this soul has not within it any intensity of love, its supernatural life will continue to be mediocre, ever exposed to the least shaft of the enemy and to fresh falls. There is no certainty of salvation, still less of perfection for such a soul that constantly puts obstacles in the way of the Divine action and makes no serious efforts to leave this state of tepidity 1.

It might happen, from weakness, impulse, or surprise, that we fall into a grave sin; but, at least, never let us deliberately say, even if only by action: ” Lord, I know that such a thing, however slight it may be in itself, displeases Thee; but I will to do it”. As soon as God asks anything of us, whatever it is, even if it should be our heart’s blood, we must say: ” Yes, Lord, here I am”. If not we shall stand still in the way of divine union, and to stand still is often to recede; it is nearly always to expose ourselves to grievous falls.

V

These habits of deliberate sin, even simply venial, are not formed all at once, but, as you know, only little by little. ” Therefore, watch ye and pray”, as Our Lord says, ” that ye enter not into temptation ?”.

Temptation is inevitable. We are surrounded by enemies; the devil ” goeth about seeking whom he may devour?”, the world envelops us with its corrupting seductions. or with its spirit, so much opposed to the supernatural life. This is why it is not in our power to avoid all temptation ; it is often even independent of our will. Certainly, it is a trial, a very painful one sometimes, especially when accompanied by spiritual darkness. We are then inclined to call happy those only who are never tempted. But God, on the contrary, declares by the sacred scribe that those who support temptation without exposing themselves to it are “blessed” : Beatus vir qui suffert tentationem*. Why is this ? Because, says Our Lord,” when he hath been proved, he shall receive the crown of life”. Never let us be discouraged then on account of the frequency or extent of temptation; let us, of course, watch with the greatest care

  1. Licet frigidus sit pejor tepido, tamen pejor est status tepidi : quia tepidus est in majori periculo ruendi sine spe resurgendi. Cornel. a Lapide, In Apoc. 11, 16.—2. Matth. xxvi, 41.— 3. Petr. v, 8.— 4. Jac.1,12. over the treasure of grace, and avoid dangerous occasions ; but let us always keep full of confidence. Temptation, however violent and prolonged it may be, is not a sin; its turbid waters may ” come in unto the soul”, /ntraveruni aquae usque ad animam meam*; but we may be assured as long as the fine point of the soul, which is the will, rises above them: it is this point alone, Apex mentis, which God regards.

Moreover, St. Paul tells us, ” God will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able; but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it 7”. The great Apostle is Himself an example of this. He tells us that lest he should exalt himself on account of his revelations, God placed what he called a thorn in his flesh, a figure of temptation; ” there was given me... an angel of Satan, to buffet me*”. ” Thrice”, he says, ” I besought the Lord, that it might depart from me. And He said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee: for power is made perfect in infirmity ’” — that is to say in making it triumph by God’s grace.

It is indeed Divine grace that helps us to surmount temptation, but we have to ask for it: Et orate. In the prayer Christ taught us, He makes us beseech our Father in Heaven ” lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. Since Jesus has willed to place this prayer upon our lips, let us often repeat it whilst relying on the merits of Our Saviour’s Passion.

Nothing is more efficacious against temptation than the remembrance of the Cross of Jesus. What did Christ come to do here below if not to ” destroy the works of the devil *”. And how has He destroyed them, how has He ” cast out °” the devil, as He Himself says, ” if not by His death upon the Cross ? During His mortal life, Our Lord cast out devils from the bodies of the possessed; He cast them out also from souls, when He forgave the sins of Magdalen, of the paralytic man and of so many others; but it is above all, as you know, by His blessed Passion that He overthrew the dominion of the devil. At the precise moment when, in bringing about the death of Jesus at the hands of the Jews, the devil hoped to triumph for ever, he himself received the death-blow. For Christ’s death destroyed sin, and gave as a right to all who are baptised, the grace of dying to sin.8

Let us then lean by faith upon the cross of Christ Jesus : its virtue is not exhausted and, as children of God, our baptism gives us the right to do so. In baptism we were marked with the seal of the cross, we became members of Christ, enlightened by His light, and partakers of His life and of the salvation He brings to us. Hence, united to Him, whom shall we fear ? Dominus illuminatio mea et salus mea; quem timebo? Let us say to ourselves: ” He hath given His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone... A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand but it (the devil) shall not come nigh thee... Because he hoped in me (says the Lord) I will deliver him: I will protect him because he hath known my name. He shall cry to me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorifyhim. I will fill him with length of days, and I will show him my salvation?”.

Let us therefore beseech Christ to be our support in the struggle against the devil, against the world, the devil’s accomplice, and against the concupiscence that is within us. Like the apostles, beaten about by the tempest, let us cry out to Him: ” Lord, save us, we perish”; and putting forth His hand, Christ will save us*. Like Christ who willed to be tempted so as to set us an example and merit for us the grace to resist — although on account of His Divinity, this temptation was purely exterior — let us force Satan to withdraw, saying to him as soon as he presents himself: There is only one God, Whom I adore and serve. On the day of my baptism I chose Christ, Him alone will I hear +.

With Christ Jesus, our Head, we shall overcome the powers of darkness. Christ is in us since our baptism; and,

  1. Ps. xxvi, 1. — 2. Ibid. xc, 11-12 ; 7 3 14-16, — 3. Matth. vill, 25. — 4. St. Gregory Nazianzen willed that every baptised person should repulse Satan in these terms full of sublime assurance: " Strong in the sign of the cross with which thou hast been marked, say to him (the devil) : I also have been made in the image of God and I have not been like thee cast down from heaven on account of my pride. I have put on Christ ; by baptism, Christ has become mine own. It is for thee to bend the knee before me.” S. Greg. Nazian. Orat. 40 in sanct. baptismate, C. 10. says St. John ” greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world?”, that is to say than Satan. The devil did not overcome Christ. ” The prince of this world cometh and in Me he hath not anything?”, says Jesus. Hence he will not be able to vanquish us or ever make us fall into sin, if, watchful over ourselves, we remain united to Jesus and rely upon His words and His merits: Comnfidite, ego vici mundum*. A soul that strives to remain united to Christ by faith is above its passions, above the world and the devils; all can rise up and around it; Christ will hold it, by His Divine strength, above all assaults.

Christ is called in the Apocalypse, ” the lion of the tribe of Juda‘*”, and again it is said of Him: ” He went forth conquering that He might conquer®”, because, by His victory, He has gained for His followers the power to conquer in their turn. That is why, after having reminded us that death, the fruit of sin, has been destroyed by Christ Jesus Who has brought us immortality, St. Paul exclaims : ” Thanks be to God Who has given us the victory (over the devil, the father of sin; victory over sin, the source of death ; victory, in fine, over death itself) through our Lord Jesus Christ”: Stimulus mortis peccatum est... Deo autem gratias qui dedit nobis victoriam — per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum ®.

  1. I Joan. 1v, 4. — 2. Joan. xiv, 30. — 3. Ibid. xvi, 33. — 4. Apoc. Vv, 5. — 5. Ibid. vi, 2. — 6. I Cor. xv, 56-57.

Footnotes

    1. Isa. Lu, 10. — 2. Luc. XXII, 42.
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    1. Joan. xv, 13. — 2. Ibid. xu, 28.— 3. Ibid. vim, 46. — 4. Ibid. xiv, 30. — 5. Hebr. 1, 3.
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    1. Isa. Lim, 2, 59. — 2. Ps. XxI, 7. — 3. Joan. xvu, 6. — 4. Ibid. XIV, 31. — 5. Isa. tau, 8. — 6. II Cor. v, 21. :
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    1. Gal. m1, 13. — 2. Rom. vin, 32.
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  5. inter vos et Deum vestrum., Isa. LIx, 2. — 4. S. Thom. I-II, q. Lxxxvu,, ae Ay 8, UC. XVI, 136 ↩

    1. Joan. vit, 34. — 2. IL Cor. vi, 14-16. — 3. Ps. x, 6. — 4. Joan. xv, 6. — §. Hebr. vu, 25.
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    1. Luc. Xvi, 24. — 2. Matth. xxv, 46. — 3. Ibid. xxv, 41. — 4. Ibid. 12. — 5. Ephes. 1, 1-3. — 6. Joan. vu, 44, et I Joan. m, 8.
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    1. Ps. “Lxvul, 2. — 2. 1 Cor. x, 3. — 3. II Cor. xu,:17. — 4.1 Joan. mi, 8. — 5. Ibid. x11, 31.
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Chapter 11 of 21