The School of Love, March 7

SOME HINTS ON PRAYER, Part IV

[continued from yesterday]

...For practical purposes it may be said that an Act of Contrition consists of three parts, each of which is really a test of the sincerity of the other two. It contains

(1) an acknowledg­ment that I have done wrong,
(2) an expres­sion of regret that I have done it,
(3) a deter­mination that, because it is wrong, I will not do it again.

For that contrition to be super­natural then each of these must be referred in some way to God; hence they must be rewritten in some such words as the following:

(1) an acknowledgment that I have offended God,
(2) an expression df sorrow that I have offended Him,
(3) a determination that, be­cause this deed is an offence to Him, it shall not be done again.

It is a question of the moment when the Act of Contrition is made, not of the past or the future; I may have fallen often in the past, I may fall again in the future, but if here and now my contrition includes, sincerely, each of the three parts just mentioned, then it is true, and, what is more, in the long run it will have its effect....

[continued tomorrow]
___________
From The School of Love and Other Essays
by The Most Reverend Alban Goodier, S.J.
Burns, Oates, & Washburn, Ltd. 1918