Continued from yesterday...
...Confession
How can we have this real sorrow for sin?
By clearly understanding the horrible malice of sin.
Sin is a deliberate offense against God. No man will do wrong if he sees a policeman looking at him. But we know clearly that God is looking at us, and still we deliberately offend Him; we offend Him to His very face.
The fire of Purgatory is the same terrible fire as the fire of Hell. We may be kept in this awful fire for many years for a deliberate venial sin. God could never punish us too severely. He does not send us to Purgatory because He is angry with us, but because the malice of a deliberate venial sin is simply awful - mortal sin much more so.
The saints say there is nothing so terrible on this earth as a deliberate sin. Were we to see a dead body in horrible corruption, it would be nothing in comparison with even a venial sin.
Were a soul to enter Heaven with one venial sin, it would willingly give up Heaven's happiness and plunge itself into the awful fires of Purgatory to wash out that filthy stain.
St. Paul says that by our sins we crucify again and make a mockery of God.
By absolution we are pardoned, delivered from all the filth and corruption of sin.
Therefore, we must make sure to be really sorry for our sins, for not even the Precious Blood of Jesus applied to our souls will purify us unless we are sorry and firmly resolved to sin no more....
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
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