which shall be pleasing to Thee, and with full and absolute indifference to everything. COMPENDIUM. I. Concerning the punishment of sin in the angels, consider, 1. Who it is that condemned them to such punishment. It was a God of infinite Justice mercy, wisdom . . . . and sanctity. 2. Consider who those are whom He so severely punishes? They are the princes of Heaven, the assistants at his throne; the most beautiful and intelligent of created beings; in number countless; most exalted in respect of their rank. 3. Consider why it was He punished them. For one mortal sin. O God! for one sin only, ... and that their first . . . . and a sin but of thought. 4. How did he punish them? By a punishment intense in the highest degree, eternal in its duration, and involving an infinite loss. When did He punish them? At a time when there did not exist any example of former punishment to serve them as a warning. Oh, what a dreadful thing, then, must sin be! 5. What conclusion do you draw from all this? 1. That sin ought to be avoided and detested with intense hatred and detestation, because it is so offensive to God, because hell, into which the .... angels were hurled, is open to receive you also, because that God, who is so outraged by sin, still exists. . . He exists,-and woe to you if his justice should overtake you in the state of sin. 2. That as sin is so offensive to God, we should lament our past sins with most intense grief, and avoid future ones with the greatest horror. II. Concerning the sin of our First Parents, consider how they had no sooner tasted the forbidden fruit, than they were condemned to death, and exiled from the terrestial Paradise; the earth was cursed, and the stain and punishment of their sin were transmitted to their posterity. 2. Represent to yourself, as collected together, all the physical and moral evils that ever have been, that are, or that shall be in the world, and reflect that they are all the punishment of sin. 3. Behold Jesus, the Son of God, made man, suffering and dying upon a cross, and this solely to satisfy Divine Justice for the sin of man. Neither the virtues of all the saints, nor the excellences of all the heavenly spirits would have been sufficient to blot out a single sin, so that, for this purpose, no less a sacrifice was required than that the Man-God should shed the last drop of his most precious blood. Wherefore, conclude-I. That since sin is a greater evil than all the other evils in the world, we ought to endure them all rather than commit sin. II. That if no one but God alone was able to blot out sin, it must be the greatest and most abominable of all evils. III. That if God did not spare his only-begotten Son, because He made Himself a surety for man, how much more will He punish man himself, who has incurred the actual guilt of sin? LECTURE. On Sorrow and detestation for Sin. Having laid the principal foundation of our Spiritual Edifice, by establishing the obligation which we have of serving God after the manner in which He wishes to be served-that is, in that state of life, or in the state already chosen, in that office, place, condition of health, and degree of perfection to which He shall be pleased to call us, and our consequent obligation to be indifferent to all these things— having laid, I say, this foundation, we must next remove the principal impediments which lie in the way of this indifference, and which, necessarily, are also impediments to the attainment of our last end. Now, these impediments consist as well in the natural desire of honours, pleasures, riches, health, and a life of ease, as in shrinking from slights, poverty, tribulations, and a life of greater perfection. Or, to put the matter more briefly, they consist in an inordinate love of pleasures and pre-eminence, and in an undue repugnance to humiliations and troubles. To these two, as to primary sources, all the other impediments may be referred, since it is because of this undue love or hatred that we withdraw ourselves from that state of golden indifference which God requires of us, and, in doing so, sin. For, as Jesus Christ has said that "every evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit," and even that " an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit (a)," it follows that all the acts proceeding from this poisoned root of inordinate love or hatred, which withdraws us from this heavenly indifference, are sins, and are either mortal or venial, according as they remove us wholly, or in part, from our last end. II. In order, then, to wean our blind will from this hurtful appetite for honours, pleasures, and (a) Matt. vii. 17, 18. riches, and to reconduct it, by lessening our aversion to humiliation, poverty, and troubles, into the path of indifference already mentioned, which leads towards our last end, S. Ignatius proposes for our consideration the malice, the baseness, and the evil effects of sin; to the end that, by discovering the source whence so much evil flows, we may learn to fly and detest it. I have spoken of "the source from whence so much evil flows," because (I would call your most particular attention to this) whenever, in these meditations on sin, we shall be led to detest the crimes of which we are guilty, we should never fail to abominate and detest at the same time the disordered love of pre-eminence and of pleasure, and that undue aversion to humiliations and tribulations from which all sins proceed. To inspire us with a more effectual sorrow and detestation for sins, S. Ignatius endeavours-1. To paint for us in the most lively colours the malice of even a single mortal sin, and, for this purpose, proposes for our consideration the punishment inflicted on the angels and on our first parents, so that we may be in a position to form an estimate of the gravity of the offence, from the severity of the chastisement with which it was visited. And, in truth, a picture so terrible is well calculated to inspire dread into even the most hardened hearts. 2. Since what immediately affects ourselves touches us more forcibly than what has reference to others, the saint proposes for our consideration, in the next meditation, the number, the heinousness, and the malice of our personal sins, which, being thus brought home to us, cannot fail to inspire us with a most intense sorrow, excite in us a spirit of penance, and lead us to regard them with a feeling of the greatest aversion. 3. Finally, since there are some who are restrained from sin most effectually through the fear of the punishment which it entails, S. Ignatius places before us the terrible chastisements to which sinners shall be subjected in hell for all eternity. The fruit which the saint wishes us on to-day to gather from these meditations is " an intense sorrow for our sins, and an abundance of tears" (a). For, during the entire of this week (as he tells us elsewhere), "we seek for sorrow and tears for sin”: (b)— and not merely an ordinary sorrow, but such a grief as may enable us "to feel internally a detestation for our crimes," and may induce us to abhor all those allurements which lead us on to sin. Wherefore, the object which we propose to ourselves to-day, is to conceive a vehement grief, and an efficacious horror of the sins which we have committed, as well as of pride and sensuality which have been their primary cause. Let this day, then, be diligently employed in endeavouring to stir up within ourselves this grief and this horror. For, as indifference to the various means by which God wishes us to attain our last end furnished matter for yesterday's Exercises; and as the object to be gained on tomorrow will be an intimate knowledge of ourselves, that we may humble and hate ourselves; so the purification of our souls, by means of a serious detestation of sin and of its causes, is the end to be kept (a) Lib. Exercit. Hebd. 1. Exercit. 2. prælud. 2. |
