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Plain Lessons in Catholic Doctrine - For God and Eternity

11/28/2018

"The first and most sacred duty of parents," observes the catechism, "is to bring up their children for God and for eternal life." These words point out to us the foundation on which Catholic parents must build, if they wish to give a successful education to their children. Both the religious as well as the secular education to the children must rest on this foundation. Why is it the first and most sacred duty of parents to bring up their children for God and for eternal life? First, because it is God who has given them the children, and it is God who will one day demand from them the children He has given them. Secondly, because the children, once God has called them into existence, will remain in existence forever. It is God's will that after their life in this world the children should have "eternal life" in heaven. Catholic parents above all others ought to think of these two reasons frequently; they ought to reflect on them very seriously.

Parents, it is God who has given you your children. He created them. By His almighty will He formed their bodies out of the substance of earth. He formed all the limbs, organs and senses of their bodies, their hands and feet, their hearts and brains, their eyes and ears. He breathed into their bodies an immortal soul. Every parent must admit the truth of what the Machabean mother said to her sons: "I know not how you were formed; for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life; neither did I frame the limbs of every one of you. But the Creator of the world, who formed the nativity of man, and who found out the origin of all, He will restore to you again in His mercy both breath and life, as now you despise yourselves for the sake of His laws." (II. Mach 7, 22-23).

Your children are therefore God's property, not yours. He has merely loaned them to you; and it is His will that you should educate them in such a way that, when He calls them back out of this world, He may keep them with Him in heaven forever. Yes, the time will come when God will demand His property - your children - back from you.

One or the other of your children may go into eternity before you, others of them may follow you. In either case, when you yourselves appear before God after death to be judged, He will ask you the question: "What have you done with My property, the children I gave you?" How will you feel and what will you say, if even one of your children through your fault is excluded by the justice of God from the unspeakable joys of eternal life in heaven?

Educating the children for a successful career in this world is not the most important part of the task that parents have to fulfill. Some parents think it is; at least they act as if they believed that to be their first duty. If God had created man to live forever in this world, then it might be all right for parents to educate their children in such a way that they will be able to enjoy the greatest possible earthly happiness during their never-ending life. But God created man that he might live only a short while here on earth. At the appointed time death comes and takes man out of this world beyond the confines of the grave. There man shall live forever, and it is God's will that the secular education of the children be not neglected; but it is also His will that the religious education of the children be given the preference as being absolutely necessary, and therefore vastly more important than the other.

How true, then, are the words of the catechism: "The first and most sacred duty of parents is to bring up their children for God and eternal life!"

Source: The BeeHive by the Rev. A.M. Grussi, December 18, 1910

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6th Sunday after Epiphany - The Establishment of the Church

11/18/2018

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THE grain of mustard seed, of which Jesus speaks today in the Gospel, which is the smallest of all . . . seeds and in time becomes one of the largest plants, is the natural emblem of the feeble beginning and the rapid progress of Christianity. This association of extreme weakness and all-powerful strength in religion is the most striking proof of its divinity. You will comprehend it, if you consider, on the one hand, the obstacles which were opposed to the establishment of Christianity, and, on the other, the seeming weak means which have surmounted every opposition.

First Point — The obstacles which opposed the establishment of religion came from within herself and from the world without. She had against her the obscurity of her dogmas. In fact, she labored to obtain from pagan peoples the abandonment and the sacrifice of all their beliefs, and also to ask them to adopt mysteries which were wholly inexplicable to reason — the mystery of but one God the Creator, and in this only God three persons who participate in the divinity without dividing it, and a unity of nature in a trinity of persons. With this mystery of the Trinity there was another still more incomprehensible, viz., a God made man. To these two great mysteries join the dogma of original sin and all the truths associated with and dependent on it — the human race, whole and entire, tainted by the fault of only one person! even children stained in the wombs of their mothers; a virgin who gives birth and yet without ceasing to be a virgin; a God who dies on a cross, and this first sacrifice to be renewed on our altars from age to age; priests clothed with the power of pardoning sins; and, what is more prodigious still, these priests at the altar distributing to the faithful their God, who after re- deeming them nourishes them with His substance! Behold some of the truths which the apostles preached. What man could have dared to invent such a doctrine? What men would have been so senseless as to preach it, or to believe it, if it had no other support than the mere word of a man? Religion had against her the severity of her morality. There was in her teachings no sweet or con- venient philosophy which smiled on the passions, which promised festivals, or invited her followers to joys and pleasures. No; it is a religion of detachment, abnegation, and penance; her precepts and especially her maxims are fearful to nature. You can form some idea of the opposition that religion must contend against in the world, if you recall the strange words by which the Son of man begins His moral code. "Blessed are they" — but who are they? The rich or the powerful ones of the world?" Hitherto this was the universal belief, but it was an error which the world loved to believe. But Jesus exclaimed: "Blessed are they who mourn! "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake" He had already said: ''He who wishes to come after Me must deny himself; he must take up his cross daily and follow Me." These maxims and these precepts were far from being attractive, it must be admitted, especially for men who were habituated to the sensuality and luxury which the pagan religion authorized. These teachings were, therefore, a second obstacle — humanly speaking, insurmountable — to the enterprise of the apostles. To these obstacles add the prejudices which the Christian religion must at once develop. It was a new religion; it had just been born; and the dis- graceful punishment of its Author had already attached to it a character of ignominy and disgrace. A religion which attacked every prejudice, every habit, and every popular belief must necessarily have against her the natural repugnances, the force of inclination, the tyranny of habit, the impressions of education and of custom. Humanly speaking, contempt and public ridicule should welcome these twelve miserable fishermen, preaching a God crucified and imploring the homages of a pagan world for a man attached to an infamous gibbet.

Second Point. — You have just seen the obstacles which arose for the apostles from the very nature of their enterprise. Consider the obstacles which they were obliged to overcome from the world with- out. The epoch when they received their mission to found a new religion precisely coincided with the age of Augustus, — this famous age, which suggests to our mind the idea of exalted tastes, talents, and genius; an age rich in great orators, philosophers, poets, and historians; but, let us add, the age of corruption as well as of science. It was to such men, who were vain of their knowledge, that the apostles came to preach a doctrine whose dogmas appeared shocking to reason. It was to these men, plunged in delicacy and luxury, that they came to prescribe rules of conduct which wounded the most imperious desires of their hearts. But these obstacles, however great they may be, are nothing compared with the efforts which the whole world made to hinder the establishment of Christianity. And what do we see at the birth of the Church? Hell unchained raises against her all the powers of earth. Philosophers and a multitude of sophists, spread out in the East and the West, join their talents and their lights to arrest the progress of Christianity. They pervert its dogmas, revile its mysteries, and ridicule its worship. Celsus, Porphyrus, and Julian compose lampoons, in which they display all the resources of their genius, to uphold idolatry and to decry the new religion. To the perfidy of reasoning and of calumny the bloodiest persecutions are added. The people arise as one man against the faithful; the cities reject them from their walls; while the provinces arm themselves with the firm intent of extermination. Nor is this enough: legal persecution is organized, public force is opposed as a huge barrier to the progress of Christianity. The emperors, by their edicts, point out what must be the vigilance and cruelty of the magistrates. Persecution becomes general in the whole empire; everywhere the Christians are pursued as public enemies; neither the bosom of their families, nor the crevices of the rocks, nor the solitude of the deserts shall shield them from the rigor of the laws. When the ordinary punishments did not suffice, new torments were invented or the old ones were renewed, which are enough to make one shudder. Neither rank, age, sex, virtue, services rendered to the country, in fact nothing could pardon the crime of being a Christian. The persecution organized against the disciples of Christ was not a persecution of some days, or some years, but it was by ages that we must count the persecutions of the Church. We cannot follow it during three hundred years except by the traces of blood which was shed and by the light of the funeral piles kindled against her. These are the obstacles which Christianity was obliged to overcome even at her very birth. Now that you know both the project of the apostles and the obstacles which opposed them in their enterprise, strive to see if success were possible in the ordinary course of things. On the one hand, there is a religion, sweet, pompous, and agreeable, which is believed to have been established by the gods and which is considered as ancient as the world; on the other hand, a religion severe, mysterious, and wholly new. In the first were the sages, the philosophers, the armies, and the entire universe; in the second there were some ignorant men, without defense, without support, without assistance; on one side there were authority, inhumanity, fury; on the other there were weakness, patience, and death. On what side must victory come? Which one must win? Evidently the palm belongs to idolatry. But no; the emperors from their high thrones ordain that the gods must be adored. But the gods are despised. Twelve Galileans summon the universe to the feet of their crucified Master; and the world hastens to obey them, in spite of tortures, scaffolds, and funeral piles. Can you not see here the finger of God? It is visible to all eyes ; and if this submission of the human race has not been secured by the force of miracles, the conversion of the world would be more strange and astonishing than all miracles.

O my God, how I love to reflect on those prodigies which prove the divinity of the Church; my faith in them becomes livelier and more profound; may my love for them become more ardent and more generous.

Source: Short Instructions for Every Sunday of the Year and the Principal Feasts, Imprimatur 1897

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4th Sunday after Epiphany - The Tempest Appeased by Jesus

11/4/2018

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Easter being variable, the number of Sundays from Pentecost to the First Sunday of Advent is, of course, variable also; but there cannot be less than twenty-three, nor more than twenty-eight. The Mass for the Last Sunday after Pentecost is always said on the Sunday preceding Advent. If there are more than twenty-four Sundays after Pentecost, the Introit, Gradual, and Communion of the 23rd Sunday are repeated on all the remaining Sundays. But the Prayers, the Epistle and Gospel are taken from the Masses of the Sundays omitted after the Epiphany. If there are 27 Sundays after Pentecost Holy Mother Church directs us to say the prayers, Epistle and Gospel for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany today.

THE sea on which the apostles embarked is the image of the world, — the sea strewn with . . . dangers and countless shipwrecks. The ship which carries them is the figure of your soul in its journey towards eternity. The tempest which threatens to submerge them represents the temptations of every kind, which embarrass us on our way to heaven.

FIRST POINT. - Every one experiences these temptations, the child and the young man, the full- grown man, and the aged; the Trappist in his solitude, as well as the worldly man in the midst of his festivities. The most scrupulous and exact piety is not even a safeguard from their attacks. Did not temptations come to those who were in closest companionship with Christ? Be careful, therefore, lest you believe that your love for God, your fervor in His service, your fidelity in the fulfillment of your duties shall shield you from temptations. This would be a dangerous error. On the contrary, your piety and your innocence shall be the reason for the demon to make greater efforts to bring you under his dominion. There are hearts enough who deliver themselves up as a prey to their enemy. He is assured of these, but he is desirous of choice souls like yours; to make a conquest of them he redoubles his seductive snares. Still you must not be discouraged by temptations, but see in them the consolation that you are not as yet under his dominion. St. Francis de Sales has said that the dogs do not bark after the people who belong to the house, but only after strangers; so the demon leaves in a sad peace those whom he knows belong to him, and wearies the others by his pursuits, and invents a thousand artifices to turn them away from the paths of virtue. Alas, he only succeeds too well! Just cast a glance about you: where are so many souls that were hitherto so fervent? What have become of them? They have become a prey to the demon, and now they languish far from God and from virtue, in a shameful slavery! Weep for them, and conjure our good Lord to keep you far from such misfortunes.

SECOND POINT — While the tempest raged and threatened to engulf the bark on which the apostles sailed, "Jesus slept." This sleep of Jesus is the occasion of our great temptations and the principle of all our falling; it is the symbol of the languor which conducts a soul to those negligences which she permits, the distractions in which she allows herself to be drawn — certain affections which are wholly natural and which have over her too great sway, and especially the facility to commit light faults. True, indeed, these faults do not deprive us of the presence of Jesus, but they diminish the effect of His presence; they do not destroy His grace, but they weaken and diminish it. Grave sins crucify Him in us, while light offenses cause Him to sink into a deep sleep. This sleep of Jesus in our soul is not always a crime, but it is always a misfortune. In fact, it is during His sleep that the storms arise, that the passions are awakened, that the enemy, who never sleeps, renews with greater activity all his dangerous attacks. He is too weak to conquer us when we are divinely assisted, but he awaits the moment to combat with us when we are not assisted by this heavenly aid. If, therefore, you perceive that Jesus sleeps in you, awaken Him immediately. That is to say, if you feel your fervor weakening or your heart growing cold towards God, your courage unequal to the fulfillment of your duties, promptly renew your ardor and take heart again. A soldier should not lay aside his arms when he perceives the approach of the enemy; on the contrary, then it is he should be animated by a new courage. However, be not presumptuous; and never forget that you can do nothing by yourself — your strength comes from God; ask Him for His grace most earnestly. Even as the apostles, have recourse to the divine Master, and cry to Him with a profound feeling of your weakness: ''Lord, save me, for without your aid I shall perish." Be assured, if you are faithful to invoke God in the moment of danger, if you invoke Him with confidence, the same prodigy which was wrought for the apostles shall be wrought for you; Jesus shall again command the tempest to be appeased, and tranquillity and calm shall be restored to your soul.

THIRD POINT — But when the temptation shall have passed be assured your work is not over. Either you have successfully resisted, or you have yielded. If you have been fortunate enough to have resisted, do not claim for yourself the glory of this triumph. Be careful to refer all the honor of your victory to God. Gratitude for benefits received shall gain for you new blessings and attract new graces. Moses, after his victory over the Amalekites, erected an altar on the battlefield and there offered to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. BoSwSuet praised the great Conde, the conqueror at Rocroy, for having intoned the Te Deum on the field of battle, thus recognizing that he was indebted to God for his first victory. Imitate these examples, for, since you are weak, it is impossible to triumph over the enemy by your own unaided strength. It is to the protection of the Virgin Mother and the assistance which God sends you by His angels that you are indebted for victory; why then take the glory as if it had come from yourself? If you are obliged to admit defeat, then deplore it, but be not cast down or discouraged.

Here there are two dangers to be feared: indifference and discouragement. Indifference, alas! is only too frequent. One commits sin and thinks of it no more; one is the enemy of God and remains tranquil. Should you see some loved one die you can- not restrain your tears; but your soul is dead in sin. Shall you be insensible to this spiritual death ? Be on your guard against this guilty carelessness. You have offended your God? then cast yourself on your knees and ask for pardon. Your soul is stained by sin? then do not remain in sin, but hasten to wash it away in the sacred waters of penance. Also avoid discouragement. This would be nothing less than a new outrage against God. And let us ask, What can be the motive for discouragement? You have sinned; do you think you are impeccable ? Are you stronger than Samson, holier than David, or wiser than Solomon? Whence come, therefore, your discouragement and anger? God opens His heart to you; have recourse to His mercy. Instead of being saddened or unduly discouraged, let the remembrance of your faults serve as a motive of greater humility, since you are so weak; more patience, since you have so much to expiate ; more charity, since you have so much need of indulgence. Oh, then shall your fault be a happy one, and even as God you shall draw good from evil.

O my God, how good Thou art! Thou experiencest more pity than anger at the sight of Thy children's faults. I wish hereafter to entertain for Thee a truly filial confidence. If I have the misfortune to offend Thee, I shall cast myself into Thy arms, feeling well assured that Thou wilt not reject Thy repentant child.

Source: Short Instructions for Every Sunday of the Year and the Principal Feasts, Imprimatur 1897

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All Souls Day - November 2nd - Commemoration of the Dead

11/2/2018

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TO pray and to procure prayers for the dead is at once an act of charity towards our neighbor, and an act of charity towards ourselves.

FIRST POINT — To pray for the dead is an act of charity towards our neighbor. One of the most important acts of charity is almsgiving. Now, St. Francis de Sales says that in praying for the souls in purgatory there is a true almsgiving. When you pray for these poor souls you clothe their nakedness, you furnish food for the hungry, you console the loneliness of those who are abandoned, you dry the tears of those who weep, and console the misfortune of those who are desolate; in a word, by this single act of praying for the dead you fulfil all the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. O charity for the dead, most worthy of exercising our faith and our piety ! How this excels all the other works of ordinary charity ! It has qualities which are wanting necessarily in other works of charity. It is most easy to perform, since we can always pray. It is opportune, since the need of the souls we assist is always real. It has the merit of being well placed, since we assist the elect. It has permanency, since eternal reward results from it, if by our prayer a soul in purgatory ceases to suffer because she has entered forever into the bosom of her God. But there is a more decisive consideration. It is that this almsgiving is not only a duty of charity; it is often a duty of justice. Here let us recall the past. Are there not among the souls in purgatory some parents, relatives, and friends of whom we were the occasion or the accomplices of the faults which they now expiate so rigorously? Are there not in purgatory some friends who suffer because they shared in the tepidity, the vanity, the uselessness of our life? Are there not there a father, a mother, or relatives who are deprived of the happiness of seeing God only to expiate a fatal condescension in yielding to our weaknesses, sparing our sensibilities, by refusing us, through love, a counsel, a reprimand, when religion commanded them to counsel or reprove us? Here there is no question of exercising charity towards them; it is a simple act of justice which we owe them to pray for them. We are now confronted by a great act of reparation. Let us pray, therefore, for these poor souls who are unhappy because of us. We should offer, or cause to be offered, for them the holy sacrifice of the Mass. It was for the dead that at first all the fruits of the sacrifice were applied; since Jesus, after His death, descended into Limbo, whence He delivered the just of the Old Law by applying to them the merits of the blood which He had just shed. The effects of this divine blood are still the same. When the priest, says St. John Chrysostom, offers the sacrifice of the Mass, the angels hasten near the altar; they gather in golden cups the blood of the New Alliance; they then fly towards heaven, penetrate the darkened abodes of the just souls in which they are purified; they pour out on them the precious blood, and their sufferings are lighter.

SECOND POINT — To pray for the dead is an excellent act of charity towards ourselves. Let us cast a look on our past life. How many infidelities we see; how many days, how many years, perhaps, have passed without grace or without the fervor of charity! True, indeed, we have repented; the sacramental absolution, joined to our repentance, has covered, before God, all the iniquities of the past. But if the stain no longer exists in the soul, the debt for the soul always exists; the sin no longer exists, but the obligation of punishment remains. Now, what penance have we done? Although we should give ourselves to God henceforth during our whole life, it shall be no less true that the portion of our existence which is behind that has been taken from Him. It is a void which our tears shall never fill; it is an abyss in which we shall look in vain for works of grace. It depends on ourselves to fill that void which seems irreparable. We have deprived God of a portion of our existence, then let us give to Him in exchange an other existence. We have taken from Him a portion of our soul; let us give to Him in exchange another soul; let us give Him many souls, and as many as possible. Behold how by prayer for the dead we shall repair the past. Prayer for the dead shall be useful for us in the present. When these souls shall have been delivered by our prayers, shall it be possible for them to remain indifferent to those who were here below the occasion and the instrument of their deliverance? Is not heaven the country of reward? Oh, how the delivered soul conjures God not to forget the souls who were on earth her benefactors! Oh, how in glory she intercedes and prays for us! in our temptations, what assistance! in our sorrows, what consolations! in our prayers, what help! in our agony, what support! And on the day of judgment, when we must give an account of our mission to Him who sent us to earth, what an advocate, what an intercessor we shall have prepared for ourselves by our charity! Let us therefore understand that by doing everything for the souls in purgatory we are doing everything for ourselves. And when at length it shall come our turn to quit this earth, and when it shall be necessary for us to suffer in expiation before reaching glory, how we shall rejoice at our charity today ! And then those souls unmindful of their brethren, who forget the dead, and who have in their heart neither a remembrance nor a prayer — God shall permit that they shall be forgotten, as they themselves forgot the dead. But on compassionate souls the words of the Son of God shall be accomplished: "It shall be measured for you, as you yourself have measured for others." Their memory shall be treasured in the minds of the faithful as the memory of the dead remained living in their thoughts. They shall speak their name at the holy altar when they shall have pronounced the names of those who have preceded them in glory! Ah, how they shall then rejoice that they had heard the counsels of the Church and followed them! How they shall praise those practices which were so easy and which shall have been for them so fruitful!

O my God, enkindle in my heart devotion for the dead. To pray for them is to contribute to Thy glory; it is to practice charity towards our neighbor and to labor for ourselves. May I understand it, and seize every opportunity of accomplishing a duty which is as much for the interests of my salvation as for the interests of Thy glory.

Source: Short Instructions for Every Sunday of the Year and the Principal Feasts, Imprimatur 1897

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Feast of All Saints - November 1st - Difficulties and Recompense of Sanctity

11/1/2018

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WHEN we recall the virtues which the saints have practiced, and the happiness which is now their sweet and glorious recompense, we should reflect how their examples destroy every excuse which our sloth constantly invents to exempt us from walking in their footsteps.

FIRST POINT — The first excuse which we allege to exempt us from being saints is taken from the difficulties of sanctity in itself. We are wont to make of the saints a class of beings apart, a separate race, invested with some perfections inaccessible to the rest of Christians— a sublime exception in Christianity. Nothing is more false than this idea of sanctity. We employ it, however, to be free from the care of being holy. It is a strategy of nature, it is an error employed as a pretext to indulge in sloth. Unquestionably in the lives of the saints we meet with marvelous phenomena; God honors them with a familiarity which seems sometimes to separate them from us; He allows His love to fall on them in a manner which astonishes us, and they oftentimes respond to these gifts of God by an immolation of themselves which not only terrifies but astonishes us. These are, if you wish, recompenses, privileges, and marvels of their sanctity, but it is not their sanctity itself. The saints are what we Christians are, but they are better than we are. We are ordinary Christians, while the saints are eminent Christians; we are only soldiers, they are heroes. We must admit there is in sanctity a certain degree of perfection which only heroic souls attain. But we can be saints without rising so high, and the degree of virtue necessary to be a saint, in the ordinary sense of the word, has nothing which should terrify our courage. The command which I give you, said the Lord, is not beyond you. To observe it, it is not necessary to quit the world and to bury yourself in solitude; but it is within reach of every one, and its observance demands only the simplest requirements and the most ordinary works. How many saints are happy in heaven now who have done nothing on earth which has won for them the admiration of men! St. Augustine says that God is pleased to sanctify them in the obscurity of an ordinary life. Who is the servant in the Gospel whom we see rewarded? Is it not he who has been faithful in little things? Sanctity does not consist in doing extraordinary things. No; but it consists for all in fidelity to the duties of our state and in fulfilling them for God. There is nothing in that which is so difficult. The Christian complains of the difficulty of virtue. But how can he dare to do so with the example of the saints before him. Ah, if we had the choice between apostasy and the scaffold! — if it were necessary for us to sell our goods, abandon our friends, and condemn ourselves to solitude, what should we say? Then it would be indeed difficult to be saints! And yet we should do it, since the saints have. But what sanctity demands of us is much less than all that. It is a question of loving a God who is amiability itself, and not offending a God who is our Friend, our Father, and our Saviour. What is there in that that is above and beyond our strength? The worldling complains of the difficulty of virtue. How does he who serves the world dare to say this? Ah! if there is something difficult, it is to please the world, to bow to its caprices, to submit to all its requirements. But, O my God, Thou art good to all who serve Thee; amiable Master, Thou imposest precepts which are hard in appearance; but it is only a pretext, since Thou hast hidden sweetness under an apparent severity.

SECOND POINT — Excuses drawn from exterior difficulties. Virtue meets in the world with rude and countless obstacles, it is true; but our error is to conclude from that that sanctity is impracticable for us. And, after all, what are the obstacles? They are, first, the attractions of pleasures. But is not the world for saints as well as for us? Have they not found the world as deceitful in its caresses, as contagious in its examples, as false in its maxims, and as seductive in its pleasures? We complain of the tyranny which is exercised over our hearts, the love of worldly joys, the violence which we must do to hinder such amiable seduction; but, let us ask, when was victory achieved without combat? Do you think it cost no violence to Magdalen, to St. Augustine, to St. Jerome, and countless others, to break the bonds which bound them to iniquity and attached them to the world? What, then, hinders you from breaking these bonds as they have done? There is another danger which awaits us, and one that is remarkable for the countless shipwrecks it has occasioned; it is human respect. We could scarcely believe it were not our own eyes the witnesses of it. The fear of the world has become an obstacle to virtue. The Christian who wishes to serve his God must resolve to endure the railleries of libertines and the persecutions of the world; but the saints also met human respect face to face, and with what courage they were able to trample it under their feet! St. Paul was called to preach Christ crucified; but the cross is a folly in the eyes of the Gentiles, a scandal for the Jews, and he knows all this! Still it is nothing to him; Corinth, Rome, and Athens hear him preach the gospel of salvation freely. Let them despise him and calumniate him, let the world rise against him — he regards the judgments of men as nothing. Do you think that this contempt which was shown him cost St. Paul no effort? St. Augustine had also to overcome all that is terrible in human respect. What a sensation was created in the whole city of Milan when he broke away from all his past career ! What railleries on the part of countless young libertines who were formerly his best friends ! But St. Augustine triumphed over these obstacles; and it was not this only he had to conquer, but he had to break with the most ardent passions and the most inveterate habits. This was difficult. He himself depicts for us the violence of his combats, his long irresolutions, when, rolling himself on the earth, tearing his hair, he cursed his slavery without being able to free himself from its bondage. But at last, sustained by that grace which is never wanting to us, he broke his chains and by a generous effort arose above all his weaknesses. When shall you have the happiness to triumph over yourselves?

O my God, Thou who art in the highest heavens, surrounded by the immortal choirs of the elect, Thou who hast combated with so much courage. Thou beholdest my sloth and hearest my vain excuses. What must be Thy indignation! How shall I, one day, justify the monstrous contradiction which exists between my faith and my morals? What excuse shall I allege when Thou shalt point out to me saints of my own age and condition, who, in the midst of the same obstacles which arrest me, have remained faithful in the practice of all their duties? O my God, give me the strength to take them for my models. What happiness for me if, after having imitated their virtues, I may share their felicity and their glory!

Source: Short Instructions for Every Sunday of the Year and the Principal Feasts, Imprimatur 1897

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Plain Lessons in Catholic Doctrine - For God and Eternity

6th Sunday after Epiphany - The Establishment of the Church

4th Sunday after Epiphany - The Tempest Appeased by Jesus

All Souls Day - November 2nd - Commemoration of the Dead

Feast of All Saints - November 1st - Difficulties and Recompense of Sanctity

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