always defiled. Be very careful therefore, that you do not imagine the Sacrament of Penance to consist merely in the confession of your sins and the absolution of the priest. You have rebelled against God-you have despised His law, and, unless you repent of this rebellion, and persevere in His service, God, all-merciful as He is, will not forgive your sins, though the sovereign pontiff himself were to pronounce over you a thousand times the words of absolution. Suppose a man had lived during the space of eighty years in the practice of every Christian virtue,-the purest and most perfect model of holiness; but at the end of his life were to fall into one mortal sin, and died in that sin without having true repentance; what would be his doom for all eternity? He would be forever condemned to hell. But you say, he has confessed his sins, received the holy Viaticum, Extreme Unction, and a plenary indulgence. Yes, but if you are sure that his heart was not truly repentant, that he had not true Contrition, I must persist in my assertion that his soul is in hell. For, to return to the grace of God, to regain the favor of heaven, Contrition is indispensable, and it must be interior, supernatural, sovereign and universal. Contrition must be interior, that is to say, it must exist in the soul, the heart must be truly penetrated with it. It is the heart which has sinned,—it is the heart which, by its immoderate attachment to the creature, has been the principle and the source of sin; Contrition therefore must spring from the heart, to destroy its inordinate love of the creature. It is by the heart that man strays away from God; it is the heart which is sick; the remedy therefore must be applied to, and operate upon the heart,-the heart must be bruised with sorrow,-repentance must be in the heart, to heal it of its malady and lead it back to God. To attain heaven, it is not enough to say, Lord, Lord, I am sorry for having offended Thee! If the heart speak not the word, the motion of the lips avail nothing. God pardons, but only the contrite and humble heart; God forgives, but He forgives the penitent who is converted with his whole heart, who, in the language of the prophet, "rends his heart and not his garments." Contrition must be supernatural, that is, it must be excited in us by a motion of the Holy Spirit, and founded upon motives of faith. It must come from God, and have God for its end, since it must lead us to detest sin as an offense against God. Contrition must be supernatural in its principle. It must spring from God,-God alone can produce it in our souls: hence the prophet said: “Convert us to Thee, O Lord, and we shall be converted."* You have destroyed the life of grace by mortal sin, but you can not recover it by your own strength, for Contrition is the gift of heaven. Nevertheless, yield not to despair, but be urgent in prayer; this Contrition, which is above your strength and which you can never merit, may be obtained by prayer. "Ask, and you shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you;" knock,-God will hear your sighs, and Contrition will descend into your hearts, for the Saviour has said: "Whatsoever you shall ask my heavenly Father in my name, shall be given unto you." Contrition must therefore be supernatural in its principle. It must also be supernatural in its motives; that is, it must be founded on motives which faith furnishes, and not on motives purely human and natural. Our Contrition will be supernatural in its motives, if we be truly sorry for having offended God, because faith reveals to us the enormity and heinousness of sin; or, because sin offers an injury to God and offends the best of Fathers; or, because sin makes us lose heaven; or, at least, because eternal torments are reserved for every grievous sin. These motives are supernatural, since they come from God; inspired by heaven, they have reference to God and to the things of God; and such Contrition will obtain the pardon of our sins. Alas! how many sinners are there, who repent of their sins only for human reasons,-whose Contrition springs from mere natural motives, and therefore is incapable of obtaining the forgiveness of their transgressions! A man commits a theft he is sorry for it, and even conceives a deep and most lively sorrow for his offense; but it is because he has been arrested by an officer of justice, he will be delivered to the court to be tried in a few days, and will be sentenced to hard labor in the penitentiary. A young girl has had the misfortune to yield to temptation, to commit a bad act she bitterly laments her folly,-she weeps most sincerely over her shame, but it is because her disgrace has become public. In these cases, repentance is excited only through fear of temporal * Jeremias. -- evils, it comes not from God,-it has no relation to God,-God is not taken into consideration. It is God whom you have offended, but it is not on His account that you regret having done the evil;-your Contrition is therefore only natural, and God makes no account of your sorrow; your Contrition neither blots out your sin, nor does it reconcile you to the Lord. Contrition must be sovereign, that is to say, the penitent must be more afflicted for having offended God, than for all the evils that could befall him. Sin deprives us of heaven, exposes us to hell, offends a God infinitely good,-infinitely perfect; that is, sin canses the greatest and most frightful of all evils. A slight evil afflicts us little,-a great evil afflicts us much. Now, sin is the greatest of all evils; it is therefore just to regret and weep more over sin than over all other evils, which, however great under other respects, are always inferior to the evil of sin. So, to obtain the pardon of our sins, we must have a sovereign sorrow,—the greatest of all sorrows-a sorrow which outweighs all other sorrows. However, you must observe, that it is not in the sensibility, but in the will, that this sovereign sorrow must have its seat; that is, it is not necessary to experience the same outward desolation which we would feel, were we stricken down with a sad calamity or a serious accident. Mortal sin is, indeed, a misfortune afflicting enough to draw tears from our eyes; and if those tears are sincere, we may say of them, with St. Peter Chrysologus: "Happy tears that flow from such a source! They bedew the earth, soften heaven, quench the fires of hell, and blot out the sentence of death pronounced against the sinner." Such was the sorrow of David, of Mary Magdalen and of St. Peter, who wept bitterly over their sins. No doubt, it would be a praiseworthy disposition to shed tears over our iniquities; but they spring from a sensibility which is not always in our power; they are therefore not necessary. But what is necessary, is, that the will be determined to undergo all kinds of temporal calamities, rather than consent again to one single mortal sin. If this good will,-this firm purpose never more to offend God springs from the heart, then, our sorrow for sin is greater than for all the evils that could befall us in this life; then, we appreciate God as he ought to be appreciated, then, we place God above all temporal things; then is our Contrition sovereign. Let us not forget that this sorrow for sin must also be universal, that is to say, it must extend to all the mortal sins which we have had the misfortune to commit. God abhors and detests, equally, every mortal sin: we must therefore do penance for all, without exception. We can not obtain our reconciliation with God, if He discovers in our heart a grievous sin for which we have neither hatred nor regret. Hence the Lord said: "Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities, and iniquity shall not be your ruin."* And St. Augustine adds: "The Lord will not have a divided heart, a heart only half converted, which abhors only some sins and remains attached to others. God requires a complete sacrifice, and demands that the Contrition of the heart should extend to all sins it is only on this condition that we can obtain our pardon and regain the grace of God." My Brethren, I have now explained to you the necessity of Contrition, its qualities, and the motives which ought to excite you to it. I beseech you, do your utmost, that the love of God may be always paramount in producing in your soul sorrow and regret for having committed sin. Repent, not only because you have offended an omnipotent God, who punishes the sinner eternally in hell, but because you have offended a God infinitely good and infinitely amiable. Endeavor to love this God for the future, who has loved you so much, and mingle with your love a profound and lively grief for having exposed yourselves to lose His grace. Ask this Contrition from your Saviour; He will not refuse you, for He came to call sinners, so that none of them might be lost, but that the kingdom of God might be the inheritance of all.—AMEN. Ezechiel, xviii: 30. SERMON LXXXI. FIRM PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT. "Go, and now sin no more."-ST. JOHN, viii: 11. TRUE contrition, which alone is capable of obtaining for us the pardon of our sins, regards both the past and the future. The penitent must have a sincere regret for having offended God, and a sovereign detestation of all the sins of which he has been guilty; he must be firmly resolved never more to offend the Lord, and carefully to avoid, in future, whatever might lead him into mortal sin and cause him to lose that grace which the divine Mercy has bestowed on him. It is on this good resolution,-on this Firm Purpose of Amendment,—that I intend speaking to you to-day. When you are in the tribunal of penance, at the feet of the minister of Jesus Christ, and he is about to pronounce the merciful words of absolution over you, you say: "O my God, I firmly purpose, by the help of Thy holy grace, never more to offend Thee, to do all that I can to atone for my sins and amend my life for the future." Such is the good resolution, the firm, unshaken purpose of amendment, which the Lord wishes to see in your hearts, before cleansing your soul of its stains and restoring you to His friendship. It is not sufficient to say: I am sorry that I have sinned, and with the aid of grace, I will endeavor to correct myself; this, I hope to accomplish. The Almighty demands that you say sincerely, absolutely, and unconditionally: I will correct my faults. You must be decided,-determined to avoid sin, despite all the charms which the world may present to your view, despite all the pleasures which flesh and blood may hold out to your gratification, despite all the snares and assaults of the devil. You must firmly resolve to resist and vigorously oppose your passions, to root out and drive from your hearts all evil inclinations and criminal habits, to break off all dangerous connections, and fly from all proximate |