Law in General

It is of the province of theology to consider God in all His manifestations, and among these as Supreme Legislator. He is the first law-giver, is Himself the law, and is the source whence all other laws, and their sanctity, and their binding force proceed. God is Law as being the exemplar to which all our life must be conformed. The ideas and decrees of God, which are to rule our existence, are revealed in the different laws given to us in the natural law, the moral law, the religious law, the civil law, and in the unwritten laws of progress, health, economics, commerce, and so on. Human actions and their principles, which are man's steps of progress towards his ultimate goal, are closely connected with Law. Conscience, which is our internal guide, must go hand in hand with Law, our external guide, and must be in great measure moulded by it. Our obligations, our rule of right and wrong, the accomplishment of our destiny as citizens of this world and of God's kingdom, are associated at every step with Law. We need to understand its origin, its basis, its obligatory force, its sanctions. Ask God to enlighten you to understand and to respect all law. Let the law of God in all its different forms be your delight and your meditation night and day; so that you may not be misled into following that law of the members which fights against the law of the mind, and which is a law of death. 

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Venial Sin

By the grace of God and the power of the Sacraments, we have it in our power to avoid all mortal sins, to keep ourselves continually in the state of grace, and to allow nothing to separate us from the charity of Christ. Yet we must not take pride in ourselves and believe that we are perfect; "if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John i. 8). Even the highest and the holiest of the friends of God are not perfect; with the one exception of the most blessed of women, to whom the special prerogative of sinlessness was accorded in order that the breath of evil should not approach to the Holy One of God. The saints are allowed to fall into lesser sins or imperfections, so that they may enjoy that claim to God's special tenderness which belongs to the condition of sinners. "In many things we all offend" (Jas. iii. 2). We fail in perfect vigilance, we are surprised through weakness, we are carried away by sudden impetuosity, we overlook or forget things, we grow insensible to certain small infidelities. In all this there is no serious command violated, there is no deliberate rejection of God, no worship of the creature in His place, no serious malice. Such are the things referred to by the wise man, "A just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again" (Prov. xxiv. 16). Humble yourself when you see the multitude of your sins, the imperfection in every act, the unworthiness of your service. "My iniquities have overtaken me, and I was not able to see. They are multiplied above the hairs of my head" (Ps. xxxix. 13). 

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The Penalty of Mortal Sin

"Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil" (Rom. ii. 9). Punishment necessarily accompanies sin. Sin and punishment are, outside human laws, only different aspects of the same thing. The physical law of nature is law only because its observance has good effects and its transgression evil ones. The same is the case with the moral law and also with the higher supernatural law. The divine law is not a set of arbitrary commands with arbitrary and heterogeneous penalties attached, as in human legislation; but it arises from the nature of things, it is grounded on nature the divine nature and human nature and it is given because it makes for our perfection and happiness, and is a preservative against evils. God, like the maker of a machine, knows the purpose of each creature, and its capabilities, and the conditions of its well-being. That knowledge of God communicated to us becomes the natural law, the moral law, the supernatural law, as the case may be. It cannot be other than it is. If we set aside the law, we necessarily lose the advantages inherent in the law; so the law itself avenges its violation. There is no greater folly than for man to think that he can know, better than God, the law of his construction and the right means of working out his destiny, and that he can be a law to himself. No advantage, except something utterly unreal, can follow the breaking of those rules which God declares necessary for our well-being. "Who hath resisted Him and hath had peace?" (Job ix. 4). The one secret of prosperity and remedy for all evils is the observance of the law of God. "This do and thou shalt live" (Luke x. 28). 

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The Deformity of Mortal Sin

The first deformity in mortal sin has relation to God. A thing is deformed and repellent so far as it departs fron its law of existence either in time, place, action, or qualities, or if something that belongs to its nature is deficient, its harmony with other things is destroyed. Sin destroys in us, not some superficial or temporal harmony of colour, form, sound, of organs or of health, but the most fundamental one of all, the moral and spiritual harmony of our soul with God. Sin deprives us of a necessary of life; not of some created requirement, such as food, light, repose, companionship, occupation, possessions, liberty, but of God, the sum of all goodness, the supreme uncreated perfection, the most absolute necessary of life, and actually our life. All the beauty and excellence of the soul consist in its harmony with God and participation in His perfections. Sin is opposed to all this good, and annihilates it in the soul. It is the antithesis of God's goodness and wisdom, of joy and beauty, of peace and glory, of power and authority, of His very being and infinite life. Thus it establishes in the soul a supreme deformity, disorder, irregularity, which affects the whole nature and impairs its utility for its proper purposes, its beauty, goodness, happiness. Ask God to illuminate you with His grace, so that you may be thoroughly convinced of these truths by faith, and so escape hereafter the miserable conviction which is from experience. In one or other of these ways, in time or in eternity, the deformity of sin will be brought home to all; it will come to some as a salutary truth, to others too late. 

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Original Sin

"Behold I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me" (Ps. I. 7). We are sinners from the beginning; we have forfeited our supernatural principality; we have lost a complete system of graces and super-added faculties which God designed to supplement and perfect our natural powers. We are absolutely incapable of attaining to the supernatural level of life here or hereafter; and practically the human race has precluded itself from fulfilling a suitable natural destiny of intellectual and social evolution without special assistance from a superhuman source. The facts of life, no less than revelation, witness to this. Observe the harmonious adaptations of inferior nature, the continual progress, the regular adhesion to law. Plants do not turn obstinately from the sun; animals do not delight in poison for food; the planets, the seasons, the elements keep their appointed course. How different is man! He is prone to evil from his youth; he must be artificially trained and sternly coerced by law lest he destroy both himself and his species, and with all this he is too often a failure. He is out of harmony with his surroundings, his fellow-men, and with the law of his being. His progress is through mistakes, he learns the laws of nature by the penalties of their infraction, his well-meant efforts are often fatal errors, side by side with his improvements new agencies of destruction spring up. All this points to something fundamentally wrong, to some original evil that cannot be from the benevolent hand of God. Recognize your misery. See that you are nothing without God. Ask Him for the remedy. 

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The Sources of Sin

As light cannot be a fountain of darkness, so God cannot be in any way the author or source of the state of sin or of the action that leads to it. Sin is the very opposite of God. Therefore "say not, He hath made me to err for He hath no need of wicked men. The Lord hateth all abomination of error" (Eccli. xv. 12, 13). God is the source of our energy and freedom, and supplies us with the means of action; but He does not determine for us how we shall use these powers. If we choose to act aright, then indeed "it is God who worketh in you both to will and accomplish" (Phil. ii. 13); but when we sin, although the concurrence of God still underlies our existence and physical action, yet the direction of that energy into a sinful channel is entirely our own doing. It is not that God consents to our sin; He consents to and permits our liberty of sinning, which is essential for our virtues. God does not abandon us to sin. Through the operation of external and internal influences independent of our will, we are exposed to opportunities of sin. God does not derange the whole order of the universe to prevent forces from working out their proper effects; but He intervenes in the innersanctuary of our will with secret aid sufficient to keep us from mortal sin. The influence of God is for ever working adversely to sin, either deterring the sinner or calling him to repentance. Never think that you are coerced by superior force to sin, or that God has abandoned you to your enemies. You have always Omnipotence on your side, provided that you take the appointed means to bring it into action. 

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The Seat of Sin

"From the sole of the foot to the top of the head there is no soundness therein: wounds, and bruises, and swelling sores; they are not bound up, nor dressed, nor fomented with oil" (Isa. i. 6). Every faculty and sense and department of human life is affected by a propension to its misuse, arising from the disturbance of equilibrium by the Original Sin. There is now a double impulse in man drawing him different ways, upwards to the supernatural, and downwards to the merely natural level of life. The eyes, the tongue, the limbs, the nutritive, procreative, and nervous systems all tend towards excessive activity. The desires and fears, the impulses and acquisitions for self-preservation tend towards what is false and flattering and gratifying to sense, rather than to that which is noblest, purest, highest, and most beneficial to the larger number. How corrupt is human nature! How miserable is the state of man, so different from that of all other creatures, who maintain the due order of nature and accomplish their functions without failure! What a burden we carry about with us! Aspire to that time of purification, happiness and freedom, when you will be delivered from this servitude of corruption, when you will no longer be obliged to watch every movement for the symptoms of disease, when you will no more be in danger of offending God and losing your soul. 

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The Differences of Sin

Consider the great multitude of evil actions which cast the soul into the state of sin. The most universal, as affecting all mankind, was the sin of our first father, who forfeited the state of grace and the power of transmitting it, by choosing the natural plane of existence instead of the supernatural. Our sinful deeds are like physical diseases. Every sense and faculty and operation of mind and body is liable to its own irregular action or excess, which casts the whole organism out of order. Every duty we have to perform, every grace we receive, may be an occasion for the exhibition of human perversity. Some of our sins are directly opposed to God, like blasphemy or incredulity; others are an inordinate seeking after temporal goods or a misuse of them of wealth, food, position, for example in opposition to the Spirit of God. Certain things are sins because God has forbidden them, such as the violation of the Sabbath or of the laws of fasting on a fixed day; others are forbidden because they are evil in themselves, as being opposed to the eternal fitness of things which depends on God's own nature; such are falsehood, intemperance, lust. We are further liable for sins not our own, for sins that others have committed through our negligence or bad example. How numerous are the perils that beset our path on the right hand and on the left! Who can be on the watch against all, who can know the sum of his daily, or his yearly, or his total responsibilities! "Who can understand sins? From my secret ones cleanse me, O Lord; and from those of others spare Thy servant" (Ps. xviii. 13). 

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The Nature of Sin

It is important to know exactly the nature of sin and in what its malice consists, on account of the numerous doctrines that are involved with it. Sin is a most important object of consideration, as being the supreme evil, and as having so terrible an influence in this world and in the eternity that follows. Unfortunately there are many obstacles to our understanding it, and some of its phenomena mislead us as to its real nature. 

1. We are in the midst of it, overwhelmed by it, and, like men lost in a dense forest, we cannot perceive its magnitude or its bearings. 

2. We know it only in the transitory act, and not in the permanent state set up by it, nor in its remoter consequences. 

3. We are conscious of it, as a rule, not in its essence as an attack on God's being, but as the desire for some sensible advantage without any reference to God. 

4. It generally presents itself to us in some plausible form, as an amiable weakness, a natural and excusable appetite, or even as an act of virtue. The science of disease is necessary if you would maintain your health. You should be able to say of sin in general: "I know my iniquity, and my sin is always before me" (Ps. 1. 5). You must gain this knowledge not from earthly wisdom or current opinions, nor from degrading experience, but from revelation and faith. Ask God to give you a knowledge of good and evil such as will aid you to understand the deep mysteries of His nature and His Providence.  Continue Reading.

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Motives of Action

Our actions derive a great deal of their character and merit from the motive or intention with which they are performed. The lowest of supernatural motives in the service of God is the fear of hell. It is a servile motive, it looks to self, it does not savour of spiritual intelligence or of the generosity which God deserves from us; yet it is not a bad or even an unworthy motive. If indeed this fear were the same as natural fear in slavish minds, if it led to service under compulsion, to service which would not be exhibited except for the mere dread of punishment without any thought of God, then our fear would be absolutely servile and worthless. But hell, properly considered, is chiefly the loss of God; and the fear of hell involves a desire for the possession of God as the essential perfection of our nature and the sum of all good to us; it is a fear of the evils involved in the loss of God. This is not a bad motive, for it is put before us in Holy Scripture. The wise man tells us that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Prov. i. 7); and Jesus Himself says: "Fear Him that can destroy both body and soul in hell" (Matt. x. 28). The thought of the terrors of eternal punishment is certainly one of great power in helping the well-disposed to withstand temptation. Any motive which has that effect has done much good; it may be an inferior one, yet our nature is not so lofty and generous that it can afford to dispense with even lowly motives as an assistance to a fervent life. Think often of the terrors of judgment; learn thence the odiousness of sin, and serve God better. Take care, however, that this be not your sole or chief motive. The lower one by no means excludes the higher.  Continue Reading.

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The Infirmities of Conscience

The conscience is subject to two special infirmities which warp its judgment, and mislead us in action, and may be productive of great evils. One of these is scrupulousness. The word scruple connotes a petty and continual annoyance. A scruple is an exaggeration of conscientiousness; not that this can go too far; but it is the conscientious temper acting on a false judgment and an insufficient grasp of truth. It is the habit of timidity which thinks there is sin where there is no sin. It gives rise to hesitation before action and unprofitable self-searchings after it. It may proceed from a fervour which has not yet arrived at ripeness of experience, or from a secret pride, or from imprudence in following views that are accounted safer because they are more narrow and more rigorous. Scruples may be a result of our personal character, or may be permitted by God as a temptation to be resisted, or as a trial for our humiliation. They may injure us by causing discouragement and weariness of religious living; but judiciously treated they will conduce to our advantage. Remember that there is no sin except by a conscious act of the will, that God does not lay traps for you or rejoice in your destruction, that He does not expect absolute perfection from you in this life, that He is generous beyond possible conception in making allowance for your natural infirmities, and that the more miserable you are, the more His tenderness abounds. Thank your Lord for all this, and cast yourself upon Him with complete abandonment.  Continue Reading.

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The Deficiencies of Conscience

In consequence of the Fall, Conscience is by no means perfect; it is liable to the influences of ignorance, prejudice, malice, and to those of heredity and surroundings; it has not the universality and rigidity of instinct in animals; it is often wanting in accuracy, in certainty, sometimes it fails entirely in its functions. Under the most favourable circumstances conscience sometimes fails to give a clear definite answer on an intricate question. We may find duties conflicting with one another. We may doubt about the law, its application, its modifications. Our course may be embarrassing, we may doubt which side is right, or suspect there is sin on both. Conscience is not useless even then. We must not indeed act upon its uncertain verdict, and run the risk of committing sin. True, it fails to enlighten us, but it has fulfilled its function in making us doubtful, and so impressing on us the duty of seeking counsel from God and men. Like the star which led the Magi, it sometimes sheds its light upon us directly and again partially fails us, so that we may use the other aids which God provides, and learn to mistrust our own faculties. The very uncertainty of conscience secures us a further degree of certainty from the other organs of God's speech to us. Beware of being too reliant on what you consider to be the supreme verdict of your conscience. It is difficult to discern the voice of human desire from the voice of God. Mistrust the influence of self, and be not too arrogant to seek advice from others.  Continue Reading.

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The Nature of Conscious

God is the rule of perfect human life. Our goodness is conformity to God in inward and outward action. The principles that will guide us aright towards God are made known to us by the external aid of God's laws and the internal light which flows from Him upon the faculties of our soul. We have a misleading influence within us in the form of our animal emotions and inordinate passions. This is to be counterbalanced by the influence of our supersensible endowments. The intellect guides us in the apprehension of God as truth; the affections in the apprehension of Him as good; and these are supplemented by the conscience, which is a perception of the moral rectitude in God that should be reproduced in our actions. Conscience is an illumination superadded to the intellect for the guidance of the will; its object is all justice. This light is communicated to all mankind in a more or less perfect degree. In every action, the man who reflects is conscious of its relation not only to utility, or to pleasure and pain, but to honour or shamefulness, to moral goodness or evil. Unless we deliberately close our eyes, this sentiment will enlighten us before action; and afterwards, if we have done well, "Our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience" (2 Cor. i. 12); and if ill, it will sting us with remorse. Thank God for this gift, which is a further participation with Him, a manifestation of Himself to you under the form of sanctity, as well as truth and goodness. Endeavour to apprehend Him fully and reflect Him perfectly in a pure and upright conscience.  Continue Reading.

Internal and External Activity

Man has a double activity, that of the mind and soul within him, that of the bodily acts proceeding from the inner principle. The conscious, deliberate, internal activity is peculiar to him as man, and distinguishes him from the beasts, and gives his outward deeds their moral quality as good or bad. If by accident the inner principle is inactive, as in infants, or somnambulists, or lunatics, the overt action is not regarded as a human act, or as responsible before divine and civil law. When mind and will are active, they determine the character and the value of the external operation. The true human life is within us: there the battle is chiefly fought out between good and evil; there firstly is the Kingdom of God to be established (Luke xvii. 21). That which is visible is not the constituent of moral goodness, but that which is invisible. Therefore all judgment is reserved to God, and we must never pass sentence on our brethren; "for man seeth those things that appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart" (1 Kings xvi. 7). Things which to the eye are most admirable may be in reality deeds of ostentation and hypocrisy; on the other hand, that which is lowly and unassuming may be an act of most exalted virtue. So the simplest action of Our Blessed Lord was worth infinitely more than the natural and supernatural virtues of all men and angels, by reason of the divine principle whence it proceeded. So the widow's mite was more than the offerings of the rich. So the humble life of Mary and Joseph in attendance on the Son of God was more than the lives of all Apostles and Martyrs, of all kings and sages and conquerors. So your merit and glory before God are not to be measured by opportunity or visible result, but by the dispositions and desires of your heart.  Continue Reading.

The Morality of Actions

Human actions, besides being intelligent and free, have in virtue of these qualities a further one. They have a moral character, i.e. a relation to a transcendent moral law; and they are good or bad accordingly. The mere fact that it pleases us to do a thing, that it proceeds from our intelligence and free-will, does not make it morally good. Neither does the command of the civil law, or the common custom of mankind, or the immediate utility of an act, or its pleasantness, or the fact of our being under a certain compulsion, make our actions good. They are good if they forward the chief purpose of man's existence, and bad if they are adverse to it. That purpose is the conformity of our lives to the ideal of human perfection as it is in the mind of God; and this ideal is made known to us by our reason, our conscience, and the revelation of God in His word and in Jesus Christ. God Himself is the rule of human morality. There are three factors in our actions which determine their conformity to their supreme standard; viz., their natural object and tendency, man's intention in performing them, and their accompanying circumstances. Some acts are good in all these respects; others are deficient in one or the other point, and are bad accordingly. Let your actions be perfect in all respects, and conformed to justice towards God and man. Let them not be guided by any considerations of selfish utility or human respect, but only by high principle of duty towards God and to your Christian character.  Continue Reading.

Remedies of the Passions - 2

During this life good is always mingled with evil. "Mourning taketh hold of the end of joy" (Prov. xiv. 13). The dangers that beset our natural life are numerous, serious, unavoidable." I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and affliction of spirit" (Eccle. i. 14). In order to warn us against natural evils and give us power to resist them, God has implanted emotions or passions in man of aversion, discontent, fear, horror, hatred, resistance, in the same way as the corresponding instincts in animals. All these have a good purpose of their own. Our work of progress in this world demands that we fight against and reduce the multitude of evils as we can; and we are provided with natural impulses accordingly. These are either to be followed in part or resisted in part, according to the nature of the evils in question, and the recommendations of reason enlightened by grace. The useful effects of natural evils on us, and the different modes of encountering them, are exemplified in the life of Our Lord. Though God, He was not imperturbable or unaffected by evils. He was sensible to emotions of fear, sympathy, disappointment, and even anger and indignation. He either resisted evil, or avoided it, or endured it painfully, as occasion demanded. His sensibility to it led Him to relieve the miseries of the afflicted, or to fight courageously against wrong, or to exhibit patience and the penitential spirit in submitting to it. The Stoic insensibility to evils was no virtue ; natural emotions are not to be extinguished but regulated; the evils of life are useful as eliciting either our energy in resisting or our patience in enduring.  Continue Reading.

Remedies for The Passions - 1

We are concerned, as to our natural life, with two classes of things, good and evil, aids and hindrances. The passions, or the emotions of our endowment, are designed to deal with these. The first division of them embraces the emotions of desire, ardour, hope, striving, love, audacity, enjoyment, which regard such things as are beneficial to our life. These passions are good things in themselves, as conducing to the continuance of divine operation in this world, by aiding us to gain such necessaries as health, food, rest, recreation, posterity, accumulation for future needs, activity, knowledge, etc. These things afford a double exercise for our faculties; first they provide for the satisfaction of our legitimate desires; secondly, they furnish the occasion of establishing the mastery of the spirit over sense-impulses, and opportunities for struggle and reward. Our Lord shows us this double use. At one time He sat down to the banquets of the rich; again he made His repasts examples of frugality, and yet again He practised mortification by refusing food at unfitting times. For the most part, however, He deprived Himself of the delights of sense, and showed that moderation and even privation are better than abundance and indulgence. The activity of His desires was transferred to the spiritual food of doing His Father's will. In like manner transform the natural energies and desires of your character into supernatural qualities, by mortifying them or directing them to spiritual objects.  Continue Reading.

The Mortification of The Passions

In consequence of the insurgence of the lower elements of human nature and the weakening of the controlling powers, one of the first necessities of natural life, social life, and spiritual life, is that the animal proclivities in man should be held in check. One of the chief functions of education both mundane and religious is to supply such a control; for, without it, there is no providing for the future, no progress, no harmonious common life. We need to be carefully disciplined in order to learn how to renounce a present enjoyment for the sake of a larger one in the future, a lower one for a higher, a material for a spiritual and eternal one. Again, the existence of a community demands the restraint of individual vagaries; there is no liberty or enjoyment of rights without some restraint on the liberties of others, and the enforcement of duties. Discipline and self-control and strict obedience to a guiding authority are essential conditions for all combined action, whether in warfare, in industry and commerce, or in religion; else there is nothing but intestine conflict, the neutralizing of energies, and chaos instead of ordered progress. "If you bite and devour one another, take heed you be not consumed one of another" (Gal. v. 15). You need always to keep your passions well in hand like a restive horse. Never relax the tension lest they overcome your power. If your will should lose the habit of mastery over the passions they will hurry you headlong to destruction.  Continue Reading.