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Roman Catechism
Motives For Adopting The Necessary Means
The priest, therefore, who is charged with the care of souls, should draw from the exhaustless fountain of the divine Scriptures those powerful motives which are calculated to move the faithful to the desire and pursuit of the kingdom of heaven, which portray in vivid coloring our deplorable condition, and which should make so sensible an impression upon them that, entering into themselves, they may call to mind that supreme happiness and those unutterable goods with which the eternal abode of God our Father abounds.
Here below we are exiles, inhabitants of a land in which dwell those demons whose hatred for us cannot be softened, who are the determined and implacable foes of mankind. What shall we say of those intestine conflicts and domestic battles in which the soul and the body, the flesh and the spirit, are continually engaged against each other, in which we have always to fear defeat, nay, in which instant defeat becomes inevitable, unless we be defended by the protecting hand of God? Feeling this weight of misery the Apostle exclaims: Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
The misery of our condition, it is true, strikes us at once of itself; but if contrasted with that of other creatures, it strikes us still more forcibly. Although irrational and even inanimate, the lower creatures are seldom seen so to depart from the acts, the instincts and the movements imparted to them by nature, as to fail of obtaining their appointed and determined end. This is so obvious in the case of beasts, fishes and birds that there is no need to dwell on it. But if we look to the heavens, do we not behold the verification of these words of David? For ever, O Lord, thy word standeth firm in the heavens. Constant in their motions, uninterrupted in their revolutions, they never depart in the least from the laws divinely prescribed. The earth, too, and universal nature, as we at once perceive, adhere strictly to, or at least depart but very little from the laws of their being. But unhappy man is guilty of frequent falls. Seldom does he carry out his good resolutions; often he abandons and despises what he has well commenced; his best purposes which pleased for a time, are often suddenly abandoned, and he plunges into designs as degrading as they are pernicious.
What then is the cause of this misery and inconstancy? Manifestly a contempt of the divine inspirations. We close our ears to the admonitions of God, our eyes to the divine lights which shine before us; nor do we hearken to those salutary commands which are delivered by our heavenly Father.
To paint to the eyes of the faithful the misery of man’s condition, to detail its various causes, and to point out the efficacious remedies are, therefore, among the objects which should employ the zealous exertions of the pastor. In the discharge of this duty, his labor will be not a little lightened if he consults what has been said on the subject by those holy men, John Chrysostom and Augustine, and still more if he refers to our exposition of the Creed. For with a knowledge of these truths, who will be so obstinate in sin as not to endeavour, with the help of God’s preventing grace, to rise, like the prodigal son spoken of in the Gospel, to stand erect, and hasten into the presence of his heavenly Father and king ?