Untitled - Saints' Books

1 20 Material for Sermons. IPART i.
demned, and your prayers can be of no service to me."
St. Peter Damian 2 relates that in the city of Parma a
priest and a woman with whom he had sinned were
suddenly struck dead. In the revelations of St. Bridget 3
we read that an unchaste priest was killed by a thunder
bolt; and it was found that the lightning had reduced
to ashes only the indelicate members, and left the re
mainder of the body untouched, as if to show that it
was principally for incontinence that God had inflicted
this chastisement upon him. Another priest in our own
time died suddenly in the act of committing a sin against
chastity, and for his greater infamy was exposed in the
court of the church. The unchaste priest dishonors the
Church, and therefore the Lord justly chastises him by
making him the most dishonored of all men. Thus,
speaking of priests, God says, by the Prophet Malachy,
But you have departed out of the way, and have caused many
to stumble at the law. . . .
Therefore I also made you con
temptible, and base before all people?
1
IV.
Remedies for
Incontinence.
The spiritual masters point out many remedies for the
vice of impurity; but the principal and the most neces
sary are the flight of occasions, and prayer. As to the
first means, St. Philip Neri used to say that in this war
fare cowards, that is, they that avoid dangerous occa
sions, gain the victory. Let a man use all other possible
" 1
Cessa pro me orare, pro quo nullatenus exaudieris."
n. 24.
2
Epist.
1. 5, ep. 16.
Anno noo,
3 Rev. \, 2, c. 2.
Vos autem recessistis de via, et scandalizastis plurimos in lege;
4 "
. . .
propter quod et ego dedi vos contemptibiles et humiles omnibus
populis."
Mai. ii. 8.