Untitled - Saints' Books

[PART
284 Material for Instructions.
.
n.
absolved, provided he is determined to adopt
means necessary to guard against a relapse. There are
three principal means to be prescribed in necessary occa
all the
sions. The first is to fly from the occasion and avoid
as much as possible being alone with the accomplice,
speaking confidentially with her, or looking at her. The
second is
prayer and unceasing petition to God and the
Blessed Virgin for help to resist the temptation. The
third is the frequentation of the sacraments of penance
and of the Eucharist, by which strength
is obtained to
resist temptations.
I have said generally speaking ; for when, after having
used all the means the penitent always relapses, without
any amendment, then, according to the more common
and true opinion, which is to be followed, he cannot be
absolved until he quits the occasion of sin, though
it
1
should cost him his life, as the theologians say; for he
should prefer eternal to temporal life. I add, that
though, according to the rules of Moral Theology, a per
be ab
son who is in the necessary occasion of sin may
solved whenever he is
properly disposed
for the sacra
ment, still, w hen r the occasion leads to sins against purity,
it will, ordinarily speaking, be expedient to defer abso
lution until it
appears by the experience of a consider
able time, of twenty or thirty days, that the penitent
has been faithful in practising the means prescribed, and
that he has not relapsed.
I also add, that when the
confessor knows that it will be useful to defer absolu
tion he is bound to defer it; for he is
obliged to adopt
the most efficacious remedies for the amendment of his
penitent.
I say, moreover, that when a person is long
habituated to sins of impurity, it will not be enough for
him to avoid proximate occasions: it will be also neces
sary for him to remove certain occasions which of them
selves would, perhaps, be remote, but with regard to
1 "
Etiam cum jactura
vitae."