Untitled - Saints' Books

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Spiritual Rules. 437
mitted, we must humble ourselves and immediately have
recourse to God by making an act of love or of contri
tion with the firm purpose of amendment; then we ask
with confidence for the grace of which we stand in need
by saying: O Lord ! see what I am able to do; and if
Thou withdrawest Thy hand from me I shall do still
worse. I love Thee; I repent of the displeasure that I
have caused Thee, and I will do so no more; grant me
the help that I
hope to receive from Thy goodness.
After having done this we should be calm, as if we
had not committed any fault; and if we fall back, even
on the same day, let us do the same thing. Should we
even fall a hundred times, we should always act in the
same way, namely, we should humble ourselves, we
should rise again, we must never remain down.
It must be observed that to trouble one s self after a
fault has been committed is an effect not of humility,
but of pride; since we are sorry for the fault not be
cause we have offended God, but rather because we are
ashamed to appear before him so defiled. The priest
should, therefore, never trouble himself on account of
the faults into which he falls; but let him humble him
self, acknowledging himself capable of committing these
and other faults. Let him then make an act of love of
God; thus this sin, instead of removing him from God,
will serve only the more to unite him more closely to
him, according to what the Apostle says: All things
1
even sins,"
the Gloss adds work together unto good?
2. EFFICACIOUS DESIRE TO ADVANCE IN THE LOVE OF GOD.
Let him desire to advance without ceasing in the
love of God. Not to wish to advance in perfection,
which consists in the love of God, is to wish to go back
ward, says St. Augustine. 3 He that moves against the
1 "
Etiam peccata."
2 "Omnia cooperantur in bonum." Rom. viii. 23.
3 " Non
progredi, jam reverti est."
Epist. 17, E. B. app.