Untitled - Saints' Books

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Do
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90 Material for Sermons. [PART i.
not crushed by a heap of sand." You are careful to
avoid grievous falls, but you fear not small ones; you
are not deprived of life
by the great rock of any mortal
sin, but beware, says the saint, lest by a multitude of
venial sins you be crushed as by a heap of sand. We all
know that only mortal sin kills the soul, and that venial
sins, however great their number, cannot rob the soul of
divine grace. But it is also necessary to understand
what St. Gregory teaches, that the habit of committing
light faults without remorse, and without an effort to
correct them, gradually deprives us of the fear of God;
and when the fear of God is lost, it is easy to pass from
venial to mortal sins. 2 St. Dorotheus adds, tha.t by
despising light faults we expose ourselves to the danger
of falling into perfect insensibility. 3
He that disregards
small offences is in danger of general insensibility, so
that afterwards he shall feel no horror even of mortal
sins.
St.
Teresa, as the Roman Rota attests, never fell into
but still our Lord showed her the place
any mortal sin;
prepared for her in hell, not because she had deserved
hell, but because, had she not risen from the state of
tepidity in which she lived, she should in the end have
lost the grace of God, and should be damned. Hence
the Apostle says, Give not place
to the devil? The devil
is satisfied when we begin to open the door to him by
disregarding small faults; for he shall then labor to
open it perfectly, by leading us into grievous trans
gressions. not imagine," says Cassian, that any
1 "
Magna praecavisti! de minutis quid agis? Projecisti molem!
vide ne arena obruaris." In Ps. xxxix.
2
"Ut, usu cuncta levigante, nequaquam post committere etiam
graviora timeamus." Mor. 1. 10, c. 14.
3 "
Periculum est ne in perfectam insensibilitatem deveniamus."
Doctr. 3.
4 "
Nolite locum dare diabolo."
ph. iv. 27.