Fourth Tuesday in Lent.
PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS.
From what has been said about the Will of man and the Nature of Sin, some plain and Practical Conclusions may be drawn.
1. Those evil thoughts that pass in us, to which we give no consent direct or indirect, are not sinful to us, entail on us no guilt. That is to say, we are not responsible for evil thoughts, images unseemly, profane, uncharitable, for distractions in prayer, dreams of the night, unless we arrest them and give them our consent. Living in this evil world, surrounded by evil, we cannot avoid the knowledge of evil; that knowledge may, however, pass over the mind darkening momentarily, but not staining, like the shadow of a cloud on a hill side. So also with regard to wandering thoughts and unsuitable ideas presenting themselves to us in prayer, we cannot help them, but if we allow our thoughts to wander without effort to recollect them and harbour the unsuitable ideas, then they become sinful.
2. Sin consists in the assent given by the will to the suggestion of evil. That has been sufficiently insisted upon, and need not have anything further said thereon in this place.
3. If certain evil effects are foreseen, more or less distinctly, as likely to ensue, if we follow a certain line of conduct, andthere be no reasonable motive to force us to adopt that line of conduct, and those evil effects ensue, then we are guilty of them. It lay in the power of our will to avoid that line of conduct which brought us into peril of doing those things which are evil, and, foreseeing the risk, we took the perilous course. This is the case of rushing into temptation. For instance, we foresee that association with certain individuals will lead to a lowering of our religious fervour, a laxity of view with regard to our moral obligations, and, nevertheless, we cultivate their society, then we are guilty of the coldness that ensues in our religion and the laxity that occurs in our moral look-out.
Or, again, if we see that by going to a certain place we are running great risk of committing a certain sin, and, without any real necessity, we go to that place, and fall under temptation, then we are guilty, as if we had deliberately committed the sin. Or, again, if we see that by spending much time, and thought, and money on dress, we are becoming liable to vanity, and we go on lavishing attentions on our personal appearance, so that we do become conceited and vain, then we are guilty of the sin of vanity. We have wilfully chosen that course which leads to vanity.
Simple Maltese Cross