other that he has committed. And how many sins do we not commit that escape our notice, that we do not acknowledge and are not aware of, although they are all clearly recognized by the all-seeing eye of God and written down in the great account-book in their minutest details, like those motes that pass before our eyes, which we cannot see until the rays of the sun fall on them. Even our good works, if we consider them closely, as they will be examined by the strict Judge when He will judge justices, even they will be found to be mixed with faults and imperfections. Prayer said with fully or half deliberate distractions; devotions performed with coldness and tepidity; visits to the church, hearing Mass, and receiving holy Communion with little attention, reverence, or fervor; the works of charity and mercy, of zeal for souls, done with vain complacency, or to seek praise, or without a pure intention for God’s honor; these pious exercises that we daily perform to honor God to increase our merit, and to gain heaven these very works serve at the same time to fan the flames of purgatory in order to chastise us.
By mortal sins that have been confessed and repented of. I will say nothing of the grievous sins that are committed from the first dawn of reason, through the succeeding years of youth and manhood; sins of all kinds in thought and desire, in word, and act, and conversation, and omission. How many adults are there who can say that they are of the number of those happy souls who have never been guilty of a mortal sin in their lives? I will suppose that we have blotted out of the book of God’s justice all the mortal sins of our past lives by true, supernatural repentance, sincere contrition, and a candid confession, and that we have fully appeased the divine anger, so that we are now admitted to the favor and friendship of God, and are called and are in truth dear children of God. Oh, what a happiness is ours! All our debt is forgiven; the eternal pains of hell that we had deserved are remitted to us, and as far as we are concerned the fire of hell is extinguished. O God of goodness, what do we not owe Thee for such a benefit! But meanwhile, my dear brethren, what becomes of the terrible temporal punishment we still owe the divine justice for those sins that we have committed and repented of?
Now God requires full satisfaction, either in this life
Now the God of holiness and justice requires for these and even for the small daily faults we fall into, the most complete and perfect satisfaction, without the least oversight or remission on His part; and no fault is so small as not to deserve its pun-