14. Satisfaction the third part of penance.
Christ. Walk before me, and I will be with thee in all thy ways, and will direct thy steps. But knowest thou not that torment is due to the sinner, in proportion to the vain-glory and luxury in which he has lived? Is it not just that the number of his stripes should be commensurate to the greatness of his fault?
Therefore, if thou art wise, anticipate the sentence of the judge, and punish thyself, lest, perhaps, at the last, thou be cast into prison, never to go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing. It is easier to satisfy the divine justice now, while it is yet the time of mercy, and the day of salvation; it is easier to discharge thy faults in this life than to reserve them to the time when I shall judge with justice.
Therefore, be converted to me with all thy heart, in fasting, in weeping, and in mourning. Thou hast indeed very often offended me, by pursuing the pleasures and gratifications of the flesh. Is it not just, then, that thou shouldst chastise thy body, and bring it into subjection; that, as thy flesh, when it Was pampered, drew thee into sin, so, now that it is afflicted it may bring thee back to pardon?
The prayer, too, of the humble and meek has ever been pleasing to me, and moved me to be favourable their sins. Therefore thou wilt earnestly employ this means also, that I, as the true High Priest and advocate at my Father’s right hand, may intercede for thee, and offer to my eternal Father the price of my blood and the merits of my passion, by which I have made satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.
Redeem, too, thy sins by alms-giving. Nothing so much inclines me to mercy, as to see you, from feelings of brotherly love, show mercy to the needy and afflicted. But if thou shut up the bowels of compassion towards them, and refuse to listen to their cry, see the time come not, when thou wilt cry thyself, and not be heard Wouldst thou, then, make satisfaction for thy sins? Behold, how good is prayer, with fasting and alms.
But the satisfaction which is best of all, as most pleasing to me, and most profitable to thyself, is, to direct the whole force of thy penitence against thy sins themselves, and the roots of those sins. Specially, therefore, and earnestly, apply thyself to the exercise of those virtues which are the most opposed to the vicious inclinations of thy mind, and most distasteful to the flesh, where
