hope of all these people is delusive. them if they would not be glad to save their souls, if .they have any intention and hope of doing that; there is no doubt, they will answer: we must go to heaven; we must save our souls. But you may wish and desire a long time before you save them in that way. Otherwise the good and pious would be badly off, and would have just reason for complaint, seeing that they must work so hard for the reward that the others carry off so easily and comfortably. No, that will not do; your wish is a mere empty desire that exists only in the imagination; it is not a firm, earnest determination of the will. Hell is full of souls that have wished to be eternally happy; not one of them wanted to be damned, but they did not wish earnestly; they were disposed in the matter just as you are. He who desires to attain the end must use the means necessary thereto. “If any one love Me he will keep My word.” He who desires to gain heaven must keep the commandments of God, otherwise his hope is a false and deceitful one. And he must keep all the commandments, and that constantly, otherwise his hope is again deceitful and false; and yet it is entertained by most men, as we shall see in the
Second Part.
Others in order to get to heaven keep some of the commandments, but not all.
Our holy Founder, St. Ignatius, in his celebrated Book of the Spiritual Exercises, compares those who keep some but not all the commandments to those sick people who wish to get well, and to that end take the medicines that please their taste, but reject those that are prescribed by the doctors because they are too bitter or insipid, although the latter are far better for them. Who could believe that those people are in earnest about wishing for health? Consider now the will and the hope that we flatter ourselves we have of going to heaven; is it not of that kind inmost cases? It is rare to find even among the most perverse one who is resolved to break all the commandments; seldom do you find a man who is not disgusted with some vice or other, or who does not find pleasure in an inclination for some virtue, or who does not endeavor to practise some work of devotion. We see, thanks be to God, many Christians who interrupt their temporal duties almost daily to hear holy Mass, and who attend sermons on Sundays and holy-days, and go frequently in the month to confession and holy Communion. Such is the case, my dear brethren. But what are we to conclude from this? That all those people are earnestly desirous of getting to heaven? Ah, I am afraid the