Our Lord used His liberty to die for us. And this He did to redeem us and to win back our love. We use our liberty to live for ourselves. S. Paul describes the perilous times of the last days by a list of sins, chiefly spiritual, and he winds it up by saying that men will be "lovers of their own selves:" "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God."[1] He says in another place that "all men seek the things that are their own, and not the things that are Jesus Christ's:"[2] that is to say, they are sinners, who break the laws of God; or worldly, in whom the love of the Father is not; or self-seekers, who have an end in everything, whether in high ambitions or in petty gains; or selfish, who with a sectarian spirit care nothing for others—the fraternity of Cain, who first said, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
So long as they have a seat in church and get their confessions heard, they have no care for the sheep. Souls may perish all around, but it does not matter to them. Finally, among those who seek their own are the spiritual gluttons, who crave intensely after the consolations and enjoyment of religion, which they would speedily forsake if they were not allured like children. Those that seek the things that are Jesus Christ's are the innocent and the penitent, the
