toiling for spiritual treasures, which can never be taken from you?
If you will not profit by time and strength to labor now, a day will come when you will vainly seek these present opportunities. Sad experience tells us how many have thus been disappointed. Life is short, and obstacles to good abound. Do not, therefore, let the promptings of sloth cause you to lose advantages which will never return, for "the night cometh when no man can work.”[1]
The number and enormity of your sins demand a proportionate penance and fervor to satisfy for them. St. Peter denied his Master three times, but never ceased to weep for his sin, though he knew it had been pardoned. St. Mary Magdalen to the end of her life likewise bewailed the disorders of her youth, though she heard from our Saviour's lips these sweet words: "Thy sins are forgiven thee." Numerous are the examples of those who, returning to God, continued during life to do penance for their sins, though many of them had offended God far less grievously than you. You daily heap up your sins; and can you consider any labor too severe to expiate them? Oh! profit by this time of grace and mercy to bring forth fruits worthy of penance, and by the labors of this life to purchase the eternal repose of the next. Our works in themselves are paltry and insignificant, but united to the merits of Christ they acquire infinite value in the sight of God. The labor endures but a short time; the reward
- ↑ St. John ix, 4.
