"The Death of a Just Man/The Death of a Sinner"
The following is taken from a sermon for Passion Sunday by our Lenten guide, St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church:
"St. Chrysostom asserts, that he himself knew many persons who were gifted with great virtues, and who, because they disregarded light faults, fell into an abyss of crime. When the Devil cannot gain much from us, he is in the beginning content with the little; by many trifling victories he will make a great conquest. No one, says St. Bernard, suddenly falls from the state of grace into the abyss of wickedness. They who rush into the most grievous irregularities begin by committing light faults. . . . It is necessary also to understand that, when a soul that has been favoured by God with special lights and graces, consents to mortal sin, her fall shall not be a simple fall, from which she will easily rise again, but it will be a precipitous one, from which she will find it very difficult to return to God."
St. Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us.
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