Thursday, April 19, 2012

"On avoiding the occasions of sin" (Part 2)

"The Virgin Appearing to St. Philip Neri"  G. B. Piazzetta


The following is taken from a sermon for the First Sunday after Easter by our Eastertide guide, St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church:

"Impurity, say St. Augustine, is a vice which makes war on all, and which few conquer.  "The fight is common; but the victory rare."  . . . . St. Philip Neri used to say, that in the war against the vice of impurity, the victory is gained by cowards - that is, by those who fly from the occasions of this sin.  . . . St. Bernard teaches, that to preserve chastity, and, at the same time, to expose oneself to the proximate occasion of sin, "is a greater miracle than to raise a dead man to life."


St. Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us.

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