|
WHEREFORE in order to satisfy as briefly and shortly as possible, your
desire and question, the full and perfect description of penitence is,
never again to yield to those sins for which we do penance, or for which
our conscience is pricked. But the proof of satisfaction and pardon is for
us to have expelled the love of them from our hearts. For each one may be
sure that he is not yet free from his former sins as long as any image of
those sins which he has committed or of others like them dances before his
eyes, and I will not say a delight in--but the recollection of--them haunts
his inmost soul while he is devoting himself to satisfaction for them and
to tears. And so one who is on the watch to make satisfaction may then feel
sure that he is free from his sins and that he has obtained pardon for past
faults, when he never feels that his heart is stirred by the allurements
and imaginations of these same sins. Wherefore the truest test of penitence
and witness of pardon is found in our own conscience, which even before the
day of judgment and of knowledge, while we are still in the flesh,
discloses our acquittal from guilt, and reveals the end of satisfaction and
the grace of forgiveness. And that what has been said may be more
significantly expressed, then only should we believe that the stains of
past sins are forgiven us, when the desires for present delights as well as
the passions have been expelled from our heart.
|
|