We have treated in general of the necessity of mortification
and abnegation because of the consequences both of original sin and of
our personal sins, and also because of the infinite elevation of our
supernatural end and the necessity of imitating Jesus crucified. We
shall consider somewhat in detail the principal sins to be avoided,
their roots, and their consequences. St. Thomas does so in treating of
the seven capital sins.(1) With the aid of his work, we can make a
serious and profound examination of conscience, especially if we ask
for the light of the Holy Spirit, in order to see from above the
stains on our souls, a little as the Lord Himself sees them. The gifts
of knowledge and counsel can here greatly fill out what Christian
prudence tells us; with it an increasingly enlightened, upright, and
certain conscience will be developed in us.We shall consider, first
of all, the roots of the capital sins; then we will speak of their
consequences.
THE ROOTS OF THE CAPITAL SINS
As shown by St. Gregory the Great (2) and, following him in a more
profound manner, also by St. Thomas,(3) the capital sins of pride(4),
sloth,(5) envy, anger, avarice, gluttony, and luxury are not the
gravest sins of all; they are less grave than heresy, apostasy,
despair, and hatred of God. But the capital sins are those toward
which we are first of all inclined, and which lead to a separation
from God and to still graver sins. Man does not reach complete
perversity all of a sudden; he is led to it progressively, by a
gradual descent to evil.
In the first place we must examine the root of the seven capital
sins. As St. Thomas says, they all spring from inordinate self-love or
egoism, which hinders us from loving God above all else and inclines
us to turn away from Him. St. Augustine says: "Two loves built two
cities: the love of self even to contempt of God built the city of
Babylon, that is, that of the world and of immorality; the love of God
even to contempt of self built the city of God." (6)
Evidently we sin, that is, we turn away from God or become
estranged from Him, only because we desire and will to have a created
good in a manner not conformable to the divine law.(7) This comes
about only by reason of an inordinate love of ourselves, which is thus
the source of every sin. This inordinate self-love or egoism must not
only be moderated, but mortified so that an ordered love of self may
prevail in us. This love is the secondary act of charity, by which the
just man loves himself for God in order to glorify God in time and
eternity. Whereas the sinner in the state of mortal sin loves himself
above all else and in practice prefers himself to God, the just man
loves God more than himself and must, in addition, love himself in God
and for God. He must love his body that it may serve the soul instead
of being an obstacle to its higher life; he must love his soul that it
may live eternally with divine life. He must love his intellect and
will that they may live increasingly by the light and love of God.
Such is manifestly the broad meaning of the mortification of
self-love, of self-will, which is opposed to that of God. Life must be
prevented from descending, so that it may rise toward Him who is the
source of every good and of all beatitude. Nothing is clearer.
Inordinate self-love leads us to death, according to the Savior's
words: "He that loveth his life (in an egotistical manner) shall lose
it; and he that hateth (or sacrifices) his life in this world, keepeth
it unto life eternal" (8) In the saints this love of God reaches even
to contempt of self, that is, even to real and effective contempt of
all that is inordinate in us.
From inordinate self-love, the root of every sin, spring the three
concupiscences which St. John speaks of, when he says: "For all that
is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh and the
concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life, which is not of the
Father, but is of the world." (9) These are, in fact, the three great
manifestations of the spirit of the world in regard to the goods of
the body, to exterior goods, and to the goods of the spirit. One is
thus led to confound apparent good and real good in these three
orders.(10)
St. Thomas observes that the sins of the flesh are more shameful
than those of the spirit, for they lower man to the level of the
brute; but those of the spirit, such as pride, the only ones that
exist in the devil, are more grave for they are more directly opposed
to God and turn us more away from Him.(11)
The concupiscence of the flesh is the inordinate desire of what is,
or seems to be, useful to the preservation of the individual and of
the species; from this inordinate or sensual love arise gluttony and
lust. Voluptuousness can thus become an idol and blind us more and
more.
The concupiscence of the eyes is the inordinate desire of all that
can please the sight: of luxury, wealth, money which makes it possible
for us to procure worldly goods. From it is born avarice. The
avaricious man ends by making his hidden treasure his god, adoring it,
and sacrificing everything to it: his time, his strength, his family,
and sometimes his eternity.
The pride of life is the inordinate love of our own excellence, of
all that can emphasize it, no matter how hard or difficult that may
be. He who yields more and more to pride ends by becoming his own god,
as Lucifer did. From this vice all sin and perdition may spring;
whence the importance of humility, a fundamental virtue, just as pride
is the source of every sin.
According to St. Gregory and St. Thomas,(12) pride or arrogance is
more than a capital sin; it is the root from which proceed especially
four capital sins: vanity or vainglory, spiritual sloth or wicked
sadness which embitters, envy, and anger. Vanity is the inordinate
love of praise and honors. Spiritual sloth saddens the soul at the
thought of the labor involved in sanctification, and at the thought of
the spiritual good of good works because of the effort and abnegation
they require. Envy inclines us to grow sad over another's good, in so
far as it appears to oppose our own excellence. Anger, when it is not
just indignation but a sin, is an inordinate movement of the soul
which inclines us to repulse violently what displeases us; from it
arise quarrels, insults, and abusive words. These capital vices,
especially spiritual sloth, envy, and anger, engender a wicked sadness
that weighs down the soul; they are quite the opposite of spiritual
peace and joy, which are the fruits of charity.
All these seeds of death must not only be moderated, but mortified.
The original seed is self-love, from which proceed the three
concupiscences; and from them, the seven capital sins. This is what
made St. Paul say: "If you live according to the flesh, you shall die:
but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall
live." (13)
We see this mortification in the lives of the saints, where grace
finally dominates all the inclinations of fallen nature in order to
restore our nature, to heal it, and to communicate a higher life to
it. This is clear for the Christian mind, and the generous practice of
such mortification prepares the soul for the more profound
purifications that God Himself sends in order to destroy completely
the seeds of death that still subsist in our sensible appetites and
higher faculties.
It is not enough, however, to consider the roots of the seven capital
sins; we must examine their consequences.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE SEVEN CAPITAL SINS
By the consequences of sin are generally understood the remnants of
sin (reliquiae peccati), the evil inclinations left, so to
speak, in our temperament even after sin has been forgiven, as
concupiscence, which is a remnant of original sin, remains after
baptism, like a wound in the course of healing. The consequences of
the capital sins may also mean the other sins that spring from them.
The capital sins are so called because they are like the head or the
principle of many others. We are, first of all, inclined toward them,
and by them in turn toward sins that are often more serious.
Thus vainglory or vanity engenders disobedience, boasting,
hypocrisy, contention through rivalry, discord, love of novelties, and
stubbornness. It is a vice that may lead to most lamentable falls and
apostasy.
Spiritual sloth, disgust for spiritual things and for the work of
sanctification, because of the effort it demands, is a vice directly
opposed to the love of God and to the holy joy that results from it.
Sloth engenders malice, rancor or bitterness toward our neighbor,
pusillanimity in the face of duty to be accomplished, discouragement,
spiritual torpor, forgetfulness of the precepts, seeking after
forbidden things. Slipping downward on the slope of pride, vainglory,
and spiritual sloth, many have lost their vocation.
In the same way, envy or willful displeasure at the sight of
another's good, as if it were an evil for us, engenders hatred,
slander, calumny, joy at he misfortune of another, and sadness at his
success.
Gluttony and sensuality also produce other vices and may lead to
blindness of spirit, to hardness of heart, to attachment to the
present life even to the loss of hope of eternal life, and to love of
self even to hatred of God, and to final impenitence.
The capital sins are often mortal; they are venial only when the
matter is light or the consent not complete. They may exist under a
very gross form, as happens in many souls in the state of mortal sin;
but they may also exist, as St. John of the Cross points out,(14) in
souls in the state of grace, as so many departures from the course of
the spiritual life. It is thus that spiritual pride, spiritual
gluttony, spiritual sensuality, and spiritual sloth are spoken of.
Spiritual pride induces us, for example, to flee from those who
reproach us, even when they have the authority to do so and are acting
justly; it may even induce us to hold a certain rancor against them.
As for spiritual gluttony, it may make us desire sensible consolations
in piety, to the point of seeking ourselves in it more than we seek
God. With spiritual pride, it is the origin of false mysticism.
Happily, contrary to what is true of the virtues, these vices or
defects are not connected. One may have some without the others;
several indeed are contradictory: for example, one cannot be
avaricious and prodigal at one and the same time.
But we have to practice numerous virtues, forty or more, if we
count all the virtues annexed to the principal ones. With the
exception of justice, each stands like a summit between two contrary
vices: the one by excess, such as temerity; the other by defect, such
as cowardice.
Moreover, certain defects resemble certain virtues: for instance,
pride is in some ways similar to magnanimity. It is important to have
discretion or Christian prudence to discern clearly the virtue from
the defect which in certain respects resembles it. Otherwise, false
notes may be struck on the keyboard of the virtues: for example,
pusillanimity may be confounded with humility, severity with justice,
weakness with mercy.
THE EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE
The enumeration of all these ignoble fruits of inordinate selflove
should induce us to make a serious examination of conscience.
Moreover, their number shows us that the field of mortification is
very wide if we wish to live the true life in a thoroughgoing way. The
quietists declared the examination of conscience useless, because,
they said, the human heart is inscrutable. They even asserted that
such examination was harmful, as all reflection on self would hinder
us from thinking of God in naked faith. (15)
Such statements are aberrations easily refuted. Precisely because
it is difficult to know the true nature of our interior feelings, we
must examine them closely. And this examination, far from turning us
away from the thought of God, should keep bringing us back to it.
Moreover, we must ask for divine light to see our soul a little as God
Himself sees it, to see our day or the week that has just ended
somewhat as it is written in the book of life, somewhat as we shall
see it at the last judgment. Thus to see ourselves, we ought every
evening to search out with humility and contrition the faults that we
have committed in thought, word, deed, and omission.
On the other hand, in this examination we should avoid the excess
opposed to that of the quietists, that is to say, the minute search
for the slightest faults under their purely material aspect, a search
which sometimes leads to scruples or to forgetfulness of important
things. The examination of conscience aims less at a complete
enumeration of venial faults than at seeing and sincerely
acknowledging the principle which in our case is generally at their
root. To cure a skin eruption, an effort is made to purify the blood
rather than to treat each blemish separately. In short, in the
examination of conscience the soul ought not to spend too much time in
consideration of self and cease to turn its gaze toward God. On the
contrary, looking fixedly at God, it should ask itself how the Lord
Himself will judge its day, or the week just spent. In what has it
been entirely His? In what entirely its own? In what has it sought God
sincerely? In what has it sought itself? Then, calmly the soul judges
itself as it were from on high, in the light of God, somewhat as it
will be judged on the last day. From this consideration we can
understand the nobility of the Christian conscience and the holy
demands it makes; it is far superior to the conscience of a simple
philosopher.
But, as St. Catherine of Siena says in speaking of these holy
exactions of conscience, we should not separate the consideration of
our faults from that of God's infinite mercy. We should see, on the
contrary, our frailty and wretchedness under the radiation of the
helpful, infinite Goodness. The examination made in this way, instead
of discouraging us, will increase our confidence in God.
The sight of our faults shows us also by contrast the value of
virtue. It has been said with great truth that the value of justice is
brought home to us especially by the grief which injustice causes us.
The sight of the injustice we have committed and our regret for having
committed it, should make us "hunger and thirst after justice." The
ugliness of sensuality should reveal to us by contrast all the value
of purity; the disorder of anger and envy should make us feel the
great value of true meekness and true charity; the sight of the
disastrous effects of spiritual sloth should reanimate in us the
desire for generosity and spiritual joy. The aberration of pride
should make us experience to some extent all the wisdom and grandeur
of true humility.
For all these reasons, one of the best ways to make an examination
of conscience is to do so in the light of the Savior's words: "Learn
of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart."
Let us ask the Lord to inspire us with the holy hatred of sin,
which separates us from the infinite goodness of God, from whom we
have received the greatest benefits and who promises us still more
precious gifts if we are faithful. In some respects, the holy hatred
of sin is nothing more than the reverse of the love of God. To love
truth strongly without detesting error, is impossible; it is likewise
impossible to have a strong love for the good and the sovereign Good,
which is God, without hating what turns us away from God. In the
hearts of the humblest and meekest saints, there is a holy hatred of
evil, a hatred that is as strong as their love of God. In the
immaculate heart of Mary there is, by reason of her ardent charity, a
burning hatred of evil, and this hatred renders her terrible to the
devil. According to Blessed Grignion de Montfort, the devil suffers
more from being conquered by the humility and love of Mary than from
being directly crushed by the divine Omnipotence. We should ask the
immaculate heart of Mary and the sacred heart of our Savior, burning
furnace of charity, for this holy hatred of evil, this holy hatred of
pride, spiritual sloth, envy, unjust anger, malevolence, and
sensuality, in order that true charity, the love of God and of souls
in God, may truly grow ever stronger in us.
The means of avoiding pride is to think often of the humiliations
of the Savior and to ask God for the virtue of humility. To repress
envy, we should pray for our neighbor and wish him the same good as we
desire for ourselves.
This type of mortification is absolutely indispensable. To advance
seriously toward perfection and sanctity, we should think of the
mortifications of the saints, or, even without going as far as the
examples of the saints, think of those given us by servants of God
such as Father Lacordaire who, fearing that he might fall into pride
by reason of his successes, had recourse to great mortifications. On
certain days while preaching at Notre Dame (Paris), he used to feel
that a strong current of grace was passing through his soul to convert
his hearers, and that, if he yielded to the sin of pride, this current
of grace might be completely stopped and his preaching become
absolutely fruitless. We should meditate on the fact that we also have
our souls to save, that we must do good to those around us, good which
will endure eternally. Let us also remember that we must work as much
as possible for the salvation of other souls, and that for this
purpose we ought to employ the means that Christ has pointed out to
us: progressive death to sin through progress in the virtues and
especially in the love of God.
SINS OF IGNORANCE, FRAILTY, AND MALICE
We have been told that people in certain milieux are inclined to
think that only the sin of malice is mortal, and that so-called sins
of ignorance and frailty are never mortal. On this point we should
recall the teaching of theology, such as it is profoundly formulated
by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa.(16)
The sin of ignorance is that which springs from voluntary and
culpable ignorance, called vincible ignorance. The sin of frailty is
that which arises from a strong passion which diminishes liberty and
impels the will to give its consent. As for the sin of malice, it is
committed with full liberty, quasi de industria, intentionally
and often with premeditation, even without passion or ignorance. We
shall recall what St. Thomas teaches about each of them.
SINS OF IGNORANCE
In relation to the will, ignorance may be either antecedent or
consequent or concomitant. Antecedent ignorance is that which is in no
way voluntary; it is said to be morally invincible. For example,
thinking that he is firing at an animal in the forest, a hunter may
kill a man who had given no sign of his presence and whom the hunter
would never suspect of being there. In this case there is no voluntary
fault, but only a material sin.
Consequent ignorance is that which is voluntary, at least
indirectly so, because of negligence in learning what one can and
ought to know. It is called vincible ignorance because one could free
oneself from it with morally possible application. It is the cause of
a formal sin, at least indirectly willed. For example, a medical
student yields gravely to sloth; nevertheless, as it were by chance,
he receives his medical degree. But he is ignorant of many elementary
facts of his profession which he ought to know, and it happens that he
hastens the death of some of his patients instead of curing them. In
this case there is no directly voluntary sin, but there is certainly
an indirectly voluntary fault, which may be grave and which may even
go as far as homicide through imprudence or grave negligence.
Concomitant ignorance is that which is not voluntary, but which
accompanies sin in such a way that, even if it did not exist, one
would still sin. This is the case of a very vindictive man who,
wishing to kill his enemy, one day, as a matter of fact, unwittingly
does kill him, thinking that he is killing an animal in a thicket.
This case is manifestly different from the two preceding cases.
We may conclude, consequently, that involuntary or invincible
ignorance is not a sin, but that voluntary or vincible ignorance of
what we could and should know is a more or less serious sin according
to the gravity of the obligations in which we fail. Voluntary or
vincible ignorance cannot completely excuse sin, for there was
negligence; it only diminishes culpability. Absolutely involuntary or
invincible ignorance completely exculpates from sin; it does away with
culpability. As for concomitant ignorance, it does not excuse from
sin, for, even if it did not exist, one would still sin.
Invincible ignorance is called "good faith." That ignorance be
truly invincible or involuntary, it is necessary that the person
cannot morally free himself from it by a serious effort to know his
duties. It is impossible to be invincibly ignorant of the first
precepts of the natural law: Do good and avoid evil; do not do to
others what you would not wish them to do to you; you shall not kill;
you shall not steal; one God alone you shall adore. At least by the
order of the world, the starry sky, and the whole creation, man can
easily obtain a knowledge of the probability of the existence of God,
supreme Ordainer and Legislator. When he has this probability, he must
seek to become more enlightened and must ask for light; otherwise he
is not in genuine good faith or in absolutely involuntary and
invincible ignorance. As much must be said of a Protestant for whom it
becomes seriously probable that Catholicism is the true religion. He
must clarify his idea by study and ask God for light. Unless he does
this, as St. Alphonsus says, he already sins against faith by not
wishing to take the means necessary to obtain it.
Pious people are often not sufficiently attentive to sins of
ignorance, which they sometimes commit without considering, as they
can and ought, their religious duties or the duties of their state, or
again the rights and qualities of persons, superiors, equals, or
inferiors with whom they are in relation. We are responsible not only
for the inordinate acts that we place, but also for the omission of
all the good that we ought to do, and that we would accomplish in fact
if we had true zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
One of the causes of the present evils of society is found in the
forgetfulness of these words of the Gospel: "The poor have the gospel
preached to them," in the indifference of those who possess a
superabundance toward those who lack even the necessaries of life.
SINS OF FRAILTY
A sin of frailty is one which springs from a strong passion, which
impels the will to give its consent. With this meaning, the Psalmist
says: "Have mercy on me, a Lord, for I am weak." (17) The spiritual
soul is weak when its will yields to the violence of the movements of
the sensible appetites. It thus loses rectitude of practical judgment
and of voluntary election or choice, by reason of fear, anger, or
concupiscence. Thus, during the Passion, Peter yielded through fear
and denied our Lord three times. When, by reason of a lively emotion
or of a passion, we are inclined toward an object, the intellect is
induced to judge that it is suitable for us, and the will to give its
consent contrary to the divine law.(18)
But we must distinguish here the so-called antecedent passion,
which precedes the consent of the will, and that called consequent,
which follows it. Antecedent passion diminishes culpability, for it
diminishes the liberty of judgment and of voluntary choice; it is
particularly apparent in very impressionable people. On the contrary,
consequent or voluntary passion does not lessen the gravity of sin,
but augments it; or rather it is a sign that the sin is more
voluntary, since the will itself arouses this inordinate movement of
passion, as happens in a man who wishes to become angry the better to
manifest his ill will.(19) Just as a good consequent passion, such as
Christ's holy anger when He was driving the merchants from the Temple,
increases the merit, so an evil consequent passion augments the
demerit.
The sin of frailty, of which we are speaking here, is that in which
the will yields to the impulse of an antecedent passion; and thereby
the gravity of the sin is lessened. This does not mean, however, that
it is never a mortal sin. It is truly mortal when the matter is
grievous, and the sinner yields to passion with advertence and full
consent. This is the case of homicide committed under the impulse of
anger.(20)
A person can resist, especially at the beginning, the inordinate
movement of passion. If he does not resist it at the beginning as he
ought, if he does not pray as he ought to obtain the help of God,
passion is no longer simply antecedent, it becomes voluntary.
The sin of frailty, even when serious and mortal, is more
pardonable than another, but here "pardonable" is by no means a
synonym for "venial" in the current meaning of this word.(21)
Even pious people ought to be attentive to this point for they may
have unrepressed movements of jealousy which may lead them to grave
faults: for example, to serious rash judgments and to words and
exterior acts which are the cause of profound breaches, contrary both
to justice and to charity.
It would be a gross error to think that only the sin of malice can
be mortal because it alone implies the sufficient advertence, the full
consent, together with the serious matter, necessary for the sin which
gives death to the soul and renders it worthy of eternal death. Such
an error would result from a badly formed conscience, and would
contribute to increase this deformity. Let us remember that we can
easily resist the beginning of the inordinate movement of passion, and
that it is a duty for us to do so and also to pray for help, according
to the words of St. Augustine, quoted by the Council of Trent: "God
never commands the impossible, but, in commanding, He warns us to do
what we are able and to ask Him for help to do that which we cannot."
(22)
THE SIN OF MALICE
In contradistinction to the sin of ignorance and that of frailty,
the sin of malice is that by which one chooses evil knowingly. In
Latin it is called a sin de industria, that is, a sin committed
with deliberate calculation, design, and express intention, free from
ignorance and even from antecedent passion. The sin of malice is often
premeditated. This is not equivalent to saying that evil is willed for
the sake of evil; since the adequate object of the will is the good,
it can will evil only under the aspect of an apparent good.
Now he who sins through malice, acting with full knowledge of the
case and through evil will, knowingly wills a spiritual evil (for
example, the loss of charity or divine friendship) in order to possess
a temporal good. It is clear that this sin thus defined differs in the
degree of gravity from the sin of ignorance and that of frailty. But
we must not conclude from this that every sin of malice is a sin
against the Holy Ghost. This last sin is one of the gravest of the
sins of malice. It is produced when a man rejects through contempt the
very thing that would save him or deliver him from evil: for example,
when he combats recognized religious truth, or when by reason of
jealousy, he deliberately grows sad over the graces and spiritual
progress of his neighbor.
The sin of malice often proceeds from a vice engendered by multiple
faults; but it can exist even in the absence of this vice. It is thus
that the first sin of the devil was a sin of malice, not of habitual
malice but of actual malice, of evil will, of an intoxication of
pride.
It is clear that the sin of malice is graver than the sins of
ignorance and frailty, although these last are sometimes mortal. This
explains why human laws inflict greater punishment for premeditated
murder than for that committed through passion.
The greatest gravity of the sins of malice comes from the fact that
they are more voluntary than the others, from the fact that they
generally proceed from a vice engendered by repeated sins, and from
the fact that by them man knowingly prefers a temporal good to the
divine friendship, without the partial excuse of a certain ignorance
or of a strong passion.
In these questions one may err in two ways that are contradictory
to each other. Some lean to the opinion that only the sin of malice
can be mortal; they do not see with sufficient clearness the gravity
of certain sins of voluntary ignorance and of certain sins of frailty,
in which, nevertheless, there is serious matter, sufficient
advertence, and full consent.
Others, on the contrary, do not see clearly enough the gravity of
certain sins of malice committed in cold blood, with an affected
moderation and a pretense of good will or of tolerance. Those who thus
combat the true religion and take away from children the bread of
divine truth may be sinning more gravely than he who blasphemes and
kills someone under the impulse of anger.
Sin is so much the more grave as it is more voluntary, as it is
committed with greater light and proceeds from a more inordinate love
of self, which sometimes even goes so far as contempt of God. On the
other hand, a virtuous act is more or less meritorious according as it
is more voluntary, more free, and as it is inspired by a greater love
of God and neighbor, a love that may even reach holy contempt of self,
as St. Augustine says.
Thus he who prays with too great attachment to sensible consolation
merits less than he who perseveres in prayer in a continual and
profound aridity without any consolation. But on emerging from this
trial, his merit does not grow less if his prayer proceeds from an
equal degree of charity which now has a happy reaction on his
sensibility. It is still true that one interior act of pure love is of
greater value in the eyes of God than many exterior works inspired by
a lesser charity.
In all these questions, whether good or evil is involved,
particular attention must be paid to what proceeds from our higher
faculties, the intellect and will: that is, to the act of the will
following full knowledge of the case. And, from this point of view, if
an evil act committed with full deliberation and consent, like a
formal pact with the devil, has formidable consequences, a good act,
such as the oblation of self to God, made with full deliberation and
consent and frequently renewed, can have even greater consequences in
the order of good; for the Holy Ghost is of a certainty infinitely
more powerful than the spirit of evil, and He can do more for our
sanctification than the latter can for our ruin. It is well to think
of this in the face of the gravity of certain present-day events. The
love of Christ, dying on the cross for us, pleased God more than all
sins taken together displeased Him; so the Savior is more powerful to
save us than the enemy of good is to destroy us. With this meaning,
Christ said: "Fear ye not them that kill the body and are not able to
kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body
in hell." (28) Unless we open the door of our hearts to him, the enemy
of good cannot penetrate into the sanctuary of our will, whereas God
is closer to us than we are to ourselves and can lead us strongly and
sweetly to the most profound and elevated meritorious free acts, to
acts that are the prelude of eternal life.
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