"The Crown of Thorns Reveals to us the Evil of Venial Sin." from Revelations or Effusions of the Heart of Jesus by Father Alexis LeFebvre.
"The Crown of Thorns Reveals to us the Evil of Venial Sin." from Revelations or Effusions of the Heart of Jesus by Father Alexis LeFebvre.
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'Plectentes coronam de spinis, posuerunt super caput ejus.'
'And platting a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head' (Matt. xxvii. 29).
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The crowning with thorns was one of the most cruel sufferings and bloody outrages endured by Jesus Christ on the day of His dolours and death. Both blood and tears were in the eyes of that meek Saviour when, with a reed in His hand, He silently and lovingly gazed on the soldiers and executioners, who, as they passed, bent the knee before Him, saying insultingly, 'Hail, King of the Jews!'
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But a crown of thorns around a heart! Can we conceive greater suffering, and what means this mystery of pain and love? I will give them a Heart to know Me. Let us repeat this touching text: 'I will give them a Heart, My Heart, and they shall understand,' We have already learned from the Cross of this Divine Heart what mortal sin is; the thorns of this crown are a figure of venial sin, those slight and numerous faults for which idle and cowardly souls forgive themselves, alas, but too readily, for they wound and tear the Heart of Jesus.
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This is, doubtless, a most important and necessary subject for those who will some day read this book. The habit of small faults is an immense danger, and causes the death of souls by that sad slow malady called tepidity, which is a most difficult subject to treat of. I tremble to say too much, lest any faithful, and at the same time fearful, souls, who may apply these words to themselves, should be alarmed or discouraged; but far more do I fear saying too little on this subject, and so leaving many others to sleep in death.
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O Sacred Heart of Jesus, thou hast promised to heal all hearts, even those that are tepid and lukewarm; be Thou our strength and light; we can never have greater need of thy grace, never have we more confidently invoked it! We shall, then,
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I. Examine the signs or symptoms of this malady.
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II. Study its character or nature. III. Point out the remedies.
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I. A few words will suffice to enlighten the welldisposed soul ; for there are certain signs by which the malady and its dangers are made evident; thus, the habit one has of committing venial sins ; the frequency of these slight faults, and above all an habitual contempt of little things—I mean small graces, or rather, small infidelities; habitual negligence in all that concerns the service of God, such as prayer and receiving the Sacraments; disgust, ennui, and routine in pious exercises; and above all when there is scarcely any resistance or struggle before committing a fault, and but little remorse or repentance afterwards. All these are alarming symptoms, and may well cause you to fear. If you are not already struck with this malady, you are certainly threatened with it; already have you plunged many of these thorns into the Heart of your God ; you have wounded Him by all these infidelities.
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But there is no thorn that tears this Heart more cruelly than a divided soul, which gives itself but partially, fighting continually against His love, refusing Him almost every sacrifice. As if it were possible to reconcile the Gospel with the world, or to mingle heaven and earth! Jesus could not endure a soul in such a state, and would not remain with it; it would disgust Him; He would soon reject it, and cast it out of His Heart. And mark this well : the more the graces received, the more alarming are the symptoms, and the more is death to be feared. Yet, again, do you understand what it is that makes this state so sad, and the contrast between the two hearts so horrible? The one burns with love, devoured by the flames of the most ardent charity ; the other is tepid and languid, what do I say? it is cold, and will soon be frozen in death! Dead from the very heart!
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II. Let us now study the characteristics of this sad malady, and at once declare it to be, not only a condition of pain, but replete with danger.
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These divided souls and weak hearts generally suffer much; for God is not pleased, nor can He be; then He complains, He often threatens, and sometimes strikes. He complains; and thenceforward there is not the same confiding intercourse. He is resisted, and can no longer give His peace. Who that resists Him can have peace? The soul withdraws from Him, and then His light becomes less, and finally disappears. He threatens: I will place, He says, thorns in all his paths; the malediction of the Lord is ready to fall upon him who fights his battles with cowardice, and who negligently performs the Lord's work. 'Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully' (Jer. xlviii. 10). At last He strikes, and sometimes with heavy blows of justice; He makes His thunderbolts fall upon these ungrateful children to rouse them from their sleep of death, unless some day, fully disgusted, He holds His peace, and flees away, which is incomparably more fatal for the soul, which is thus left to die. All these, and the following verities, are of faith, reason, and experience. God has said, and you also know, dear reader, that you have never been really happy in the service of God, except when you have been faithful and generous.
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But it is time for us to enter upon the terrors of this subject, and to speak of the dangerous character of this sad malady of tepidity, which infallibly leads to the death of souls—yes, infallibly; but—and this is what appears to me so terrifying—it leads the soul very gently on to this fatal termination: Paulatim, by little and little, says the Holy Spirit, and so imperceptibly that a soul may be really dead, and yet preserve the appearance of life. Three kinds of paths or descents lead to this abyss, all so rapid and imperceptible, that the progress, or rather the fall, is scarcely observed. This explanation is necessary for the comprehension of two sentences which seem to contradict each other. God says, they shall fall little by little, very gently: 'He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little' (Eccles. xix. 1). St. Bernard says, 'They begin by small things, trifling faults, and soon are carried away,are precipitated into great ones, and then into crime, because the descent is gentle and rapid at the same time.'
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The path of illusion is one of the ways by which the soul goes to its death. Self-deception is so easy. What! when even the science of theology is not always sufficient for a priest to be able to pronounce whether the sin of which you accuse yourself is mortal or venial; and yet you do not fear to decide in your own favour! Nevertheless there is not a great distance between a thought negligently resisted and the commencement of complaisance, or even of guilty desire; not so great a distance as you may imagine between a look of imprudent curiosity and one of impurity. 'Fear then: thou hast the name of being alive, and thou art dead' (Apoc. iii. 1). Yes, perhaps even now you are dead, and at the bottom of the abyss!
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Another path is that by which the soul is drawn away. This fatal habit of easy indifference, this life of self-indulgence and concession, ends by overcoming the will. There is first a force which lessens the attraction to what is good, and an influence augmenting the attraction of evil; then a day comes when the measure of evil is full, and the soul is crushed under the weight of a thousand trifling faults, which, though considered to be but trifles, are sufficient by their frightful accumulation to destroy its life; there is no courage to resist the supreme effort of the perfidious enemy, who only waited for this day and hour to give battle and to triumph. You will understand I do not not say that venial sins will in the end become mortal; ordinarily this would not be true, though it is certain that in matters of justice they might in some cases impose an obligation sub gravi, and form a grave matter or crime, and consequently a mortal sin. I mean merely -to say that generally the soul enchained by the force of habit finds itself gently, but surely, conducted by this path of attraction to death—that is to say, to mortal sin. Finally, there is the road of divine justice or chastisement. Wounded and outraged by all these resistances to grace, wounded and outraged in His love by all these infidelities and faults, God is at last exhausted, even His Heart is filled with disgust. At first He is silent; He withdraws Himself, He abandons and even curses this soul; and then—the terrible word must be said—He rejects, and finally vomits it: 'Because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth' (Apoc. iii. 16). O misery! Destiny a thousand times more sad in one sense than that of the sinner! Jesus wishes not for his death, but that he might return to life. Comprehend, then, my dear reader, the difference. If you are a sinner, Jesus Christ pities you; He opens His Heart to you, and will shed tears of compassion over you, and the treasure of His merciful pity. Weep, and He will pardon you ; but if you continue tepid, He cannot endure you; you disgust Him; He will vomit you forth out of His mouth. 'I will begin to vomit thee;' and perhaps this has already begun. 'I would thou wert cold or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth' (Apoc. iii. 16).
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To vomit! This is the terrible word which I cannot write without trembling, and which I had even rather not attempt to explain here, for fear of plunging some soul into despair. I will, then, merely ask when and how Jesus Christ could return, and take back this soul which He had once vomited forth with disgust? I wish to know if there is anything by which the soul can be roused from this death-sleep or restored to life. Would good reading effect this? We know that many sinners have been converted by reading good books—St. Augustine, Ignatius Loyola, and many others we could name; but have you ever seen or heard of this effect upon a tepid soul? Would confession be likely to rouse it? Alas, a tepid soul prepares itself without care, and approaches this Sacrament unconcernedly, not even understanding what the priest says! Would Holy Communion effect it? On the contrary, most certainly a tepid Communion would consummate the evil, and the soul would sink into an abyss of sin and death. Would, then, the Holy Scriptures, which are searching, efficacious, and penetrating, and by which God has often worked wonders, be the means of restoring this soul to life? Alas, it is rarely, indeed, that lukewarm souls are touched by the Holy Word, for they have ears and hear not.
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It may be truly said that nothing can arrest them when once they begin to descend into the abyss; nothing can raise them when once they have fallen; nothing restore them to life when they are dead. 'I would thou wert cold!'
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Yet, further, mark the difference. I will suppose a fervent soul finds itself a prey to sudden and horrible temptation. If it yields and begins to fall, it is alarmed, and immediately asks whither it is going, and prays its guardian angel to arrest and protect it. Startled and aroused even by the shock of its fall, it sorrowfully asks where it is, and cries from the bottom of the abyss to God to have pity. 'Out of the depths have I called to Thee, O Lord.' But the tepid soul, on the contrary, which gradually, imperceptibly descends, never stops to inquire whither it is going, or where it is. The barren tree is fallen, is dead! Is there not every reason to fear that as it falls, so it will lie? But enough, O my God ; perhaps even too much for more than one soul; and how do I tremble lest in these words I may have written my own sentence! Let us, then, hasten to say there is yet a remedy, and that we must never cease to hope.
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III. Yes, you can be healed, if you wish, and I am about to point out two remedies, which are as infallible as they appear mild and easy. Do you really wish for them? Will you be made whole?
The first, then, is prayer; above all, prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He has promised to save and heal all who invoke Him with confidence, even tepid souls : a spark of love, or a tear shed over you, will recall you to life. Say to Him, then, 'O my Jesus, he whom Thou lovest is sick' (John xi. 3); 'O my God, I die !' and He will have pity on you, and will restore you the strength and joy of the years of your first fervour. Have confidence; cast yourself into this Divine Heart.
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The second remedy is even more simple, easy, and prompt: it is action, or sacrifice. You will try to conquer yourself, and will at once commence by a little sacrifice. You will gain a victory over yourself by restraining your lips even from one useless word, or by repressing the idle curiosity of a look in walking in the streets or in the church. You will make this sacrifice to-day in honour of the Heart of Jesus, and He will recompense you by the peace and joy of His love. To-morrow offer Him two sacrifices, two equally easy victories; then three, and four. Thus you will go on for several days, and there will be a proportionate increase of peace, love, and joy in your hearts. I assure you that not only will you be healed, but you will live joyfully for His glory, and you will live to die no more. Thus each day you will remove some of those thorns which wound His Heart, and this grateful and faithful God will daily bestow upon you a more abundant portion of life and grace. 'That they may have it more abundantly' (John x. 10).