Salesian Literature

Chapter 8:  The means to make the second purification

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The first motive for carrying out this second purification is a clear and forceful realization of the great harm that sin causes us.  By this means, we are led to a heartfelt and earnest contrition.  Contrition, as long as it is sincere, even if it is weak, cleanses us sufficiently from sin, especially when joined to the power of Sacraments.  So, when it is strong and earnest, it cleanses us from all the attachments connected with sin.

 

A slight and weak hatred or ill feeling gives us a dislike for the person we hate and makes us avoid him.  But if it is a hatred that is deadly and violent, we not only avoid and detest the one we hate but we hold in disgust and cannot bear the conversation of his family, relatives and friends and even the sight of his picture or anything that belongs to him.  In the same way, when the penitent hates sin with a contrition that is sincere but weak he is truly determined not to sin any more.  But when he hates sin with a contrition that is powerful and vigorous, he not only detests sins but also all the attachments to sin, as well as everything that results from sin or leads to it.

 

Hence, it is necessary, Philothea, to increase our contrition and repentance as far as we can, so that it extends even to the smallest things connected with sin.  Thus Magdalene, when she was converted, lost all desire for her sins and the pleasures taken in them so that she never thought of them again.[1]  And David declared that he detested not only sin but also all the paths and ways leading to it  (Ps. 119:104,128).  Through such conversion is a person made quite young again.  The same Prophet compares it to the renewal of the eagle (Ps. 103:5).

 

In order to acquire such a realization and contrition, you must carefully make the following meditations.  If you do them well, they will root out from your heart, with the help of God’s grace, both sin as well as the principal attachments to sin.  This was precisely my purpose in composing them.

 

Make the meditations one after the other in the order in which I have put them.  Take only one each day, and as far as possible in the morning, which is the most suitable time for spiritual activities.  Reflect on it during the rest of the day.  If you have not yet been taught to make meditation, read what is said about it in the Second Part of this book.

 

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[1]  St. Francis is following here the tradition which incorrectly identifies Mary Magdalen with the sinful woman of Luke 7:36-50.  There is no basis for this identification.  Mary Magdalen was a possessed woman healed by Jesus as indicated by Luke in the passage that immediately follows (Lk 8:1-2).

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