Salesian Literature

Chapter 12  :  Charity recovered gives new life to virtues deadened by sin

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The good deeds of the upright man which die through sin, are not called dead, but deadened, drowsy, comatose; as soon as charity returns they ought to – or, at least, they can – wake up to life again.  The return of sin brings death to the soul, to all its activities; the return of grace brings life.

 

A hard winter deadens the life of the countryside; were it to last all the year round, plants and flowers would never come to birth.  Sin, the deplorable and frightful winter of the soul, deadens all the virtues it finds there; and, if such a state were to endure, nothing would ever know new life or energy.

 

When spring comes round again, however, it is not only newly planted seeds that germinate and blossom into beauty; old plants too, withered and deadened by the preceding winter, grow green and strong again, take on new life.  The same thing happens when sin is suppressed, when the grace of God’s love returns to the soul.  Not only do new emotions, which the return of this spiritual springside affords, blossom to fill the soul with merits, with blessings; but virtues blighted and withered by the sharp winter of past sinfulness, free now of their deadly enemy, gain new strength, new life.  As it were risen from the dead, they blossom anew, producing fruit destined to merit life everlasting.

 

Most assuredly, the Council of Trent[1] means us to encourage sinners to return to the grace and friendship of God with these words of St. Paul: Stand firm, immovable in your resolve, doing your full share continually in the task the Lord has given you, since you know that your labour in the Lord’s service cannot be spent in vain (1 Cor. 15:58).  God is not an unjust God, that he should forget all you have done, all the charity you have shown in his name (Heb. 6:10).

 

God, then, does not forget the virtues of those who, when they have lost charity bys in, recover it by repentance.  He forgets good deeds when the merit and sanctity of them are lost by a fall into sin; but he remembers them again when they have recovered life and value through the presence of charity.  So that if God’s faithful followers are to be rewarded for their good deeds, both by increase of grace, by pledge of future glory now, and by eternal life in the world to come, it is not essential for them never again to fall into sin, but sufficient (according to the Fathers of Trent[2]) if they die in the grace and love of God.

 

God has promised eternal rewards for a good man’s deeds; but it may be that the innocent man will lose his innocence … if so … all his upright life shall be forgotten (Ez. 18:24).  If, however, the poor sinner picks himself up and returns to God’s love by repenting of his evil deeds, God will utterly forget those transgressions (Ez. 18:21-22).  A sinful past forgotten, the good deeds that went before it will be remembered, also the promised reward.  It was sin which blotted them from God’s memory; but now sin is wiped out, taken away, completely destroyed.

 

Sin differs in this from virtue … A good man’s deeds are not wiped out, taken away, utterly destroyed, when he falls into sin; they are only forgotten.  The sins of wicked men, however, are not only forgotten, but wiped out, washed away, entirely destroyed, all trace of them removed by repentance.  That is why any sin into which a good man falls does not revive the guilt of former sin once forgiven; that has been completely destroyed.  Charity, however, when it reappears in a repentant soul, does revive the virtues of former times; they were never taken away, only forgotten.

 

It would not do for sin to have greater influence than charity; after all, sin is the result of our weakness, while charity is due to God’s power.  If bad will amplifies our sin to be the end of us, grace is more amply bestowed than ever to put things right (cf. Rom. 5:20).

 

God’s mercy, by which he blots out sin, ever triumphs over the severity of his justice (cf. Jas. 2:13), through which he forgot the good deeds sin had veiled.  Always, therefore, in our Lord’s miraculous healings of the sick, he not only gave them back their health, but additional blessings they never knew before.  The cure should far outweigh the ill – so good is God to man.

 

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[1]  Session 6: On Justification, chapter 16.

[2]  Session 6: On Justification, chapter 16.  cf. also Canon 32.

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