Thought for the Day – 19 February – Meditations with Fr Richard Frederick Clarke SJ (1839-1900)
Meditations on “The Great Truths”
From “The Devout Year”
By Fr Richard Frederick Clarke SJ (1839-1900)
19th Day – The Punishment of Venial Sin
Thou shalt not go out from thence
until thou repay the last farthing.
(St Matthew v:26)
Venial Sin is the great evil in the world next to mortal sin and, therefore, it deserves a punishment greater than all the miseries of earth.
God has taught us what sort of an evil it is, by one or two instances of the way in which He visits it in this life.
+1. Moses, the friend of God, the Chosen Ruler of His People, the meekest of men, to whom God conversed as friend with friend, once committed a Venial Sin. He gave way to momentary impatience and lost his temper under provocation. For this, God denied him admission into the Promised Land! After his long and faithful service, God sent him to die on Mount Nebo before the Jordan was crossed. All the forty years of weary travel did not avail him; the Venial Sin cut him off before the goal was reached!
+2. David , the man after God’s Own Heart, in a moment of vanity, determined to number the people, boastfully priding himself on the strength of his fighting men.
In punishment of this, God sent a pestilence which, in less than three days, destroyed seventy thousand Israelites.
Jerusalem itself, would have been decimated, had not David entreated God to avert His destroying Hand.
How God must hate Venial Sin!
+3. After death, there will remain for most, a debt still to be paid for Venial Sin.
It is in Purgatory where we shall see its true character.
No earthly agony even approaches the agony of the Purgatorial Fire. The souls God loves, must be tormented there until they have paid the last farthing.
Alas! what do I still owe?
Am I doing my best to pay the debt and avoid adding to it?
Beg for an intense dread of Venial Sin .
AnaStpaul 