Article V. On the Remedies of Sins

Since it belongs to the scope of moral theology to provide that knowledge of sin which tends toward practice, and therefore also toward uprooting sin, it is of the highest importance to know the remedies of sin, by which both the inclination toward sin may be weakened, consent to it excluded, and the wound inflicted by it upon the soul repaired.

The principal remedies are:

I. Flight from occasions of sin. "He who loves danger will perish in it."¹ "And if your hand or your foot scandalizes you, cut it off and cast it from you: it is good for you to enter into life maimed or lame, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into eternal fire. And if your eye scandalizes you, pluck it out and cast it from you: it is good for you with one eye to enter into life, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire."²

¹ Ecclus. 3:27.

² Matt. 18:8-9.

II. Meditation, i.e., consideration of those things which pertain to the salvation of the soul. By this consideration ignorance is expelled, inadvertence is prevented, hatred of sin and love of virtue are promoted. That saying of St. Augustine is well known: "A thoughtful understanding is the beginning of every good." Now among those things which cohere with the loss of grace through sin, the punishment which God, so merciful, decrees in his justice against the sinner must be considered in the first place. Hence Sacred Scripture: "The fear of the Lord drives out sin."¹ "Remember your last things, and you will not sin forever."² Hence Christ himself turns man away from sin by the commemoration of punishments, as is clear from the text cited above. Therefore spiritual exercises, to be undertaken either privately or together with others, for example in a so-called retreat house, cannot be commended enough.

¹ Ecclus. 1:27.

² Ecclus. 7:40.

III. The exercise of those acts which are more opposed to the individual sins into which one has fallen or toward which one is inclined, whether acts of penance or of the virtues opposed to those sins. To this especially belongs the exercise of the love of God by repeated acts; its force efficaciously opposes every sin, and even the demons, who instigate to sin, greatly dread it, as St. Anthony the Great testifies: "Believe me, brethren, Satan greatly fears the vigils, prayers, fasts, voluntary poverty, mercy, and humility of the devout; but especially ardent love for Christ the Lord, by whose one sign of the Most Holy Cross, weakened, he flees."¹ To this, finally, refer the things we noted above where we spoke of exercising the energy of the will (n. 50).

¹ Breviarium Romanum, January 17 and November 2.

IV. Reception of the sacraments, as will be clearly evident from the treatise on the Sacraments.

V. Prayer, according to these words: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened."¹ Now both by the voice of the Church and by the sayings of the Saints we are taught that the grace which we seek is to be sought especially through Mary, Mother of Mercy; she is the universal mediatrix of grace for us before Jesus.

¹ Matt. 7:7-9.