On the Lapsed 16

All these things spurned and despised, before their sins are expiated, before confession of the crime has been made, before the conscience has been purged by the sacrifice and hand of the priest, before the offense of the indignant and threatening Lord has been appeased, violence is done to his body and blood; and they now sin against the Lord with hands and mouth more than when they denied the Lord. They think that to be peace which some peddle with deceiving words. That is not peace but war; nor is he joined to the church who is separated from the gospel. Why do they call an injury a benefit? Why do they call impiety by the name of piety? Why do they pretend to give communion to those who ought to weep continually and entreat their Lord, cutting short the lament of penance? To such lapsed people they are what hail is to crops, a stormy star to trees, a pestilential devastation to herds, a savage tempest to ships. They take away the comfort of hope, they overturn from the root, with diseased speech they creep toward a deadly contagion, they dash the ship on the rocks so that it may not reach port. Such easiness does not grant peace but takes it away; it does not give communion but hinders it for salvation. This is another persecution and another temptation, by which the subtle enemy, still assailing the lapsed, rampages in a hidden devastation, so that lamentation may be quieted, grief silenced, the memory of sin vanish, the groaning of the heart be suppressed, the weeping of the eyes be stopped, and the Lord, gravely offended, not be entreated by long and full penance, although it is written, “Remember from where you have fallen, and do penance.” Let no one deceive himself, let no one be misled. The Lord alone can have mercy.