A multitude of the angels refused to obey: they sinned. These were cast out of Heaven into Hell, and punished with the direst woe forever.
2. The understanding takes in the striking points of analogy between their history and that of man: If they were so severely punished, what must man expect when he imitates their rebellion? What a dreadful evil sin must be, since a good and just God hates it so. Their great number did not save the angels, nor will the number of bad men be a protection; all men are like a little dust before the infinite God. Man’s excellence is below that of the angels, in power, in knowledge and in all natural gifts. They sinned but once; perhaps I have sinned repeatedly. What must I think of myself? of my past? of my future?
3. My will is gradually moved by these and similar considerations to detest sin, to dread sin, to detest myself if I have sinned, to beg God to spare me. I must stir up my will to hate sin more and more, to protest to God my hatred of it, my self-reproach: “Spare me, Oh Lord, according to the multitude of thy mercies.”
POINT II. Consider the sin of our first parents. 1. My memory recalls the facts. They were created by the same God and for the same end as I; they were loved by Him and placed in a garden of delights, in Paradise, destined to enjoy the vision of God forever. They were free. God allowed Satan to tempt them, as He allows him to tempt me: “The serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And the woman saw that the tree was good, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave to her husband, who did eat” (Gen. iii, 4-6). They were in consequence cast out of Paradise, condemned to more than nine hundred years of toil and suffering, and to death, and all the evils that have befallen them and their posterity have been the punishment of sin.
2. My understanding must weigh these facts and reason on them, so as to realize the boundless evil of rebelling against our sovereign Lord and Master. It is not only the words of God but even more His deeds that show us what He is and how He acts. His severity in punishing sin in creatures for which He had shown such generous love exhibits the utter abomination He has for moral evil.
3. I must stir up my will to detest that same evil, to dread my own weakness which exposes me to sin again, to regret my past offenses, and to form strong resolutions for the future, praying earnestly for God’s help.
POINT III. St. Ignatius bids us consider a third sin, namely that of some person who has gone to Hell for one mortal offense. St. Liguori, in his little book “On the Commandments and Sacraments,” narrates a number of what he calls “Melancholic Examples,” of persons who appeared after death, and said they were damned for some one or more mortal sins which they had not properly confessed. One is the case of a woman, who had been reputed to be very devout, so much so that after her death her body had been treated with the greatest veneration. But the day after her burial she appeared to the Bishop of the place as if laid on a blazing fire, and she told him that she was damned on account of a mortal sin of thought she had concealed in confession.
1. The memory must recall the facts; it matters not whether they are well authenticated or not, since the doctrine is certain that one mortal sin unpardoned is enough to damn the soul.
2. The understanding reasons on the case, so as to realize vividly the sad results of dying in sin.
3. The will is thus stirred up to hate sin as the greatest of all evils, and to avoid it at any sacrifice, according to the warning of Christ: “If thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. For it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than thy whole body be cast into hell” (St. Matth. v, 29).