in the lack of compunction.

There is no surer means of rendering the spiritual life firm and steadfast than to impregnate it with the spirit of compunction.

Yet it seems that, speaking generally, modern authors do not insist as much on this subject1 as did ancient ascetic writers who are never weary of dilating on the importance of compunction, for spiritual progress; and we see the greatest saints constantly cultivating and recommending this disposition of soul.

You know," said St. Paul to the Ephesians, "from the first day that I came into Asia, in what manner I have been with you, for all the time, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears 2. It was because he remembered how he once persecuted the Church of God 3.

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He does not fear to recall to his disciple Timothy how he was a blasphemer, and a persecutor and contumelious; he declares himself the chief of sinners. And he adds: But for this cause have I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might shew forth all patience, for the information of them that shall believe in Him unto life everlasting. And the Apostle, remembering this infinite mercy towards him, cries out in gratitude : Now to the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever!"

It was another "convert" the object of similar mercy, Augustine, who wrote: "To speak much when praying is to do a necessary thing with superfluous words. To pray much is to knock for a long time with the movements of the heart at the door of Him to Whom we pray; prayer, in fact, consists more in sighs and tears than in grand discourses and many words. God puts our tears in His sight; our sighs are not ignored by Him Who created all things by His word, and has no need of our human words. "

Our holy Father echoes the words of the great Doctor. "If anyone desire to pray in private, let him do so quietly,... with tears and fervour of heart". Again he says: Let us remember that not for our much speaking, but for our purity of heart and tears of compunction shall we be heard": Non in multiloquor, sed in puritate cordis et compunctione lacrymarum nos exaudiri sciamus. Certainly our great Patriarch does not affirm this trutn without deep conviction and, I dare to say, an experimental conviction. Look too at this portrait of a perfect monk that he draws for us 1. See however Father Faber: Growth in Holiness, ch. XIX, Abiding sorrow for sin. 2. Act. xx, 18-19. 3. Philip. 111, 6. 4. I Tim. 1, 13 seq. Epist. cxxx, ch. X. 6. Rule, ch. LII. - 7. Ibid. ch. xx.

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5.

when he comes to the 12th degree of humility: this monk, he says, has reached the point where the perfection of charity and divine union are about to be realised: Mox ad caritatem Dei perveniet illam, quae perfecta foras mittet timorem1. And what is this monk's attitude? He considers himself unworthy, on account of his sins, to appear before God.

This is truly what all holy souls feel. A lady of high rank, who was converted after having lived in vanity and luxury, wrote to St. Gregory that she would give him no peace until he had assured her in the name of God that her sins were forgiven. The holy Pontiff, full of the spirit of the Rule, answered her that her request was as difficult as it was detrimental: difficult, because he did not esteem himself worthy of having revelations ; detrimental also for this soul, as it was in the interest of her salvation that she should not be assured of forgiveness: [with an absolute certainty that excluded all doubt and cast away all fear] until the last moment of her life, when she would no longer be in a state to weep for her faults and to deplore them in God's sight; until this last hour came, she ought ever to live in compunction and not to let a day pass without washing away her stains with her tears 2. See our St. Gertrude, that lily of purity. She said to our Lord with the deepest self-abasement: The greatest miracle in my eyes, Lord, is that the earth can bear such a worthless sinner as I am3. " St. Teresa, formed to perfection by our Lord Himself, had placed under her eyes in her oratory, in order to make it as it were the refrain of her prayer, this text of the Psalmist : Non intres, Domine, in judicium cum servo tuo 4. It is neither an exclamation of love, nor an act of sublime praise that we hear from this seraphic soul, who is declared by her historians never to have sinned mortally, but it is a cry of compunction: "Enter not, O Lord, into judgment with Thy servant 5. St. Catherine of Siena did not cease to implore divine mercy; she always ended her prayers with this invocation: Peccavi, Domine, miserere mei: "Have pity upon me, O Lord, for I have sinned".

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1. Rule, ch. VII. Love, Book 1, ch. the Bollandists.

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2. Epistolae, Lib. vii, cf. 25. 3. The Herald of Divine XII. 4. Ps. CXLII, 2. 5. Life of St Teresa, according to Vol. II, ch. XI. 6. Drane, Life of St Catherine of Siena. 1st Part. ch. IV. We know that St Catherine has in her Dialogue a whole treatise on tears. Bl. Raymund of Capua relates, that marvelling at the works of Catherine, he desired to have an undeniable proof that they came from God. The inspiration came to him to ask the Saint to obtain for him from the Lord an extraordinary contrition for his sins, for, he added, no one can have this contrition unless it comes from the Holy Ghost, and a like contrition is a great sign of God's grace. We know how St Catherine obtained "

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a bull

With all these souls, it was not a question of isolated acts and transitory impulses. The words we have repeated were but the outward manifestation of an inward abiding sense of compunction eager to find outlet.

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This habitual sense of compunction is so precious that, according to St. Teresa, souls that are the most forestalled with divine favours are the most filled with it. Speaking of souls that have reached the sixth mansion of the interior castle, she puts them on their guard against forgetfulness of their faults: Souls to whom God has granted these graces will understand what I say, she writes... Sorrow for sin increases in proportion to the divine grace received, and I believe will never quit us until we come to the land where nothing can grieve us any more... A soul so advanced as that we speak of does not think of the punishment threatening its offences, but of its great ingratitude towards Him to Whom it owes so much, and Who so justly deserves that it should serve Him, for the sublime mysteries revealed have taught it much about the greatness of God. The soul wonders at its former temerity and weeps over its irreverence; its foolishness in the past seems a madness which it never ceases to lament as it remembers for what vile things it forsook so great a Sovereign. The thoughts dwell on this more than on the favours received, which... are so powerful that they seem to rush through the soul like a strong, swift river. The sins, however, remain like a mire in the river bed, and dwell constantly in the memory, making a heavy cross to bear1. "

The Church herself gives us, in her Liturgy of the Mass, striking examples of compunction of neart.

Look at what the priest does at the moment when about to offer the Holy Sacrifice, the most sublime homage that the creature can render to God. The priest is necessarily supposed to be in a state of grace and in possession of God's friendship; otherwise, in celebrating, he would commit a sacrilege. Yet the Church, his infallible teacher, begins by making him confess before all the faithful there assembled, his condition not only of a creature, but of a sinner: Confiteor Deo omnipotenti... et vobis, fratres, quia peccavi nimis. Then in the course of the holy action, the Church multiplies upon his lips formulas imploring forgiveness that he may steep his heart and mind in them: Aufer a nobis, quaesumus, of pardon" for her disciple. Life of St Catherine by Bl. Raymund of Capua. It Part., ch. IX.

1. The Interior Castle translated by the Benedictines of Stanbrook, p. 202.

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Domine, iniquitates nostras: "Take away from us our iniquities, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that we may enter with pure minds into the Holy of Holies." In the midst of the song of the Angels, the priest blends cries for mercy with these exclamations of love and holy gladness: "Thou Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. When he offers the Immaculate Host to God, it is for his "innumerable sins, offences, and negligences. Before the consecration, he prays " to be delivered from eternal damnation": Ab aeterna damnatione nos eripi. After the consecration in which he is even identified with Christ Himself, the priest beseeches God to grant him some part and fellowship with the Saints notwithstanding his sins. NOBIS QUOQUE PECCATORIBUS... non aestimator meriti, sed veniae quaesumus largitor admitte. Then comes the moment when he is about to unite himself sacramentally with the Divine Victim. He strikes his breast, like a sinner: "Lamb of God... regard not my sins... grant that this union of my soul with Thee may not turn to my judgment and condemnation.

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We think how many holy priests and pontiffs, held up to our veneration, have said these words: Pro innumerabilibus peccatis meis. And the Church obliges them to repeat: Lord, I am not worthy. Why does the Church do this? Because without this spirit of compunction, one is not at the "right p.tch," the " diapason "of Chr stianity. When the priest beseeches that his sacrifice may be united with that of Christ, he says: May we be received by Thee, O Lord, in the spirit of humility and with a contrite heart. The oblation of Jesus is always pleasing to the Father; but, inasmuch as it is offered by us, it is only so on condition that our souls are filed with compunction and the spirit of self abasement that results from it.

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Such is the spirit that animates the Church, the Spouse of Christ, in the action that is the most sublime, the holiest she can accomplish here below. Even when the soul is identified with Christ, united to God in communion, the Church wishes us never to forget that we are sinners; she wishes the soul to be steeped in compunction: In spiritu humilitatis et in animo contrito suscipiamur a te, Domine.

III.

No one doubts that these sentiments of compunction prescribed by the Church for the Mass are perfectly fitting. But perhaps the thought may occur that they should be

reserved for the renewing of the Sacrifice of the Cross, for the reception of the Sacraments, in a word for the Liturgy. Elsewhere, in the ordinary course of the interior life, would they not be pious exaggerations, would not this be going a little too far? Certainly not. Listen to St. John in his divinely inspired Epistle: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us1. As regards great and holy souls,this assertion is luminous. The nearer they come to God, the Sun of Justice, and spotless Holiness, the better they perceive the stains that disfigure them; the brilliance of the Divine light in which they move, makes their least faults and failings appear in more striking contrast. Their inner gaze, purified by faith and love, penetrates more deeply into the Divine perfections; they have a clearer view of their own nothingness; they are better able to measure the abyss that separates them from the Infinite. Their more intimate union with Christ causes the sufferings endured by Him for the expiation of sin to touch them to the quick. Having a higher notion of the life of grace, they better grasp all that is horrible in offence committed against the Heavenly Father, in despising the Saviour's Passion, in injurious resistance to the Spirit of Love.

We understand that the fact of having offended God, were it but once in their existence, moves these souls with intensest grief. And there is, in their habitual attitude of repentance and detestation of sin, a constant proof of supernatural delicacy which cannot fail to please God, and draw down His infinite mercy upon them.

Moreover, the state of soul we are studying is in nowise, as might be imagined at first sight, incompatible with confidence and spiritual joy, with outpourings of love and delight in God. Quite the contrary! St. Augustine, St. Benedict, St. Gregory, St. Bernard, St. Gertrude, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa, all these souls filled with the spirit of compunction, were they not also inflamed with divine love and carried away by the overflowing joy of the Holy Spirit ? Had they not come to a sublime degree of union with God? Far from love and joy finding a hindrance in the habitual attitude of repentance which constitutes compunction, they find in it a firm basis and one of the greatest incentives for soaring Godwards. Whence in fact is compunction chiefly derived? From the remembrance of the offence against God considered as Infinite Goodness. By its very nature, 1. I Joan. 1, 8.