Choose a topic from Part 2B:
1. It is possible for a debased human will to hate God.God is altogether lovable, but to the sinner who incurs thenecessary penalties of sin, hatred of the divine justice, whichimposes the penalties, is possible.
2. Hatred of God is manifestly the worst of sins. For theevil of sin consists in the fact that it turns the soul away fromGod. And there can be no more complete and dreadful turning fromGod than by hatred of God.
3. It is always a sin to hate one's neighbor. For, asSt. John says (I John 2:9): "He that hateth his brother is indarkness." We are to hate sin in our brother, but we are tolove our brother.
4. Our hatred of our neighbor is a sin less hurtful to himthan other sins, such as theft, or murder, or adultery. Therefore,it is not true to say that hatred is the most grievous of sinsagainst a neighbor.
5. Hatred is not listed with the capital sins. For, thoughother sins may arise from hatred as from their capital source,hatred itself is not promptly present to fallen nature, but comesas the result of the gradual deterioration and destruction oflove.
6. Hatred grows out of the capital sin of envy, which issorrow over a neighbor's good. Envy makes a neighbor's goodhateful to the envious man, and thus, as St. Augustine says in hisRule: "Out of envy cometh hatred."
"Try to turn your heart from the love of things visible and bring yourself to things invisible. For they who follow their own evil passions stain their consciences and lose the grace of God.
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Thomas á Kempis
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"To do God's will -- this was the goal upon which the saints constantly fixed their gaze. They were fully persuaded that in this consists the entire perfection of the soul. "
St Alphonsus de Liguori
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"It is well to choose some one good devotion, and to stick to it, and never to abandon it."
St Philip Neri
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