A Fount of Healing ~ The Catholic Girl’s Guide, Father Lasance
In ancient fairy tales one may read of a stream in which anyone who bathes is instantly cured of whatever disease may afflict him; anyone who is old and ugly becomes young and beautiful once more, and even he who is already dead awakes to renewed life. If there were in reality such a stream, if such healing waters did indeed exist, with what alacrity sick, old, or homely persons would hasten thither from all parts of our globe: how the dead would be carried there from far and near.
We know that for the body there exists no such stream, no healing resort of this kind, but I know that for the soul such a place does exist. Everyone who makes use in a proper manner of this fount of healing is at once cured of his diseases; I mean set free from his sins. His soul is once more rendered young and fair, pure and clean, endowed with strength from above; he regains the life of grace if, unhappily, he has lost it, and with this life the hope of eternal happiness.
You have already divined my meaning. The cleansing stream, the fount of healing for souls, which derives its efficacy from the precious blood of Jesus Christ, is the holy Sacrament of Penance. The value of this sacrament is shown by its marvelous effects, which we have already indicated. Ponder these effects, lay them carefully to heart, in order that you may feel an ever-increasing reverence, a holy enthusiasm, for this fount of healing.
The first effect of a good confession is the remission of sin and its eternal punishment. Think for a moment what sin is! St. Catherine of Siena once beheld in a vision all the hideousness of a venial sin. The sight was so appalling that the saint declared her readiness to walk all her life barefoot upon red-hot coals, rather than to behold such a thing again.
Now picture to yourself a man who has not only committed innumerable venial sins, but many mortal sins as well. What can be the aspect of his soul? Could such a sinner become aware of his true condition, he would prefer to die the most terrible death ten times over rather than to perceive his misery and continue enduring it.
What a happiness for him to be freed from his sins! It must be as if a tremendous burden were lifted from his heart.
Such once was the experience of a young girl as she lay upon her deathbed. In earlier days she had been somewhat giddy and thoughtless. However she had attended the sermons preached by an excellent priest in a mission and had made to him with due contrition a general confession of her whole life.
When, a few weeks later, the girl was attacked by a fatal malady, she was quite resigned, and even cheerful. She exhorted everyone who visited her to be diligent in going to confession, and added. “Three weeks ago death would have seemed most terrible to me, but now I am quite ready and willing to die.”
Let us imagine a man who, having committed a mortal sin, knew nothing of the Sacrament of penance. Were he to enter into himself and realize the enormity of his guilt and the awful state into which he had plunged himself, how would he not sigh and lament!
“Alas!” he would exclaim, “how happy I was in the paradise of innocence! My soul was pure; the fatherly eyes of God rested lovingly upon me; I could pray to Him with gladness and confidence! How peacefully my clays went by; what joy I felt when in the house of God; when I was resting on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, under the protection of my sweet Mother Mary; how brightly shone the crown of everlasting felicity, and how hopefully I looked upward to it.
“Now everything is lost; my soul is as hideous as a decaying corpse; and I see hell yawning before my eyes, ready to swallow me up! Alas! can anyone help me? Is deliverance still possible for me?”
If an angel from heaven were to appear to this miserable man, and tell him that God was willing to pardon his sins, to preserve him from hell, to admit him to heaven, to regard him again as His child, on the sole condition that he should sincerely and heartily repent of his sins, confessing them with real penitence to His representative on earth in the Sacrament of Penance,—with what gratitude and joy would such a sinner hail the heavenly messenger, how he would make every effort to render himself worthy of forgiveness!
You have long known that God has instituted the holy Sacrament of Penance for the remission of sins. But because you know this so well, ought the immense benefit which God has been pleased to confer upon you appear the less great and precious? Ought you on that account to hold in less esteem His condescension, His infinite mercy and loving kindness?
By forgiving your sins in the Sacrament of Penance, God bestows upon you an immeasurably greater benefit than if He were to deliver you from the most dreadful bodily disease, to restore you when dead to life, or to free you from the most noisome dungeon. Great indeed are the graces and benefits which He gives to us anew in the Sacrament of Penance.
Howsoever defiled by sin, however great the distance which separates him from God, every man while he yet lives upon this earth continues to receive great benefits at His hand. In a way, the sinner can never be said to have lost everything; some graces are his portion still.
He can pray, and thus storm the gates of heaven; he is permitted, nay, commanded, to hope. Not until he is summoned to appear before the awful judgment seat, and to hear the terrible words, “Depart from Me!” can we say of him in the fullest, most appalling sense that all is lost.
On the other hand, all is gained, all is saved, for the repentant sinner, who by confessing his sins is restored to the friendship of God. When the priest has pronounced the absolution, the soul becomes once more the child of God, a member of His family, a coheir of the inheritance of Jesus Christ.
The portals of heaven stand open to the sinner; he can confidently hope to be one day a partaker of its glory and joy, if he only persevere in the path upon which he has entered by means of the Sacrament. Hence arises the cure and lively joy which true penitents experience when they have made use of this fount of healing.
Listen to what was said on this point by no great saint, nor highly gifted soul, but by a soldier, an officer who had attended a mission preached by Father Brydaine in Paris and afterwards had made his confession to him.
He followed the good missioner into the sacristy, and spoke in these words before all present: “With all his treasures and riches and enjoyments, the king of France cannot feel so peaceful and happy as I do now. In the course of my whole life I have never experienced such pure and sweet satisfaction as that which is now my portion.”
If after confession you never, or at least very seldom, experience the sensible consolations of which I have spoken, do not be concerned on that account, nor imagine you have not made a good confession. If your compunction and your resolutions of amendment were really sincere, be assured that God will give you abundant grace to lead a pious life; that you will enjoy tranquility of mind, the consolation of the Holy Ghost, and the peace of a good conscience.
How great and wonderful a thing is the Sacrament of Penance! It is in very deed the source of life, the medicine of salvation, the death of sin, the fount of healing, the beginning of all that is good.
O happy Penance, which works so marvelous a transformation! It regains what was lost, it renews what was destroyed, it awakens to new life that which was dead.
O Christian maid, obey thy Savior’s call—
Before His mercy-seat He bids thee fall;
And ere the grave close o’er thee He would fain
Have thee confess thy sins and pardon gain;
For from His sacred wounds a stream doth flow
To cleanse thy soul and peace of mind bestow.
We should get used to extracting from ordinary day-to-day life whatever can increase our joy, rest, and legitimate satisfaction, and whatever can fill us with optimism. There is a thrill of joy and satisfaction in the thought that we are the objects of God’s love and can ourselves sincerely love Him…
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To the modern mind, the concept of poverty is often confused with destitution. But destitution emphatically is not the Gospel ideal. A love-filled sharing frugality is the message, and Happy Are You Poor explains the meaning of this beatitude lived and taught by Jesus himself. But isn’t simplicity in lifestyle meant only for nuns and priests? Are not all of us to enjoy the goodness and beauties of our magnificent creation? Are parents to be frugal with the children they love so much?
A fabulous reading on Confession, thank you! 😊