Page:MeditationsOnTheMysteriesOfOurHolyV1.djvu/370

 Thy most precious blood, so great compunction for my sins that I may likewise be free from the pains, that my soul being loosed out of the prison of this body be not detained in the prison of purgatory! Amen.

3. Hence I will proceed to ponder how great an evil venial sin is, seeing that with it it is impossible to enter into heaven until it be first purified, for there, as St. John says, nothing that is polluted may enter. And I shall also perceive how much Almighty God abhors it when He there detains captives His own friends though they be very holy, until they be purified, and humbles them so much that He gives them for their prison, under the earth, an obscure place, and near to hell, discovering hereby how heavy the burden is of any sin whatsoever or pain that results from it, seeing it casts us into so profound an abyss. From all these considerations I will gather a great detestation of venial sins for the good that they deprive me of, for the prison with which they menace me, for the burden with which they burden me, and, above all, because Almighty God so abhors it, as we shall forthwith ponder more at large.

Secondly, I am to consider what a great feeling those souls have, and mine shall have, of the obscurity and darkness of that prison, which is to want the sight of Almighty God, and what a terrible pain this is, which is like to that which they call the pain of loss, pondering the causes of this feeling and pain.

1. The first is, because there they have a very lively faith of what Almighty God is, and how good, how beautiful and potent He is; how He is our last end and eternal blessedness, many of those clouds and doubts which we have