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 you promised anything? No matter how great a thing it may be, do more than you promised. Have you refused to do something? Be ashamed of your refusal, and do whatever you said you could not or would not undertake.

He who both listens and performs — in whom virtue becomes a habit by force of practice — is 'the wise man who built his house upon a rock.' Temptations may come — disease may enfeeble — every sort of trial may afflict that soul; but it will not succumb. Those, on the contrary, who only listen — who take delight in the beauty or truth of the Sacred Word, without putting it into practice, or doing so but imperfectly — 'have built their house upon the sand,’ and it will fall upon the first occasion, 'and great ’ will be ' the fall thereof.’