Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/162

 fallen under a large stone, which he is unable to remove. A person in such a case will rise only with difficulty. “The man on whom the weight of a bad habit presses, rises with difficulty." St. Gregory says: ”Lapis superpositus, cum consuetudine mens in peccato demoratur ut esti velit exsurgere, jam non possit quia moles desuper premit," (Moral, lib. 26, c. xxiv.) 11. St. Thomas of Villanova teaches, that a soul which is deprived of the grace of God, cannot long abstain from new sins. "Anima a gratia destituta diu evadere ulteriora peccata non potest." (Conc. 4 in Dom. 4 quadrages.) In expounding the words of David, “O my God, make them like a wheel, and as a stubble before the wind," (Ps. lxxxii. 14.) St. Gregory says, that the man who struggled for a time before he fell into the habit of sin, as soon as he contracts the habit, yields and yields again to every temptation, with as much facility as a straw is moved by the slightest blast of wind. Habitual sinners, according to St. Chrysostom, become so weak in resisting the attacks of the devil, that, dragged to sin by their evil habit, they are sometimes driven to sin against their inclination. ”Dura res est consuetudo, quæ nonnunquam nolentes committere cogit illicita," Yes; because, as St. Augustine says, a bad habit in the course of time brings on a certain necessity of falling into sin. "Dum consuetudini non resistitur, facta est necessitas." 12. St. Bernardino of Sienna says, that evil habits are changed into one‟s nature. ”Usus veritur in natura." Hence, as it is necessary for men to breathe, so it appears that it becomes necessary for habitual sinners to commit sins. They are thus made the slave of sin. I say, the slaves. In society there are servants, who serve for wages, and there are slaves, who serve by force, and without remuneration. Having sold themselves as slaves to the devil, habitual sinners are reduced to such a degree of slavery, that they sometimes sin without pleasure, and sometimes even without being in the occasion of sin. St. Bernardino compares them to the wings of a windmill, which continue to turn the mill even when there is no corn to be ground; that is, they continue to commit sin, at least by indulging bad