Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/388

 spring up in our gardens. Some will ask how they can free themselves from bad passions, and how they can prevent them from starting up within them. St. Gregory gives the answer: ” It is one thing to look at these heasts, and another to keep them within the den of the heart." (Mor. lib. 6, cap. xvi.) It is one thing, says the saint, to look at these beasts, or bad passions, when they are outside, and another to harbour them in the heart. As long as they are outside they can do us no harm; but if we admit them into the soul they devour us. 7. All bad passions spring from self-love. This is, as Jesus Christ teaches all who wish to follow him, the principal enemy which we have to contend with; and this enemy we must conquer by self-denial. ” If anyone shall come after me let him deny himself." (Matt. xvi. 24.) ” Non intrat in te, amor Dei," says Thomas a Kempis, ” nisi exulet amor tui." Unless we banish self- love from the heart the love of God cannot enter. Blessed Angela of Foligno used to say, that she was more afraid of self-love than of the devil, because self-love has greater power than the devil to draw us into sin. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi used to say the same, as we read in her life: ” Self-love is the greatest traitor we have to guard against. Like Judas, it betrays us with a kiss. He who conquers it conquers all enemies; he who does not conquer it is lost." The saint then adds: ” If you cannot kill it with a single stroke give it poison." She meant, that since we are not able to destroy this accursed enemy, which, according to St. Francis de Sales, dies only with our latest breath, we must at least labour to weaken it as much as possible; for when strong it kills us. Death, says St. Basil, is the reward which self- love gives its followers. The wages of self-love is death; it is the beginning of every evil. ” Stipendium amoris proprii mors est, initium omnis mali." (S. Bas. Apud Lyreum, lib. 2.) Self-love seeks not what is just and honourable, but what is agreeable to the senses. Hence Jesus Christ has said: ” He that loveth his life" that is, his sensual appetite or self-will ” shall lose it." (John xii. 25.) He who truly loves himself, and wishes to save his soul, should refuse to