Page:TheDevotionAndOfficeOfTheSacredHeart.djvu/117

 in the blessed sacrament, associations, confraternities, fasting, penances, and generally all pious and edifying acts, which are performed to honour the adorable heart of our blessed Redeemer. — Whereupon it is not remiss to observe, that we must not so rest and depend on these outward practices, as to persuade ourselves that if we have but performed them, we have therefore fulfilled all justice. This would be confining the whole system of devotion to bare and empty ceremonies. Much less ought they to be considered as a claim to impunity for one’s faults, or as a security of a future conversion, after having long slighted Almighty God’s grace. This would be a gross illusion and a fatal abuse, ever disallowed by true devotion. But, on the other hand, because devotion is misused, it is no reason why it should be condemned or suppressed; for the best things are liable to be misused. The abuse, indeed, ought to be checked, but the devotion itself, wholly saintly and solid, should ever be preserved.

These general notions being once