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New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 2, 14 January 1925, Page 51

!§! VIII.— PERSONAL SINS. :. Sin made Lucifer and his rebel angels out- - casts from Heaven, it drove our first parents out of the garden of Eden and subjected ; them to many trials and much suffering, and it has no less terrible an effect upon the souls of all who commit it. No matter who the sinner may be, sin is always an outrage ■ upon the Divine Majesty, because it upsets the order established by Him for the good . government of His creation. ' - ■ 4 ■ In His creation God has set up a imiversal .harmony; and in this harmony man holds sun important part. He belongs to God, to himself, to mankind; and towards each of "these he has special duties, to violate which would be a sin, and this precisely because it would go against the order set up by God. f.> Man belongs to God, therefore, he is bound to worship and serve Him. He is bound to learn the manner and order of this worship and service that he may know how to fulfil these duties. The duties of religion are the '* most necessary part of his moral life. Priests , are bound to know what these duties are and to make them known to the people; they are bound to preach and the people are bound , to come and hear"He that heareth you, . heareth Me." Culpable ignorance of these duties will not save from sin. Neglect of prayer and religious instruction, omission of Sunday Mass, refusal to receive the Sacraments at the appointed times, all these are sins against the worship of God. We owe to God subjection of intellect and will. These are the two great ennobling powers of man, and it is the service of these that God first and above all requires. To rebel with either' the intellect or the will is the greatest possible disorder. N A' sin of the mind is a greater outrage against God than any sin of the body could be: to deny revealed truth, to defy the authority established by Him, to act against justice; these are sins of powers that are entirely spiritual, and are, therefore, of the greatest moral depravity. A gross generation will not understand this, but it is true nevertheless. We should examine our consciences very carefully on this point. What use are we making of the intellect with which God has endowed us ? How" are we educating and strengthening the spiritual power- of free will ? What are the repeated acts of virtue and religion by which we are training and developing it and leading it into subjection to the will of God On our answer to these questions will depend : most of all our triumph over sin and our hope of salvation-. . -: Man has duties towards himself, towards his body and towards his soul, for he is a being made up of soul and body. He must preserve the harmony intended by God between his soul and ,body. A deliberate and unlawful indulgence of the flesh does harm only to the sinner himself, not to the ..neighbor, yet it is in itself a greater sin ; than, one against the neighbor, for a man's .4 duties towards himself comes before his duties ?f towards his neighbor. St. Thomas says that Vthe harmony between soul and body comes