ing something for Him without being told? When Jesus comes to you is your greeting as perfunctory as Simon's, or as loving as Magdalen's or the Samaritan's? On your answer, yes, or no, depends your perseverance.
Brethren, Christ speaking of Himself says: " I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." It is Catholic doctrine that as man cannot merit the grace of conversion, neither can he merit the grace of perseverance. Both are purely gifts of God. Hence St. Paul to the Philippians prays that God " who had begun a good work in them might perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus." So frail is human nature that though one may do a thing ever so well the chances are that he will not do it with equal perfection a number of times over. Hence all of us, even the most saintly, are sure to commit more or less venial faults. Exemption from that has been granted to one alone — the Virgin Mary. But it is not venial but mortal sins that turn us from God. Yet here, too, arises the selfsame difficulty. For though one may have sufficient grace to avoid all grievous faults, taken one by one, yet we may surely prophesy that the time will come when he will sin, and mortally sin, unless God fortify him with the grace of perseverance. Perseverance, therefore, is a special providence whereby God removes fatal temptations from our path, strengthens us in times of greatest peril, and brings our life to a close when naught else will suffice to save us. How utterly, therefore, do all from first to last depend on God!
