He dedicates himself to God and mankind, interceding and making reparation for man with God.
"Jesus Christ is always living to make intercession for us with God's sovereign mercy, and He is also always dying on the altar £or us to satisfy God's infinite justice. A monk who passes his life near a tabernacle every day mingles a little drop of the water of his own sacrifice with the wine of our Redeemer's offering, so as to fill up in his flesh those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ for His body, which is the Church.
"Iniquity abounds day by day, and the Religious cuts himself off from the sinful world in order to go with confidence to the throne of grace, that he may obtain mercy and find grace in* seasonable aid, and that where sin abounded grace may yet more abound.
"He offers himself as a victim beside and with Jesus, first as a holocaust, the sacrifice made in honor of God happy to pay his Lord the vows that his lips have uttered; and he is, moreover, a peace-offering, a sacrifice for sin, happy to share the work of the Lamb, who taketh away the sin of the world.
"And what are the sufferings that he offers to God with Jesus Christ? In the first place, the separations and the submission imposed by his vows. He breaks the bonds of kindred, and gives up all connection with the world, renouncing its amusements and the enjoyment of wealth and the caprices of independence.
"In the second place, there are works of penance imposed by his rule; enclosure and silence, a hard bed and rising during the night, hair shirts and disciplines, prolonged and sometimes perpetual abstinence, frequent fasts, spiritual, intellectual, or manual labor. Different Orders have different forms of penance varying in proportion according to their, special aims.
"Lastly there are sufferings sent by Providence
