“Without grace we cannot even begin to do a good thing… we cannot even have the wish to do good.”

Blessed Feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church.

Prayer is essential, folks. Find the time. Act as if your everlasting life depends on it, because it does.

https://praybenedictus.com/

5 thoughts on ““Without grace we cannot even begin to do a good thing… we cannot even have the wish to do good.””

  1. I’ll be going to my regular (once every 2-3 weeks or so…) Confession tomorrow evening.
    Confession I’ve always thought was the single most important Sacrament. It is very hard to “do Confession wrong” and a priest will stop you and correct you if you do (I’ve had a priest do that to me…).
    While the Eucharist is the Source and Summit of the Faith, it’s very easy to do it “wrong” and “eat and drink your own damnation…” (I’m looking at a USA politician from the West Coast who’s been told by name by their Bishop not to take Communion…).
    Your “emotional state” is NOT your “spiritual state”. You can be feeling fantastic and be in a state of mortal sin, if you died right then you’d be thrown into Hell. You can also be an emotional wreck (I’ve been that way after a good Confession feeling like a worthless creature who did those things I just confessed) and be in a state of grace.
    Don’t fear Confession, the priest has heard it all. If you look start to compare different “Examination of Consciouses” you’ll see that sins don’t change. What people were Confessing 1000 years ago is the same thing people Confessed to Sts. Peter and Paul, and that’s what people Confessed 5 minutes ago.
    It doesn’t matter if you’ve been away from the Church for 50+ years, and give an hour-long play-by-play, or it’s only been a few days, you walk out of Confession forgiven, a new creation with Angels cheering you on because Confession saves your soul. Taking the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin is both itself a mortal sin and a sacrilege, and it will damn you.

  2. Well said, Pureblood. Our pastor has increased Confession times to every day before 8am Mass and also before every weekend Mass. He generally does a brisk business. Because of this expanded schedule (he always had Confession before weekend Masses and on Friday mornings), I am able to go very regularly (usually weekly) and to that practice I attribute the greatest “gains” of my spiritual life that I have ever had. May God bless my pastor a hundred fold for his generous offering of this Sacrament.
    (During Holy Week, he hears Confessions after Holy Thursday Mass, Stations on Good Friday, the Good Friday Liturgy, and around noon on Holy Saturday. Lines for all these times are routinely an hour or longer. We are a relatively small parish, too, but rapidly growing — we are already at over pre-Covid levels of attendance, whereas many parishes are still down 25% in Mass attendance. Oh, and the Archdiocese is doing a restructuring using an outside consultant firm and rumor has it our parish may be one closed. Interestingly enough, we are not one of the parishes in an urban area but in a suburban area of great population growth as well as being debt free. Oh, and we have two sons of the parish as new priests for the archdiocese— one ordained a year ago and one to be ordained next June.)

  3. Thank you, Mark, for posting this short Daily Meditation.
    Please can you share what book, booklet or pamphlet it is from.

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