July 18
Compunction of Heart
Preparation. - A powerful means of preserving humility, like the Blessed Virgin, is compunction of heart. Tomorrow we shall meditate, first, on its wholesome effects, and secondly, on the motives we have of exciting it in us. Then we shall propose to make acts of love and contrition during meditation, at the night examination of conscience, before confession, and every time we may commit a fault. “I will recount to Thee all my years in the bitterness of my soul” (Is. 38. 15).
I. Effects Of Compunction
Compunction, or habitual contrition, arises in us chiefly from our horror of sin and our regret for having committed it. this horror of offending God is essential to perfection; it is the ordinary nourishment of humility. In fact, this later virtue feeds on our self-knowledge of being sinners and inclined to sin. This knowledge produces compunction, which, in its turn, feeds humility by preserving the feeling of repentance, and repentance conquers our pride. Hence David did not separate a contrite heart from an humbled heart. The humility of the saints has ever been one of repentance.
Thence originated in them that purity of heart which could bear no stain, not even a shadow of imperfection, without bewailing and expiating it. They would impose on themselves rigorous penances for even the lightest faults. Hence their heart, ever cleansed with the sweet tears of compunction, was not only pure in the sight of God, but fore-armed against relapse. This habitual repentance even extinguished in them all desire of sensual pleasure, as was the case in the holy penitents who formerly peopled the deserts. How detached we should be from the earth, and pure of every fault, if the holy sadness of repentance were to fill our soul!
It would be for us a constant source of devotion, for there is not question here of a gloomy contrition, which produces diffidence and discouragement, but of that loving repentance called “sorrowful love” by the saints. How greatly does not true compunction benefit souls! It maintains in them humble and grateful piety, which disposes us to shed sweet tears during payer, at Mass and holy Communion, thus enabling us to be recollected and to draw from God without ceasing, the graces that form saints. How profitable it would, then, be to us to soften our naturally hard heart, by continual sorrow for our sins!
O my God, give me the grace to bewail interiorly the remembrance of my sins, so as to keep up in me humility, detachment, purity of heart, and thus to grow daily in solid piety and true devotion. I love Thee, O my supreme Good; I repent of having offended Thee. Grant me an habitual contrition, or the spirit of compunction, which is so pleasing to Thee, because it is so beneficial to us. “A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit” (Ps. 50. 19).
II. Motives Of Compunction
The saints, even the most innocent, bewailed all their light faults and imperfections. Why, then, should we not groan over our sins, so grievous and so numerous! A single mortal sin is an offense so opposed to God’s perfections, so flagrant an outrage against His holy Majesty! It is an evil far more deplorable than the destruction of the universe, and deserves everlasting punishment. How can we ever forget it, if we have ever been guilty of it! Adam bewailed his disobedience over nine hundred years, and it was not too much. “He who sins once,” says Tertullian, “should forever weep over it.” How great a motive for us to weep, we who have perhaps committed numberless sins!
But if the thought of having offended our Creator and deserved hell is capable of causing us to grieve, how much more does not the thought of having caused our Redeemer's sufferings and death induce us to bewail our sins! This consideration rendered St. Margaret of Cortona inconsolable. Let us suppose that, in a moment of exasperation, we had deprived our own parents of life, could we ever forget such a horrible crime? And we have, perhaps most deliberately, in spite of the remorse of our conscience, trodden under foot the only-begotten Son of God (Hebr. 6. 6 and 10. 29), and again crucified Him, who, after having given us the life of our soul, deigns still to feed us with His sacred flesh! O monstrous ingratitude! Does not such a crime deserve to be wept over with tears of blood for all eternity?
Moreover, the sad state of our soul laden with sin should increase our sorrow. Although we may have recovered the life of grace and our lost merits, de we not still feel in our members, as St. Paul says (Rom. 7. 23), a law opposed to the law of our mind? Do not the three concupiscences, mentioned by St. John, constantly wage war in us? And then, what darkness clouds our reason, and how great is the weakness, the malice of our heart! Do we not resemble an ant-hill full of repulsive vices as loathsome and as a venomous as scorpions? They expose us without ceasing to the death of sin and to eternal perdition. O fatal fruits of original sin and of our own sins!
O Jesus, sad unto death in the garden of olives, impart to my heart a lively contrition animated with the purest motives! Enable me to bewail, first, the outrage committed against Thy infinite perfections by my criminal revolts against Thee and the misfortune of having thereby deserved hell; secondly, the ingratitude with which I renewed, by my sins, Thy bitter and sorrowful Passion; and thirdly, the immense injury caused to my soul by sin, in depriving me of grace and of all merit, and making me the slave of the vilest and most tyrannical passions. O Mother of sorrows, obtain for me tears of the most sincere repentance, especially at my evening examination of conscience and at confession.
