I am still informing myself on correct doctrine, so I would be very grateful if you could answer these questions:
David Cebrián Romero – Via e-mail
“Everything was created through and for Jesus Christ.” But, reading St. Anthony, I found the following phrase: “Everything that God does, He does for man, because He is good.” How do these statements harmonize? They seem contradictory.
There is no contradiction between the quotation from Sacred Scripture and the statement of St. Anthony, since the texts are in different contexts.
When the Apostle affirms that everything was created through Christ and for Christ (cf. Col 1:16), he presents the Incarnate Word as the model of creation and its ultimate goal, the Father’s loving response to the glorification that the Son renders to Him: “the Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand” (Jn 3:35). And since the Second Person of the Holy Trinity took on our flesh, humanity itself, as a whole, was elevated to another level. St. Anthony, for his part, seems to wish to highlight this same goodness of God towards man, a goodness which led the psalmist to ask: “what is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou dost care for him?” (Ps 8:4).
Indeed, the Creator entrusted the whole earth to man, giving him the mission of cultivating it (cf. Gn 1:28-30), in cooperation with Him. Through the mystery of Redemption, however, he was associated with the divine work in a marvellous way, as St. Paul declares: “in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the Church” (Col 1:24). Thus, the redeemed Christian is united by participation to the salvific mission of the Son of God.
The Catechism of St. Pius X states: “To make the confession of venial sins more certain, it is prudent to confess, with true sorrow, also some more serious sin from past life, even if it has already been confessed at other times.” However, I read that Fr. Pio reprimanded his penitents when they did this.
The pious advice of the Catechism is a pastoral suggestion, not applicable to all cases. The confessor can discern specific circumstances in which it is not appropriate to recall sins already absolved – such as, for example, when there is a certain neurosis of guilt or unbalanced scruple. Scruples, observed St. Ignatius of Loyola (cf. Spiritual Exercises, n. 348), can be useful for beginners, but they are certainly harmful to those advanced in the spiritual life.
On the other hand, there are certain cases in which it is worthwhile to reiterate previous Confessions for the greater humiliation of one’s own soul, to further purge the remnants of sin – reliquiæ peccati, since certain inclinations generated by sin still remain in the soul, even after Confession – or in the case when one realizes that one has not confessed in an integral way; for example, hiding some aggravating circumstance.
Excessive scruples are not good, and it is against such that St. Pio of Pietrelcina warned; however, neither can one fall into unscrupulousness or laxity, which causes serious damage to the soul, and can lead to lukewarmness and even to final impenitence.
It is worth remembering that moral virtue lies between two extremes. For example, between gluttony and inappetence lies the balance of one who eats with temperance. ◊
