His daily life was laid out in devotional areas. By means of
ejaculations and prayers he stored up ungrudgingly for the souls in
purgatory centuries of days and quarantines and years; yet the
spiritual triumph which he felt in achieving with ease so many fabulous
ages of canonical penances did not wholly reward his zeal of prayer,
since he could never know how much temporal punishment he had remitted
by way of suffrage for the agonizing souls; and fearful lest in the
midst of the purgatorial fire, which differed from the infernal only in
that it was not everlasting, his penance might avail no more than a
drop of moisture, he drove his soul daily through an increasing circle
of works of supererogation.
Every part of his day, divided by what he regarded now as the duties of
his station in life, circled about its own centre of spiritual energy.
His life seemed to have drawn near to eternity; every thought, word,
and deed, every instance of consciousness could be made to revibrate
radiantly in heaven; and at times his sense of such immediate
repercussion was so lively that he seemed to feel his soul in devotion
pressing like fingers the keyboard of a great cash register and to see
the amount of his purchase start forth immediately in heaven, not as a
number but as a frail column of incense or as a slender flower.
Pages:
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223