capable of reflection stands above them. Really they are nothing but
booby traps.

"It is not the same thing, my boy, with laws divine. They are
indefeasible, unavoidable and lasting. Their absurdity is in
appearance only, and hides an inconceivable wisdom. If they wound
our reason, it is because they are superior to it, and agree with
the true issues of mankind, and not with the visible ends. It is
useful to observe them when one has the good luck to know them. Yet
I find no difficulty in confessing that the observance of those
laws, contained in the Decalogue and in the commandments of the
Church, is difficult at most times, even impossible without grace,
and that sometimes has to be waited for, because it is a duty to
hope. And therefore we are all miserable sinners.

"And that is where the dispositions of the Christian religion must
be admired, which founds salvation principally on repentance. It
must not be overlooked, my boy, that the greatest saints are
penitents, and, as repentance is proportioned to the sin, it is in
the greatest sinners that the material is found for the greatest
saints. I could illustrate this doctrine with scores of admirable
examples. But I have said enough to make you feel that the raw
material of sanctity is concupiscence, incontinencies, all
impurities of flesh and mind. After having collected the raw
material nothing signifies but to fashion it according it theologic
art and to model, so to say, a figure of penitence, which is a
matter of a few years, a few days, sometimes of a single moment
only, as is to be seen in the case of a perfect contrition. Jacques
Tournebroche, if you listen well to my sayings, you will not consume
yourself in miserable cares to become an honest man in a worldly