Choose a topic from Part 2A:
1. Some habits cannot be directly destroyed. The intellectual habit of first principles, for instance, cannot be directly overcome or banished; as long as a man is normal and conscious, he knows that he exists, and that he can think, and that an existing thing cannot be at the same time nonexistent. But many habits can be destroyed. The habit of a science (that is, evidenced knowledge in a definite field) can be forgotten, or maybe spoiled by deception entering into it. And a moral virtue (which is a habit) can be destroyed by perversity and sin.
2. Habits can be increased, and some of them can be decreased or weakened. Not every habit that increases can be decreased, for some habits grow like a growing body which increases to maturity but cannot decrease to immaturity again.
3. Some habits may be weakened or destroyed by neglect, that is, by continued failure to perform acts which accord with them. A musician may lose his skill by neglecting practice. A friendship may perish through failure of friends to meet or communicate.
"A man should keep himself down, and not busy himself in mirabilibus super se."
St Philip Neri
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"It is not God's will that we should abound in spiritual delights, but that in all things we should submit to his holy will."
Blessed Henry Suso
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"If, devout soul, it is your will to please God and live a life of serenity in this world, unite yourself always and in all things to the divine will. Reflect that all the sins of your past wicked life happened because you wandered from the path of God's will. For the future, embrace God's good pleasure and say to him in every happening: "Yea, Father, for so it hath seemed good in thy sight." "
St Alphonsus de Liguori
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