Choose a topic from Part 2B:
1. Friendliness or affability is a virtue which strives tomake things pleasant. But there are situations in which the effortof friendliness must fail of its object: that is, particular casesin which people cannot or will not be friendly. In such situations,flattery is likely to show itself. Flattery is a sort of lying, andhas the evil of lying. It is the effort to please people bypraising them for good qualities they do not possess, or approvingtheir bad qualities which should be condemned. Flattery usually hasthe ulterior view of getting something from those who are subjectedto it.
2. Unless flattery is praise of a person's sin or ismeant to draw him into sin, it is usually a venial, not a mortalsin.
"The supreme perfection of man in this life is to be so united to God that all his soul with all its faculties and powers are so gathered into the Lord God that he becomes one spirit with him, and remembers nothing except God, is aware of and recognises nothing but God, but with all his desires unified by the joy of love, he rests contentedly in the enjoyment of his Maker alone."
St Albert the Great
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"The one thing necessary which Jesus spoke of to Martha and Mary consists in hearing the word of God and living by it."
R. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP
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"Lord, here burn, here cut, and dry up in me all that hinders me from going to You, that You may spare me in eternity."
St Louis Bertrand
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