Choose a topic from Part 2B:
1. Abstinence is essentially a keeping away, a refraining,entirely or in some degree, from anything. Specifically, as weemploy the term here, abstinence is a retrenchment in the use offood or drink. It may be a total abstaining from certain kinds offood or drink; it may be a partial abstaining from nutriment in thesense that it is observed at certain times or in certaincircumstances. When abstinence is ordinate, that is, in completeaccord with right reason, it is either a virtue (that is,an enduring good habit) or it is a virtuous act.
2. As a moral virtue, abstinence tends to good under aspecial aspect, and therefore is a special virtue.
"God commands not impossibilities, but by commanding he suggests to you to do what you can, to ask for what is beyond your strength; and he helps you, that you may be able."
St Augustine
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"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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"Before a man chooses his confessor, he ought to think well about it, and pray about it also; but when he has once chosen, he ought not to change, except for most urgent reasons, but put the utmost confidence in his director."
St Philip Neri
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