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15. Means of Making Satisfaction

1. Since hardship or punishment is the remedy for sins, itis the means for making satisfaction for sins. For satisfactionlooks to the future as well as to the past; it seeks to remedy harmdone and to prevent it from being done anew. For both purposes,penal works, works involving some sort of pain, are to be used.

2. Submitting with patience to the trials and hardships oflife that come upon us in the way of Providence, is a good andprofitable way of making satisfaction for sins.

3. Satisfaction should take something away from us (goods,comfort, convenience, etc.) for the honor of God. By givingalms, we take material things from ourselves to honor Godin our fellowmen. By praying we submit all we are and allwe have to God. By fasting we deprive the body of itscomfort and convenience. Here, then, are suitable means of makingsatisfaction: almsgiving, prayer, fasting.

"When the devil has failed in making a man fall, he puts forward all his energies to create distrust between the penitent and the confessor, and so by little and little he gains his end at last."
St Philip Neri

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"To do God's will -- this was the goal upon which the saints constantly fixed their gaze. They were fully persuaded that in this consists the entire perfection of the soul. "
St Alphonsus de Liguori

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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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