Remorse

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 6: The Lord forbade them to marry strange women on account of the danger of seduction, lest they should be led astray into idolatry. And specially did this prohibition apply with respect to those nations who dwelt near them, because it was more probable that they would adopt their religious practices. When, however, the woman was willing to renounce idolatry, and become an adherent of the Law, it was lawful to take her in marriage: as was the case with Ruth whom Booz married. Wherefore she said to her mother-in-law (Ruth 1:16): “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” Accordingly it was not permitted to marry a captive woman unless she first shaved her hair, and pared her nails, and put off the raiment wherein she was taken, and mourned for her father and mother, in token that she renounced idolatry for ever. Reply to Objection 7: As Chrysostom says (Hom. xlviii super Matth.), “because death was an unmitigated evil for the Jews, who did everything with a view to the present life, it was ordained that children should be born to the dead man through his brother: thus affording a certain mitigation to his death. It was not, however, ordained that any other than his brother or one next of kin should marry the wife of the deceased, because” the offspring of this union “would not be looked upon as that of the deceased: and moreover, a stranger would not be under the obligation to support the household of the deceased, as his brother would be bound to do from motives of justice on account of his relationship.” Hence it is evident that in marrying the wife of his dead brother, he took his dead brother’s place. Reply to Objection 8: The Law permitted a wife to be divorced, not as though it were just absolutely speaking, but on account of the Jews’ hardness of heart, as Our Lord declared (Mat. 19:8). Of this, however, we must speak more fully in the treatise on Matrimony (SP, Q[67]). Reply to Objection 9: Wives break their conjugal faith by adultery, both easily, for motives of pleasure, and hiddenly, since “the eye of the adulterer observeth darkness” (Job 24:15). But this does not apply to a son in respect of his father, or to a servant in respect of his master: because the latter infidelity is not the result of the lust of pleasure, but rather of malice: nor can it remain hidden like the infidelity of an adulterous woman. OF THE LAW OF THE GOSPEL, CALLED THE NEW LAW, CONSIDERED IN ITSELF (FOUR ARTICLES)In proper sequence we have to consider now the Law of the Gospel which is called the New Law: and in the first place we must consider it in itself; secondly, in comparison with the Old Law; thirdly, we shall treat of those things that are contained in the New Law. Under the first head there are four points of inquiry:

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  Go to sleep, O Morella, how awful are aquiline lives His plangent tonalities I shall never forget, nor shall I ever forgive myself the ill-tempered review in which I attacked him for trivial faults in his unfledged verse. I met wise, prim, charming Aldanov; decrepit Kuprin, carefully carrying a bottle of vin ordinaire through rainy streets; Ayhenvald—a Russian version of Walter Pater—later killed by a trolleycar; Marina Tsvetaev, wife of a double agent, and poet of genius, who, in the late thirties, returned to Russia and perished there. But the author that interested me most was naturally Sirin. He belonged to my generation. Among the young writers produced in exile he was the loneliest and most arrogant one. Beginning with the appearance of his first novel in 1925 and throughout the next fifteen years, until he vanished as strangely as he had come, his work kept provoking an acute and rather morbid interest on the part of critics. Just as Marxist publicists of the eighties in old Russia would have denounced his lack of concern with the economic structure of society, so the mystagogues of émigré letters deplored his lack of religious insight and of moral preoccupation. Everything about him was bound to offend Russian conventions and especially that Russian sense of decorum which, for example, an American offends so dangerously today, when in the presence of Soviet military men of distinction he happens to lounge with both hands in his trouser pockets. Conversely, Sirin’s admirers made much, perhaps too much, of his unusual style, brilliant precision, functional imagery and that sort of thing. Russian readers who had been raised on the sturdy straightforwardness of Russian realism and had called the bluff of decadent cheats, were impressed by the mirrorlike angles of his clear but weirdly misleading sentences and by the fact that the real life of his books flowed in his figures of speech, which one critic has compared to “windows giving upon a contiguous world … a rolling corollary, the shadow of a train of thought.” Across the dark sky of exile, Sirin passed, to use a simile of a more conservative nature, like a meteor, and disappeared, leaving nothing much else behind him than a vague sense of uneasiness.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “Women and Love”, Edmond de Goncourt writes in his journal, “always constitute the subject of conversation wherever there is a meeting of intellectual people socially brought together by eating and drinking. Our talk at dinner was at first smutty (polissonne) and Tourgueneff listened to us with the open-mouthed wonder (l’étonnement un peu medusé) of a barbarian who only makes love (fait l’amour) very naturally (très naturellement).” Whoever reads this passage carefully will understand the freedom I intend to use. But I shall not be tied down even to French conventions. Just as in painting, our knowledge of what the Chinese and Japanese have done, has altered our whole conception of the art, so the Hindoos and Burmese too have extended our understanding of the art of love. I remember going with Rodin through the British Museum and being surprised at the time he spent over the little idols and figures of the South Sea Islanders: “Some of them are trivial”, he said, “but look at that, and that, and that—sheer masterpieces that anyone might be proud of—lovely things!” Art has become coextensive with humanity, and some of my experiences with so-called savages may be of interest even to the most cultured Europeans. I intend to tell what life has taught me, and if I begin at the A. B. C. of love, it is because I was brought up in Britain and the United States; I shall not stop there. Of course I know the publication of such a book will at once justify the worst that my enemies have said about me. For forty years now I have championed nearly all the unpopular causes, and have thus made many enemies; now they will all be able to gratify their malice while taking credit for prevision. In itself the book is sure to disgust the “unco guid” and the mediocrities of every kind who have always been unfriendly to me. I have no doubt too, that many sincere lovers of literature who would be willing to accept such license as ordinary French writers use, will condemn me for going beyond this limit. Yet there are many reasons why I should use perfect freedom in this last book. First of all, I made hideous blunders early in life and saw worse blunders made by other youths, out of sheer ignorance: I want to warn the young and impressionable against the shoals and hidden reefs of life’s ocean and chart, so to speak, at the very beginning of the voyage when the danger is greatest, the ‘unpath’d waters’. On the other hand I have missed indescribable pleasures because the power to enjoy and to give delight is keenest early in life, while the understanding both of how to give and how to receive pleasure comes much later, when the faculties are already on the decline.

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  … Beneath the sky Of my America to sigh For one locality in Russia. The general reader may now resume. 6I was nearing eighteen, then was over eighteen; love affairs and verse-writing occupied most of my leisure; material questions left me indifferent, and, anyway, against the background of our prosperity no inheritance could seem very conspicuous; yet, upon looking back across the transparent abyss, I find queer and somewhat unpleasant to reflect that during the brief year that I was in the possession of that private wealth, I was too much absorbed by the usual delights of youth—youth that was rapidly losing its initial, non-usual fervor—either to derive any special pleasure from the legacy or to experience any annoyance when the Bolshevik Revolution abolished it overnight. This recollection gives me the sense of having been ungrateful to Uncle Ruka; of having joined in the general attitude of smiling condescension that even those who liked him usually took toward him. It is with the utmost repulsion that I force myself to recall the sarcastic comments that Monsieur Noyer, my Swiss tutor (otherwise a most kindly soul), used to make on my uncle’s best composition, a romance, both the music and words of which he had written. One day, on the terrace of his Pau castle, with the amber vineyards below and the empurpled mountains in the distance, at a time when he was harassed by asthma, palpitations, shiverings, a Proustian excoriation of the senses, se débattant, as it were, under the impact of the autumn colors (described in his own words as the “chapelle ardente de feuilles aux tons violents”), of the distant voices from the valley, of a flight of doves striating the tender sky, he had composed that one-winged romance (and the only person who memorized the music and all the words was my brother Sergey, whom he hardly ever noticed, who also stammered, and who is also now dead). “L’air transparent fait monter de la plaine.…” he would sing in his high tenor voice, seated at the white piano in our country house—and if I were at that moment hurrying through the adjacent groves on my way home for lunch (soon after seeing his jaunty straw hat and the black-velvet-clad bust of his handsome coachman in Assyrian profile, with scarlet-sleeved outstretched arms, skim rapidly along the rim of the hedge separating the park from the drive) the plaintive sounds Un vol de tourterelles strie le ciel tendre, Les chrysanthèmes se parent pour la Toussaint reached me and my green butterfly net on the shady, tremulous trail, at the end of which was a vista of reddish sand and the corner of our freshly repainted house, the color of young fir cones, with the open drawing-room window whence the wounded music came.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  The gentleman, who had resolved never to forgive his wife, pondered long over what Bernage had said to him, and at last, owning that he had spoken the truth, promised that if she persevered in her present humility, he would forgive her after some time. Bernage, on his return to the court, related the whole story to the king, who directed inquiries to be made into the matter, and found that it was all just as Bernage had reported. The description he gave of the lady's beauty so pleased the king that he sent his painter, Jean de Paris, to take her portrait exactly as she was, which he did with the hus- band's consent. After she had undergone a long pen- ance, and always with the same humility, the gentleman, who longed much for children, took pity on his wife, reinstated her, and had by her several fine children. If all those wives who have done the same sort of thing had to drink out of similar vessels, I am greatly afraid, ladies, that many a gilt cup would be turned into a death's head. God keep us from the like, for if his goodness does not restrain, there is not one of us but may do worse ; but if we trust in Him, He will guard those who own that they cannot guard themselves. Those who rely on their own strength run great risk of Fourth day.\ QUEEN OF NA VARRE. 3 03 being tempted, and of being constrained by experience to acknowledge their infirmity. I can assure you that there are many who have stumbled through pride in this way, whilst others, who were reputed less discreet, have been saved through their humility. The old proverb says truly, " What God keeps is well kept." " I look upon the punishment inflicted in this case as quite reasonable," said Parlamente ; " for as the of- fence was worse than death, so also ought the penalty to be." " I am not of your opinion," said Ennasuite. " I would rather see the bones of all my lovers hung up in my cabinet all my life long than die for them. There is no misdeed that cannot be repaired, but from death there is no return." " How can infamy be repaired ? " asked Longarine. " Do what she may, you know that a woman cannot re- trieve her honour after a crime of this nature." " I should like to know," returned Ennasuite, " if the Magdalen is not now in more honour than her sister who was a virgin .'' " " I admit," replied Longarine, " that we praise her for her love for Jesus Christ, and for her great peni- tence ; nevertheless, the name of sinner clings to her always."

• From The Hours (1998)

  It was just too much for me. I thought I was a bigger figure than I was. Can I tell you an embarrassing secret? Something I’ve never told anyone?” “Of course you can.” “I thought I was a genius. I actually used that word, privately, to myself.” “Well—” “Oh, pride, pride. I was so wrong. It defeated me. It simply proved insurmountable. There was so much, oh, far too much for me. I mean, there’s the weather, there’s the water and the land, there are the animals, and the buildings, and the past and the future, there’s space, there’s history. There’s this thread or something caught between my teeth, there’s the old woman across the way, did you notice she switched the donkey and the squirrel on her windowsill? And, of course, there’s time. And place. And there’s you, Mrs. D. I wanted to tell part of the story of part of you. Oh, I’d love to have done that.” “Richard. You wrote a whole book.” “But everything’s left out of it, almost everything. And then I just stuck on a shock ending. Oh, now, I’m not looking for sympathy, really. We want so much, don’t we?” “Yes. I suppose we do.” “You kissed me beside a pond.” “Ten thousand years ago.” “It’s still happening.” “In a sense, yes.” “In reality. It’s happening in that present. This is happening in this present.” “You’re tired, darling. You must rest. I’m going to call Bing about your medicine, all right?” “Oh, I can’t, I can’t rest. Come here, come closer, would you, please?” “I’m right here.” “Closer. Take my hand.” Clarissa takes one of Richard’s hands in hers. She is surprised, even now, at how frail it is—how palpably it resembles a bundle of twigs. He says, “Here we are. Don’t you think?” “Pardon me?” “We’re middle-aged and we’re young lovers standing beside a pond. We’re everything, all at once. Isn’t it remarkable?” “Yes.” “I don’t have any regrets, really, except that one. I wanted to write about you, about us, really. Do you know what I mean? I wanted to write about everything, the life we’re having and the lives we might have had. I wanted to write about all the ways we might die.” “Don’t regret anything, Richard,” Clarissa says. “There’s no need, you’ve done so much.” “It’s kind of you to say so.” “What you need right now is a nap.” “Do you think so?” “I do.” “All right, then.” She says, “I’ll come to help you get dressed. How’s three-thirty?” “It’s always wonderful to see you, Mrs. Dalloway.” “I’m going to go now. I’ve got to get the flowers in water.” “Yes. My, yes.” She touches his thin shoulder with her fingertips. How is it possible that she feels regret? How can she imagine, even now, that they might have had a life together? They might have been husband and wife, soul mates, with lovers on the side. There are ways of managing.

• From The Hours (1998)

  She touches his thin shoulder with her fingertips. How is it possible that she feels regret? How can she imagine, even now, that they might have had a life together? They might have been husband and wife, soul mates, with lovers on the side. There are ways of managing. Richard was once avid and tall, sinewy, bright and pale as milk. He once strode through New York in an old military coat, talking excitedly, with the dark tangle of his hair tied impatiently away from his face by a length of blue ribbon he’d found. Clarissa says, “I’ve made the crab thing. Not that I imagine that’s any kind of serious inducement.” “Oh, you know how I love the crab thing. It does make a difference, of course it does. Clarissa?” “Yes?” He lifts his massive, ravaged head. Clarissa turns her face sideways, and receives Richard’s kiss on her cheek. It’s not a good idea to kiss him on the lips—a common cold would be a disaster for him. Clarissa receives the kiss on her cheek, squeezes Richard’s thin shoulder with her fingertips. “I’ll see you at three-thirty,” she says. “Wonderful,” Richard says. “Wonderful.” Mrs. Woolf She looks at the clock on the table. Almost two hours have passed. She still feels powerful, though she knows that tomorrow she may look back at what she’s written and find it airy, overblown. One always has a better book in one’s mind than one can manage to get onto paper. She takes a sip of cold coffee, and allows herself to read what she’s written so far. It seems good enough; parts seem very good indeed. She has lavish hopes, of course—she wants this to be her best book, the one that finally matches her expectations. But can a single day in the life of an ordinary woman be made into enough for a novel? Virginia taps at her lips with her thumb. Clarissa Dalloway will die, of that she feels certain, though this early it’s impossible to say how or even precisely why. She will, Virginia believes, take her own life. Yes, she will do that.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  But one thing I may add: I have an excuse, and that is that I was a child when I married, a goose I was, a stupid thing. For example, do you think that, a short time before my engagement, I would have known that four years earlier the federal laws governing the universities and the press had been renewed? Beautiful laws, by the way!... Oh, yes, it really is so very sad that you only live once, Herr Permaneder, that you can't start life again; one would handle many things more skilfully..." For example, by recklessness and extravagance and new dressing gowns I gave my husband cause for concern and lamentation... But one thing I may add: I have an excuse, and that is that I was a child when I married, a goose I was, a stupid thing. For example, do you think that, a short time before my engagement, I would have known that four years earlier the federal laws governing the universities and the press had been renewed? Beautiful laws, by the way!... Oh, yes, it really is so very sad that you only live once, Herr Permaneder, that you can't start life again; one would handle many things more skilfully..." that I was a child when I got married, I was a goose, a stupid thing. For example, do you think that, a short time before my engagement, I would have known that four years earlier the federal laws governing the universities and the press had been renewed? Beautiful laws, by the way!... Oh, yes, it really is so very sad that you only live once, Herr Permaneder, that you can't start life again; one would handle many things more skilfully..." that I was a child when I got married, I was a goose, a stupid thing. For example, do you think that, a short time before my engagement, I would have known that four years earlier the federal laws governing the universities and the press had been renewed? Beautiful laws, by the way!... Oh, yes, it really is so very sad that you only live once, Herr Permaneder, that you can't start life again; one would handle many things more skilfully..." that one cannot start life again; one would handle many things more skilfully..." that one cannot start life again; one would handle many things more skilfully..." She was silent and looked down intently at the path; She had, not without skill, given him a starting point, for the consideration was not far off that it was impossible to start a whole new life, but that the beginning of a new, better marriage was not impossible. Only Mr. Permaneder let the opportunity pass and limited himself to scolding Mr. Grünlich with violent words, whereby the fly on his small, round chin bristled ... »The insipid fellow, the two! The one when I had here, the dog, the shamed one who wouldn't do a waddle there..." "Ugh, Herr Permaneder! No, you have to stop that.

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  .” “Well, I doubt you personally were involved in any of that, man.” “No, I wasn’t,” I told him. “But the thing is, we are followers of Jesus. We believe that He is God and all, and He represented certain ideas that we have sort of not done a good job at representing. He has asked us to represent Him well, but it can be very hard.” “I see,” Jake said. “So there is this group of us on campus who wanted to confess to you.” “You are confessing to me!” Jake said with a laugh. “Yeah. We are confessing to you. I mean, I am confessing to you.” “You’re serious.” His laugh turned to something of a straight face. I told him I was. He looked at me and told me I didn’t have to. I told him I did, and I felt very strongly in that moment that I was supposed to tell Jake that I was sorry about everything. “What are you confessing?” he asked. I shook my head and looked at the ground. “Everything,” I told him. “Explain,” he said. “There’s a lot. I will keep it short,” I started. “Jesus said to feed the poor and to heal the sick. I have never done very much about that. Jesus said to love those who persecute me. I tend to lash out, especially if I feel threatened, you know, if my ego gets threatened. Jesus did not mix His spirituality with politics. I grew up doing that. It got in the way of the central message of Christ. I know that was wrong, and I know that a lot of people will not listen to the words of Christ because people like me, who know Him, carry our own agendas into the conversation rather than just relaying the message Christ wanted to get across. There’s a lot more, you know.” “It’s all right, man,” Jake said, very tenderly. His eyes were starting to water. “Well,” I said, clearing my throat, “I am sorry for all of that.” “I forgive you,” Jake said. And he meant it. “Thanks,” I told him. He sat there and looked at the floor, then into the fire of a candle. “It’s really cool what you guys are doing,” he said. “A lot of people need to hear this.” “Have we hurt a lot of people?” I asked him. “You haven’t hurt me. I just think it isn’t very popular to be a Christian, you know. Especially at a place like this. I don’t think too many people have been hurt. Most people just have a strong reaction to what they see on television. All these well-dressed preachers supporting the Republicans.” “That’s not the whole picture,” I said. “That’s just television. I have friends who are giving their lives to feed the poor and defend the defenseless. They are doing it for Christ.” “You really believe in Jesus, don’t you?” he asked me. “Yes, I think I do. Most often I do.

• From Love & Sex: A Christian Guide to Healthy Intimacy (2018)

  “Kaycie, I’m so sorry I hurt you by my actions and behaviors. I was an idiot. You are the real woman I want. The rest of that was fake and false and my way of escaping myself. It wasn’t because of you. It was never because you aren’t enough; it was because I had all of this pain inside. I wanted to just medicate it to make it all go away. The hurt from my family, my hatred of my dad, my insecurities, all of the relationships I screwed up—Kaycie, I was a mess.” “James, I want to let you in right now. I do. I appreciate how vulnerable and open you are being with me. It helps to melt the ice. But then, damn it—I hate this part—the minute I feel my heart wanting you, some stinging memory is right behind it. Especially how when I used to try to talk with you about this stuff you would just get defensive and blame me. That’s the hardest part for me to recover from.” “Yeah, my defensiveness hurt us a lot. Defensiveness is what nearly destroyed us. I was told men have a warrior’s relationship with emotions and any time you got emotional with me, I just got out my weapons and fired away at you and then you criticized me.” He reached out and put his arm around her waist. “Babe, do you think we can find our way through this?” The warmth of his body reminded Kaycie of how much she actually did love this man. “I hope so, James; I want to.” She allowed her body to fit into the curves of his and, like two spoons, they drifted off to sleep. The next morning, with a decisiveness she hadn’t felt in a long time, Kaycie hopped out of bed, grabbed her cell phone, and left her therapist, Olivia, a message. “Hi, Olivia,” she said into Olivia’s message box, “I am ready. Sign me up for the group you have for women. I’m tired of feeling like a victim to James’s past and I am ready to really dig in and do the hard work—whatever that is.” She disconnected the call, relieved. This felt hopeful and like she was empowering herself to move forward. She knew she couldn’t do it alone and was tired of trying. Her pastor was always saying how we need each other (the body of Christ) to get healthy. He also said because we got hurt in our Family of Origin, the FOO—she always giggled inside when he said that—now we needed the FOG, the family of God, to become the healthiest possible versions of ourselves.

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  Tony said I had an idea. They looked at me. I told them that Tony was lying and I didn’t have an idea at all. They looked at Tony. Tony gave me a dirty look and told me to tell them the idea. I told them I had a stupid idea that we couldn’t do without getting attacked. They leaned in. I told them that we should build a confession booth in the middle of campus and paint a sign on it that said “Confess your sins.” Penny put her hands over her mouth. Nadine smiled. Iven laughed. Mitch started drawing the designs for the booth on a napkin. Tony nodded his head. I wet my pants. “They may very well burn it down,” Nadine said. “I will build a trapdoor,” Mitch said with his finger in the air. “I like it, Don.” Iven patted me on the back. “I don’t want anything to do with it,” Penny said. “Neither do I,” I told her. “Okay, you guys.” Tony gathered everybody’s attention. “Here’s the catch.” He leaned in a little and collected his thoughts. “We are not actually going to accept confessions.” We all looked at him in confusion. He continued, “We are going to confess to them. We are going to confess that, as followers of Jesus, we have not been very loving; we have been bitter, and for that we are sorry. We will apologize for the Crusades, we will apologize for televangelists, we will apologize for neglecting the poor and the lonely, we will ask them to forgive us, and we will tell them that in our selfishness, we have misrepresented Jesus on this campus. We will tell people who come into the booth that Jesus loves them.” All of us sat there in silence because it was obvious that something beautiful and true had hit the table with a thud. We all thought it was a great idea, and we could see it in each other’s eyes. It would feel so good to apologize, to apologize for the Crusades, for Columbus and the genocide he committed in the Bahamas in the name of God, apologize for the missionaries who landed in Mexico and came up through the West slaughtering Indians in the name of Christ. I wanted so desperately to say that none of this was Jesus, and I wanted so desperately to apologize for the many ways I had misrepresented the Lord. I could feel that I had betrayed the Lord by judging, by not being willing to love the people He had loved and only giving lip service to issues of human rights.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Thus we see that those who are practised, not in keeping the Commandments but in sinning against them, are advised to embrace religious life. Such penitent, sinners are, however, deterred from so doing by the admirable wisdom of certain advisers, whose counsel St. Paul thus refutes: “I speak a human thing because of the infirmity of your flesh, for, as you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now yield your members to serve justice unto sanctification” (Rom 6:19). “I speak a human thing,” comments the Gloss, “because you owe more service to justice than to sin.” And Baruch (4:28) says, “As it was your mind to go astray from God; so, when you return again, you shall seek him ten times as much.” For after sinning and thus forsaking God and disobeying His commands, a man ought to strive after the highest virtue, and not be content with half measures. This teaching is borne out by the example of numerous saints. For many of both sexes, after leading lives of crime, have embraced the practice of the Counsels, and although they had formed no habit of keeping the Commandments, have devoted themselves to the observance of the strictest religious rule. Their conduct is approved even by philosophers. In the Second book of Ethics Aristotle writes: “When we withdraw from great sin, we shall come to the uniform line, even as they do who plane away the knots from wood.” For those who are knotted by sin, must be brought back to righteousness by practising the more perfect works of virtue. Thus we have made it clear that the opinion of those who maintain that none should practise the Counsels who have not kept the Commandments, cannot be approved, with regard to any class of men. CHAPTER 6

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.)y This maid is not the same, but another, as Matthew says. Indeed we must also understand, that in this second denial he was addressed by two persons, that is, by the maid whom Matthew and Mark mention, and by another person, of whom Luke takes notice. It goes on: And he denied it again. Peter had now returned, for John says that he denied Him again standing at the fire; wherefore the maid said what has been mentioned above, not to him, that is, Peter, but to those who, when he went out, had remained, in such a way however that he heard it; wherefore coming back and standing again at the fire, he contradicted them, and denied their words. For it is evident, if we compare the accounts of all the Evangelists on this matter, that Peter did not the second time deny him before the porch, but within the palace at the fire, whilst Matthew and Mark who mention his having gone out are silent, for the sake of brevity, as to his return. BEDE. (ubi sup.) By this denial of Peter we learn, that not only he denies Christ, who says that He is not the Christ, but he also, who although he is a Christian, denies himself to be such. For the Lord did not say to Peter, Thou shalt deny thyself to be my disciple, but, Thou shalt deny me; he therefore denied Christ, when he said that he was not His disciple. There follows: And a little after, they that stood by said again to Peter, Surely thou art one of them, for thou art a Galilæan, and thy speech agreeth thereto. Not that the Galilæans spoke a different tongue from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for they were both Hebrews, but that each province and region has its own peculiarities, and cannot avoid a vernacular pronunciation. THEOPHYLACT. Therefore Peter was seized with fear, and for-getting the word of the Lord, which said, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father, (Matt. 30, 32) he denied our Lord; wherefore there follows: But he began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak. BEDE. (ubi sup.) How hurtful is it1 to speak with the wicked. He denies before infidels that he knows the man, whom amongst the disciples, he had confessed to be God. But the Scripture is wont to point out a Sacrament2 of the causes of things, by the state of the time; thus Peter, who denied at midnight, repented at cock crow; wherefore it is added: And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word which Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he began to weep.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  As things may at times be best understood by trarcing them to their source, we will now examine the origin of these propositions; and we will investigate the mode of their development. In the early days of Christianity there flourished at Rome a heretic, confuted in the writings of St. Jerome, whose name was Jovinian. He taught that all who preserved their baptismal innocence, would receive, in Heaven, an equal reward. He further taught that virgins, married persons and widows were, if baptised, all of equal merit in the sight of God, provided that there was no discrepancy between them with regard to their works. He said that as there is no difference between abstinence from food and eating with giving of thanks, so there is no inequality between virginity and marriage. By this teaching, he, of course, stultified both the counsel given by our Lord as to celibacy in His words, “Not all men take this word,” i.e., remain, single, “but they to whom it is given” (Matt. xix. 2), and the advice of St. Paul on the same subject, “Concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give counsel” (1 Cor. vii. 25). The opinions of Jovinian have, St. Augustine tells us, been condemned as heretical. The errors of Jovinian were, however, revived by Vigilantius, who impugned the faith, hated continence, and, in the midst of riotous feasting, declaimed against the fasting practised by holy men (see St. Jerome’s epistle Contra Vigilantium). But Vigilantius was not contented with imitating Jovinian in rejecting the counsel of virginity; he proceeded further to condemn the practice of poverty. St. Jerome, speaking of the errors of Vigilantius, says: “He maintains that it is better to distribute our goods among the poor by degrees than to sell them altogether and give away the price. Let him accept his answer not from me, but from God, who has said, “If you would be perfect, go, sell all that you have” etc. (Matt. xix.). The error of Vigilantius has been handed down by a succession of heretical teachers to our days. It is still perpetuated by the sect of the Cathari, and is expounded in a treatise written by a certain heresiarch of Lombardy named Desiderius, who, amongst other heretical propositions, condemns the conduct of those who sell all that they may live in poverty with Christ.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CHRYSOSTOM. (ubi sup.) For as the sacrifice had not yet been offered up, nor had the holy Spirit descended, how could remission of sins be given? What is it then that St. Luke means by the words, for the remission of sins? Seeing the Jews were ignorant, and knew not the weight of their sins, and because this was the cause of their evils, in order that they might be convinced of their sins and seek a Redeemer, John came exhorting them to repentance, that being thereby made better and sorrowful for their sins, they might be ready to receive pardon. Rightly then after saying, that he came preaching the baptism of repentance, he adds, for the remission of sins. As if he should say, The reason by which he persuaded them to repent was, that thereby they would the more easily obtain subsequent pardon, believing on Christ. For if they were not led by repentance, in vain could they ask for grace, other than as a preparation for faith in Christ. GREGORY. (ubi sup.) Or John is said to preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, because the baptism which was to take away sin, as he could not give, he preached; just as the Incarnate Word of the Father preceded the word of preaching, so the baptism of repentance, which was able to take away sin, was preceded by John’s baptism, which could not take away sin. AMBROSE. And therefore many say that St. John is a type of the Law, because the Law could denounce sin, but could not pardon it. GREGORY NAZIANZEN. (Orat. 39.) To speak now of the difference of baptisms. Moses indeed baptized, but in the water, the cloud, and the sea, but this was done figuratively. John also baptized, not indeed according to the Jewish rite, (for he baptized not only with water,) but also for the remission of sins, yet not altogether spiritually, (for he adds not, in the Spirit.) Jesus baptizes but with the Spirit, and this is perfect baptism. There is also a fourth baptism, namely by martyrdom and blood, by which also Christ Himself was baptized, and which is so far more glorious than the others, as it is not sullied by repeated acts of defilement. There is also a fifth, the most weary, according to which David every night washed his bed and his couch with tears. It follows, As it is written in the book of Esaias the Prophet, The voice of one crying in the wilderness. (Is. 40:3.) AMBROSE. John the forerunner of the Word is rightly called the voice, because the voice being inferior precedes, the Word, which is more excellent, follows.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  But we should understand that those who are condemned to final misery cannot have after death what they craved as the best. Libertines in hell will have no opportunity to gratify their passions; the wrathful and the envious will have no victims to offend or obstruct; and so of all the vices in turn. But the condemned will be aware that men who have lived a virtuous life in conformity with the precepts of virtue obtain what they desired as best. Therefore the wicked regret the sins they have committed, not because sin displeases them, for even in hell they would rather commit those same sins, if they had the chance, than possess God; but because they cannot have what they have chosen, and can have only what they have detested. Hence their will must remain forever obstinate in evil, and at the same time they will grieve most agonizingly for the sins they have committed and the glory they have lost. This anguish is called remorse of conscience, and in Scripture is referred to metaphorically as a worm, as we read in Isaiah 66:24: “Their worm shall not die.” CHAPTER 176 PROPERTIES OF THE BODIES OF THE DAMNEDAs we said above, in speaking of the saints, the beatitude of the soul will in some manner flow over to the body. In the same way the suffering of lost souls will flow over to their bodies. Yet we must observe that suffering does not exclude the good of nature from the body, any more than it does from the soul. Therefore the bodies of the damned will be complete in their kind, although they will not have those qualities that go with the glory of the blessed. That is, they will not be subtle and impassible; instead, they will remain in their grossness and capacity for suffering, and, indeed, these defects will be heightened in them. Nor will they be agile, but will be so sluggish as scarcely to be maneuverable by the soul. Lastly, they will not be radiant but will be ugly in their swarthiness, so that the blackness of the soul may be mirrored in the body, as is intimated in Isaiah 13:8: “Their countenances shall be as faces burnt.” CHAPTER 177 SUFFERING COMPATIBLE WITH INCORRUPTIBILITY IN THE BODIES OF THE DAMNEDAlthough the bodies of the damned will be capable of suffering, they will not be subject to corruption. This is a fact we have to admit, even though it may seem to disagree with present experience, according to which heightened suffering tends to deteriorate substance. In spite of this, there are two reasons why suffering that lasts forever will not corrupt the bodies undergoing it.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  But before his reason is restored through justifying grace, a man can likewise avoid severally, for some time, the mortal sins which have to do with his reason, since he is not bound by necessity actually to sin at all times. But he cannot continue without mortal sin for long. As Gregory says, “ a sin which is not instantly blotted out by repentance drags us down to another by its weight ” {Hom. in Ezech. 11:25 Moral. 9). This is because reason ought to be subject to God, and ought to find in God the end which it desires, just as the lower appetite ought to be subject to reason. Every human action, indeed, ought to be regulated by this end, just as the urges of the lower appetite ought to be regulated by the judgment of reason. There are therefore bound to be many untoward actions of reason itself when reason is not entirely subject to God, just as there are bound to be uncontrolled movements of the sensitive appetite when the lower appetite is imperfectly subject to reason. When a man ’ s heart is not so firmly fixed on God that he is unwilling to be separated from him for the sake of any good, or to avoid any evil, he forsakes God, and breaks his commandments in order to gain or to avoid many things. He thus sins mortally, especially since “ he acts according to his preconceived end and previous habit whenever he is caught off his guard, ” as the philosopher says in 3 Ethics 8. Premeditation may perhaps enable him to do something better than his preconceived end requires, and better than that to which his habit inclines. But he cannot be always premeditating, and will not perchance continue for long before suiting his action to a will which is not controlled by God, unless he is quickly restored to right order by grace. On the first point: as we have said, a man can avoid sinful actions taken singly, but he cannot avoid all of them, unless through grace. Yet his sin is not to be excused on the ground that he cannot avoid it without grace, because it is due to his own fault that he does not prepare himself for grace. On the second point: as Augustine says (De Corrept. et Grat. 6): “ chastisement is useful in order that the desire for regeneration may arise out of the pain of it. While the noise of chastisement resounds without, God may work within by an unseen inspiration, that one should so desire, if one be a son of promise. ” Chastisement is necessary because a man must desist from sin of his own will. But it is not enough without the help of God. Wherefore it is said in Eccl. 7:13: “ Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight which he hath made crooked? ”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  THEOPHYLACT. For tears brought Peter by penitence to Christ. Confounded then be the Novatians, who say that he who sins after receiving baptism, is not received to the remission of his sin. For behold Peter, who had also received the Body and Blood of the Lord, is received by penitence; for the failings of saints are written, that if we fall by want of caution, we also may be able to run back through their example, and hope to be relieved by penitence. PSEUDO-JEROME. But in a mystical sense, the first maid means the wavering, the second, the assent, the third man is the act. This is the threefold denial which the remebrance of the word of the Lord washes away through tears. The cock then crows for us when some preacher up our hearts by repentance to compunction. We then begin to weep, when we are set on fire within by the spark of knowledge, and we go forth, when we cast out what we were within. CHAPTER 15 15:1–51. And straightway in the morning the Chief Priests held a consultation with the elders and Scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him to Pilate. 2. And Pilate asked him, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answering said unto him, Thou sayest it. 3. And the Chief Priests accused him of many things: but he answered nothing. 4. And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing? behold how many things they witness against thee. 5. But Jesus yet answered nothing; so that Pilate marvelled. BEDE. (in Marc. 4, 44) The Jews had a custom of delivering him whom they had condemned to death, bound to the judge. Wherefore after the condemnation of Christ, the Evangelist adds: And straightway in the morning the Chief Priests held a consultation with the elders and Scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him to Pilate. But it must be observed, that they did not then first bind Him, but they bound Him on first taking Him in the garden by night, as John declares. THEOPHYLACT. They then gave Jesus up to the Romans, but were themselves given up by God into the hands of the Romans, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, which say, Recompense them after the work of their hands. (Ps. 28:5) It goes on: And Pilate asked him, Art thou the King of the Jews? BEDE. (ubi sup.) By Pilate’s asking Him about no other accusation, except whether He was King of the Jews, they are convicted of impiety, for they could not even find a false accusation against our Saviour. It goes on: And he answering said unto him, Thou sayest. He answers in this way so as both to speak the truth, and yet not to be open to cavil.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  No sooner was the sin committed than she was seized with the most poignant remorse, and her repentance lasted as long as her life So keen was her anguish on rising from beside her son, who never discovered his mis- take, that entering a closet, and calling to mind the firm resolution she had formed and which she had so badly executed, she parsed the whole night alone in an agony of tears. But instead of humbling herself and owning that of ourselves alone, and without the aid of God, we can do nothing but sin, she thought by her own efforts and by her tears to repair the past and prevent future mischief, always imputing her sin to the occasion, and not to wickedness, for which there is no remedy but the grace of God. As if there was but one sort of sin which could bring damnation, she applied her whole mind to avoid that one ; but pride, which the sense of extreme sinfulness should destroy, was too strongly rooted in her heart, and grew in such a manner, that, to avoid one evil, she committed many others. Early next morning she sent for her son's governor, and said to him, " My son is coming to maturity, and it 284 ^ATi? HEPTAMERON OF THE \N<rvel 30

• From Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland (2005)

  It was the head coach who finally got them out of the room and into the hallway, where he laid down the law. “This can’t happen ever again in front of those kids,” Brad told them. After that, things seemed to get better. “Of course,” says Bridgewater, “I separated them across the room during drills for about the next three weeks.” It’s probably not the perfect situation. No father-son relationship ever is, when sports are at the center of it and both people actually have a stake. There’s too much competition, for one thing, and even if Doug isn’t living out sports fantasies through his kids, it is undoubtedly true that he has such a passion for wrestling that he processes almost all of his emotions toward the children through it. It was a long time after Mike left the sport before Doug could talk to him about anything, time lost that Doug now regrets. There was just suddenly this huge chasm between the two. How much of their fallout trickled down to Dan is hard to say, because Dan loved wrestling from the start and has never really burned out on it. Still, Doug cannot help but view his son first through the prism of the sport. And Dan’s impending departure, off for the foreign world of Virginia Tech, is the signal that it is time for Doug to begin letting go. “I’ve got to give my attention to Nick now,” Doug says. “Dan’s there. He’s done. He’s ready to leave the nest.” Dan’s actions, not his words, make it so. It was a year ago, at the State Tournament, that the son began to create that distance between himself and his father. Prior to one of his key matches, as Dan prepared to go to the mat, Doug wandered over and began using his fingers and thumbs to rub deep into Dan’s shoulder and neck muscles, a bit of a nervous habit that Doug has foisted upon generations of wrestlers. For years, Dan had tolerantly waited for his jittery dad to stop. On this particular day, he had to make the break himself. Very gracefully, without speaking, Dan reached up with his own hands and removed his father’s hands from his neck. “It was like him saying, ‘I’m ready. I don’t need it,’” says Doug. “And he was ready.” Doug thinks for a moment. “And he still is. He’s ready to go. And Nick is here, and Chris, and the other guys on the team. We have to go on here.” Over to one side of a practice mat, Dan’s high school coach—the one who has been on board for three consecutive state titles and a lifetime’s worth of fiery conversations and dented relationships and occasional family-on-family combat—takes it all in, and what Brad sees is a future for the LeCleres that may just work itself out. “I think the distance [from Virginia to Iowa] will probably be good for him,” he says.