her you find all virtues.
In her humility she refused the highest honors; while in patience she
endured more anguish and agony than any other creature on earth.

Mary is a creature of God. As the praise we bestow on a beautiful
picture redounds to the glory of the artist, so the honor we give Mary
redounds to God, since we honor her for His sake. Let us honor her. That
person who honors the Blessed Virgin; who loves, respects, and venerates
her as the Mother of God; who takes her as a model and imitates her
virtues; who prays to her in trials and afflictions and asks her
intercession with her divine Son, does not only act in a reasonable
manner, but such action is certain to make the path through this world
smooth and easy and at the same time safe to a life of _eternal
happiness_.

VI. Confession of Sin

"Whom when He saw He said: Go, show yourselves to the priests" (_Luke_
xvii. 14).

"Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins ye shall forgive, they are
forgiven them, and whose sins ye shall retain, they are retained"
(_John_ xx. 23).

THE whole of the life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be summed
up in these words of the Acts: "He went about doing good." He healed the
sick, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and raised the dead
to life.

The healing of the body, however, was to Him a secondary object. The
healing of the soul was His mission on earth. He frequently called the
attention of His followers to this. For example, He cured the man of the
palsy to prove that as man He had the power to forgive sins. Another
example is when He gives us in the cure of the lepers a figure of sin
and its cure.

Leprosy has always been considered a figure of sin. As leprosy covers
the body and makes it disgusting and frightful to behold, so sin covers
the soul and makes it hideous in the sight of God. The Old Law required
lepers to separate themselves from society until their cure was
certified to by the priests who were appointed for this purpose. Our
Lord has been pleased, in the New Law, to institute a similar method for
the cure of the more fatal leprosy of sin. The spiritual leper, the
sinner, is to show himself to the priest, make known the diseased state
of his soul, and submit to the inspection and treatment of the priest,
who is the divinely appointed physician of the soul. But should we not
go directly to God, since God alone has power to justify us? It is true,
God alone can effect our just