ortunity and therefore new stages of growth. We do not
want to make the effort that is implied in that attitude.

Our sloth binds us hand and foot and delivers us to the enemy. There are
no doubt some who cry out: "But I am not at all slothful; I am busy from
morning to night; of whatever else I may be guilty, it is not of sloth!"
My friend, busy people are quite often the most slothful people that
there are. They are busy dodging their rightful duties and the
opportunities that God offers them, all day long. Have you never
discovered that when you had something that you ought to do and do not
want to do, that the easiest method by which you can still your
conscience is to make yourself terribly busy about something else, and
then to tell yourself that the reason why you have not done what you
know that you ought to have done is that really you have not had time?
Do you not know that being busy is one of the most effective screens
that you can put between your conscience and your obligation? Do you not
know that tens of thousands of men and women to-day are putting the
screens of good works, of social service of some sort, between their
souls and the worship of God and the practice of the sacraments? Beware
lest while you wear yourself out with activity your besetting sin be
found to be sloth!

And shall we find there on the Way of Sorrow the virtues that are the
opposite of the Seven Sins? Perhaps, if we had time to look, or had
sufficient knowledge of the crowd that lines the way. There are certain
women over there wailing and lamenting; perhaps they could help us. In
any case we know that there is one woman who has succeeded in keeping
near whose love of Jesus is so intense that it will enable her to
overcome all obstacles and be near Him to the very last. Jesus as He
staggers along the way and falls at length under the intolerable weight
of the Cross is the embodiment of all virtues and of all spiritual
accomplishment, and his blessed Mother through His grace has been kept
pure from all sin. She will show the perfection of purely human
accomplishment. She is the best that humanity in union with the
Incarnate Son has brought forth. We have seen--we have caught glimpses
of her life through what the Scriptures tell us of her--how completely
she has responded to grace in all the actions of her life. Not much do
the Scriptures say, but what they do say is like the opening of windows
through which we catch passing aspect