To parse out the steps and moments of sin is hard because we are trying to understand what is a breakdown, a failure.
If one looks seriously at the life of a scholar friar, if one considers that, though they wear different clothes, it is the same sins which afflict him as those which afflict pimps or murderers, one may conclude that the urge to purloin a scholarly treasure can be quite as devastatingly strong as the urge to kill a rival lover.
We each can see the yawning mouth of hell, and who can compare terrors? Rather than sneer at Fr. Jones’s easy life, let’s give thanks that he was delivered and pray that when our trial comes we too will be prevented by Grace.
Pompous sentiment du jour ...
Well said.