Each person has their own spiritual needs

January 24, 2022 • 2 min

From The Sinner’s Guide, page 469
By Venerable Louis of Granada

That you may profit by the preceding counsels, let each one study his own spiritual condition, that he may learn the remedies which will profit him most.

There are general directions which apply to all, such as those pertaining to charity, humility, patience, or obedience. Others, again, are special and apply only to certain classes and certain conditions.

For example, it is necessary to recommend to a scrupulous person greater freedom of conscience; to one who is lax, greater restraint. With a timid soul, inclined to discouragement, we must treat of the divine mercy, while a presumptuous soul should be led to reflect on the divine justice.

Those who give themselves wholly to exterior practices should be made cultivate interior virtues, while those who are entirely devoted to the latter should be taught the value of the former when animated by the proper dispositions.

They will thus learn to appreciate the merit of both kinds of virtue, and therefore to avoid the extremes into which many fall who devote themselves so closely to one as to neglect the other.

The interior virtues, however, especially the fear of God and a hatred of sin, must be particularly cultivated. Happy is he in whose soul these virtues are deeply engraved. He may build without fear upon such a foundation, for they are the beginning of true justice. But without them he is a blind and miserable soul, however numerous his exterior practices of piety.