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 aspects of her life which we feel are perfectly characteristic and revealing.

And we have seen there, or we may see, may we not? the virtues which are the work of the Holy Spirit enabling us to overcome the deadly sins.  We have seen the humility with which, without thought of self, she answered God’s call to be the Mother of His Son.  We have seen the liberality with which she places her whole life at God’s disposal, withholding nothing from the divine service.  Purity undefiled had been God’s gift to her from the first moment of her existence.  Hers too was that meekness which willingly accepted all that the appointment of God brought her, showing in her acceptance no withholding of the will, no trace of self-assertion.  Hers was the great virtue of temperance, the power of self-restraint and self-discipline, which suppressed all movements of nature that would be contrary to God’s will.  There too was the love of the brother and of the neighbour which is the contrary of envy; and there was the eagerness in fulfilling the will of God which is the opposite of sloth.