Sometimes it is God’s goodness that sends sickness to such persons, to bring them back to His worship and the practice of their religion.  What does a good father generally do with an unruly child?  He advises and warns it, and when words have no effect, punishes it with the rod, not because he wishes to see it suffer, but for its good, that it may give up its evil habits and become an obedient, loving child.  In like manner God warns sinners by their conscience, by sermons they hear, by accidents or deaths around about them, etc.; and when none of these things have any effect on them, He sends them some affliction—­He brings them to a bed of sickness.  He punishes them, as it were, with a rod.  This He does, not that He may see them suffer, but for their good; that they may understand He is their Master, the only one who can give them health; that all the doctors and all the friends and money in the world could not save them if He determined that they should die.  Then they come to know that the world is not their friend; then they see things as they really are, and begin to think of the next world, of eternity, etc.  Thus they again turn to God and to the practices of religion.  Many persons who reform and begin to lead good lives in sickness would never have changed if God had left them always in good health.  But you must not think that all who are sick are so on account of sin.  Sometimes very holy persons are in a state of sickness, and then it is sent them that they may bear it patiently, and have great merit before God for their sufferings, and thus become more holy.  Again, very small children who have never sinned are sick, and then it is perhaps that their parents may have merit for patiently taking care of them.  I say that God sometimes sends sickness to persons living in sin for the purpose of bringing them back to a better way of living, and in that case their sickness is for them a great mercy from God, who might have allowed them to continue in sin till His judgments and condemnation came suddenly upon them.

274 Q. Which are the effects of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction?  A. The effects of Extreme Unction are:  first, to comfort us in the pains of sickness and to strengthen us against temptations; second, to remit venial sins and to cleanse our soul from the remains of sin; third, to restore us to health when God sees fit.

275 Q. What do you mean by the remains of sin?  A. By the remains of sin I mean the inclination to evil and the weakness of the will, which are the result of our sins and which remain after our sins have been forgiven.

“Remains of sin”—­that is, chiefly the bad habits we have acquired by sin.  If a person does a thing very often, he soon begins to do it very easily, and it becomes, as we say, a habit.  So, too, a person who sins very much soon begins to sin easily.  This Sacrament therefore takes away the ease in sinning and the desire for past sins acquired by frequently committing them.