The Blessed Virgin was to be the Mother of the Son of God.  Now it would not be proper for the Mother of God to be even for one moment the servant of the devil, or under his power.  If the Blessed Virgin had been in Original Sin, she would have been in the service of the devil.  Whatever disgraces a mother disgraces also her son; so Our Lord would never permit His dear Mother to be subject to the devil, and consequently He, through His merits, saved her from Original Sin.  She is the only one of the whole human race who enjoys this great privilege, and it is called her “Immaculate Conception,” that is, she was conceived—­brought into existence by her mother—­without having any spot or stain of sin upon her soul, and hence without Original Sin.

Our Lord came into the world to crush the power which the devil had exercised over men from the fall of Adam.  This He did by meriting grace for them and giving them this spiritual help to withstand the devil in all his attacks upon them.  As the Blessed Mother was never under the devil’s power, next to God she has the greatest strength against him, and she will help us to resist him if we seek her aid.  The devil himself knows her power and fears her, and if he sees her coming to our assistance will quickly fly.  Never fail, then, in time of temptation to call upon our Blessed Mother; she will hear and help you and pray to God for you.

Lesson 6 ON SIN AND ITS KINDS

51 Q. Is Original Sin the only kind of sin?  A. Original Sin is not the only kind of sin; there is another kind of sin which we commit ourselves, called actual sin.

Sin is first or chiefly divided into original and actual; that is, into the sin we inherit from our first parents and the sin we commit ourselves.  We may commit “actual” sin in two ways; either by doing what we should not do—­stealing, for example—­and thus we have a sin of commission, that is, a bad act committed; or by not doing what we should do—­not hearing Mass on Sunday, for example—­and thus we have a sin of omission, that is, a good act omitted.  So it is not enough to simply do no harm, we must also do some good.  Heaven is a reward, and we must do something to merit it.  Suppose a man employed a boy to do the work of his office, and when he came in the morning found that the boy had neglected the work assigned to him, and when spoken to about it simply answered:  “Sir, I did no harm”; do you think he would be entitled to his wages?  Of course he did not and should do no harm; but is his employer to pay him wages for that?  Certainly not.  In like manner, God is not going to reward us for doing no harm; but on the contrary, He will punish us if we do wrong, and give no reward unless we perform the work He has marked out for us.  Neither would the office boy deserve any wages if he did only what pleases himself, and not the work assigned by his master.  In the same way, God will not accept any