When we pray, "Forgive us our trespasses," we do not only ask to be released from the guilt of such sins as separate us from God. There are many other offences which impair, though they do not destroy the life of our souls, and our union with God. These lesser offences have all their own guilt, and their own punishment. They may delay for long years our entrance into Heaven. They may have to be expiated by the most agonising sufferings. We must the more earnestly beg for forgiveness for these venial sins, because we are inclined to underrate the greatness of their evil, and of the misery they carry in their wake.

Why cannot we get rid of these venial faults? Why is it that God does not free us from them altogether? It is not God's fault, it is our own. It is we who will not be forgiven, not God who will not forgive. We still retain a certain love for these venial sins. We cling to them, and therefore they cling to us. We do not really hate and reject them. We have not that utter aversion for them without which such forgiveness, as will rid us of them and of all their evil consequences, is impossible for us.

In order that we should clear ourselves entirely from the guilt and punishment of venial sins, we must abhor, not only this or that sin, but all sin, venial as well as mortal, and our hatred must correspond as far as is possible for us, to the gravity of our sins in God's sight. We are too often very far from fulfilling this necessary condition, and therefore the punishment which our sins deserve at the hands of God is not wholly remitted.