examination of the heart 308 to you, yet the gracious Lord, when He carries them away through the Sacrament of the Eucharist, seems to carry hell away from you. It is necessary that you realize that the broad road to condemnation is paved with little and slight faults. The enemy of the soul does not bother himself too much to bind you with a rope or a very strong chain, when it is sufficient for him to hold you fast by a very thin thread or a spider’s web. Saint Teresa, I believe, did not feel herself guilty of any enormous evil deeds, and yet she saw a place prepared for her in hell, if she would not avoid and not correct even quite trifling faults.132 And so, you should conclude that you become exempt from eternal death whenever you become free even from small imperfections; for it is not a trifling thing that God grants you in forgiving them. 2. “let him go” (Mt 18:27) [DRB]. Consider that you were released from the infernal prison in the moment when, remembering your sins, you blotted them out with true contrition; or (following the example of the debtor from today’s Gospel), when after throwing yourself down at the feet of a confessor acting in the name of Christ, you received the absolution humbly requested from him, for whatever he loosed here on earth, Christ shall loose in Heaven (cf. Mt 16:19). O how blessed are you to regain such freedom! If you had not experienced any other prisons than the qualms of conscience constantly tormenting your soul, know that they are a foretaste of the countless torturers and tormentors of hell. For even the condemned themselves hardly have a greater punishment than the worms of conscience. What an exultant joy fills your soul now, as you are freed from this bond! Now you are even happier than if you were freed from the cruelest Scythian captivity!133 132 St. Teresa of Avila, The Book of Her Life, in: CWTA, Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, 2nd ed. rev., vol. 1, ICS Publications, Washington 1987, pp. 276-279 (Ch. 32, §§ 1-7). 133 This refers to the captivity of the Asiatic Scyths (also called Tatars in English), who made war on Poland during the 13th and 15th-16th centuries, and brought the Polish people into servitude. Cf. Wielka Encyklopedia Powszechna, vol. 10, PWN, Warszawa 1967, pp. 418-419 (s.v. Scytowie). [Hereafter Wielka
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