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Lord on the Cross, that I might be inspired to
share his suffering for my sins?

3. Have I tried to use my influence over friends and acquaintances to prevent any kind of
overindulgence in alcohol?

4. Have I prayed before and after meals, both to show gratitude to God for His gifts and to ask
for strength not to misuse them?

5. Have I realized that intemperance in
eating or drinking easily leads to intemperance in the form of lust?

ASPIRATION: O good Jesus, within Thy wounds hid me. (300 days indulgence.) [169]

PRAYER: O gentle Jesus, who didst suffer
agonizing thirst on the Cross to atone for the many sins that would be committed through the
sense of taste, accept my sorrow for all
my lack of mortification and my many sins in this regard. Thou didst bestow on us so many things
which we did not deserve that it should be impossible even to think of offending Thee by
misusing them in any way. And
yet our ingratitude reaches even so far that we have been unwilling to share in
the smallest way the many and great privations
of thy own life and death, and have rebelled against Thy commandments and Thy Church
gratifying excessively the appetites Thou
hast given us. Let me atone for my own sins
of the past by acquiring strong habits of mortification
and let me make reparation for the many sins of gluttony and drunkenness in the world
by penance and self-denial. O Mary,
Mother of Christ, obtain for me the grace to use rightly and reasonably all the good things be-
stowed on me by God.

OBEDIENCE

The first commandment in the decalogue,
after the three which deal with man's duties
to God, is that which reads: Honor thy father and thy mother. There is a reason for its being
mentioned at the head of the list of those which comprise man's duties to his fellow­ man. The
reason is that, in the order of nature, a human being's first relationships are toward the
parents who were responsible for his coming into the world and on whom he is dependent through many
helpless years .

The law of obedience, in regard to children, is really a law of self-preservation. When the child
is born, it is incapable of caring for itself in any way. Its helplessness and dependence, in
somewhat diminishing degree, continue for many years. Unless others provide for its physical needs
its intellectual needs, its moral and spiritual needs, it will never reach perfect maturity.
This dependence can be made fruitful and effective unto self­ preservation and development only by
obedience, respect, honor and love toward those whose responsibility it is to provide for the child.

But children are not the only ones on whom the obligation of obedience falls. Whenever there is a
necessary dependence of one man upon another, either in the natural or super­ natural order, there
are obligations of obedience. Thus, in the natural order, the citizen owes obedience to the
state; the workman to his employer; the pupil to the teacher. Accordingly, in the supernatural
order, the parishioner owes obedience to the pastor, and the religious to his superiors.

Indirectly, obedience also imposes obligations on those who hold authority to direct and command
others. There is a right use of authority and a wrong use; it can be neglected or abused to the
detriment of subjects. Therefore, every form of obedience involves obligations on the part of those
in command. The sins of both subjects and superiors are
therefore outlined here.

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