As long as the unison of vices, an indivisible and
inseparable agreement, persisted in the same house, there was no division. But
when Christ brought to the earth the fire of which He would consume the faults
of the flesh, or the sword, which signifies the cutting edge of the power that
is exercised, and which "penetrates the intimacy of the spirit and the
marrow." (Hebr., IV, 12), then flesh and soul, renewed by the mysteries of
regeneration, forgetting what they were, beginning to be what they were not, separating
from the company of the old vice so loved that he was until then, and break all
connection with their prodigal posterity. Thus, the parents are divided against
the children, the movement of intemperance being denied by the temperance of
the body and the soul avoiding the trade of the fault, while there is no room
for this foreigner, coming from without, the voluptuousness. The children are
also divided against the parents, when the inveterate vices are concealed from
the senile censorship of the renewed man, and the young voluptuousness so far
escapes the discipline of a serious house. And nothing forbids thinking that
those too are separating who want to become better than their parents,
especially since lower He said: "If one comes to me without hating father
and mother, son, brothers and sisters, and even his life, one cannot be my
disciple "(Lk, XIV, 26). Thus, according to the obvious interpretation,
the son who follows Christ has the advantage over the pagan parents: for
religion prevails over the duties of affection.
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