All the 7 sacraments are outward signs of an inner spiritual transformation. Saint-Cyran, a priest and leader of the Jansenist movement in 17th century France, wrote “that everything is invisible and insensible in sacraments and that it is necessary to keep in view only Good Works which should be our main business.” Good Works are not for him merely doing something good, which anyone can do easily. Good Works are penitential and painful human acts inspired by grace that fulfill and develop and sustain grace in the soul by selfless acts of self-sacrifice accomplished in the human world. They are equal to sacraments.
We American Christians can act practically to bring God’s grace to the world. It is a blessed sacrament that you feel in your heart to love someone who hates you or to do penance by doing good works for poor people who do little good and even harm good people. Grace is everything. But it has a positive side only by penitential good works.
A political act can be penitential. Why then should we American Christians not do something that is painful for most of us? Why should we not force our government to admit to our union of states a state in Africa full of poor, suffering, ignorant people? American Christians are always demanding that the government act in ways that are morally right according to their religious beliefs. Saint-Cyran demands that we force ourselves penitentially to do good works if we wish to do God’s will expressed by his grace. The Constitution says in Article IV Section 3 that Congress can admit new states to our union. Let’s tell our representatives in Congress to admit a poor state as our fifty-first state even if we dislike doing it and realize at last that not only our lives but our politics must be penitential to be truly Christian.
Daniel McNeill
Daniel McNeill’s novella The End of All Beginnings is available at
Read it free on Kindle with a free app or buy it on Kindle for $1.99.
Also available as a book for $5.99.
A powerful and very dramatic exploration of love and relations between
a 70-year-old man and four women, two sisters 18 and 19, their mother
46, and a lesbian friend 22. It is full of well-written dialogues between the five
in various situations including sexual relations. The drama moves fast right
from the start and it is impossible not to read it as quickly as possible (it
can be read in less than three hours} to an ending that is totally unexpected
and explosive. A complex drama that moves with its own momentum towards
one liberating ending to all its beginnings.
Daniel McNeill
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