text: Remember Me - Saturday After the First Sunday in Lent
  What is fervor? It does not mean emotion. Fervor consists in these three things: regularity, punctuality, and exactness—that is doing our duty to God by rule; doing it punctually at the right time; and, exactly, that is, as perfectly as we can. But if we have been indulging in venial sins, of any sort or kind, we begin to do our duty towards God in a slovenly way ; we neglect the right time : we do it irregularly, we put off God with imperfect service. Those venial sins are like the dust settling on a perfect machine. As the dust accumulates upon the timepiece, the motion of the timepiece becomes slower; and as it becomes sluggish it loses its perfection.
  So, mortal sin is the death of the soul, but venial sin is the disease of the soul. Those who willingly allow themselves to fall into such infirmities and imperfections, which are not yet mortal are like men who are making bad blood, men in whom morbid humors are accumulating a lingering malady upon them. More than this, venial sins have the effect of giving a perverse inclination to the will. The will once united with God, and converted to God, has begun gradually to avert itself from God.
  There is no such thing as an equilibrium between God and sin; that cannot be; and when the will loses its union with God, it immediately inclines itself towards sin.