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3rd Pastoral Letter of the Bishop of Acqui

the thought of being surprised by death without having worthy
fruits of penance.
However, such a penance, of which we easily admit the
need, and without which we dare hope for divine mercy: how
and when do we do it?
Ah! We are often like those negligent debtors who,
although admitting the reality of all their debts, find a thousand
excuses and vain pretexts to avoid or defer payment, not
thinking that the more they delay the more difficult and almost
desperate their condition becomes. They always find time for
business, pleasures, even for sinful works, but there is never
time for penance. They always wait for the right moment, the
propitious time, but with one excuse or another, the moment to
accomplish one's duty never comes. Days and months pass, and
perhaps a whole life would pass without our hearts being
resolved to correct themselves, if the charity of the Church did
not come to shake us from our sleep and preserve us from a
negligence so prejudicial to our eternal salvation.
Convinced of the need in which we find ourselves and
supported by the authority received from her Divine Founder,
besides stimulating us always to live rightly and weep over our
failings, the Church determines times that are more propitious to
those ends and she prescribes particular practices destined to
disarm the divine justice and satisfy the debt contracted by our
sins. It is especially during Lent especially that, with a stronger
voice, she repeats the great precept: "If you do not repent, you
will all perish": "nisi poenitentiam egeritis, omnes similiter
peribitis. She wants us to prepare ourselves to rise worthily
with our Divine Redeemer on the Solemnity of Easter, that is
why she sees to it that we sanctify the days that precede it with
three different kinds of holy and expiatory works, that is, with
fasting, prayer and almsgiving.
Fasting, Venerable Brothers and dearly beloved children,
in every age has been seen either as a very efficacious means to

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