Three Temptations of Christ (detail), Sandro Botticelli; 1481-82

“WE find in the Passion of Christ a remedy against all the evils that we incur through sin. Now these evils are five in number. (i) We ourselves become unclean. When a man commits any sin he soils his soul, for just as virtue is the beauty of the soul, so sin is a stain upon it. How happeneth it, O Israel, that thou art in thy enemies land? Thou art grown old in a strange country, thou art defiled with the dead (Baruch iii. 10, 11).

— From Meditations for Each Day in Lent, by St. Thomas Aquinas

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