Endeavoring Catholic Perfection

"It is a good practice to enter into details in humiliating things when prudence allows them to be publicly declared, on account of the profit we derive from overcoming ourselves in the repugnance we feel in disclosing and making known what we would keep secret. St. Augustine published the secret sins of his youth, composing a book on them, that thus the entire earth might learn the extravagance of his errors and the excess of his licentiousness. And that vessel of election, St. Paul, that great apostle who was ravished to the third heaven, has he not avowed that he persecuted the Church? He has even left it in writing, so that it may be known to the consummation of ages that he was a persecutor. Indeed, if we be not watchful over ourselves and do not do some violence to ourselves in declaring our misery and our failings, we will soon confine ourselves to what may occasion esteem, and we will conceal what will give confusion. We inherit this from our first father, Adam, who, after having offended God, went and hid himself. --St. Vincent de Paul