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Section 9 - Sanctity Made Easy.
I believe that if those souls that tend towards sanctity were
instructed as to the conduct they ought to follow, they would be
spared a good deal of trouble. I speak as much of people in the
world as of others.
If they could realise the merit concealed in
the actions of each moment of the day: I mean in each of the daily
duties of their state of life, and if they could be persuaded that
sanctity is founded on that to which they give no heed as being
altogether irrelevant, they would indeed be happy.
If, besides,
they understood that to attain the utmost height of perfection,
the safest and surest way is to accept the crosses sent them by
Providence at every moment, that the true philosopher's stone is
submission to the will of God which changes into divine gold all
their occupations, troubles, and sufferings, what consolation
would be theirs! What courage would they not derive from the
thought that to acquire the friendship of God, and to arrive at
eternal glory, they had but to do what they were doing, but to
suffer what they were suffering, and that what they wasted and
counted as nothing would suffice to enable them to arrive at
eminent sanctity: far more so than extraordinary states and
wonderful works.
O my God! how much I long to be the missionary of
Your holy will, and to teach all men that there is nothing more
easy, more attainable, more within reach, and in the power of
everyone, than sanctity.
How I wish that I could make them
understand that just as the good and the bad thief had the same
things to do and to suffer; so also two persons, one of whom is
worldly and the other leading an interior and wholly spiritual
life have, neither of them, anything different to do or to suffer;
but that one is sanctified and attains eternal happiness by
submission to Your holy will in those very things by which the
other is damned because he does them to please himself, or endures
them with reluctance and rebellion. This proves that it is only
the heart that is different.
Oh! all you that read this, it will
cost you no more than to do what you are doing, to suffer what you
are suffering, only act and suffer in a holy manner. It, is the
heart that must be changed. When I say heart, I mean will.
Sanctity, then, consists in willing all that God wills for us.
Yes! sanctity of heart is a simple "fiat," a conformity of will
with the will of God.
What could be more easy, and who could refuse to love a will so
kind and so good? Let us love it then, and this love, alone will
make everything in us divine.
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