|
The Voice of Christ
My child, my grace is precious. It does not allow
itself to be mixed with external things or with
earthly consolations. Cast away all obstacles to
grace, therefore, if you wish to receive its
infusion.
Seek to retire within yourself. Love to dwell alone
with yourself. Seek no man's conversation, but rather
pour forth devout prayer to God that you may keep
your mind contrite and your heart pure.
Consider the whole world as nothing. Prefer
attendance upon God to all outward occupation, for
you cannot attend upon Me and at the same time take
delight in external things. You must remove yourself
from acquaintances and from dear friends, and keep
your mind free of all temporal consolation. Thus the
blessed Apostle St. Peter begs the faithful of Christ
to keep themselves as strangers and pilgrims in the
world.(1)
What great confidence at the hour of death shall be
his who is not attached to this world by any
affection. But the sickly soul does not know what it
is to have a heart thus separated from all things,
nor does the natural man know the liberty of the
spiritual man. Yet, if he truly wishes to be
spiritual, he must renounce both strangers and
friends, and must beware of no one more than himself.
If you completely conquer yourself, you will more
easily subdue all other things. The perfect victory
is to triumph over self. For he who holds himself in
such subjection that sensuality obeys reason and
reason obeys Me in all matters, is truly his own
conqueror and master of the world.Now, if you wish
to climb to this high position you must begin like a
man, and lay the ax to the root, in order to tear out
and destroy any hidden unruly love of self or of
earthly goods. From this vice of too much self-love
comes almost every other vice that must be uprooted.
And when this evil is vanquished, and brought under
control, great peace and quiet will follow at once.
But because few labor to die entirely to self, or
tend completely away from self, therefore they remain
entangled in self, and cannot be lifted in spirit
above themselves. But he who desires to walk freely
with Me must mortify all his low and inordinate
affections, and must not cling with selfish love or
desire to any creature.
|