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Fifth principle: It is difficult to keep the graces received
from God
87. It is very difficult, considering our weakness and
frailty, to keep the graces and treasures we have received
from God.
1. We carry this treasure,which is worth more than heaven
and earth, in fragile vessels, that is, in a corruptible body
and in a weak and wavering soul which requires very little to
depress and disturb it.
88. 2. The evil spirits, cunning thieves that they are, can
take us by surprise and rob us of all we possess. They are
watching day and night for the right moment. They roam
incessantly seeking to devour us and to snatch from us in one
brief moment of sin all the grace and merit we have taken
years to acquire. Their malice and their experience, their
cunning and their numbers ought to make us ever fearful of
such a misfortune happening to us. People, richer in grace and
virtue, more experienced and advanced in holiness than we are,
have been caught off their guard and robbed and stripped of
everything. How many cedars of Lebanon, how many stars of the
firmament have we sadly watched fall and lose in a short time
their loftiness and their brightness!
What has brought about this unexpected reverse? Not the
lack of grace, for this is denied no one. It was a lack of
humility; they considered themselves stronger and more self-sufficient than they really were. They thought themselves well
able to hold on to their treasures. They believed their house
secure enough and their coffers strong enough to safeguard
their precious treasure of grace. It was because of their
unconscious reliance on self - although it seemed to them that
they were relying solely on the grace of God - that the most
just Lord left them to themselves and allowed them to be
despoiled. If they had only known of the wonderful devotion
that I shall later explain, they would have entrusted their
treasure to Mary, the powerful and faithful Virgin. She would
have kept it for them as if it were her own possession and
even have considered that trust an obligation of justice.
89. 3. It is difficult to persevere in holiness because of
the excessively corrupting influence of the world. The world
is so corrupt that it seems almost inevitable that religious
hearts be soiled, if not by its mud, at least by its dust. It
is something of a miracle for anyone to stand firm in the
midst of this raging torrent and not be swept away; to weather
this stormy sea and not be drowned, or robbed by pirates; to
breathe this pestilential air and not be contaminated by it.
It is Mary, the singularly faithful Virgin over whom Satan had
never any power, who works this miracle for those who trulylove her. |