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The Sovereign Pontiffs have approved and highly commended Confraternities and also enriched them with many Indulgences. St. Francis de Sales, with great earnestness, exhorts all seculars to join them. What pains, moreover did not St. Charles Borromeo take to establish and multiply these Confraternities.
As soon as the soul shall have entered into the bliss of God, there will be nothing to afflict her more: God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow, shall be any more: for the former things are passed away. And he who sat on the throne said: Behold I make all things new (Apoc. xxi. 4, 5). In Heaven there is no more sickness, nor poverty, nor trouble: there are no more successions of day and night, nor of cold or heat
The Son of God was not content to appear as a man, or even as a sinful man. He desired further to choose the most lowly and humble life among men; so that Isaias called Him the last, the most humble of men: Despised and the most abject of men (Is. liii. 3). Jeremias said: He shall be filled with reproaches (Lam. iii. 30. And David, that He should be: The reproach of men, and the outcast of the people (Ps. xxi. 7). And for this did Jesus Christ wish to be born in the most abject state that could be imagined.
He that reposes in the Divine will is like a man placed above the clouds: he sees the lightning, and hears the rolling of the thunder, and the raging of the tempest below, but he is not injured or disturbed. And how can he ever be disturbed when he always desires whatever happens? He that desires only what pleases God always obtains whatsoever he wishes, because all that happens to him, happens through the will of God. Salvian says that Christians who are resigned, if they be in a low condition of life, wish to be in that state; if they be poor they desire poverty; because they wish whatever God wills, and therefore they are always content. If cold, or heat, or rain, or wind come, he that is united to the will of God says: I wish for this cold, this heat, this rain, and this wind, because God wills them
In order to acquire a facility in doing, on all occasions, the holy will of God, we must beforehand offer ourselves continually to embrace in peace whatever God ordains or wills. Such was the practice of holy David. He would say: My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready (Ps. cvii. 2). And he continually besought the Lord to teach him to do the Divine will. Teach me to do thy will (Ps. cxlii. 10). He thus deserved to be called a man according to God’s own heart. I have found David the son of Jesse, a man according to my own heart, who shall do all my wills (Acts xiii. 22). And why? Because the holy king was always ready to do whatever God wished him to do.
He who soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly (2 Cor. ix. 6). They who are ungenerous with God well deserve that God should not be liberal with them. To such souls the Lord will give graces common to all, but will probably withhold His special assistance; and without this, as we have seen, they cannot persevere in the state of grace. God Himself revealed to Blessed Henry Suso that, for tepid souls who are content with leading a life exempt from mortal sin, and continue to commit many deliberate venial sins, it is very difficult to preserve themselves from mortal sins.
Jesus Christ enlightens all men — the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world (Jo. i. 9) — but there are some He cannot enlighten, because they voluntarily close their eyes to the light, and walk in darkness. They are those who lead tepid lives in the service of God.
By Francesca Pollio Fenton for CNA New documentary calls on lay Catholics to become civic leaders – Catholic World Report