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Today’s ✠Challoner Meditation
Carissimi: Today’s Mass;
Finding of the Body of St Stephen, Proto-Martyr
Carissimi: Today’s Mass;
St Alphonsus Liguori
Carissimi: Today’s Mass;
Saint Peter’s Chains; comm. St. Paul Apostle & the Holy Macchabees, Martyrs
When a soul that loves God finds herself in this state of darkness, uncertainty, and fear, she must not lose courage; and neither must he who directs her become alarmed. Those sensual movements, those temptations against Faith, those feelings of distrust, and those attacks which urge her to hate Almighty God, are fears, are tortures of the soul, are efforts of the enemy; but they are not voluntary, and therefore they are not sins.
When a soul that loves God finds herself in this state of darkness, uncertainty, and fear, she must not lose courage; and neither must he who directs her become alarmed. Those sensual movements, those temptations against Faith, those feelings of distrust, and those attacks which urge her to hate Almighty God, are fears, are tortures of the soul, are efforts of the enemy; but they are not voluntary, and therefore they are not sins.
When a soul that loves God finds herself in this state of darkness, uncertainty, and fear, she must not lose courage; and neither must he who directs her become alarmed. Those sensual movements, those temptations against Faith, those feelings of distrust, and those attacks which urge her to hate Almighty God, are fears, are tortures of the soul, are efforts of the enemy; but they are not voluntary, and therefore they are not sins.
… I wished to establish the Proposition–that God gives to all the grace of Prayer, for the honour of God’s Providence and Goodness, and to be of assistance to sinners, to prevent them from giving themselves up to despair, thinking themselves deprived of grace; and, at the same time, to take from them all excuse for saying that they have not strength to resist the assaults of the senses and of hell. I have shown them that of those who are lost, no one is damned for the Original sin of Adam, but solely for his own sin, because God refuses to no one the grace of Prayer, whereby we may obtain His assistance to overcome every desire and every temptation.
In short, we must be thoroughly persuaded that all our welfare depends on prayer: our change of life depends on prayer; our victory over temptations depends on prayer; on prayer depends our obtaining Divine love, together with perfection, perseverance, and eternal salvation.
Let us now proceed, in the third and last place, to examine the reasons of this opinion. Petavius, with Duval and other Theologians, asks: Why does God impose on us commands which we cannot keep with the common and ordinary grace? Because, he answers, He wishes us to have recourse to Him in Prayer.