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In tribulations God enriches His beloved souls with the greatest graces. It is in his chains that St. John comes to the knowledge of the works of Jesus Christ. Let us believe that these scourges of the Lord, with which we are chastised have happened for our amendment and not for our destruction (Judith, viii. 27).
Consider that sin is the death of the soul, because this enemy of God deprives us of Divine grace, which is the life of the soul. We, therefore, miserable sinners, were already by our sins dead and condemned to hell. God, through the immense love which He bears to our souls, determined to restore us to life; and how did He do so? He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to die, in order that by His death He might restore us to life.
Instead of soft garments the Infant Jesus has but a few poor, rough, cold, damp rags. “The Creator of the Angels,” says St. Peter Damian, “is not said to be clothed in purple but to have been wrapped in rags.” Everything that is in Heaven and on earth is God’s: The world is mine, and the fulness thereof (Ps. xlix. 12).
In tribulations God enriches His beloved souls with the greatest graces. It is in his chains that St. John comes to the knowledge of the works of Jesus Christ. Let us believe that these scourges of the Lord, with which we are chastised have happened for our amendment and not for our destruction (Judith, viii. 27).
Consider the humble state to which the Son of God chose to abase Himself. He vouchsafed to take upon Himself the form, not only of a servant, but of a sinful servant, appearing in the likeness of sinful flesh. Therefore, St. Bernard writes: “He assumed not merely the form of a servant, that He might be under subjection, but even that of a wicked servant, that He might be beaten.”
To a spiritual life the Reading of Holy Books is, perhaps, not less useful than Mental Prayer. St. Bernard says that reading instructs at once both in prayer and in the practice of virtue. Hence, he concluded that Spiritual Reading and Prayer are the weapons by which hell is conquered and Heaven is won..
If the prayers of the Saints are very powerful with God, how great must be the power of Mary’s prayers! The former are the prayers of servants, the latter the prayers of a Mother! Blessed is that person, then, for whom Mary prays. Holy Mother of God, pray for us!
Consider that God, having created the first man to serve Him and love Him in this life, and to be afterwards taken by Him to reign eternally with Him in Paradise, enriched him for this end with many lights and graces. But ungrateful man rebelled against God, refusing Him the obedience which he owed Him both in justice and gratitude; and thus he unhappily remained as a rebel, deprived, with all his posterity, of Divine grace, and for ever excluded from Paradise.
St. Jerome spent his days in the Cave of Bethlehem in prayer and penance, and trembled at the thought of Jesus coming at the Last Day to judge the world.
St. Jerome spent his days in the Cave of Bethlehem in prayer and penance, and trembled at the thought of Jesus coming at the Last Day to judge the world.