"The Way" (V)

Fight against the softness that makes you lazy and careless in your spiritual life. Remember that it might well be the beginning of tepidity… and, in the words of the Scripture, God will vomit out the lukewarm.

I already know that you avoid mortal sins. You want to be saved! But you are not worried about that constant and deliberate falling into venial sins, even though in each case you feel God’s call to conquer yourself.

What little love for God you have when you give in without a fight because it’s not a grave sin!

There is no excuse for those who could be scholars and are not.

Study. Obedience. Non multa, sed multum—not many things, but well.

May your virtue not be noisy.

Dissipation. You slake your senses and faculties at whatever puddle you meet on the way. And then you experience the results: unsettled purpose, scattered attention, deadened will, aroused concupiscence. Subject yourself again seriously to a plan that will make you lead a Christian life. Otherwise you’ll never do anything worthwhile.

The nom serviam—“I will not serve”—of Satan has been too fruitful. Don’t you feel the generous impulse to say every day, with desires for prayer and deeds, a serviam—“I will serve you, I will be faithful!”—surpassing in fruitfulness that cry of rebellion?

How pathetic: a “man of God” who has fallen away! But how much more pathetic: a “man of God” who is lukewarm and worldly!

Jesus is your friend—the friend—with a human heart, like yours, with most loving eyes that wept for Lazarus. And as much as he loved Lazarus, he loves you…

Live by love and you will conquer always—even when you are defeated—in the [battles] of your interior life.

Timor Domini sanctus—“The fear of the Lord is holy.” This fear is a son’s veneration for his Father—never a servile fear. For God, your Father, is not a tyrant.

“Environment is such an influence,” you’ve told me. And I have had to answer: No doubt. That’s why you have to be formed in such a way that you can carry your own environment about with you in a natural manner, and so give your own tone to the society in which you live. And  then, when you’ve acquired this spirit, I’m sure you’ll tell me with all the amazement of the early disciples as they contemplated the first fruits of the miracles performed by their hands in Christ’s name. “How great is our influence on our environment!”