October 3, 2026
Summary of the Morrow's Meditation
We will continue to-morrow our meditations upon conformity to the will of God, and we shall see: 1st, that this conformity is the sum-total of all the virtues; 2d, that it is the highest degree of perfection. We will then make the resolution: 1st, never to complain at the mishaps or disappointments which may happen to us, and to receive them as coming from the fatherly hand of God; 2d, to bless God in adversity as well as in prosperity. Our spiritual nosegay shall be: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job i. 21).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore Jesus Christ declaring to us that He came down from heaven to earth, not to do His own will, but in all things to follow the good pleasure of His Father; that therein was His food, His life; that it was His all (John iv. 34; vi. 38). Let us admire, let us bless such holy dispositions, and let us ask of Him a share in them.
FIRST POINT
Conformity to the Will of God the Sum-Total of all Virtues.
This perfect conformity, leading the soul through all the events of life, makes it practise sometimes humility, at other times obedience; in such a situation, patience; in another, poverty; always and everywhere it establishes mortification in us: here of the will and the desires, there of the inclinations and of natural tastes; because, through this conformity, the whole man is sacrificed to the divine good pleasure, which alone remains alive in his soul; then, upon the ruins of immolated nature, is raised the love of God in its highest perfection; for if, as the pagan philosopher Sallust says, true friendship consists in having but one same will and one same non-will as our friend, it is evident that the more perfect we are in conforming our will to the will of God, the more we shall love Him; and it is an equally consoling fact that, together with the love of God, the love of our neighbor will be perfected in our soul, since the will of God is that we should love one another tenderly and greatly; that we should mutually bear with one another; that in our brethren we should honor the image of our heavenly Father, the living members of Jesus Christ, and the temples of the Holy Ghost. Let us here examine ourselves. Have we properly understood the excellence of this conformity to the will of God? Have we seen that its practice is identical with the practice of all the virtues, and that it is in itself a magnificent summary of them?
SECOND POINT
Conformity to the Will of God is the Highest Perfection.
We can do nothing greater for God, nothing more perfect, nothing more exquisite, than to sacrifice ourselves to Him by conforming our will to His. In other virtues we sacrifice a portion of ourselves; for example, in temperance, the pleasures of the mouth; in modesty, restraint in the use of our eyes; in patience, sensitiveness; in humility, the pride of the heart; but in conformity to the will of God we sacrifice the whole of ourselves to Him; we put ourselves, body and soul, into His hands, that He may do with us all He wills, without any exception or reserve whatsoever. It is the perfect holocaust from which we do not steal anything. We give Him the whole of our affections, all our desires, the whole of our being, in accordance with the request He makes to us in those sweet words: "My son, give Me thy heart" (Prov. xxiii. 26), and we thereby raise ourselves to the summit of perfection. For God being supreme perfection, we shall be all the more perfect in proportion as we resemble Him the more, and our resemblance to Him will be more or less complete in proportion to our will being more or less conformed to His. This is why the Holy Spirit says: "Wait on God with patience, join thyself to God, and endure, that thy life may be increased in the latter end" (Ecclus. ii. 3). This is also the reason why St. Bernard remarks that the words of St. Paul, Lord, what wouldst Thou have me to do? few as they are, include so many things that he says everything. This is, doubtless, also, why St. Francis de Sales teaches that it is impossible to God not to place in His paradise whoever dies in perfect conformity to the divine good pleasure.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.