September 30, 2026
Summary of the Morrow's Meditation
We will meditate to-morrow upon the love of complaisance, otherwise termed joy in God. We will consider: 1st, in what this joy consists; 2d, the great advantages which it procures for the soul. We will thence deduce the resolution: 1st, often to meditate upon the infinite perfections of God, His immensity, His goodness, His omnipotence, and to place our whole happiness in losing ourselves in these sacred abysses, admiring His greatness and His elevation above all beings; 2d, always to be content with God and with the guidance of His providence, whatever of good or evil may happen to us. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of St. Augustine: God is content with whoever is content with Him (In Ps. xxxii.).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore Our Lord contemplating with supreme joy the immense and incomprehensible perfections of God His Father; His heart plunges with delight into these sacred abysses; in them He finds all His complaisance and all His joy. Let us rejoice at the joys He tastes and the glory He thereby procures for His Father.
FIRST POINT
In what Consists the Love of Complaisance, or Joy in God.
When we are filled with ardent love for some one, it is great joy to think of his beautiful qualities; we speak of them to others, we dwell upon them in our thoughts, and all which raises him, and which aggrandizes him, gives us pleasure; we are happy in his happiness. Now, if amongst ourselves the beautiful qualities of the person beloved cause joy to him who loves, what joy ought it not to be for a person who loves God to see that He is so beautiful, so perfect, so holy, so great, and, at the same time, so full of kindness! "How beautiful Thou art, my beloved!" exclaimed St. Francis de Sales; "may my God be blessed forever for being so good! Whether I live or die, I am but too happy to know that my God is rich in all kinds of possessions, and that His goodness is infinite!" It was this joy which the Blessed Virgin felt when she sang in her canticle: "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour" (Luke i. 46, 47). It was this that the Prophet-King had sung before her, when he exclaimed: "My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God" (Ps. lxxxiii. 3). In this holy ecstasy of love, the soul, delighting in the ineffable beauty of its God, rejoices that He possesses in His essence the plenitude of all good; that He finds in Himself His own beatitude; it rejoices that so many saints love Him in heaven and upon earth; that the Church everywhere resounds with His praise; that His Son honors Him as He merits to be honored; and this joy is as an anticipated paradise to it. Do we often exercise ourselves in this love of complaisance towards God, which is so dear to holy souls?
SECOND POINT
The Great Advantages Procured by the Love of Complaisance, or Joy in God.
1st. Nothing is more suitable for detaching the soul from the earth, and filling it with holy desires for heaven. Enchanted with the beauties of God, it feels that here below there is nothing real, nothing worthy of it. Everything outside God seems to it nothing but vanity, and it exclaims with the saints, God of Himself is sufficient; all that is not God is nothing to me! Freed from all attachments, it flies to heaven by means of holy desires, to see, face to face, the God whom it loves; to praise Him unceasingly, to love Him in an eternal ecstasy. 2d. The soul which is thus enamored of the beauties of God finds supreme felicity in abandoning itself lovingly to all the decrees of the infinitely good Father, decrees of which it desires the accomplishment a thousand times more than it does its own personal satisfaction. It wills all that God wills, desires all that He desires, loves all that He loves, hates all that He hates, and wills, desires, hates, and loves nothing else. In adversity as in prosperity, in abandonment as in consolations, in sickness as in health, in privation as in enjoyment, it cherishes the divine good pleasure; and content with God, whatever He may do, it always says, with an abandonment full of sweetness, It is well, my God, because it is Thy good pleasure (Matt. xi. 26). 3d. Being thus detached from the earth and united to the divine good pleasure, it rapidly advances in virtues, above all, in holy love, because it feels that God merits all its love, and, in proportion as it loves Him more, it feels Him to be always more amiable; and, advancing thus, it feels nothing to be painful, because there exists nothing painful to him who loves, or if there does, he loves the pain itself.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.