September 24, 2026
Summary of the Morrow's Meditation
As all our senses are like so many doors by which sin attempts to enter into our soul, we will meditate to-morrow upon the mortification of two of our principal senses, sight and hearing. We will then make the resolution: 1st, not to lose time in looking at useless things and watching from a door or a window those who come and go, or in visiting vain worldly curiosities; 2d, to keep ourselves from gossiping and the retailing of news, which always dissipates us, even if it does not compromise us. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the Holy Ghost: "The eye is not filled with seeing, neither is the ear filled with hearing" (Eccles. i. 8).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore Our Lord Jesus Christ in the admirable use which He made of the senses of sight and hearing. What modesty in His eyes; what a turning away from all vain conversation and from all which serves only to flatter the ear! Let us render to Him all our homage of adoration, admiration, and praise.
FIRST POINT
The Mortification of the Eyes.
The Holy Spirit tells us by the mouth of the Sage that nothing upon earth is capable of doing us more harm than too great liberty in the use of our eyes. St. Jerome, commenting upon those words of Job, "Have the gates of death been opened to thee?" (Job xxxviii. 17) says, in the same sense, that our eyes are the gates of death, because it is by them that the death of sin enters into the soul; they are, according to the words of Jeremias, the windows by which death penetrates into us (Jer. ix. 21). Thereby, in fact, enter evil thoughts and imaginations which are dangerous, lascivious representations which often kindle and entertain in our heart the fire of the passions. Thereby the soul contracts a habit of dissipation which renders us incapable of prayer and spiritual things; which makes us lose time, deranges the whole of our interior, ravages the virtues we have acquired, and destroys all energy for good. If you do not watch over the gates of your senses, says the Imitation, you will lose in one moment all that you may have amassed during a long period and with a great deal of trouble. If you do not accustom your senses, says St. Dorothea, not to wander amidst the vain frivolities of this world, the license that you grant them will distract you from the care to be given to your salvation. St. John Baptist, says St. Jerome, shut up in his desert, believed that his eyes, which were destined to behold Jesus Christ, ought to disdain the lower things of this world (St. Jerome, Ep., iv.). With this example before us, we should feel that our eyes, destined for eternity to contemplate the splendors of the saints together with the glorious humanity of Jesus Christ, the brilliancy of which illuminates the whole of the holy city, ought not to wander in streets and in public places, gazing upon things we have no need to see, and upon so many persons with whose comings and goings we have nothing to do. They ought to serve us for what is useful in regard to the glory of God, for the service of our neighbor or our own interests; and, apart from these exceptions, to be kept in restraint, modest and reserved everywhere, but more especially at church and at prayer; otherwise we shall either not pray, or we shall be thinking of what we see rather than of what we are saying. Restraint in regard to our eyes is the safeguard of innocence, of recollection, of the spirit of prayer, of all the virtues; and there has not been a saint who has not habitually kept a restraint over his eyes. Are we of that number?
SECOND POINT
Mortification of the Hearing.
Mortification of the hearing demands that we should not lend our ears to murmurings, to calumnies, to ridicule, to improper words, to speeches having a double meaning, to conversations which conscience reproves. It even requires that we should not lose time in listening to frivolous talk, which is devoid of usefulness and of dignity; still less to listen to our own praises, when flatterers permit themselves to indulge in such things, and that we should, as soon as possible, turn the conversation in another direction. It does not approve of running after news or frequenting those who make a practice of giving it; of entertaining ourselves with romances, comedies, and a thousand things which distil an impure venom into the heart. It condemns still more severely profane songs, music which tends to enervate and to lead to licentiousness, and it only tolerates with regret concerts which have only pleasure and amusement for their object. Lastly, it recalls to mind the counsel of the Holy Ghost: Take heed of what you hear (Ecclus. xiii. 16), that is to say: Do not lend your ears to vain and useless words which are of no use in regard to salvation. Let us examine what we have to reproach ourselves with in regard to these rules, and let us have courage to deprive ourselves here below of these satisfactions of the sense of hearing, that we may the better listen in heaven to the concerts of angels and saints.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.