September 18, 2026
Summary of the Morrow's Meditation
We will meditate tomorrow upon the mortification of our own mind, and we will consider its three principal digressions, which are: 1st, useless thoughts; 2d, wandering thoughts; 3d, the temerity of our judgments. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to apply ourselves solely to the action we have to perform at any moment, and to perform it with the view of pleasing God; 2d, to send away useless or wandering thoughts as soon as we perceive them; 3d, to mistrust our own judgment. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the Imitation: "Attend to what you are doing."
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore the Holy Ghost dwelling in us in order to be the rule of our actions, of our words, and of our thoughts (I. Cor. iii. 16). Let us render our homage to the Divine Spirit, who is willing to lead us, and let us ask Him to enable us always to follow His light instead of the aberrations of our own mind (Gal. v. 25).
FIRST POINT
We ought to be on our Guard against Useless Thoughts
1st. They render us unhappy; a wrong which we have felt, an affront which we have received, a loss which we have endured, may have touched us just once; the thought which recurs to the wrong, the affront, or the loss will grieve us, perhaps, a hundred times, and without any useful result. 2d. Useless thoughts are one of the greatest obstacles to our sanctification. One of the most positive marks of tepidity, says St. Bonaventure, is not to feel the evil which useless thoughts do to the soul. We allow ourselves to give way to curiosity, that is to say, to a certain kind of love of what is novel; we inquire about all that passes, and we want to hear all kinds of news; sometimes we give way to reveries of the imagination, which keep the soul in a state of continual distraction, fill it with a thousand foolish thoughts, occupy it with a hundred chimerical events and designs; sometimes, lastly, we give way to excessive activity, which renders us uneasy and impatient and excites our brain, without our being able to make any progress. It is a little world of which the tumult amuses and dissipates us, where thoughts succeed one another without any order, are confused together and trouble us, render us unfit for prayer, for recollection, for self-examination, for the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, for the practice of virtues, which demand a mind at leisure with itself, a spirit of reflection. Thus day after day passes in distractions, without attention to God, without attention to ourselves, and often the devil profits by it to insinuate into the soul, under cover of useless thoughts, a thousand dangerous ones, in which charity, purity, and all the virtues run the greatest risks. Doubtless it does not depend upon us never to have useless thoughts, since we are leaves carried away by the wind, but what depends upon us is: 1st, to diminish the evil by less frivolity in our conduct, less curiosity about things we have no need to know, by less useless reading, by more exactitude in keeping the avenues of our senses, and retrenching numerous frivolous conversations; 2d, to put a stop to useless thoughts as soon as we perceive them, returning sweetly to God by raising our hearts to Him by ejaculatory prayers; 3d, during the day to have certain marked-out moments for entering into ourselves and recollecting ourselves, following therein the example set by the father of a family who, from time to time, leaves his affairs to return to his home and see whether every one has done his duty, after which he resumes the thread of his occupations.
SECOND POINT
We ought to be on our Guard against Wandering Thoughts
Another abuse into which we fall is hardly ever to give up ourselves to what we are doing at the moment, and to preoccupy ourselves now with preceding actions and now with those which will follow. We forget the axiom of the sage: "There is a time for every business" (Eccles. viii. 6). We forget above all the example of Jesus Christ, who said, when He was urged to act: "My hour is not yet come" (John ii. 4). He did not anticipate it, He did not delay it, He let it come in peace. To be wholly given up to the present action as though we had done nothing before it and as though we should have nothing to do after it, that is great wisdom. We attain to it by means of being firmly determined to combat the preoccupation as soon as we perceive it; but still more by means of purity of intention, disengaged from all attachment and from all human motives. Do you wish, says the author of the Imitation, to possess your souls in peace amidst the most multifarious and the most difficult occupations, see in all things only the most adorable will of God, which is order and wisdom itself, and do not cling to any of your occupations. Be always above them, never below them, always standing upright between eternal and temporary things, having the latter under your feet and your eyes fixed on those which are above (III. Imit. xxxviii. 1).
THIRD POINT
We ought always to be on our Guard against the Temerity of our own Judgment
Our own judgment is presumptuous; it thinks it is able to examine everything and to pass sentence on everything, and it does both the one and the other with incredible thoughtlessness. It fancies that it has no need of advice; it does not ask for any, and rejects that which is given to it, or if it submits, it is only at the end of a discussion, and it is always saying, like St. Thomas, I will not believe any one upon his own word, I will only believe after I have myself seen it (John xx. 25). Looking upon its own imaginations as infallible reasons, and on all its thoughts as oracles, it is so attached to its own ideas that it will never yield; it contests and disputes unceasingly, until others yield to what it asserts. Lastly, it argues about everything, and pronounces judgment upon everything, and passes a supreme sentence on everything, as though there was nothing which it is not competent to decide. Now, who is there who does not see the evil of such a digression, the pride which is at the root of it, and the eternal abysses which are the consequence of it?
Resolutions and Spiritual Nosegay as above