6th Saturday after Pentecost

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

We will meditate to-morrow on two means for performing all our actions in a very perfect manner; it is to perform them: 1st, as in the presence of God; 2d, with a view to Jesus Christ. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to recall to ourselves as often as possible the presence of God, in order that we may thereby be excited to perform everything in a very perfect manner; 2d, to apply ourselves to perform all our actions in imitation of, through dependence upon, and in union with Jesus Christ, begging Him to fill us with His spirit and His dispositions. We will retain as our spiritual nosegay the words of God to Abraham: “Walk before Me and be perfect” (Gen. xvii. 1).

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore God, who destined all the faithful to be perfect images of His Son (Rom. viii. 29), and with this end in view giving Him to us to be the model and the soul of all our actions. Let us bless Him for having called us to imitate the life and the actions of a God (Tertullian, Orat. adv. Marc., lib. ii. xxvii.); there cannot be a more beautiful or happy vocation.

FIRST POINT

To Perform all our Actions as in the Presence of God, the first Means whereby to Please Him

A Pagan philosopher once said: If you desire to be virtuous, live as though you were always in the presence of a personage of great merit and of great virtue; do nothing and say nothing except what you would do and say before him (Seneca, Ep. xxiii.). How much more efficacious, in order to lead us to do all things well, is a lively faith in the presence of God, who not only sees our actions but also our thoughts and our most secret intentions! If we had this faith, what care should we not then exercise over our actions, over our procedures, our eyes, our words, over what we think of, love, and desire, in order that nothing should be mingled therein which would be unworthy of the sight of God, whose eyes are upon us. “Let the just feast and rejoice before God” (Ps. lxvii. 4). Let them eat, let them drink, let them take recreation; it is right to do so, provided that all be done as in the presence of God, and in a manner which does not in any way wound His eyes. “We ought always to pray and not to faint” (Luke xviii. 1), says Jesus Christ. We must sing the praises of God all day long, the Psalmist says (Ps. lxxx. 8); that is to say, that we must do everything in the best possible manner, as in the sight of God; for that is the continual prayer and the uninterrupted praise of God of which it is written in Ecclesiasticus: “He that keepeth the law multiplieth offerings” (Ecclus. xxxv. 1). Happy he who always walks thus in the presence of God! He does everything well and is perfect. What point have we reached in this holy practice? If we do so many things badly, if we allow so many regrettable words to escape us, is it not because we live a life of frivolity and forgetfulness of God?

SECOND POINT

To do all Things with a View to Jesus Christ, the Second Means whereby to Perform them Well

One of the most excellent means for doing all things well is to perform them in imitation, through dependence upon, and in union with Jesus Christ. 1st. In imitation, by placing this divine Model of the elect often before our eyes; by observing His characteristics in order to impress them upon our hearts and give them expression in our acts; by considering, not only how He acted, how He spoke, how He behaved, how He treated God His Father with honor, His neighbor with charity, the world with indifference, and how He treated Himself with contempt, but also what were His interior dispositions of humility, of mortification, of recollection, of love, and of sacrifice; studying to retrace in ourselves a faithful copy of an exterior which was so admirable, and an interior which was so divine. 2d. Through dependence on Our Lord; that is to say, by abandoning ourselves into His hands, as an instrument in the hands of the workman, as members who have no life or movement except through the influence of their head, and allowing ourselves to be led by the inspiration of His grace rather than by our own mind and our own will. 3d. Lastly we must act in union with Him, binding our actions with His by desire and by prayer, in order that the infinite value of His may cover the defects and the baseness of ours. It is thus that the angels and saints in heaven unite in all the praises which this perfect Worshipper renders to His Father (Apoc. vii. 9, 11, 12). It is thus that the Church offers all her prayers through Our Lord Jesus Christ. Is it thus that we act?

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.