July 7, 2026
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
We will meditate to-morrow upon a fourth principle of the Christian life, which is that in what concerns the service of God we ought to make great account of even little things, and we shall see that we ought: 1st, greatly to esteem even the slightest acts of virtue; 2d, to avoid, with the greatest care, even the smallest faults. We will then make the resolution: 1st, willingly to perform any good work, and every act of virtue, even though it may be but very slight, and to keep ourselves on our guard against even the most trifling faults; 2d, to have a horror of the false maxim that an elevated mind does not occupy itself with small details, and is contented to serve God in great things. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of St. Bernard: “We begin by little faults before falling into great ones” (De Vita ord. et mor. inform.).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore Our Lord teaching us to esteem small things by means of His beautiful answer to the Pharisees, who, whilst violating justice and charity, were faithful in paying the tax for the commonest little vegetables. It was a duty to be faithful to these small observances, He said to them, but at the same time it was necessary to be exact in regard to more serious obligations (Matt. xxiii. 23). Let us thank Him for this lesson and ask of Him grace to profit by it.
FIRST POINT
We ought to Hold the Smallest Acts of Virtue in Great Esteem
1st. Faith shows us that the least acts of virtue are of great value, because whatever is worthy of heaven is of great price, because it is always a great thing to please God even in little things, because, in the service of this Sovereign Lord, little attentions are the sign of great love; because if when we fear God we neglect nothing, as the Holy Spirit says (Eccles. vii. 19), with much greater reason we may say that nothing is little which is done with great love, as well as that nothing is great which is done with but little love; God not appreciating things according to the more or less degree of intrinsic greatness which they possess, but according to the more or less love with which they are performed. A man gathers a flower in a garden and innocently inhales its perfume, another man abstains from it and sacrifices to God the slight pleasure he would have derived from it; there is as much distance between the one action and the other as there is between heaven and earth, between a natural and a supernatural action.
2d. Opportunities for doing great things are rare. If we desire to be faithful to God only in great things, we shall be so but rarely, because the life of man is composed of hardly anything more than a number of little things. We may even say that we shall never be faithful, because a creature as little as is man cannot call anything great of what he does for so lofty a Majesty. Now we are obliged to serve God always and at every moment, since He is always our Master.
3d. The more things are little, the easier they are, and the easier they are, the more inexcusable we are to refuse them to God, to whom we owe everything, to Jesus Christ His Son, who has done so much and suffered so much for us. “If the prophet,” said the servants of Naaman to their master, “had commanded thee to do something difficult, thou wouldst have done it; wherefore, then, when he asks of thee so easy a thing as to wash thyself seven times in the Jordan, wilt thou not do it?” Let us apply these words to ourselves. Salvation is so serious a thing that in order to obtain it we must perform the most difficult things; therefore, with much greater reason, we ought to perform things which are the most easy. God has done and suffered so much for us that in order to please Him we ought lovingly to embrace the greatest sacrifices; therefore to refuse Him a little sacrifice, a little act of virtue, is baseness, ingratitude, and an indignity. Ah, Lord, if when there is a question of pleasing Thee I find easy things difficult, it is a sad proof that I have very little love for Thee. Let us here examine ourselves, let us humble ourselves, and let us resolve to make great account of the smallest acts of virtue that we have an opportunity of accomplishing.
SECOND POINT
We ought to Avoid with the Greatest Care even the Slightest Faults
It is wrong to say of certain faults: It is only a little sin. There are venial faults, but there are no little sins. We cannot call that a small thing which offends an infinite Majesty, which is a want of respect for His greatness, a piece of ingratitude for His blessings, disobedience to His commands, rebellion against His will, a diminution of His exterior glory, an indifference towards His love. We cannot call that little which is an evil that God can never cease to hate any more than He can cease to be God; an evil so great that it surpasses all imaginable evils, even the death of all men, even the ruin of the universe; an evil so great that hell itself would be a lesser evil, because it would not be allowed to deliver all the damned, if one were able to do so, by one venial sin. We cannot call that little which is an evil punished by God in the next life by purgatory, and which He has often punished in this life by terrible chastisements. What, lastly, shall we say? We cannot call that little which is an evil that compromises our salvation. Now this is what little faults do; they cool the friendship of God towards us, they diminish His graces, they render our faith tepid, they take from us those spiritual tastes which are the supports of our weakness; they soften our will and fashion it little by little to evil, they stifle remorse, dissipate watchfulness, and thereby lead to the great falls which are almost always the consequence of a series of relaxations. No one becomes all at once either a great sinner or a great saint (St. Bernard, De Vita ord. et mor. inform.); we fall to the bottom of the abyss only by degrees, so that whoever remains standing on the first step, without descending farther, will not fall; whence it follows that to fly is the strongest guarantee of perseverance; we commence with little faults before falling into greater. What illusions do we not entertain in regard to this question?
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.