One way of both feeling re-assured on our way to perfection and being assured of help
is praying to the saints and asking our guardian angels for help daily.
Recently, I have developed a devotion to little Blessed Jacinta of Fatima. I think I have pleurisy
yet again, (I have had this many times), and she had this disease and worse in her dying days. Her acceptance of suffering
provides us with a great example of love for souls through suffering.
Honour, revere and respect the Blessed Virgin Mary with a very special
love; she is the Mother of our Sovereign Lord, and so we are her
children. Let us think of her with all the love and confidence of
affectionate children; let us desire her love, and strive with true
filial hearts to imitate her graces.
Seek to be familiar with the Angels; learn to realise that they are
continually present, although invisible. Specially love and revere the
Guardian Angel of the Diocese in which you live, those of the friends
who surround you, and your own. Commune with them frequently, join in
their songs of praise, and seek their protection and help in all you
do, spiritual or temporal.
That pious man Peter Faber, the first companion of Saint Ignatius, and
the first priest, first preacher and first theological teacher of the
Company of the Jesuits, who was a native of our Diocese, [43] once
passing through this country on his way from Germany, (where he had
been labouring for God's Glory,) told how great comfort he had found as
he went among places infested with heresy in communing with the
guardian Angels thereof, whose help had often preserved him from
danger, and softened hearts to receive the faith. He spoke with such
earnestness, that a lady who, when quite young, heard him, was so
impressed, that she repeated his words to me only four years ago, sixty
years after their utterance, with the utmost feeling. I had the
happiness only last year of consecrating an altar in the place where it
pleased God to give that blessed man birth, the little village of
Villaret, amid the wildest of our mountains.
You will do well to choose out for yourself some individual Saint,
whose life specially to study and imitate, and whose prayers may be
more particularly offered on your behalf. The Saint bearing your own
baptismal name would seem to be naturally assigned to you.
One must be reading Scripture daily, as many do, using the various booklets
now available. Reading the daily readings for Mass, even if one cannot get to
Mass is an excellent devotion. I sometimes use Universalis.
As Catholics, we have a duty to read, study, learn our faith. St. Francis' suggestions
are superb.....
CHAPTER XVII. How to Hear and Read God's Word.
CULTIVATE a special devotion to God's Word, whether studied privately
or in public; always listen to it with attention and reverence, strive
to profit by it, and do not let it fall to the ground, but receive it
within your heart as a precious balm, thereby imitating the Blessed
Virgin, who "kept all these sayings in her heart." [44] Remember that
our Lord receives our words of prayer according to the way in which we
receive His words in teaching.
You should always have some good devout book at hand, such as the
writings of S. Bonaventura, Gerson, Denis the Carthusian, Blosius,
Grenada, Stella, Arias, Pinella, Da Ponte, Avila, the Spiritual Combat,
the Confessions of S. Augustine, S. Jerome's Epistles, or the like; and
daily read some small portion attentively, as though you were reading
letters sent by the Saints from Paradise to teach you the way thither,
and encourage you to follow them. Read the Lives of the Saints too,
which are as a mirror to you of Christian life, and try to imitate
their actions according to your circumstances; for although many things
which the Saints did may not be practicable for those who live in the
world, they may be followed more or less. Thus, in our spiritual
retreats we imitate the solitude of the first hermit, S. Paul; in the
practice of poverty we imitate S. Francis, and so on. Of course some
Lives throw much more light upon our daily course than others, such as
the Life of Saint Theresa, which is most admirable, the first Jesuits,
Saint Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, S. Louis, S. Bernard, S.
Francis, and such like. Others are more the subjects of our admiring
wonder than of imitation, such as S. Mary of Egypt, S. Simeon Stylites,
S. Catherine of Genoa, and S. Catherine of Sienna, S. Angela, etc.,
although these should tend to kindle a great love of God in our hearts.
I have many series on some of these saints and one can use this blog for meditations.
Today's saints have been highlighted on this blog already. See tag saints and martyrs.
You should always have some good devout book at hand, such as the
writings of S. Bonaventura, Gerson, Denis the Carthusian, Blosius,
Grenada, Stella, Arias, Pinella, Da Ponte, Avila, the Spiritual Combat,
the Confessions of S. Augustine, S. Jerome's Epistles, or the like; and
daily read some small portion attentively, as though you were reading
letters sent by the Saints from Paradise to teach you the way thither,
and encourage you to follow them. Read the Lives of the Saints too,
which are as a mirror to you of Christian life, and try to imitate
their actions according to your circumstances; for although many things
which the Saints did may not be practicable for those who live in the
world, they may be followed more or less. Thus, in our spiritual
retreats we imitate the solitude of the first hermit, S. Paul; in the
practice of poverty we imitate S. Francis, and so on. Of course some
Lives throw much more light upon our daily course than others, such as
the Life of Saint Theresa, which is most admirable, the first Jesuits,
Saint Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, S. Louis, S. Bernard, S.
Francis, and such like. Others are more the subjects of our admiring
wonder than of imitation, such as S. Mary of Egypt, S. Simeon Stylites,
S. Catherine of Genoa, and S. Catherine of Sienna, S. Angela, etc.,
although these should tend to kindle a great love of God in our hearts.
