Part two (2): EVERYTHING THAT You Do SHOULD BEGIN AND END WITH JESUS

Some Devotional Exercises Necessary to

Live a Christian and Saintly Life and

To Make Jesus Reign in Your Soul

Morning Exercise

1. EVERYTHING THAT You Do SHOULD BEGIN AND END WITH JESUS

Jesus, the Only Son of God and the Only Son of Mary, is, to use the words of St. Paul, "the author and finisher of faith" (Heb. 12, 2), and of Christian piety. He is, to quote His own words, "Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (APOC. 223 13) of all things. It is, therefore, most just that He should be the beginning and the end of your whole life, of every year, of every month, of every week, and of every day of your life and of every one of your devotional exercises. For this reason you ought to have consecrated the beginning of your life to Him, if you had been gifted with the use of reason at that time; and you earnestly seek to end it in His grace and in the exercise of His love. So, if you wish to obtain this favor from His goodness, you should take care to consecrate to Him by some special exercise of piety and love the beginning and end of each year, of each month, of each week, and especially of each day.

Consequently, it is a matter of great importance to begin and to end each day well; but especially to begin it well by fitting your mind first thing in the morning with good thoughts and by offering up your first actions to Our Lord, because on this depends the blessing of the Test of the day.

11. What You Should Do Upon Waking Up in the Morning

As soon as you awake in the morning, raise your eyes to heaven and your heart to Jesus, thus consecrating to Him the first use that

you make of your sense and the first thoughts and affections of your mind and your heart.

Let your first words be the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary: Jesus, Maria. "0 Jesus! 0 Mary, Mother of Jesus! 0 Good Jesus, I give Thee my heart forever. 0 Mary, Mother of Jesus, I give thee my heart; give it, I beseech thee, to thy Son.7---Veni, Domine Jesu. "Come, Lord Jesus, come into my mind and my heart to possess and fill me entirely. 0 Jesus, be Jesus to me!" Let your first exterior action be the Sign of the Cross: "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," at the same time giving yourself with your whole heart to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in order that they may possess you entirely.

When the time to rise has come, recall to mind the very great love with which at the moment of His Incarnation the Son of God came forth from the bosom of His Father-a place (if one may use the word) full of delights, of repose and of glory. He came down to earth to become subject to our miseries and to take upon Himself our sorrows and afflictions. In honor of this same love and in union with it, get up promptly and courageously saying: Surgam et quaerum quem diligit anima mea. I will arise and seek him whom my soul loveth" (Cant. 3, 2). As you pronounce these words: quem diligit anima mea, "whom my soul loveth," have the desire of pronouncing them, as far as possible, with all the love that is offered to, Jesus both in heaven and on earth.

Then kneel down and adore our Lord Jesus Christ, saying: Adoramus te, Domine Jesu, et benedicimus tibi, et diligimus te ex toto corde nostro, ex tota anima nostra, ex totis viribus nostris. "We adore Thee, Lord Jesus; we bless Thee and we love Thee with our whole heart, with our whole soul, and with all our strength." And in saying these words, desire to say them with all the humility, devotion, and love in heaven and on earth, and on behalf of all the creatures in the universe.

111. WHAT YOU SHOULD Do WHILE DRESSING

While you are putting On your clothes, to prevent the devil from filling your mind with useless o r bad thoughts, fill it with good

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ones. Remember that by His Incarnation our Lord Jesus Christ put on, like garments, our humanity, our mortality, and all the human miseries and needs to which we are subject; and that He lowered Himself to a condition in which, like you, He had need of clothing; and that He did this all for love of you. Then lift up your heart and speak to Him as follows:

"0 Lord Jesus, mayest Thou be blessed and exalted forever, because Thou didst so humble Thyself for love of me. 0 my Jesus, I offer Thee the action I am now performing, in honor of the action Thou didst perform when Thou didst clothe Thy Divinity in our humanity, and also when Thou didst clothe Thy humanity in garments like these which we put on. I desire to dress myself in the same dispositions and with the same intentions with which Thou didst perform this human act." Think also of the many poor people who have only rags to cover themselves. They have offended God less than you have. Yet Our Lord, by an excess of His goodness, has given clothing to you rather than to them. With this thought in mind raise your heart and speak to Him thus:

'O my God, I bless Thee a thousand times for all the mercies Thou hast shown in my regard. I beg Thee to provide for all the needs of the poor. And I also beg that, just as Thou hast given me clothing for m y body, Thou mayest also clothe my soul with Thy own self, that is, with Thy spirit and Thy love, Thy charity, humility, meekness, patience, obedience, and all Thy other virtues."

1v. Your Whole Life Belongs to Jesus and Ought to be

CONSECRATED To His GLORY AND EMPLOYED FOR IT ALONE

Your whole life, with everything that pertains to it and depends upon it, belongs to Jesus by reason of five general claims which include a countless number of special ones.

1. Jesus is your Creator, who gives you life, who impresses His image and likeness upon your soul. Because of this, your life belongs to Him absolutely and universally no matter what you do, and must he continually referred to Him as the image of its prototype.

2. He is your Preserver, who sustains you each moment in your

being, and carries you incessantly in His arms with more care and love than a mother carrying her tiny child.

3. He is the Son Of the Heavenly Father, who has given Him from all eternity, and still gives Him all things as a whole, and likewise each person individually.

4. He is your Redeemer, who has delivered you from the slavery of Satan and sin and bought you at the price of His Precious Blood. He has, therefore, purchased everything that is in you, your entire life , your time, your thoughts, words, and deeds, all the powers of your body and soul, as well as all external things that surround you in the world. By His death on the Cross He has acquired for you not only the graces necessary for the sanctification of your souls but also the things needed for the conservation of your bodies. Because of your sins you should have no right to walk upon the earth, to breathe the air, to cat a morsel of bread, to drink a drop of water, nor to use anything in this world, unless Jesus had acquired that right for you by His blood and His death. All that is in you, therefore, and all your use of things outside of you, belong to Jesus and must be employed only for Him, as beings which He has acquired at the price of His blood and His life.

5. Jesus Christ has given you all that He has and all that He is. He has given you His Father as your Father, by making you sons of His own Father. He has given you His Holy Spirit to teach you, to direct you and to lead you in all things. He has given you His holy Mother to be your Mother. He has given you His angels and saints to be your protectors and intercessors. He has given you all the other countless beings that exist in heaven and on earth for your use and to fill your needs. He has given you His own Person in the Incarnation. He has given you His whole life, of which He spent not a single moment that was not for your benefit. Nor did He have a single thought, utter a single word, perform one action or even take a single step that was not devoted to your salvation. Finally, He gives you His body and blood in the Blessed Eucharist, as well as His soul and His divinity and all the infinite treasures that are enclosed in His divinity and humanity. He does this every day for all men; and for you as often as you dispose yourself to receive Him.

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Considering all these countless gifts, you must realize how important it is to give yourself entirely to Him, and to offer and consecrate to Him all the functions and exercises of your life. Indeed, if you had the lives of all the angels and of all the men who have ever existed, now exist and will exist, you would be obliged to spend them in His service, even if He had devoted but one moment of His life to you, since a single moment of His life is worth more than a thousand eternities, if I may use such words, of lives of angels and of men. How great, then, is your obligation to consecrate and expend in His service and for His glory, the short life and the brief time you have on earth!

The first and most important thing to do is to keep yourself with all care in His grace and friendship, fearing and flying from all that might make you lose Him, that is, from every kind of sin. F l y from sin more than the most terrifying things in the world, even death itself. But if by some unhappy chance you fall into sin, rise immediately by means of confession and contrition, of which I shall speak later on. For just as the branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit of a tree belong to the one who owns the trunk of the tree, so also, as long as you belong to Jesus Christ and are united to Him by His grace, all your life , with all that comes from it, and all the acts you may perform that are not evil in themselves, will belong to Him. But in addition, I am going to set before you three other methods, which are very satisfying and very easy to use, by which your whole life may be employed in a far more perfect and holy manner for the love and glory Of Jesus.

V. Three Methods by Which Your Whole Life Can Become a Continual Exercise of

PRAISE AND Love.

Over and above what has been said, there are three others things to, be done, if you are to spend your whole life for the glory of Jesus. These things are contained in the morning prayer that follows.

1. Once you are dressed, before you go out of the house or do any other action, go down on your knees and take at least five minutes to adore Jesus, to thank Him and to offer yourself to Him, together with all the acts that you will do during the day, having the intention of

performing them all for His glory. The writings of St. Gertrude tell us that Our Lord assured her that he took considerable pleasure in her offering up to Him all her very smallest acts, even every breath she took and every beat of her heart. By virtue of this oblation, every step that you take, every breath that you draw, every beat of your heart, every use that you make of your interior or exterior senses .and in general all the actions that you may perform, which are not in. themselves evil, will belong to Jesus Christ, and will all be so many acts redounding to His greater glory.

Note that, when I urge you to kneel down each morning in your home to adore our Lord Jesus Christ, to thank Him and offer yourself to Him, I do not mean that these acts are to be made only in the .sight of the Son of God and no other. but also in the sight of the Most Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. This infallibly happens even when you do not expressly intend it. Since Jesus Christ is one with the Father and the Holy Ghost and since the entire Holy Trinity, or, as St. Paul says, the plenitude of the divinity dwells in Christ (Col. 2, 9), it must necessarily follow that to adore ,and glorify the Father and the Holy Ghost and to offer Jesus all the glory that is given Him in heaven and on earth is to offer that same glory to Father and the Holy Spirit. And when you beg the Father and the Holy Spirit to glorify Jesus, you are supplicating Them to. glorify Themselves. This brings me to the second thing that you should do in the morning, if you want your whole life to be an exercise of glorification and love of Jesus, and consequently of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

2. Offer up to Our Lord all the love and glory that will be given Him this day in heaven and on earth and unite yourself with all the praises that will be given to Him by His Eternal Father, by Himself, by His Holy Spirit, by His Blessed Mother, by all His angels and saints and by all His creatures. Thus you will be associated with the love and the praise that will continually ascend to Him during that particular day.

3. Pray to the Eternal Father, the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Virgin Mary, all the angels and saints to glorify and love Jesus for you during this day. They will surely do so, because this is the most agreeable

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petition you could possibly make to them and the one which they most willingly hear and grant. Thus you will have a special share in the love and glory that Jesus continually receives from those Holy and Divine Persons. And He will receive this glory and love as being rendered, in a certain manner, by you, since it i s rendered at your request and insistence.

If you make faithful use of these three practices every morning, then every day of your life and your life as a whole will be a perpetual act of love and glorification of Jesus Christ. If it were possible to find in the world a man so detestable, that he would want all his actions and his every breath to be so many blasphemies against God, and if he also had the intention of uniting himself with all the blasphemies committed on earth and in hell: and if, not satisfied with that, he were to excite and urge all the demons and wicked men to blaspheme for him, is it not true that by reason of his abominable intention, all his acts and his every breath would be blasphemies and all the blasphemies on earth and in hell could be imputed to him? So then, on the other hand, if you use the three practices I have proposed above, it is most certain that by virtue of your holy intention all the acts of your life will be as many acts of praise to God and you will be associated in a special manner in all the honor that is incessantly given to Him on earth and i n heaven.

It would also be a good thing, over and above all this, if you were to make, every morning, out of love for Our Lord, an act of acceptance of all the afflictions you may have to bear during the day and also an act of renunciation of all the temptations of the devil and all the feelings of self-love and other passions which may come upon you during the day. These two acts have considerable importance, because a thousand little annoyances occur in the course of the day, and they pass on and you often do not take thought and offer them to God. In the same way many temptations and impulses of self-love creep into your acts without your taking notice of them. By virtue of the first act, however, God will be glorified by all the pains, both of body and soul, which will make themselves felt during the day, if you accept them first thing in the morning out of love for Him. Then, by virtue of the second act, He will give you strength to resist more easily all evil

temptations and to destroy more easily all effects of self-love and other vices.

These two acts, together with the three practices that precede them, are all embodied in the following prayer.

Vi. Morning Prayer to Jesus

0 Most Lovable Jesus, I fall at Thy feet in the utmost depths of my nothingness. I adore and glorify Thee in the immense extent of Thy spirit, the infinite greatness of Thy love and all the virtues and powers of Thy divinity and humanity. I bless Thee and love Thee in all that Thou art universally, both in Thyself and in all things. I give Thee infinite thanks for Thy care and watchfulness over me during this night. I offer Thee all the honor that has been given Thee during this night in heaven and on earth.

0 my Saviour, I offer and consecrate myself entirely and forever to Thee and through Thee to Thy Eternal Father. I offer Thee my body, my soul, my mind, my heart, my life, all the parts of my body,all the powers of my soul, every breath I draw, every throb of my heart and veins, every step I take, every look, every use I make of my senses and in general everything that has been, is and shall be in me. I t is my desire that all these things may be consecrated to Thy glory and become so many acts of praise, adoration and love of Thee. Then may it please Thee, 0 my God, in Thy great power and mercy, to make this be so, in order that everything in me may render to Thee continual honor and homage.

I likewise offer up to Thee, 0 Most Lovable Jesus, and through Thee to the Blessed Trinity, all the love and glory that will be given Thee today and for all eternity in heaven and on earth. I unite myself to all the praise that ever has been, is now, and ever shall be given to the Father by the Son and the Holy Ghost, to the Son and the Holy Ghost by the Father, and to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost by the Blessed Virgin, by all the angels, all the saints and by all creatures.

O Jesus, adore and love the Father and the Holy Spirit for me.

O Father of Jesus, love and glorify Thy Son Jesus for me.

O Holy Spirit of Jesus, love and glorify Jesus for me.