Meditation: The Choice of a State of Life: Conformity to the Holy Will of God in the Choice (1): The Choice of a State of Life

The Choice of a State of Life

Conformity to the Holy Will of God in the Choice

Of Your State of Life

y.You are not permitted to choose any state of life but the one God has designed for you from all eternity. You must not take up any work except that to which He is pleased to call you. You are not your own, but His, by an infinity of rights: by the claim of creation, preservation, redemption, justification, His complete sovereignty over all creatures, and by as many claims as there were thoughts entertained, words spoken, actions performed, sufferings endured, and drops of blood shed by the Son of God, to redeem you from the slavery of the devil and of sin.

Therefore., it is His divine right to dispose of you, of your life and works, for you belong to Him infinitely more than a subject to his king, a slave to his master, a house to its purchaser, or a child to his father. Hence, renounce yourself, affirm that you desire not only to be His and to serve Him, but to serve Him in the way that will be most pleasing to Him, and in the state to which He deigns to call you. Ask Him to make known His holy will on this point, and resolve to dispose yourself as best you can to know and follow His providential plan.

Means of Knowing the Will of God

You have seven things to do in order to dispose yourself to learn the divine will concerning your vocation.

The first is to humble yourself profoundly, acknowledging that you

are infinitely unworthy to serve God in any state or condition whatever. Being involved in darkness, you cannot of yourself know God's will on this point, and you do not deserve that He should communicate His divine light to you.

The second step is to purify your soul from all sin and affection for sin, by means of sincere repentance and an extraordinary confession, to remove everything that might prove an obstacle to the heavenly light and graces you require for this decision.

The third step is to declare to God that you desire to be absolutely His, to serve Him with all your heart, for love of Him, in the kind of life to which He deigns to call you.

Fourthly, you must attain complete neutrality towards the professions in which you might please God, and rid yourself of all sorts of designs and aspirations, placing your ideas, tastes, desires and inclinations at the feet of our Lord, that He may clothe you with His own, fully resigning your liberty that He may dispose of you as He pleases, placing your heart in His hands like soft wax or likea blank page, for Him to engrave or write on it the message of His adorable will.

Fifthly, you must pray earnestly, with greatest confidence, that by His infinite mercy, He may place you in the state He has deigned to choose for you from all eternity, although you are infinitely unworthy of it; and that He may give you the light and grace you need to embrace this state and to serve Him faithfully therein.

Sixthly, you should fortify your prayers with mortification, alms, or other works of mercy, corporal or spiritual.

The seventh and last step is to implore the help of the Blessed Virgin, of St. Joseph, of your guardian angel and of all the other angels and saints, that they may obtain for you the grace to know and follow what God asks of you.

These are the seven things you have to do to dispose yourself to know your vocation. Ask Almighty God to give you the grace to follow them; and, on your part, endeavor to dispose yourself with the aid of His holy grace.

Signs Whereby You May Know the Will of God

If after following the preceding steps, and entering into the dispositions indicated, you feel an inclination to a particular kind of life, you must not immediately follow this desire. First, you must examine it thoroughly, for fear of following the attractions of your own will, or of self-love, or of the evil spirit, in place of the inspirations of the Spirit of God. In order not to be deceived, consider carefully: I. whether the state to which you feel drawn is one in which you can readily serve God and work out your salvation; 2. whether God has given you the necessary physical and mental qualities and the requisite conditions to enter that state; 3. whether your desire is stable and permanent; whether your motive is pure and disinterested, having no other intention but to honor God and accomplish His most holy will ; 5. whether your desire is approved and confirmed by the advice of God's earthly representatives, capable of directing you in a matter of such importance.

These are the five marks of a true vocation from God. If they are to be found in your desire for any state, there is nothing left but for you to resolve firmly to embrace it, to seek the means leading to this end, to ask God to give you all the graces necessary to attain it, to serve and honor Him in it i n accordance with His omnipotent designs, and to invoke the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, of the angels and saints.

Ejaculatory prayer:

"Make the way known to me, wherein I should walk: for I have lifted up my soul to thee." Notam fac mihi viam in qua ambulem, quia ad te levavi animam meam (Ps. 142, 8) 93-

Meditations on Humility

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Meditations on Humility ( 1 )

It is a daily practice in many religious communities to make a profession of humility. After the morning meditation, one of the members, inclining profoundly, recites it aloud, and at the end, the others, also bowing down, answer: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us." But, if the truths contained in the words of this profession are to make a deeper impression, and produce greater fruits in souls, it is necessary to study carefully and meditate seriously upon them. This is why I have selected them as material for these meditations.

Protestation of Humility

Domine Jesu Christe, nihil sumus, Lord Jesus Christ, we are nothing, Nihil possumus, We can do nothing, Nihil valemus-, We are worth nothing, Nihil habemus, praeter pecca- We possess nothing but sin, tum, Servi inutiles sumus, We are useless servants, Natura filii irae, We are children of wrath, Novissimi virorum et Primi Pec- The last of men and the first of catorum, sinners, Nobis igitur confusio et Upon us be confusion and shame, ignominia . Tibi autem honor et gloria in To Thee be honor and glory for saecula saeculorum. Amen. ever and ever. Amen. Domine Jesu Christe, miserere Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on nobis. us. (1). See footnotes, P. 41 96-

On the Words: Nihil Sumus-"We Are Nothing."

God is the Sovereign Being

LET us adore God, pronouncing the divine words Ego sum Qui sum: I Am Who Am" (Exod. 3, 14). Let us beg Him to make us realize their truth and render them fruitful in us, for all God's words are filled with light and power; light to illumine our minds and power to effect in our hearts the work of grace and sanctification in conformity with their significance.

Let us consider that God alone is worthy to exist and that He alone exists, properly speaking: "See ye that I alone am" (Deut. 32, 39). Any other creature whatsoever not only does not deserve to exist, but does not even exist before God. "All nations are before him as if they had no being at all, and are counted to him as nothing, and vanity" (Isa, 40, 17). His being is eternal, without beginning and without end, immense, filling all space, immutable, infinite, changeless, replete with admirable perfections, infinitely happy, rich and glorious, sovereign and independent, the source of all being, to whom every creature in heaven, on earth and in hell should be referred as to its source, should pay honor, homage, adoration and sacrifice as to the Sovereign Being of all Creation.

Let us rejoice that God is "He Who is." "Come in before his presence with exceeding great joy " (Ps. 99, 2).

Let us adore, bless and glorify Him. Let us offer and sacrifice to Him our being and the existence of all angels, men, irrational creatures and even the demons and damned.

Homage Due to God

Since God alone is He who is, and all that is not God is as nothing before Him, God alone i s worthy to be considered, esteemed, loved, desired and honored. We should, therefore, have neither mind nor heart, nor thought nor affection, nor eye, nor tongue, nor hand for anything else. Yet, there is nothing less esteemed, loved, desired, and sought after, nothing of which we think less, of which we speak so little, and for Whom we do so little, as God. What is not, that is, the nothingness of created things, is much more esteemed, desired and sought after than He who is, and we think, speak and do a great deal more for nothing than for our Supreme All.

Let us humble ourselves for having been among those who have preferred the nothing to the All. Let us ask pardon of this great All. Let us protest that, henceforth, we desire to see and love Him alone in all things, beseeching Him to annihilate all things and ourselves in our own eyes, so that He may be All in all to us.

Scorn of Sinners for God

Let us consider how sinners annihilate "Him Who is." First, the atheists in belief annihilate Him, saying there is no God: "The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God" (Ps. 13, 1). Secondly, the atheists in life and morals annihilate Him by living and acting as if they did not believe in Him. Thirdly, all those who commit mortal sin annihilate Him because they annihilate His sovereignty, by refusing to depend upon Him. They destroy His will, desiring the accomplishment of their own whims to the detriment of His eternal will. They impugn His wisdom, desiring that He should have no will to punish them, His power in wishing that He should have no power, His providence in persuading themselves that He has no thought of things here on earth. We have annihilated God in this way if we have sinned mortally.

Let us beseech Him to forgive us. In reparation, let us annihilate ourselves in every possible manner, in our own opinion and in that of others. Let us seek all sorts of opportunities to annihilate ourselves by various practices of humility, begging Him to employ His power and His goodness i n extinguishing us and impressing upon our hearts a great affection for nothingness so that our highest ambition may be to become nothing in this world, that God may be All in all things: Omnia in Omnibus (I Cor. 15,28)

Ejaculatory prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, we are nothing. Domine Jesu Christe, nihil sumus.

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Annihilation of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Our Lord Annihilated Himself in his Humanity

LET US adore our Lord Jesus Christ in the annihilation revealed in these words: "He emptied himself" (Phil. 2, 7), and consider that He annihilated Himself in His humanity and even in His divinity.

In His humanity, He annihilated Himself in thought, interior dispositions, words and actions.

He annihilated Himself in His thoughts and interior dispositions. His sacred humanity clearly realized that of itself it was nothing and His holy soul dwelt in a continual disposition of annihilation before the greatness and supreme Majesty of God.

He annihilated Himself in His words for it was He who said: "My substance is as nothing before thee" ( P s. 38, 6). Whenever He spoke of Himself, He always referred to Himself as "the son of man" that is, the son of nothingness and consequently "nothing." He annihilated Himself in His actions: during the whole course of His life He abased and humbled Himself as a man of no account. Everything that He did was for His Heavenly Father and nothing for Himself as man, no more than if He had not existed. "Christ is God's" (I Cor. 3, 23)

He also annihilated His will, His intellect and His love of Himself.

Let us, therefore, exalt Jesus as much as He humbled Himself, and, imitating His example, let us endeavor to annihilate ourselves in thought, word and deed. Beg Him to give us a share in His divine knowledge, that we may realize our nothingness; to imprint upon our souls a lively perception of our nothingness; and to grant us the grace to think, say and do nothing for ourselves, but all for Him, our Supreme All.

OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ANNIHILATED Himself

In his Divinity

Our Lord annihilated Himself even in His divinity. He extinguished in a manner His supreme being in the nothingness of our nature, His divine life in our mortality, His eternity in time, His immensity and infinity in the littleness of childhood, His omnipotence in weakness and importance, His wisdom in the folly of the crib and the Cross, His sanctity in His likeness to sinners, His glory i n ignominy, His joy in suffering, His plenitude in poverty, His sovereignty in dependence and subjection.

Adore and glorify Him in this annihilation. Thank Him for the glory rendered to His Eternal Father. He has annihilated such great, holy and divine privileges for us; therefore let us annihilate for Him things basc~ abject, evil and corrupt, such as is everything found in us.

Our Lord Jesus Christ Willed to be Treated

As NOTHING

Consider that while He was on earth, our Divine Saviour willed to be treated as a non-entity, or rather, as if He were less than nothing, for He permitted mankind to treat Him with less respect and humanity, and with more ignominy and cruelty than they would have done if He had been only a nonentity. Consider, too, that even in our day, He is annihilated in His divinity and humanity in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar; and is treated there even by the majority of Christians as a nothing, for they behave in His presence with less fear and reverence than if He were nothing.

Let us give ourselves to Him, to honor and imitate Him in this annihilation. Beg Him to blot out our vanity and give us a share in His spirit of humility, so that henceforth we may regard and treat ourselves and be glad to be esteemed and treated as nothings who deserve only contempt and humiliation.

Ejaculatory prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, we are nothing." Domine Jesu Christe, nihil sumus. 102-

Annihilation of the Blessed Virgin and of Holy Church

The Blessed Virgin Annihilated Herself in her Own Eyes

THE Blessed Virgin resembled her Divine Son in His self-annihilation and imitated perfectly His thoughts, His interior dispositions, His words and actions in the manner we have indicated, and all proportions being observed, she also extinguished her own will, her intellect and her self-love, although all these things were sanctified in her. Let us honor her in this self-effacement and ask her to obtain for us the grace to imitate her profound humility.

Our Lady Was Treated by Others as If She

Were Nothing

Let us consider that the Blessed Virgin treated herself and was treated by others in this world as if she were nothing. Offer to God all the glory that she rendered Him by this self-abnegation. Let us strive to exalt her in reward for her abasement and endeavor to imitate her.

Our Lord Willed That his Church Should be

Small and Humble

Let us consider that the Son of God compares His Church to a grain of mustard seed, "which i s the least indeed of all seeds" (Matt. 13, 32), and that He willed that it should be small, humble and persecuted in this world. It was small in its foundation, being founded on a crucified

God-Man and twelve poor, weak and ignorant fishermen, all of whom died by the hands of executioners. It was small in its first members. "For see your vocation, brethren," says St. Paul, "that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong. And the base things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen: and things that are not, that he might bring to nought things that are" (I Cor. 1, 26-28). The Chutch is even unpretentious in its tremendous sacraments, which are svmbolized by very minor objects: Baptism by water, the Blessed Eucharist by bread and wine.

The Son of God has ordained this for three reasons:

1. To confound human pride which always desires its work to be conspicuous, while He wills that His greatest work, namely, His Church, should be concealed under these apparently insignificant things.

2. To teach us not to be guided by human judgment and reason which esteem and regard only sensible and apparent things, but by the spirit of faith which considers only things invisible and eternal according to the sacred words: "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen, are temporal; but the things which are not seen, are eternal" (2 Cor- 4, 18)

3. To teach us to despise the ideas and opinions of the world and refrain from efforts to win its acclaim. If our Lord had wished to please the world, He would have founded His Church on the emperors, on the great and the wise of the earth, and would have followed a much more elaborate course with regard to His doctrine and Sacraments. He wished to teach us to despise fame and worldliness and to employ all our efforts in pleasing God alone in all we do and to serve Him by humbling and abasing ourselves everywhere and always.

Ejaculatory prayer:

"Lord Jesus Christ, we are nothing." Domine Jesu Christe, nihil sumus.

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We Are Nothing from Every Point of View

OUR ORIGIN Is NOTHINGNESS

LET us adore the Holy Ghost pronouncing these words by the mouth Of St. Paul: "If any man think himself to be something, whereas he is nothing, he deceiveth himself" (Gal. 6, 3). Let us give ourselves to the Holy Spirit and earnestly beseech Him to make us realize this truth and give us grace to draw therefrom the fruit He wishes.

Let us consider that we are nothing in body or in soul, since both have been created out of nothing, so that our origin is nothingness. Worldly men may glory in the status of their ancestors. Let us Christians remember that we descended from nothing from which God draws us forth. What should humble us still more is that we did not deserve that He should draw us from it any more than an infinite number of other creatures who will remain in nothingness forever. God in His pure goodness withdrew us from the void.

Another truth which should confound our pride is that if God did not preserve us every moment, if He were to leave us to ourselves, we would fall back into the nothingness whence we came, so true is it that of ourselves and by ourselves we are nothing. By counting every moment that has elapsed since you came into the world, you may know how many times you would have been annihilated if God had not performed as great a miracle to preserve you as He did to create you. Hence, let us acknowledge that nothingness is our portion and our inheritance. We may glory in this and i n nothing else. Let us adore and praise the divine power and goodness for having drawn forth and sustained us at every moment. Let us beg God to engrave these truths

profoundly upon our mind, so that they may serve to destroy our vanity and to keep us humble.