Part VI: Meditations for the Annual Retreat((1): First Meditation (2)

How Have You Practised Modesty, Simplicity

And Truth?

Make an examination of conscience regarding the faults you have ,committed against these virtues, paying particular attention to the modesty you should display when in church, in your own room, walking in public or talking with your neighbor. Are you guilty of duplicity or artifice?

Do you go to extremes in dress, in eating or in the furnishings of your home or room? Are you guided by the maxims of the world? Are you curious about secular events, given to following foolish fashions or inclined to listen to or read useless things?

Are you disposed to be singular or odd, thus causing a rift in that spirit of union which should exist between you and those with whom you live? Are you faithful to your word and your promise? Is your manner of speaking simple, sincere and candid? Do you exaggerate?

Ejaculatory Prayer: "Let your modesty be known to all men." Modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus (Phil. 4, 5).

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Ninth Meditation

The Manner of Performing Our Actions

Importance of Doing All Things Well

It is of the utmost importance that we perform all our actions, even the smallest, in the best possible manner. Several reasons demand this.

First of all, we are children of God, created to His image and likeness. Consequently, we must imitate Him, according to the words of > the Apostle, "Be ye therefore followers of God, as most dear children" (Eph. 5, 1). God performs His every work divinely, and so we too must endeavor to discharge every obligation and perform every action with a perfection becoming sons of God and in obedience to the Saviour's commandment, "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5 , 48).

Secondly, Christ, who is our exemplar and to whom we must conform our lives, rendered infinite glory to His Father, even in the smallest things, for He did all for love of Him.

Thirdly, God bestows even the smallest things upon us, such as every morsel of bread we cat o r every drop of water we drink, with the same love that pours upon us His greatest blessings. Thus, He is as much concerned with those thing~ which may appear trivial as He is with the significant, as we are reminded when Scripture tells us that even the hairs of our head are numbered. Consequently, we must show the same interest in our smallest actions as in the important ones.

Fourthly, when we act negligently and without proper dispositions,

we rob God of the glory due Him in time and eternity, purchased for us by the shedding of Christ's blood. I n addition, we lose the treasures of grace that otherwise would be laid up for us in heaven, had our motives been holy. Finally, it IS much easier to do our duty with fervor and devotion than it is to act coldly and carelessly.

How Have You Performed Your Actions Up to Now?

The proper manner of acting is outlined by St. Paul when he says, "Whether you eat or drink, o r whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 1(, 31). These words mean simply that you should act with His dispositions as He Himself would do in our place, as far as you possibly can with the help of His grace.

Weigh carefully the faults you have committed in this respect: 1. in those actions directly concerned with God, as in those things connected with the virtue of religion and with our priestly duties; 2. in those affecting your neighbor; 3. in those that have a bearing upon your state in life, your profession or the office which is yours.

Ask God's pardon for any offenses of which you are guilty. Offer Him in reparation the honor His Son rendered Him by His holy life, and resolve henceforth to do well all that is required of you.

For this purpose:

1. Avoid laziness, coldness, lukewarmness and negligence

2. Always have a right and pure intention, Protesting to God that you wish to do nothing to please the world, nor to gain the esteem of men, nor to pander to your own satisfaction, nor your own temporal o r spiritual interests, nor for merit or reward. On the contrary, make open avowal that you do everything for His glory and the fulfilment of His will as well as in thanksgiving for all Christ did while He was on earth.

3. Perform every action according to its appointed time and place. "Let all things be done decently and according to order" (1 Cor. 14, 40).

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4. Let your smallest action include within it all possible perfection, remembering that whatever i s done for God is great

5. Perform all your actions with the dispositions becoming to them: for example, those of humility with a spirit of self-abasement; those of obedience, promptly and willingly; those of penance with mortification and hatred of self and of sin; those of charity towards your neighbor with an open heart filled with divine love; those of piety and religion with devotion.

6. Make an act of renouncement of self before each action, at least before the principal ones, thus giving yourself to Christ to enter into His spirit.

7. Upon the completion of the action, preserve these dispositions, uniting yourself to those which filled the Saviour as He performed similar ones, for He is and "worketh all in all" (1 Cor. 12, 6).

8. Do and suffer all for God. "Do his will with a great heart, and a willing mind" (2 Mach. 1, 3 ) , that is, with the love and wish to please Him, thus putting into every action your sole desire of making~ His divine will your pleasure, your joy, your happiness and your paradise.

9. When you have performed the action, shut your heart against any self-satisf action or vanity, remembering that even as you are nothing but sinfulness, so nothing could emanate from you of yourself but evil, God being the only source of good. Thus, too, you should remember that since you never really succeed in doing your best, your actions are usually full of faults which should be looked upon as useless *in themselves and unworthy of merit.

Ejaculatory Prayer: "He hath done all things well." Bene omnia fecit (Mark 7, 37).

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Tenth Meditation

The Use We Should Make of the Faculties

of Our Soul and Body

All That is in Us Belongs to God

All that is in us belongs to God by three general titles which comprise an infinity of others: the title of creation, the title of conservation, and the title of redemption.

By creation and conservation all that is in our soul and body belongs to His Divine Majesty as many times as there are moments in our life on earth, because, after putting us in this world, God preserves us continually in being.

By redemption we belong to Him by as many titles as His Divine Son had thoughts, words and actions, bore sufferings and shed drops of His Blood. He employed these means, of which each is infinite i n value, to snatch us from the captivity of sin and Satan. Thus, we have an infinity of obligations constraining us to use every faculty of our body and soul in His service and for the honor and glory of Him to whom we belong in entirety. "For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body" (1 Cor. 6 , 20).

By Baptism we are made members of Christ. "Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ?" (1 Cor. 6, 15) Hence, we are obliged to live His life, be animated by His spirit, make the same use of the powers of our soul and our senses that He did of His. Rather, we should say it is He who should use our faculties for the diffusion of His spirit.

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By Baptism, too, as well as by Confirmation, our body and soul were made temples of the Holy Ghost, consecrated to God more solemnly than are chalices, ciboria or altars. Now, as in a holy temple there i s nothing which may be used for profane purposes, so there must be nothing in us but what is used for the service and honor of Him to whom they have been consecrated, not only by Baptism and Confirmation, but also through the Holy Eucharist.

Thank God for all these favors.

How HAVE YOU USED THE FACULTIES OF YOUR SOUL

And the Members of Your Body?

What use have you made of the various faculties of your soul and body?

Humble yourself and be mindful that instead of having employed all your faculties in the service of Him who gave them to you, and to whom they belong, you have employed them to serve His enemies.

Ask His pardon with great sorrow in your heart. Offer Him in satisfaction all the honor His Son rendered Him, through the saintly use of His own all holy faculties.

Search your understanding, your memory and your will to see if there is anything there which displeases Him. Scrutinize the passions of your lower appetite, love, hatred, joy, sadness, fear, hope; examine all actions done with your eyes, your hearing, your taste, your tongue, your feet and your hands. Make a determined resolution to mortify and destroy whatever you discover to be at variance with His divine will, obeying the injunction of the Holy Ghost, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth" (Col. 3, 5).

Make a new oblation and consecration of your body and soul to God, supplicating Him to employ His all powerful goodness in taking full and absolute possession. of you, that He may thus destroy within you whatsoever is contrary to Him, and establish within you His kingdom and His adorable will.

Be resolved to imitate and follow Christ in the holy use to which He subjected His every faculty. Give yourself completely to Him, that He may fill you with His spirit and possess and govern you in all things.

Ejaculatory Prayer: "You are not your own. For you are bought with a great price." Non estis vestri: empti enim estis pretio magno (1 Cor. 6, 19-20). 268-