HAPPY
FEAST of ALL SAINTS DAY
St John Marie Vianney quotes…THE
GIFT OF EVERY DAY
Follow me
for a moment and you will know the way in which to make all your actions
meritorious for eternal life without changing anything in your way of behaving.
All you have to do is to have in view the object of pleasing God in everything
you do, and I will add that instead of making your actions more difficult by
doing them for God, you will make them, on the contrary, much more pleasant and
less arduous. In the morning, when you awake, think at once of God and quickly
make the Sign of the Cross, saying to Him: "My God, I give you my heart, and
since You are so good as to give me another day, give me the grace that
everything I do will be for Your honour and for the salvation of my
soul."
The
Saints,.. my
dear brethren, all loved the Cross and found in it their strength and their
consolation.
But,
you will say to me, is it necessary, then, always to have something to suffer?
.... Now sickness or poverty, or again scandal or calumny, or possibly loss of
money or an infirmity?
Have
you been calumniated, my friends? Have you been loaded with insults? Have you
been wronged? So much the better! That is a good sign; do not worry; you are on
the road that leads to Heaven. Do you know when you ought to be really upset? I
do not know if you understand it, but it should be precisely for the opposite
reason -- when you have nothing to endure, when everyone esteems and respects
you. Then you should feel envious of those who have the happiness of passing
their lives in suffering, or contempt, or poverty. Are you forgetting, then,
that at your Baptism you accepted the Cross, which you must never abandon until
death, and that it is the key that you will use to open the door of Heaven? Are
you forgetting the words of our Saviour: "If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." Not for a day, not
for a week, not for a year, but all our lives. The saints had a great fear of
passing any time without suffering, for they looked upon it as time lost.
According to St. Teresa, man is only in this world to suffer, and when he ceases
to suffer, he should cease to live. St. John of the Cross asks God, with tears,
to give him the grace to suffer more as a reward for all his
labours.
What
should we conclude, my dear children, from all that?
Just
this: Let
us make a resolution to have a great respect for all the crosses, which are
blessed, and which represent to us in a small way all that our God Suffered for
us. Let us recall that from the Cross flow all the graces that are bestowed upon
us and that as a consequence, a cross which is blessed is a source of blessings,
that we should often make the Sign of the Cross on ourselves and always with
great respect, and, finally, that our houses should never remain without this
symbol of salvation.
Fill
your children, my dear brethren, with the greatest respect for the Cross, and
always have a blessed cross on yourselves; it will protect you against the
Devil, from the vengeance of Heaven, and from all danger. This is what I desire
for you. -St John Marie
Vianney.
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