The love which our Blessed lady had for God was so great that she suffered keenly through her desire of union with Him; hence the Eternal Father, to console her, sent her his only and beloved Son. If you wish to come to where I am going, that is, to glory, you must come this road, that is, through thorns. Before communion, we ought to exercise ourselves in many acts of virtues. Prayer and communion are not to be made or desired for the sake of the devotion we feel in them, for that is seeking self, and not God; but we must be frequent in both the one and the other in order to become humble, obedient, gentle and patient. When we see these virtues in a man, then we know that he has really gathered the fruit of prayer and of communion. Our sweet Jesus, through the excess of his love and liberality, has left himself to us in the Most Holy Sacrament.
He who works purely for the love of God desires nothing but his honour, and thus is ready in everything either to act or not to act, and that is not in indifferent matters only, but even in good ones; and he is always resigned to the will of God. The Lord grants in a moment what we may have been unable to obtain in dozens of years. To obtain perfectly the gift of humility, four main things are required; to despise the world, to despise no person, to despise one’s self, to despise being despised. Perfection consists in leading captive our own will, and in playing the king over it. A man ought to mortify his understanding in little things, if he wishes to easily mortify it in great ones, and to advance in the way of virtue. Without mortification nothing can be done. We ought to hope for and love the glory of God by means of a good life.
SAINT PHILIP NERI
Saint Philip Neri (1595) was an Italian priest and the founder of the Oratory.
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