At the beginning of October we will receive twenty new students. The total number will then exceed the symbolic figure of one hundred. We entrust all these young people to your prayers – though, to be honest, some of them are not so young! Without this assault of prayer perseveringly addressed to Heaven, our poor efforts could not bear fruit.
We must always be certain of the love of God for us. This love is not a utopia, but a reality which must be deeply impressed in our hearts. God is at the center of our souls and there He waits to converse as a friend with us. Let us go beyond our impressions and the illusions conjured up by our imagination. The tenderness of God transcends our senses; it resides in the most intimate part of our being, that which is not affected by our emotions.
The French Revolution attacked the Throne to destroy the Altar. Indeed, the devil knows very well that the supernatural must exist incarnated. And as the supernatural completely escapes his power, he manages to undermine what is natural, bringing down the supernatural as if it were a fragile house of cards.
What should we do…? Recollect ourselves. Concentrate on doing well whatever we do. Focus our will in spite of the demands of our passions. Learn how to live in the presence of God, not yielding to the inclinations of the passions, but according to virtue. Learn how to live according to a rule of conduct that directs, protects and produces fruits – a rule that leads us to joy, to a great joy that nothing and nobody can take away from us.
The Christian sings his victory, won through Christ and the virtue of His Most Precious Blood. Even when he seems to have failed in the eyes of men, he rises up even stronger. Failures do not render sterile the progress of his soul, but rather engrave in it the Cross and give him an understanding of the mystery of the love of God incarnated in humble souls.
“I do not know this Man!” The die is cast, the denial is complete. With forceful imprecations and oaths, St. Peter repudiated his Master. The voice of a maidservant and the sarcastic remarks of those who surrounded him were enough to overcome the still too human love that Peter had for Jesus. Three times he renewed his repudiation, and when he finally met the eyes of Christ, his blood ran cold. Far away, the cock crowed. Peter remembered then the words of his Master, and went away, crying bitterly, repentant and converted.
To be accustomed to evil is even more terrible than evil itself; such a habit leaves us indifferent, unmoved by the sad spectacle of a multitude of people abandoning themselves to their basest instincts. Thus overcome by a mortal torpor, we become unable to react with indignation at the attacks regularly perpetrated against the honor of God. Our shameful silence reveals the lethargy of our souls, insidiously led into an infamous complicity.
How could our souls fail to be elevated by the liturgical texts of this season of Advent, so beautiful and so full of hope? The musical melodies so particular to this time of expectation have, moreover, the gift of appeasing our souls by inviting them to raise their desires beyond the purely natural realities to beseech the Savior, our divine Bridegroom, the only object of our most noble yearnings, to come without delay.
When the migratory birds flutter excitedly against the blue depths of a spring sky, their return inspiring in us thoughts of other, distant skies, or suddenly depart, prompted by the fading light of the autumn sun and the first assaults of the winter chills, those birds – beautiful as they are – are simply following their instincts.
In many of his writings, Aristotle lucidly explains that man is a rational and social animal. The animal side of our nature is so obviously – and strongly! – present in our lives that there is no need to linger on it. The facts speak by themselves and that’s enough for our purpose.