Friday, February 24 : Saint Vincent de Paul

Let us love God, my brothers, let us love God, but let it be at the expense of our arms and the sweat of our brow. For only too often so many of our acts of love for God, kindness, favor and other, similar feelings and interior practices of the gentle heart, however good and desirable they are, are nevertheless to be held in suspicion when they don’t at all bring us to practice actual love. Our Lord said: “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit” (Jn 15,8). Now this is something about which we need to be very careful because there are many who, so as to be exteriorly well-ordered and interiorly full of great feelings for God, stop at that. And when it comes to the point and they find themselves in a situation for action, they stop short. They pride themselves on their inflated imaginations; they are satisfied with the sweet exchanges they have with God in prayer; they even talk about it like angels. But when they come away is there any question of working for God, of suffering, practising mortification, teaching the poor, searching for the lost sheep (Lk 15,4f.), being pleased when they lack something, accepting sickness or some other misfortune? Alas, then there is no one to be seen, courage fails them! No, let us not deceive ourselves: our whole task consists in progressing towards acts.

maronite readings – rosary,team