Tuesday, December 13 : Blessed Guerric of Igny

To me, certainly, the birth of the world’s Lamp brought fresh joy, for it enabled me to recognize the true Light shining in the darkness but not mastered by the darkness. … We can wonder at your holiness, O John, most holy among the saints, but we cannot imitate it. It is altogether necessary that, as you hasten to prepare for the Lord a perfect people out of publicans and sinners, you should speak to them more accommodatingly than you yourself live and define the measure of perfection not in accordance with your own rule of life but in accordance with the possibilities of the common run of men. “Bring forth worthy fruits of repentance,” he says. Our boast, brethren, is that we speak more perfectly than we live; whereas John, though living on a higher level than men can even understand, speaks to them in accordance with what they can take in. “Bring forth worthy fruits of repentance,” he says. “l speak to you humanly because of the weakness of your nature. If there is no room in you as yet for the plenitude of all good things, at least be truly sorry for all your evils. If you are unable as yet to bring forth the fruits of perfect justice, let this be your perfection for the moment, to bring forth worthy fruits of repentance.”
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team