TEMPERANCE

| Taste and See the Goodness of the Lord | Mortification and Mastery | Spiritual Olympics |

Taste and See the Goodness of the Lord

"For you my soul thirsts; for you my flesh, o how many ways!" (Ps 62:2; cf Ps 41:3, 72:25,26; 83:2,3)

"Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead; and your life is hid with Christ in God.... Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, ...evil concupiscence, and covetousness...." (Col 3:1-3,5)

"Oh! if only blind mortals would taste the delights and sweetness of Your holy love! I think they would immediately hate the pleasures of the senses and would be filled with loathing and disgust for them. Thirsty and anxious, they would hasten to drink from the fountain of Your sweetness. Why do they not run in the odor of your perfumes?" (St Catherine of Siena)

"I have but one desire, Lord: to seek you! ... Grant, O Lord, that my soul may really be enamored of You, that it esteem You above all else; and then, trusting in Your love and in Your help, I shall have the strength to cast far from me the desires of sense and all natural affections." (St John of the Cross)

Mortification and Mastery

"For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it. For what does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? (Mt 24-26)

"I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway." (I Cor 9:27)

"If you live according to the flesh you shall die; but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live." (Rom 8:13)

"And they who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires." (Gal 5:24)

"Cut them, break them, tear them; do not amuse yourself in unraveling these criminal friendships; you must tear and rend them asunder; do not untie the knots, but break or cut them." (St Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, part III, chap 21)

"All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.  Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do all for the glory of God." (I Cor 10:22-23, 31-32)

Spiritual Olympics

"Enter through the narrow gate. The gate that leads to damnation is wide, the road is clear, and many choose to travel it. But how narrow is the gate that leads to life, how rough the road, and how few there are who find it!" (Mt 17:11-14)

"Did you not know that those who run in the race, all run indeed, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain. And every one that strives for the mastery, refrains himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one." (I Cor 9:24,25)

"You are not mortified if you are touchy; if your every thought is for yourself; if you humiliate others; if you don't know how to give up what is unnecessary and, at times, what is necessary; if you become gloomy because things don't turn out the way you had hoped. On the other hand, you can be sure you are mortified if you know how to make yourself 'all things to all men, in order to save all.'(I Cor 9:22)" (Bl Josemaria Escriva, Christ is Passing By, 9)
 
 

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