WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS
"The Church of today doesn't need new reformers.
The Church needs new saints."
(John Paul II, In Memory of St Charles Borromeo, Milan)
... AND DOES NOT NEED
"A lukewarm apostle:
that's the great enemy of souls."
(St Josemaria, The Forge 522)
START RIGHT NOW!
"Don't wait until you are old to start becoming a saint.
That would be a great mistake.
Begin right now, in earnest,
cheerfully and joyfully,
by fulfilling the duties of your work
and of your everyday life.
Don't wait until you are old to become a saint.
Because--I insist--apart from its being a great mistake,
you never know whether you will live as long as that."
(St Josemaria, The Forge 113)
PURE, HOLY AND SPOTLESS OFERING
"...offerimus praeclarae maiestati tuae
de tuis donis ac datis
hostiam puram,
hostiam sanctam,
hostiam immaculatam."
(Prex Eucharistica I)
JUST GETTING BY
"Tepidity is the result of prolonged carelessness
in the interior life.
It usually follows a whole string of small infidelities,
whose unrepented guilt
has come between the soul and God.
This carelessness is expressed
in the habitual neglect of little things,
in lack of contrition for one's personal faults,
in failure to have specific aims for improving one's behaviour towards God.
'One gets by.'
There is no struggle,
or only a pretended and ineffectual struggle,
to be better.
Mortification is abandoned,
and 'weighed down by the excessive demands of the body,
the soul is ill-equipped
for soaring towards the heavens'
(St Peter Alcantara, Treatise on Prayer and Meditation, 2,3)."
(Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God I, 13.2)
THINKING THAT VENIAL SIN IS JUST SMALL FRY
"Gradually, the one who is 'neither hot nor cold'
becomes interested in the advantages of not overdoing things,
about merely avoiding mortal sin,
about not overreacting to or making a big issue of venial sin.
This attitude ot half-hearted struggle
is easily justified by reasons of naturalness,
of expediency, of health, of empathy with others.
The lukewarm person becomes increasingly sympathetic
towards his own failings, caprices and love of comfort.
Human weakness assumes a subjective necessity.
The soul's powers of resistance become weaker and weaker
and almost guarantee the eventual collapse into serious sin."
(Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God V, 50.3)
FALLEN OUT OF LOVE
"Where there is tepidity,
there is no true worship of God in the Holy Mass;
lack of love and preparation
make Holy Communion itself cold and indifferent.
Prayer becomes vague, woolly and distracted;
there is no real personal conversation with our Lord.
The examination of conscience,
which calls for special sensitivity,
is either abandoned altogether,
or done as a matter of perfunctory and lifeless routine
which produces no fruit."
(Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God I, 13.2)
SALVE, MATER MISERICORDIAE!
"Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy!"
Stay by my side.
Guide my steps.
Make me follow Jesus closely.
Let me not fall behind.
Give me courage.
Let me not be afraid.
Make me always generous and ready
to give whatever He asks,
to do whatever He requires.