If you don't deny yourself you will never be a soul of prayer
173
That joke, that witty remark held on the tip of your tongue; the cheerful smile for those who annoy you; that silence when you're unjustly accused; your friendly conversation with people whom you find boring and tactless; the daily effort to overlook one irritating detail or another in the persons who live with you... this, with perseverance, is indeed solid interior mortification.
174
Don't say: 'That person gets on my nerves.' Think: 'That person sanctifies me.'
175
No ideal becomes a reality without sacrifice. Deny yourself. It's so beautiful to be a victim !
176
How often you resolve to serve God in something, and you have to content yourself — you are so weak — with offering him the frustrated feeling of having failed to keep such a simple resolution !
177
Don't waste the opportunity of yielding your own judgment. It's hard..., but how pleasing it is in the eyes of God!
178
When you see a poor wooden Cross, alone, uncared-for, and of no value... and without its Crucified, don't forget that that Cross is your Cross: the Cross of each day, the hidden Cross, without splendour or consolation..., the Cross which is awaiting the Crucified it lacks: and that Crucified must be you.
179
Choose mortifications that don't mortify others.
180
Where there is no self-denial, there is no virtue.
181
Interior mortification. I don't believe in your interior self-denial if I see that you despise, that you do not practise, mortification of the senses.
182
Let us drink to the last drop the chalice of pain in this poor present life. What does it matter to suffer for ten years, twenty, fifty... if afterwards there is heaven for ever, for ever... for ever?
And, above all — rather than because of the reward, propter retributionem — what does suffering matter if we suffer to console, to please God our Lord, in a spirit of reparation, united to him on his Cross; in a word: if we suffer for Love?...
183
The eyes! Through them many iniquities enter the soul. — What experiences like David's! — If you guard your sight you have assured the guard of your heart.
184
Why look around if you carry 'your world' within you?
185
The world admires only spectacular sacrifice, because it does not realize the value of sacrifice that is hidden and silent.
186
We must give ourselves in everything, we must deny ourselves in everything: the sacrifice must be a holocaust.
187
Paradox: to live we must die
188
Remember that the heart is a traitor. Keep it locked with seven locks.
189
Anything that does not lead you to God is a hindrance. Root it out and throw it far from you.
190
A soul whose immediate superior was a rough and irritable type was moved by God to say: 'Thank you, my God, for this truly divine treasure: where could I find another who gives a kick for every kindness?
191
Conquer yourself each day from the very first moment, getting up on the dot, at a fixed time, without yielding a single minute to laziness.
If, with God's help, you conquer yourself, you will be well ahead for the rest of the day.
It's so discouraging to find oneself beaten at the first skirmish!
192
You always come out beaten. Propose to yourself, each time, the salvation of a particular soul, or its sanctification, or its vocation to the apostolate. If you do so, you are certain of victory.
193
Tender, soft, flabby...: that's not the way I want you. It's about time you got rid of that peculiar pity you feel for yourself
194
I will tell you which are man's treasures on earth so that you will appreciate them: hunger, thirst, heat, cold, pain, dishonour, poverty, loneliness, betrayal, slander, prison...
195
It has been well said that the soul and the body are two enemies who can't get away from one another, and two friends who cannot get along.
196
One has to give the body a little less than its due. Otherwise it turns traitor.
197
If they have witnessed your faults and weaknesses, will it matter if they witness your penance?
198
These are the ripe fruits of the mortified soul: tolerance and understanding for the defects of others; intolerance for one's own.
199
If the grain of wheat does not die, it remains unfruitful. Don't you want to be a grain of wheat, to die through mortification, and to yield a rich harvest? May Jesus bless your wheat-field!
Many who would willingly let themselves be nailed to a Cross before the astonished gaze of a thousand onlookers cannot bear with a christian spirit the pinpricks of each day! Think, then, which is the more heroic.
200
You don't conquer yourself, you don't practise self— denial, because you are proud. You lead a life of penance? Don't forget that pride is compatible with penance... Furthermore: your sorrow, after your falls, after your failures in generosity — is it true sorrow or is it the petty disappointment of seeing yourself so small and helpless? How far you are from Jesus if you are not humble..., even though your disciplines each day bring forth fresh roses!
https://www.escrivaworks.org/book/the_way-chapter-6.htm |