MARCH.
1. We must never pray for a favour for anyone, except conditionally, saying, “If it please God,” or the like.
2. When a spiritual person feels a great calmness of mind in asking anything of God, it is a good sign that God either has granted it, or will do so shortly.
3. A man ought never to think he has done any good, or rest contented with any degree of perfection he may have attained, because Christ has given us the type of our perfection, in putting before us the perfection of the Eternal Father. Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.
4. The sweetness which some experience in prayer, is milk which our Lord gives as a relish to those who are just beginning to serve Him.
5. To leave our prayer when we are called to do some act of charity for our neighbour, is not really a quitting of prayer, but leaving Christ for Christ, that is, depriving ourselves of spiritual sweetnesses in order to gain souls.
6. It is good for a man to go from prayer rather with an appetite and desire to return to it, than satiated and weary.
7. The wisdom of the Scriptures is learned rather by prayer than by study.
8. A diligent charity in ministering to the sick, is a compendious way to the acquisition of perfect virtue.
9. Let women remain indoors, and look after their families, and not be desirous of going into public.
10. We must pray incessantly for the gift of perseverance.
11. We must not leave off our prayers be cause of distractions and restlessness of mind, although it seems useless to go on with them. He who perseveres for the whole of his accustomed time, gently recalling his mind to the subject of his prayer, merits greatly.
12. If in times of dryness in prayer we make acts of humility, self-knowledge, protestations of our own inability to help ourselves, and petitions for God’s assistance, all this is real and substantial prayer.
13. The best remedy for dryness of spirit, is to picture ourselves as beggars in the presence of God and the Saints, and like a beggar, to go first to one saint, then to another, to ask a spiritual alms of them with the same earnestness as a poor fellow in the streets would ask an alms of us.
14. We may ask a spiritual alms even corporally, by going first to the church of one Saint, and then to the church of another, to make our petition.
15. Without prayer a man will not persevere long in spirituality; we must have recourse to this most powerful means of salvation every day.
16. If young men wish to protect themselves from all danger of impurity, let them never retire to their own rooms immediately after dinner, either to read or write, or do anything else; but let them remain in conversation, because at that time the devil is wont to assault us with more than usual vehemence, and this is that demon which is called in Scripture the noonday demon, and from which holy David prayed to be delivered.
17. If young men would preserve their purity, let them avoid bad company.
18. Let them also avoid nourishing their bodies delicately.
19. It is God’s custom to interweave human life with a trouble and a consolation, at least, of an interior sort, alternately.
20. Young men should be very careful to avoid idleness.
21. When fathers have given their sons a good education, and put everything clearly and distinctly in train for them, the sons who succeed them, and continue to follow the road marked out for them, will have the advantage of seeing their family persevere in holy ways, and in the fear of God.
22. In order to preserve their purity, young men should frequent the Sacraments, and especially confession.
23. We must never trust ourselves, for it is the devil’s way first to get us to feel secure, and then to make us fall.
24. We ought to fear and fly temptations of the flesh, even in sickness, and in old age itself, aye, and so long as we can open and shut our eyelids, for the spirit of incontinence gives no truce either to place, time, or person.
25. Our sweet Christ, the Word Incarnate, has given Himself to us for everything that was necessary for us, even to the hard and ignominious death upon the cross.
26. One of the most efficacious means of keeping ourselves chaste, is to have compassion for those who fall through their frailty, and never to boast in the least of being free, but with all humility to acknowledge that whatever we have is from the mercy of God.
27. To be without pity for other men’s falls, is an evident sign that we shall fall ourselves shortly.
28. In the matter of purity there is no greater danger than the not fearing the danger: when a man does not distrust himself, and is without fear, it is all over with him.
29. The devil generally makes use of the weaker sex when he wishes to cause us to fall.
30. In order to begin well, and to finish better, it is quite necessary to hear mass every day, unless there be some lawful hindrance in the way.
