OCTOBER.
1. In passing from a bad state to a good one there is no need of counsel, but in passing from a good one to a better, time, counsel, and prayer must go to the decision.
2. We must continually pray to God for the conversion of sinners, thinking of the joy there is in heaven both to God and the angels in the conversion of each separate sinner.
3. To speak of ourselves without cause, saying, “I have said,” “I have done,” incapacitates us for receiving spiritual consolations.
4. We ought to desire to be in such a condition as to want sixpence, and not be able to get it.
5. Let us despise gold, silver, jewels, and all that the blind and cheated world vainly and ignorantly prizes.
6. Let us learn here below to give God the confession of praise which we ought to hope to give Him in heaven above.
7. He who wishes to go to Paradise must be an honest man and a good Christian, and not give heed to dreams.
8. Fathers and mothers of families should bring up their children virtuously, looking at them rather as God’s children than their own; and to count life and health, and all they possess, as loans which they hold of God.
9. In saying the Pater Noster, we ought to reflect that we have God for our Father in heaven, and so go on making a sort of meditation of it word by word.
10. To make ourselves disaffected to the things of the world, it is a good thing to think seriously of the end of them, saying to ourselves, “And then? And then?”
11. The devil, who is a most haughty spirit, is never more completely mastered than by humility of heart, and a simple, clear, undisguised manifestation of our sins and temptations to our confessor.
12. We ought not ordinarily to believe prophecies or to desire them, because it is possible there may be many deceits and snares of the devil therein.
13. It is a most useful thing, when we see another doing any spiritual good to his neighbour, to seek by prayer to have a part in that same good which the Lord is working by the hand of another.
14. At communion we ought to ask for the remedy of the vice to which we feel ourselves most inclined.
15. To him who truly loves God, nothing more displeasing can happen than the lack of occasion to suffer for Him.
16. We ought to hate no one, for God never comes where there is no love of our neighbours.
17. We must accept our own death and that of our relations when God shall send it to us, and not desire it at any other time; for it is sometimes necessary that it should happen at that particular moment for the good of our own and their souls.
18. The perfection of a Christian consists in knowing how to mortify himself for the love of Christ.
19. He who desires ecstasies and visions does not know what he is desiring.
20. As for those who run after visions, dreams, and the like, we must lay hold of them by the feet and pull them to the ground by force, lest they should fall into the devil’s net.
21. According to the rules of the fathers and ancient monks, whoever wishes to advance in perfection must hold the world in no reputation.
22. There is nothing more displeasing to God, than our being inflated with self-esteem.
23. When a man knows how to break down his own will and to deny his soul what it desires, he has got a good degree in virtue.
24. When a man falls into any bodily infirmity, he must lie and think, and say, “God has sent me this sickness, because He wishes something of me; I must therefore make up my mind to change my life and become better.”
25. When a man has a tribulation sent him from God, and is impatient, we may say to him, “You are not worthy that God should visit you; you do not deserve so great a good.”
26. Poverty and tribulations are given us by God as trials of our fidelity and virtue, as well as to enrich us with more real and lasting riches in heaven.
27. Scruples ought to be most carefully avoided, as they disquiet the mind, and make a man melancholy.
28. Let us throw ourselves into the arms of God, and be sure that if He wishes anything of us, He will make us good for all He desires us to do for Him.
29. Nothing helps a man more than prayer.
30. Idleness is a pestilence to a Christian man; we ought always therefore to be doing something, especially when we are alone in our rooms, lest the devil should come in and catch us idle.
31. We ought always to be afraid, and never put any confidence in ourselves; for the devil assaults us on a sudden, and darkens our understanding; and he who does not live in fear is overcome in a moment, because he has not the help of the Lord.
