We esteem, honor, and love the apostles more than the other saints, because they served God more faithfully and because they loved Him more perfectly.
We esteem, honor, and love the apostles more than the other saints, because they served God more faithfully and because they loved Him more perfectly.
We should not have a petty regard for God's gifts, though we may and should despise our own imperfections.
We should love the body insofar as it is obedient and helpful to the soul, since the soul, with the body's help and service, is better disposed for the service and praise of our Creator and Lord.
Man was created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord and in this way to save his soul. The other things on Earth were created for man's use, to help him reach the end for which he was created.
Some indeed have tears naturally, when the higher motion of the soul makes itself felt in the lower, or because God our Lord, seeing that it would be good for them, allows them to melt into tears. But this does not mean that they have greater charity or that they are more effective than others who enjoy no tears.
When Ignatius understood that God did not wish him to remain at Jerusalem, he began to consider what he should do. The plan he approved and adopted was to enter upon a course of study in order to be better fitted to save souls.
It is not the soul alone that should be healthy; if the mind is healthy in a healthy body, all will be healthy and much better prepared to give God greater service.
So with that will prompt and prepared to serve all those whom I perceive to be servants of my Lord, I will speak of three things with simplicity and love as if I were speaking to my own soul.
Be generous to the poor orphans and those in need. The man to whom our Lord has been liberal ought not to be stingy. We shall one day find in Heaven as much rest and joy as we ourselves have dispensed in this life.
The wellbeing of the head resounds throughout the whole body, and as are the Superiors, so, in turn, will their subjects be.
May it please Christ our Lord to grant us true humility and abnegation of will and judgment, so that we may deserve to begin to be His disciples.
In the fallen there is danger of pride and vainglory, since they prefer their own judgment to the judgment of everyone else, usurping what is not their own by setting themselves up as judges in their own cause when the rightful judge is their superior.
It is a great delusion in those whose understanding has been darkened by self-love, to think that there is any obedience in the subject who tries to draw the superior to what he wishes.
Even in the angels there is the subordination of one hierarchy to another, and in the heavens, and all the bodies that are moved, the lowest by the highest and the highest in their turn unto the Supreme Mover of all.