St. Monica

Patience – Twenty-Fifth Day of April

Patience

He that does not take up his cross and follow Me, is not worth of Me.” — St. Matt. 10:38.

TWENTY-FIFTH DAY. 

There is no purgatory in this life; it is either paradise or hell. Those who suffer with patience have a paradise; those who do not suffer a kind of hell. — St. Philip Neri.

A wicked man, condemned to death for his crimes, asked, a short time before his death, to see a religious of a certain Order. The religious was sent to him. The prisoner said: “Father, I have lived among you, I have worn the habit which you wear. Admitted to the Order, I was for some time a good religious. While I observed the Rule faithfully, I was content; nothing was hard; the most difficult things I performed with joy. Ah, how desirable was my state! Unfortunately, little by little I relaxed in my fervor; then a distaste for the exercises of the community grew upon me. Unfaithful to my obligations, the yoke of my vocation became insupportable. I fled from the house, and abandoned my religious habit. Alas! My state become worse and worse; I gave myself up to all kinds of excesses. You see to what my sins have brought me. I have called you, Father, that you may tell your religious what you have heard. God grant that my example may be useful to them!”

Might we not say that St. Francis of Sales tasted the delights of paradise during a sickness which he underwent? He spoke of himself as if he suffered nothing, never giving any signs of impatience or uneasiness, taking the most disagreeable remedies as if they were most delicious. A serenity unalterable was observed upon his countenance, which was sufficient to attract one to the love of virtue.

Prayer.

My God, teach me to possess my soul in peace, to bless Thee always and for all, to rejoice even in tribulations, and to do in all things Thy will.

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