Meekness
Learn of Me that I am meek and humble of heart. St. Matt. 11:29.
FOURTH DAY.
It is necessary to be sweet with all, and to treat everyone with a manner full of tenderness and Christian charity. Affability, love, and humility are the virtues which admirably serve to gain the hearts of men, and to animate them to perform what is hard and repugnant to nature. — St. Vincent de Paul.
St. Francis of Sales, by his great sweetness, obtained everything he asked for. No one could resist him, because he won all hearts, treating every one with respect and kindness, showing to all a great zeal for their salvation. He was called the breaker of wills, because his sweetness was so persuasive that he prevailed upon those to whom he spoke to renounce their own will.
A person had without any cause treated the Abbot Servius with great indignity. He replied with much meekness, so confusing the man that he threw himself on his knees and begged pardon for his fault, and finally asked the abbot’s permission to enter his monastery, which was granted him.
Prayer.
My God, grant that I may always speak with meekness, and that this meekness come from charity; that the fruit of this amiable virtue gain souls which will burn with Thy divine love.