of giving up education or direction of young people under the pretext of using your talents better in other ways. AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS. POINT II. Means of succeeding in the Work of CONSIDERATION. The difficulties of giving a Christian education to youth are almost equal to its excellence. To insure its success we must have more than a good will; we must use the necessary means; we must obtain help from God by an ardent charity, a profound humility, and a great purity of conscience and intention ; we must be men of prayer, that grace may sustain our courage and enable us to conquer obstinate, indolent, and very passionate natures; we must be closely united to our Superiors by obedience, and to our companions by charity, so that there may be perfect unity in our ways of judging and acting; we must be exemplary, so that our life should preach and persuade more than our words, and should contribute to give us authority; we must devote ourselves entirely to the special branch that is given us, no matter what attraction we may feel for other labours or other studies; in one word, we must be men of abnegation, devotion, and sacrifice. APPLICATION. See in what way you fail under these different heads. AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS. POINT III. Precautions to take in the Work of CONSIDERATION. The work of education, especially for those who enter on it while young, is not without its dangers. Many have fallen victims to these; therefore, that you may not share their fate, be on your guard 1st, Against the attraction you feel for some pupils in particular; there is but one step between VOL. II. Ꭱ that and misplaced affections and familiarities. 2d, Against dissipation, from whence flow lukewarmness and the loss of the religious spirit. 3d, Against the disgust which various contradictions will cause, and which, if you do not take care, will lead to disgust with your vocation. What you ought most especially to avoid in this important work is partiality, fickleness of temper and conduct, extreme severity and excessive indulgence, anger, harsh language, humiliating remarks, especially in public; unpunctuality in the hours for assembling; want of preparation for what you have to say or teach; routine, or a want of ingenuity in exciting emulation. APPLICATION. Often make an examination on the details contained in this third Point. COLLOQUY. OCTOBER 23. PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON. 1st Prel. Behold the prodigal son tearing himself away from the arms of his desolate father. 2d Prel. Beg the grace of becoming more and more attached to God and your vocation. POINT I. Departure of the Prodigal Son. CONSIDERATION. A certain man,' said our Lord, 'had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of the substance that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his substance. And not many days after the younger son, gathering all together, went abroad into a far country.' The elder son stayed with his father. Who was this father, and who were the two sons to whom our Lord refers? The father is God, and the two sons, says St. Jerome (Ep. ad Dam., 146), represent the two classes into which men are divided-those who remain faithful to God and only desire to live happily under His law, and those who are unfaithful and who want to enjoy unlimited liberty. The prodigal represents the second class; and his misfortunes ought, as our Lord thought, to instruct us and inspire us with a great fear of abusing our liberty. APPLICATION. Have you always belonged to this first class? Has there not been a period in your life when, abusing your liberty, you were living in habitual sin, far from God and heaven, in continual risk of passing into an eternity of misery? God has preserved you from this misfortune; and He has done more- He has opened your eyes, and called you to a state of life where you have many means of repairing your losses and ingratitudes. How do you profit by these means? AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS. POINT II. Delusion of the Prodigal. CONSIDERATION. The young man, finding himself in possession of a large fortune, entirely independent, and in a country where he was not known, thought himself at the height of happiness. Now he would enjoy himself; no more restraint; every desire of his heart could be satisfied. Such were his delusions. But what happened? And,' says the parable, 'he there wasted his substance, living riotously. And after he had spent all, there came a mighty famine in that country, and he began to be in want. And he went and cleaved to one of the citizens of that country. And he sent him into his farm to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him.' APPLICATION. The Son of God thus places before our eyes the heartrending picture of a man who thinks he has found happiness by forsaking the Divine law to lead a sensual life; and we may also say it is the picture of a religious forsaking his first fervour, freeing himself, and trying to find in creatures, in the satisfaction he gives to his senses, a remedy for the disgust he feels. But what happens? After having in a short time. wasted an immense treasure of grace and merit, he feels in his heart a terrible void, which nothing can satisfy, and his mind is filled with sensual and impure thoughts, of which the swine in the parable are a faithful image. He has no peace or rest by night or day. Such is the fate of him who seeks his happiness far from God. Have you not unfortunately experienced something of this kind? AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS. POINT III. The Degradation of the Prodigal CONSIDERATION. Besides the hunger and nakedness which the prodigal had to endure, there was the memory of his former position to crown his misery, the thought of his degradation, which was greater than that of those who had formerly been his servants. How many hired servants in my father's house,' he said, 'abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger? Keeper of swine, an outcast from human society!' APPLICATION. 'Behold,' cries out St. Peter Chrysologus, 'the fate reserved for a man who no longer wishes to have God for his Father.' Sic invenit qui se negat Patri. How degraded he is! Like the beasts of the field,' says the Psalmist; assimilatus est jumentis insipientibus. You have not gone down so low, or you have been quickly raised up from this abasement; but since by your religious profession you are raised above the rest of men, are you always faithful to your high vocation? Do you not sometimes feel humbled in seeing that the faithful in the world find abundant and delicious nourishment in prayer and communion, while you, perhaps, find in them nothing which pleases and strengthens you? Oh, let it not be said of you that you are dying with hunger in the midst of abundance ! COLLOQUY. OCTOBER 24. THE PRODIGAL SON: CONTEMPLATION. 1st Prel. Behold the prodigal sitting on a dunghill surrounded by swine. 2d Prel. Beg for a great fear of anything that will separate you from God. POINT I. The Prodigal Son in his Father's House, CONTEMPLATION. Represent to yourselves, in a val ley pleasantly shaded with foliage, a spacious house, where peace and affluence abound. There the prodigal son lived in company with a kind and loving brother, under the authority of the best of fathers. What a happy position Providence had give him! Exempt from care, abundantly provided with all that was necessary for the maintenance of life and cultivation of mind, sharing in the general esteem which his father had won, he only knew the miseries of this world from the lips of others. APPLICATION. Is this not a faithful image of the happiness of the religious life? Do not we also live under the shadow of the sanctuary, far from the cares of the world, with brethren full of charity, under the paternal direction of Superiors, who carefully provide for all our wants of body and soul? 'Oh, my brothers!' a holy religious used frequently to cry, 'let us know how to appreciate our vocation, and we shall lead a joyful and holy life; we shall be always loving and esteeming it more; and this love and esteem for our vocation will assure our perseverance, and will cause us to make great progress.' He spoke the truth. If the prodigal had known how to appreciate his happiness, he would never have dreamt of leaving his father's roof. AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS. |