Description of True Devotion


20 August 2019
“Description of True Devotion” pp. 27-29

“Good people who have not as yet attained to devotion fly toward God by their good works but do so infrequently, slowly, and awkwardly.”


These words jump out to me. I am reminded that I cannot Love my students (or anyone, for that matter) as much as they deserve to be Loved. When I try to do so, it is never enough. If I think that I Love my students enough and that I work hard enough, then I am mistaken. “’Why do you call me good?’ Jesus asked. ‘No one is good except God alone.’” Mark 10:18. If I want to teach, if I want to Love, if I want to serve my students, I need God. I need True devotion to Jesus.  Five minutes in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament can help to kindle that “spiritual fire”, as De Sales calls it, so my devotion can deepen and my Love increase.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Tenth Meditation: The Election and Choice the Soul Makes of a Devout Life

Image
18: “The Tenth Meditation: The Election and Choice the Soul Makes of a Devout Life” It is rational to desire Peace and harmony as opposed to discord and brokenness. Heaven, necessarily, is characterized by a unity of Peace that can only be achieved through the transcendent imagination and Love of God. (University of Portland. photo: P. Smith)                 It has been said before that Jesus is a gentleman and would never force Himself upon us in any way. An encounter with Jesus and the devout life will always, at the end, be a choice we make. Otherwise, we cannot “look like” God. God, after all, is rational and free, and if we are “forced” to choose Him, then we lose our rational thinking and free will. De Sales contrasts the pains of hell with the Peace of Heaven. He offers us an image of a rational choice we are free to make. It makes sense to habituate right action in our younger students, but we a...
Read more

Conclusion and Spiritual Bouque

Image
7: “Conclusion and Spiritual Bouquet” The conclusion to a meditation should always be done in humility...in awe of the one Whom you have encountered. (photo. P. Smith)                 These meditations must conclude with “the greatest possible humility”, and De Sales offers us three acts with which we must end and extend our meditation. If the meditation or encounter with Jesus was like a Beautiful garden through which we just walked, we should recall that one never leaves a Beautiful garden without carrying with them a few flowers to share with the world outside. As we leave our meditations, our three acts are thanksgiving, offering, and supplication. That is, we should be ever-thankful for His Grace, we should offer Praise, and we should implore His Mercy. The meditations we do are not simply so we can grow in the devout life; they are for the world to benefit from our transformation. As teachers...
Read more

We Must Purify Ourselves of Affection for Venial Sin”

Image
22: “We Must Purify Ourselves of Affection for Venial Sin”                 De Salles writes that “the inward light of the Holy Spirit brightens our conscience”, and as we let that light guides us, the “more clearly and distinctly we see [our] sins”. Sin disrupts relationship with Self, Other, Nature, and God, and as those relationships are disrupted, we stray from our True image and likeness. That is, as we sin, we look less and less like God who is perfect Loving relationship. We should detest the sins we commit because of the damage they cause, but De Salles recognizes that thought we may never be fully free from sin, we can practice to detest them. We cannot expect our students to be perfect and free from sin, but we can help them to see the damage that sin causes and to let go of any affection for those sins. That may be the beginning of a holy life. Venial Sin tends to be a fixation of a material ...
Read more