Our Father, who art in heaven … etc.
Gather your little spiritual bouquet.
Chapter 11
Third Meditation — Of the Gifts of God
Preparation
1. Place yourself in the presence of God.
2. Ask him to inspire your heart.
Considerations
1. Consider the material gifts God has given you — your body and the means for its preservation; your health and all that maintains it; your friends and many helps. Consider, too, how many people more deserving than you do not have these gifts. Some suffer in health or limb, others are exposed to injury, contempt, and trouble, or sunk in poverty, while God has willed that you be better off.
2. Consider the mental gifts he has given you. Why are you not foolish, mentally incapacitated, or insane like many people you know of? Again, God has favored you with a decent and suitable education, while many have grown up in utter ignorance.
3. Further, consider his spiritual gifts. You are a child of his Church, God has taught you to know him from your youth. How often has he given you his sacraments? What inspirations and interior light, what corrections, has he given you to lead you on the right path? How often has he forgiven you, how often delivered you from occasions of sin? What opportunities has he granted for your soul’s progress? Ponder these details; see how loving and gracious God has been to you.
Affections and Resolutions
1. Marvel at God’s goodness. How good he has been to me, how abundant in mercy and generous in loving-kindness! O my soul, speak often of the great things the Lord has done for you!
2. Marvel at your own ingratitude. What am I, Lord, that you remember me? How unworthy I am! I have trampled your mercies under my feet, I have abused your grace, turning it even against you. I have set the depth of my ingratitude against the depth of your grace and favor.
3. Kindle your gratitude. O my soul, do not be faithless and disloyal anymore to your mighty benefactor! Should not my whole soul serve the Lord, who has done such great things in me and for me? 4. Go on, my daughter, to refrain from this or that material indulgence; let your body be wholly the servant of God, who has done so much for it: set your soul to seek him by this or that suitable devout practice. Make diligent use of the means provided by the Church to help you to love God and save your soul. Resolve to be constant in prayer and seeking the sacraments, in hearing God’s Word, and in obeying his inspirations and counsels.
Conclusion
1. Thank God for the clearer knowledge he has given you of his benefits and your own duty.
2. Offer your heart and all its resolutions to him.
3. Ask him to strengthen you to fulfill your resolutions faithfully by the merits of the death of his Son.
Our Father, who art in heaven … etc.
Gather the little spiritual bouquet.
Chapter 12
Fourth Meditation — On Sin
Preparation
1. Place yourself in the presence of God.
2. Ask him to inspire your heart.
Considerations
1. Consider how long it is since you first began to commit sin, and how since that first beginning sin has multiplied in your heart. Every day has added to the number of your sins against God, against yourself, and against your neighbor, by deed, word, thought, and desire.
2. Consider your evil tendencies, and how far you have followed them. These two points will show you that your sins are more in number than the hairs of your head, or the sand on the seashore.
3. Apart from sin, consider your ingratitude toward God, which is in itself a sin enfolding all the others, and adding to their enormity: consider the gifts which God has given you, and which you have turned against the Giver — especially the inspirations you have neglected and the promptings to good which you have frustrated. Review the many sacraments you have received, and look for their fruits. Where are the precious jewels with which our heavenly bridegroom decked you? With what preparation have you received them? Reflect upon the ingratitude with which, while God sought to save you, you have fled from him and rushed to your own destruction.
Affections and Resolutions
1. Humble yourself in your wretchedness. O my God, how do I dare to come before your eyes? I am but a corrupt being, a very sinkhole of ingratitude and wickedness. Can it be that I have been so disloyal, that my every sense, my every faculty, has been sullied and stained? Has even one day passed in which I have not sinned before you? Was this a fitting return for all my Creator’s gifts, for my Redeemer’s blood?
2. Ask pardon. Throw yourself at the Lord’s feet as the prodigal son, as Mary Magdalene, as the woman convicted of adultery. Have mercy, Lord, on me, a sinner! O living fountain of mercy, have pity on me, unworthy as I am.
3. Resolve to do better. Lord, with the help of your grace, I will never again give myself up to sin. I have loved it too much; from now on I want to hate it and cling to you. Father of mercy, I want to live and die for you.
4. In order to put away past sin, accuse yourself bravely of it. Do not let there be one sinful act which you do not bring to light.
5. Resolve to make every effort to tear up the roots of sin from your heart, especially whatever individual sins trouble you most.
6. In order to do this, resolve steadfastly to follow the advice given you, and never think that you have done enough to atone for your past sin.
Conclusion
1. Thank God for having waited till now for you, and for stirring these good intentions in your heart.
2. Offer him all your heart to carry them to good effect.
3. Pray that he will strengthen you.
Chapter 13
Fifth Meditation — On Death
Preparation
1. Place yourself in the presence of God.
2. Ask for his grace.
3. Imagine yourself on your deathbed, in the last extremity, without the smallest hope of recovery.
Considerations
1. Consider the uncertainty about the day of your death. One day your soul will quit this body — will it be in summer or winter? In town or country? By day or by night? Will it be suddenly or with warning? Will it be the result of sickness or an accident? Will you have time to make your last confession or not? Will your confessor or spiritual father be at hand or not? Alas, we know absolutely nothing about any of these things: all we know is that we will die, and for the most part sooner than we expect.
2. Consider that when you die, the world is at an end as far as you are concerned. There will be no more of it for you, it will be altogether overthrown for you, since all pleasures, vanities, worldly joys, and empty delights will be as a mere fantastic vision to you. Woe is me, for I have ventured to offend God for the sake of mere trifles and unrealities! Then we will see that what we preferred to him was nothing at all. But, on the other hand, all devotion and good works will seem so precious and so sweet. Why did I not tread that pleasant path? Then what you thought to be little sins will look like huge mountains, and your devotion will seem but a very little thing.
3.