Happy New Year! Welcome to the start of another journey on the road to heaven. Want a good start? Use a good roadmap and find wise guides. You can't go wrong with St. Francis de Sales and St. Alphonsus Ligouri. I love them both!
I've been reading Liguori's Love God and Do What You Please for the past few weeks. It's a small book but what a guide and map for the spiritual life! The saint starts by focusing on God's love for the first four chaptera:
- I have loved you as long as I have been God....
- I have never stopped loving you....
- Put your hand in Mine and trust me....
- Love Me and do what you please.
Then the saint moves into St. Paul's description of love with chapters on Love is always patient, Love is always kind, etc. Each chapter ends with a prayer. I may start the book over when I finish because it has so much to offer. I don't think one reading is enough!
St. Alphonsus was born in 1676 and lived a long life, dying in 1787. He had a great devotion to St. Francis de Sales who lived from 1567 to 1622. His regard for St. Francis shines forth in his pages. He quotes the saint of meekness often. What did St. Francis think we need on the journey? to pursue peace of heart: "What is the whole world in comparison with peace of heart?" he wrote. St. Alphonsus expanded on that saying:
Whoever wishes to preserve continual peace of heart, must take care never to let himself get into a bad humor, and should he find he is in a bad humor, he should see that he gets out of it at once, preventing it from spending the night with him. Let him try reading a book, or meeting a friend and conversing on pleasant topics.
What comes to your mind when you think of "spending the night" with bad humor? I can't help thinking of Ebenezer Scrooge meeting the Ghost of Christmas Future and seeing his own dismal demise with no mourners, none to regret his passing, nothing but a cold gravestone.
We live in a time when many people govern their behavior by their feelings. They want everyone around them to be aware of their frustration or anger or angst, content to make others walk on eggshells around them. St. Alphonsus urges a different way:
Fire is not put out by fire....As long as our feelings are disturbed, the wise course is to keep silence...So long as we still feel upset and irritated, the safest way is to keep quiet and to postpone the admonition or answer to a more opportune time when our temper has cooled.
I could have used that advice in my younger, more hot-headed days. But today is the start of a new year with no mistakes in it.....yet. I'm asking St. Francis and St. Alphonsus to take me by the hand and school me in the classroom of meekness, cheerfulness, and charity. It's a tall order, but I'm confident these holy men are up to it.
If you want a peaceful heart this year, put your hand in the hands of some favorite saints. They will never lead you astray but will, like the Blessed Mother, take you straight to Jesus. Remember what Andrew said to Peter after he found the Messiah. "Come and see." That's what all the saints are saying to us in a grand chorus of love and fidelity.
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