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Presentation
That
the common of the Christian, capable to give to the world
the concrete example of the voluntary poverty and to oppose
thus to Communism bringing up the strongest gate that one
can find. There is not a big danger that these apostles are
legion; the tendency of the present century entails the Christian
so themselves to enjoy the most possible of the life joys;
one sees it when one preaches them the contempt of the riches,
to the evangelical sense of the word, and as the church made
it to us to ask in very numerous prayers of the missal. Easily
one is taxed of exaggeration, of inintelligence of the present
needs and the aspirations of the souls. Let's wish that holy
François, holy Claire and the Bx Luchésios find
nowadays, thanks to the book of the R.P. Ferdinand, of fervid
imitators in all orders of life,; they will renew thus at
home th traditions of simplicity and healthy austerity that
characterized our people once and that will constitute the
setting where the love of DieuPrésentation:
One of the most precious effects of God's love in a Christian
soul, it is to clear it of the multiple ties that nailed it
to the earth and, in particular, of the disturbed inclination
that carries us to search for goods of this world passionately.
More the love grows, more it fills the heart, more as it makes
him despise these deciduous riches, passengers, whom would
know by themselves how to give happiness.
And comes one day where the complete detachment seems to be
the only measure that can satisfy a soul in love of his/her/its
God: she/it is lent even to lack the necessary, if the divine
Providence permits that she comes from it to this extremity.
Only one thing imports him: to like solely, as perfectly as
possible The one that deserves to be liked infinitely. She/it
can apply what Theresa saint of Lisieux said spiritual poverty
then: "To the divine heart overflowing with tenderness
I gave everything! slightly I run… I don't have anything
anymore that my only wealth! To live love."
Poverty is not fashionable; him to her ever summer! It is
not that there are not any poor people anymore among us: Jesus
warned us that there would always be some. A too big number
of poor wretch, deprived of resources, is in prey to the sufferings
of all sorts caused by the indigence, in our countries that
hardly suffered of the war, But, among them, how much that
don't accept their test, that whispers, that loses patience,
that irritates against the fate that is made them by the Providence,
that lets themselves be going even as far as blaspheming against
God gladly, while assigning him the laborious situation where
they live unjustly. Those-don't practice the virtue of poverty
there, even to the degree strictly required of the Christian
The Christian poverty doesn't consist so much in the spoliation
of the riches that in the detachment of the heart with regard
to goods of here below, whatever they are. All those that
want to walk on Jesus' traces, to be truly Christian, are
held to have this poverty of mind, if they want to enter one
day in kingdom of the heaven. The divine Mr. said it expressly:
"The one that doesn't renounce (of affection) to everything
that he/it possesses, is not able to - to be my disciple".
Elsewhere, he/it affirms ‘that one cannot serve two
masters, God and Mammon" at a time our Father and the
god of wealth. We also know that he/it made of alms a formal
precept of his/her/its love law
Emotional detachment, yes, at less; God's love, while attaching
us to Him, will divert us expeditiously and efficiently of
goods of the earth. And then, in practice, if we don't want
to make us illusion, we will come from it to the efficient
detachment. It is very easy to think or to say that one is
not attached to the riches, that one doesn't want to acquire
some of more considerable, when one enjoys goods of this world
quietly and that one obtains all satisfactions that they can
bring us. We will have the proof of our poverty of mind and
heart practically that the day where, in fact, we will sow
in the hands of the poor people where we will lose, without
too much pain, resources that we possess.
But God's love, when he/it increases in our soul, don't stop
there, to what is strictly obligatory of by the divine law;
he/it carries us to detach us same voluntarily of the goods
that we could keep legitimize. There is there more that a
plain virtue; in this abandonment, freely agreed, of the things
that belong us, it is necessary to recognize the manifest
influence of the grants of the Holy spirit, especially of
the grant of science and the grant for fear to God; under
the divine light the terrestrial goods appear us like abject,
in comparison of those of the sky and, to prevent that they
separate us of God, the unique object of our love, us renounce
gladly to possess them. "That the earth appears vile
to me, when I look at the sky", said holy Louis of Gonzague,
all blazing of the divine love.
This voluntary poverty can be called it the ‘queen of
the virtues! "One already gives this crown to the charity,
virtue théologale, and with reason; because she/it
unites us directly to God and she/it gives life, so to speak,
to all other virtues. Only she/it won't pass here below with
our fragile existence; she/it will even subsist in the sky,
whereas the faith and the hope will disappear. However, in
a certain sense, one can say that this poverty so perfect
is to the basis of all holiness, that it is the absolutely
necessary foundation, without which no one would know how
to arrive to perfection. Saint Louis of France practiced it
on the throne, but it is easier to make the acts of it, when
one gave up the world
Saint Ambroise gives us the reason of this poverty pre-eminence,
in his/her/its commentary of the Sermon on the Mountain,:
‘' Bienheureux the poor people, he/it writes, because
God's kingdom is theirs. The two evangelists, Matthieu and
Luc put, all two, this beatitude in the first place. In fact,
she/it appears at the first rank (of the Set), being, in a
way, the mother and the origin of the virtues. The one, indeed,
that despises the things of this world, will deserve those
of the eternity and no one can have the right in the celestial
kingdom, if, dominated by the cupidity, the wild desire of
the riches, he/it doesn't succeed in surmounting it. »
Let's put very high therefore in our esteem this voluntary
poverty, to which pushes us our God's love, if he/it is ardent.
As it is necessary to rent the author of the present volume,
who didn't fear, in one century kneaded of materialism and
devoured by the thirst of the riches, to sing the glories
and the advantages of the evangelical poverty. He/it shows
us the true face, in the narrations that he/it makes us of
the life of the Small Poor, holy François of foundation,
of his/her/its emulator and compatriot, holy Claire, of his/her/its
disciple, well of it. The source of all pains, it is the cupidity
", that means research fascinated of the terrestres.Le
goods Blissful Luchésio. How not to feel us driven
to imitate so beautiful models, not to look efficiently for
the means to follow Jesus thus that, infinitely rich, wanted
to make itself/themselves poor for us! "Christmas, the
manger, the stall, all it he/it doesn't recall us the eloquent
voluntary poverty lesson that Jesus came to teach to the world?
The time when we live has need, more than ever, to hear the
voice and to follow the Savior's example divinely poor. Everywhere
one is lightheaded by the clamors of the humans set against
to the pursuit of goods of this world; the cupidity exercises
its empire on the peoples and on the individuals; S.S.Pie
XI reminded it in the encyclic ‘Divini Redemptoris ".
The big nations, guided by their imperialism, include the
weakest, under ‘pretext of space vital ' or of ‘protection
"! the powerful of the earth constantly increase their
incomes, to the detriment of the working class,; a lot of
workers, from then on, quite receive some wages insufficient;
of there, the class struggle, the hates, the wars. Saint-Paul
he/it doesn't have writes: " Also what nervous life we
live! The man, absorbed by the preoccupations of the earth,
forgets that he is a ‘traveler", viator, that he
doesn't have "permanent home ‘here below, that
he must not get settled in this world, as if he had to never
die, but rather to hurry toward the real homeland, the sky,
while getting rid the most possible of all cumbersome luggages,
of the goods of the earth and worries that they constantly
cause. Happy the one that understood the invitation of the
gospel and that holds his/her/its heart free of the worries
of the earth, turned toward the treasure of the Christian,
the only real treasure, the happiness of the eternity!
Currently, it is appropriate to invite the Christian to the
practice of this voluntary poverty, so much advisable by Jesus
Himself and by the saints of all times; that one remembers
the splendid homilies of saint Jean Chrysostome, the hymns
inflamed of the blissful Grignion of Montfort, that the church
gets ready to canonize. In the speech that he/it pronounced
at the time of the receipt of the pallium, regretted it Mgr,
Georges Gauthier wished to see to rise a few souls, more generous
opera of the holiness marvels in the souls.
©Rosario Lesieur,p.
God's love in the seraphic soul,
 it
is the spoliation of everything that is not God, while starting
with the detachment of goods of this world, at least in mind.
The based perfection concept on poverty includes a whole philosophy
of life. At first sight it is simple to detach itself/themselves
of the riches to become attached to God. The theory rallies
a lot of feelings. But when the principle must be translated
in the acts, the number of the adherents decreases. The sacrifices
ask for procrastinations, the obstacles appear insurmountable;
alarmed by the world and the demon the nature disarms the
male courages often.
These broadcasts show, up against the difficulties of the
spoliation, of the representatives of the seraphic mentality,:
François with Claire of foundation for the religious,
Luchesio for the supporters. Saint François of foundation
submitted to the vow, when he had won the Pope Innocent III
to his/her/its ideal of absolute poverty for him and his/her/its
children of the first two Orders
It is interesting to see to take place the interior drama
that shows it in open struggle:
1 with his/her/its former habits of luxury;
2 with his/her/its father Bernardone who doesn't endure his/her/its
lavishness anymore, when they are in favor of the church of
Saint-Damien
3 - with bishop Guido of foundation, minded to approve his/her/its
father, but converted to François' ideas, when him
he/it came naked to his/her/its feet handing his/her/its dresses
to his/her/its father;
4 with the church Roman, who hesitated to dedicate such an
interpretation of the gospel concerning poverty for groupings
as for individuals.
Ten talks invite to applaud to the different adventures that
took place to the XIII e century in the small city of sat
and that didn't lose anything of their actuality in this century
where the men must make themselves less violence to pull itself/themselves
to the enveloping ascendancy of goods of this world, if they
want to practice poverty in order to arrive to God's love.
Luchesio, him, is a secular convert to François' philosophy
on poverty, but linked by domestic and professional obligations
to the possession of goods of this world. It is not less interesting
to see the operated transformation, so early that he/it became
child of Saint François by the Third Order of which
he/it was the first member. From then on he/it doesn't consider
himself/itself more as the owner of his/her/its goods, but
as simple intendant of the Divine Mr.: it is always ready
to follow the least instructions of the holy Gospel and he/it
practices it to the letter.
The change was so radical, that the house of the rich merchant
became in a short time THE INN OF THE LORD for all poor people
who came to look there for help and protection. Three broadcasts
were sufficient to show the marvelous changes that in this
family brought the virtue of poverty. If this luminous example
being followed by a lot of supporters, the Christian mind
would win the land and would not miss to bring back to God
our modern society, so divided by the greed and the decoy
of the gain.
These sketches have models appropriated to the present needs
seen. They show us God's love, that determined a lot of souls
since seven centuries to the same love in the flesh. That
they contemplate them therefore again, either on the picture
that the waves evoked but in the more solid setting of a volume,
the accustomed of the Novena to Saint-Antoine and that they
know, as one makes it for the portraits, to show them to the
parents and friends, to make gift of it to the priests and
to the religious or religious, to invite to God's authentic
love. The all ends by a talk on the Boss of The Catholic action.
Since the church confers to François of sat this sublime
function, it dedicates his/her/its conception of the holiness
so to speak, it proposes her/its examples to the imitation
of the laymen called to participate in his/her/its hierarchical
apostolate, it incites to walk always on the traces of this
model living in the Three Orders and to make part the seraphic
militia, The present world, said Magpie XII, needs a Franciscan
crusade.
And has how represents itself to the reader, former listener
or no, the 2nd set of My Tuesdays to the radio.
The page frontispiece gives the relief to this thought. Her
to show in possession of God's love two children of François
saint: the religious hovers body and soul in a supernatural
atmosphere,; the layman is like enlisé until the ears
in the material of his/her/its domestic, professional and
social life; but he/it remains serious nevertheless and the
fact that his/her/its head emerges the cloud above, prove
that it lives God in created it and don't quit to hear his/her/its
persuasive voice in the middle of the vain noises of the earth.
It is a brilliant illustration of poverty in mind and in truth
asked by the gospel and recalled opportunely at the world
by François.La saint most eloquent page of the volume
is the last, to the back of the cover. She/it is the Virgin's
miniature in the manger or even of a modern foundation Claire,
the soul all liquefied at the sight of the child-God. It is
the love in poverty. In a word, the picture expressive ‘God's
love in the soul seraphic" ' "
The author. Father F. Coiteaux o.f.m.
God's love
The
beginnings of his/her/its conversion
July 8, 1941
The big Augustin saint always expressed in these terms this
thought true: ‘Lord, you made us for you and our heart
stays worried until it takes a rest in you. " It say
that the soul won't know how to taste the peace ever, the
whole time that it will take for object of his/her/its preoccupation
riches, honors, pleasures, and that it will let God to the
plane rear in his/her/its life. To find the joy of a good
conscience, it is God that it is necessary to look for and
to like by - over all, and to acquire this precious pearl,
it is necessary to sacrifice the whole remains or not to like
it and to look only for it insofar as he/it contributes to
bring closer God.
But the change will only be real if it appears in the acts,
and the first to put milked to the detachment of goods of
this world.
1 - the example of François of foundation can provide
a beautiful argument of demonstration again. The practice
of the beneficence and the voluntary spoliation began to detach
it of what is not God
In the middle of his/her/its extravagances of candidate knight,
he/it keeps a big respect for the poor: in him he/it sees
the picture of Notre-Seigneur and he/it relieves his/its miseries
gladly. One day however that he/it serves many customers in
his/her/its father's store, he/it refuses alms to a beggar
who had asked for God's love. The poor had hardly left, that
he/it immediately recovers, and says itself in himself: if
the demand had come of a few big Lord, you would have welcomed
his/her/its demand in the name of the Lord: and you treated
harshly this poor wretch, when he/it stretched the hand in
the name of God. No more than that to hesitate, he/it leaves
the counter, hurry toward him.
In his/her/its aspirations to the riches and to the sizes
of this world, he/it was not without noticing a distressing
contrast between the different social classes, Lords, bourgeois
and serfs-peasant. And the mind had to move its compassionate
heart from time to time at the sight of the more suffering
members of his/her/its mystical body. Some time before his/her/its
rupture of with the century, he/it came back pensive of one
of his/her/its feasts and was let itself precede by his/her/its
mates, when one of them, the seer absorbed in his/her/its
thoughts, shouted him on the tone of the jest:
- Hey! Say therefore, François, you would be become
in love! You think about taking woman!
-Yes, I wonder of it, took François, and the one that
I will marry is so beautiful that one doesn't live oncques
of counterpart of it on the earth.
In his/her/its poetic language, he/it wanted to speak of Lady
Poverty. He/it already vowed him a love comparable to the
one of a spouse for his/her/its wife and he/it thought about
to take it for inseparable companion of his/her/its life.
After this declaration, he/it waited little and broke with
the world and his/her/its vanités.Son father was wounded
to the quick of this radical change in his/her/its son. He/it
first used sweetness, then of threats, and finally, seeing
that he/it didn't win anything, he/it dragged it before the
bishop of foundation. He/it wanted to bring the religious
authority to persuade his/her/its son to return to domicile
and to take his/her/its habits of bourgeois and selfish life;
He/it took for grievance of the suit his/her/its inconsiderate
aumônes, and he/it had to put the bishop in the obligation
to be pronounced in his/her/its favor. But François'
wisdom foils all calculation. In presence of the bishop and
his/her/its father, he/it removed his/its clothes, handed
them to his/her/its father, and, only covered of a cilice,
he/it says, in the exaltation of his/her/its confidence and
his/her/its love: ‘until now I called Bernardone, my
father,; but in the future I would be able to said in all
truth:
Lord Prayer Who is at the heaven! " That means, I won't
think anymore about pushing me on my father according to the
flesh to find the table setting, food, the clothes, but I
will count solely on the Providence.
_ The bishop, all touched, covered his sublime nudity, and
he took it under his/her/its protection. The Patriarch of
the Poor people had just divorced with the century, to unite
his/her/its destiny and the one of his/her/its numerous spiritual
posterity to the Lady of his/her/its dreams, Lady Poverty.
He/it is difficult in some words to give a faithful sketch
of the change operated in François and the main acts
that he/it put to arrive to this marvelous transformation.
His/her/its historians mention a big number of it; I didn't
make allusion that to the most meaningful, in the goal to
help you to achieve what are the sacrifices to agree to make
the progress in God's love.
2 - that one doesn't have the temptation to give like excuse
to remain stationary and not to modify his/her/its manner
to act: ‘' These examples are well too much elevated
for me. All it is good for saints; but for Christian as me,
the more modest aims are necessary. »
To all those of my listeners (or readers) that strive to convert
sincerely to God's love, I will say: Begin, as François
of foundation, by the practice of the beneficence and the
voluntary spoliation for God's love.
As him, don't refuse alms to the neighbor, because "it
is necessary to like hidden God in his/her/its neighbor",
said the Bx. Grignion of Montfort.
That he/it is holy, that he/it is guilty,
That he/it is small, that he/it is a king,
That he/it is hard, that he/it is gracious,
That he/it is for or against me,
He/it is not less agreeable of it,
When I see it by the faith. »
The day of the Saint-Antoine a girl meets out of a chapel,
the noon in Montreal, a poor all ragged, nearly barefoot so
much his/her/its shoes were pierced. She/it lands it gently
in these terms:
- Hello, my dear friend!
IN MANNER OF RETORT, THE POOR GREETS IT TIMIDLY OF THE HEAD
-
I wager that you didn't dine! and on his/her/its negative
answer, she/it pursued: Come with me to the restaurant, we
are going to dine together. The poor was quite surprised to
see itself/themselves the object of so much attention and
he/it told it to his/her/its benefactress during the meal:
It is new, miss, that one runs thus after the poor people.
One invites us to eat in the families, one even prepares us
some banquets. Until now one rather fled us as the pestilence.
All happy of these remarks, the person who made this act of
sublime charity, communicated them to me in the evening same
of the feast, while returning glory to the Lord. The charity
towards the neighbor is God's most authentic mark of the real
love; Saint Jean affirms it in his/her/its first epistle,
when he says: "to this we knew the love, it is that he,
Jesus, gave his/her/its life for us. We must also give our
life for our brothers. If someone possesses goods of this
world and that, seeing his/her/its brother in the necessity,
does he/it close his/her/its innards, how does God's love
stay it in it? My grandchildren, let's not like words and
language, but in actions and in truth. By there we know that
we add the truth and that we can reassure our cœurses
owing God. (1 St. Jean,III, 16.18)
Very dear patients, you see it, the first step to make to
convert sincerely to the Lord and to prove him his/her/its
love that is to strip itself/themselves effectively of a portion
of his/her/its goods, so minimal either it, in favor of the
neighbor makes like oneself to God's picture. ‘How can
like him God that he/it doesn't see, the one that doesn't
like his/her/its brother that he/it sees! "says holy
Jean, 1 Ep. IV,20Si you really like God in your neighbor who
is in the need, according to your capacities, you will provide
to his/her/its needs, cover those that are naked, give to
eat to those that are hungry, visit the patients and the captives.
And while waiting for the day blessed of the eternal reward,
your God's love will grow on the earth and with God's love,
in spite of your sufferings, your poverty, your tests of all
sorts, you will have the peace and the joy of a good conscience.
Prayer
Oh good Antoine saint, who always grew in God's love increasing
and that, since the age of fifteen years, practiced the detachment
of goods of this world, use your powerful intercession to
deserve us always to all a big mind of poverty and a detachment
more accused of what is not God. To develop these arrangements
in the soul, inspire to all of ever to refuse the alms whoever
will ask for God's love; If one can only give a coin, that
one gives a coin; if there was not money of which one can
have, that one gives something else that belongs us, that
one expresses the regret not to be able to give more, that
one doesn't refuse at least the sympathy with a smile. To
win to this charity and complaisance towards the neighbor
the faithful listeners of the perpetual Novena in your honor,
remind to them that God is hidden in the poor: He/it considers
as lent to himself what one makes to the smallest among his.
Give us to enter decidedly in the way of God's love, while
exercising us as he/it suits the practice of the charity and
the beneficence. So either him
God's love
Poverty and charity
September 2, 1941
 You
understood it, the practice of the voluntary poverty is the
starting point of a sincere conversion to God's love. She/it
detaches goods of this world and makes them serve to procure
the necessary to oneself, to his, and to the neighbor in the
need. "We didn't bring anything in the world, said holy
Paul, and undoubtedly we won't be able to carry away anything
of it. So therefore we have of what to feed us and to cover
us, we will be satisfied, Those that want to be rich, (and
fear to miss some always), fall in the temptation and in the
trap and in a crowd of insane and fatal lusts, that plunges
the men in the ruin and the perdition. Because it is the source
of all pains that the love of money, and some, to be delivered
itself/themselves of it, got lost of the faith, and committed
themselves in a lot of torments. " (I Tim, VI, 6-10.)
"Recommend to those that possess, told even holy Paul
to Timothy, therefore not to be haughty, not to put their
hope in uncertain riches, but in God, who gives us with abundance
everything that is necessary to life, to make the good, to
become rich in good œuvres, to be expeditious to give
what they have, accumulating thus for the future a strong
treasure that allows them to acquire the real life, generously.
" (I Tim., VI, 17-19) More the men will bring generosity
to give, more God will make them grow in his/her/its love,
Give if you want that God appears to you in all his/her/its
beauty and pull you to the appeal of the trifles. One finds
the vivid proof of it in the Poverello of foundation.
After his/her/its spoliation before the bishop of foundation,
François' first care was to redo the chapel of Saint-Damien
that threatened to fall in ruin. As he/it didn't have anything
anymore, he/it resorted to the Lord while asking for the alms
of door in door, He/it told in all simplicity to his/her/its
fellow citizens that he/it had been dazzled by the pomp and
the wealthiness: "The one that will give me a stone,
will have a reward; the one that will give three stones, will
have three rewards. " In the beginning of his/her/its
work of restoration, he/it retired at the chapelain of Saint-Damien.
But at the end of some time, François found that it
was not enough to trust on the Providence. "You won't
always have, says itself him to himself, someone on that to
intend to find the necessary to your subsistence. Now exercise
you; go ask for it to the Lord in alms. »
He/it left on l`heure with a simple bowl, happy to receive
the rests that one offered him. They were so little appetizing
that, as for came the moment to take his/her/its pittance,
the view of this menu gave him loud of the the heart. He/it
immediately felt guilty about his/her/its gentleness and,
to triumph over all reluctance, he/it bit this repugnant macedoine
with an appetite and swallowed it decidedly. To his/her/its
big surprise "what appeared him bitter so had changed
itself smoothly for him for the soul and the body". He/it
confessed himself n`avoir eaten dish so ever tasty. His/her/its
mind of poverty had determined it to put his/her/its confidence
solely above in God and elevated l`avait all reluctances of
his/her/its nature for l`amener to be content with what the
Lord presented him on the table of Lady Poverty. In return
he/it was rewarded some by a joy all spiritual and same a
sensitive growth of love of God. He/it always experimented
this truth true that God gives to that gives to Him and that
he gives himself/itself of gives as much more fully than the
heart with more of generosity. These two features of François'
life, restoration of Saint-Damien and voluntary begging, are
especially characteristic. They are like l`inauguration of
one based life on the detachment of everything that is not
God. They not only order all attachment messed up to goods
of this world and l`esclavage of the greed in the lift of
the body, but also a less big confidence in the Providence
that to the natural means capable to assure the subsistence.
Since the beginning of his/her/its conversion, François
already interprets to the letter this passage of the gospel
and makes l`inspiration of his/her/its life of it: "Don't
collect some treasures on the earth, where the rust and the
verses gnaw, where the thieves pierce the walls and steal.
But accumulate yourselves of the treasures in the Sky, where
nor the verses nor the rust don't gnaw and where nor the thieves
don't pierce the walls and steal. Because where is our treasure,
there is our heart. " (St.-Matt., V,19-21).
His/her/its treasure it is God and to acquire it, he/it gives
the whole remains. What wealth in his/her/its poverty! This
example of detachment can serve to all those that possess,
to some title that it is. The most often insofar as they accumulate
goods of this world, they are poor of God. If they understood
better, they would say: "Lord, it is You that we like.
Our goods, we hate them, because they incite us to detach
us of You: they persuade us easily to procure us more that
the necessary and let us too insensible to the needs of others,
of your poor people. Since You ask for it in Your Gospel,
sensible c`est,; in the future we won't let dry up our generosity
by fear to miss some. We will put our confidence in your Providence
more qu`en our wisdom to short view.
We will worry less for our life, of what we will eat, of what
we will drink,; nor for our body, of what we will clothe it.
We want to share with the one that doesn't have sufficiently
and more to divert the head of the one that asks us. These
sacrifices of temporal goods, oh God, we offer them to you
gladly, to acquire the very inappreciable of your love. "
Has how the practice of poverty will empty the heart of all
attachment messed up to goods of here below and will bring
God to establish in it his/her/its home.
If of these truths are consisted well, a convenient resolution
imposes itself to all sincere person, really anxious of perfection
and love of God, and it is this one: "Adieu luxury in
the clothes and the home! More nothing henceforth for the
sensuality, the vain funs, the futilities! The goods that
You allow us to acquire, Lord, lawfully will only serve to
the necessary; I will make larger Your part of the the poor
people and the service of the cult. " In your big desire
to possess God more surely, can you all to put this resolution
faithfully in practice! This detachment will help you to support
the illness patiently, the infirmity, the contempt, poverty
and in a word all tests of life.
God's love
Reactions that the absolute detachment causes
Gottes Liebe
Reaktionen, die die absolute Abtrennung verursacht,
September 9, 1941
 The
absolute detachment of that that is not God, is not natural
to the man on earth, Simile mock gaudet: he/it enjoys with
his/her/its similar and he/it doesn't detach himself/itself
easily of the creatures as him to rise higher and to look
for his/her/its happiness in God. Those that have the audacity
and strength of it are taken quickly for insane and, because
they don't want to make as the other, they become in their
middle a sign of contradiction, ‘' signum cui contradicetur".
(St. Luc, II, 34.) Nothing astonishing in it: ‘The disciple
is not above the Mr.. ") St. Luc, VI,40.) While living
the divine life on earth, the Christ was in contradiction
with the humans who lived more by the senses and the reason.
All saints knew these contradictions and the reactions were
especially violent than their detachment was more absolute.
The one of François of sat is especially typical for
the different currents of ideas that he/it made be born. Let's
consider one instant these disagreements, in order to seize
the nature of the holiness better.
The new conception that the Poverello made itself of life
after his/her/its spoliation at the bishop of foundation,
subsided before his/her/its fellow citizens when they turn
it to make itself/themselves mason and voluntary beggar. Turning
around was complete: Him not long ago rich, greedy of the
of honors, friend of the pomp and pleasures, had become poor,
greedy of humiliations; extremely mortified before this change,
the reactions were multiple. His/her/its father was humiliated
some until the frenzy. He/it started with giving free course
to his/her/its anger while linking it in a reduced, while
resorting then to the bishop of foundation to help it to make
understand him reason. Vexed in his/her/its defeats, he/it
got lost to the point to curse his/her/its son every time
that he/it saw it; his/her/its words were as sharp features
that went right to François' heart. Also, to ease the
bitterness of it and to annul the fatal effects of it, makes
itself him to accompany in his/her/its outlays through a ragamuffin's
city that had mission to answer the father's malediction by
words of blessings. These new dealings caused some commentaries
everywhere. The opinion spilled soon among the Assisiateses
that the piety and the illness had turned the head of the
son of Bernadone. The shrewdest had fun some.. The children
pushed the insolence up to pursue on the street with stones,
of the gibes, of the screams,: oh mad! oh mad!
While seeing the patience, the sweetness, François'
constancy, some fellow citizens said themselves in themselves
and between them: would not this strange conduct be a sign
obvious of his/her/its big holiness? One of his/her/its former
friends resorted to a radical means to realize by himself.
He/it invited it to rest under his/her/its roof. In his/her/its
chivalrous condescension that he/it kept under his/its rags,
François accepted willingly. When one had indicated
him the piece that he/it had to occupy during the night, he/it
threw himself/itself on his/her/its bed, pretended not to
address to the sky any prayer. But as soon as they believed
itself safe from all indiscreet look, he/it rose, knelt by
his/her/its bed, and, turned skywards, began to say these
words that he/it didn't quit to repeat until the day: ‘My
God, my all. »
This exclamation carried away its soul toward the object of
his/her/its love. Bernard was moved deeply, He understood
that his/her/its friend was in the truth while wanting to
become attached solely to God and as professing a sovereign
mistaked for goods of this world. He/it judged good to imitate
it and, after having consulted on his/her/its opinion the
holy Gospel, he/it distributed with him all his/her/its goods
to the poor people. Was it the first conquest of the life
régime inaugurated by the Poverello of sat. Such are
the three kinds of reactions that caused in the XIIIe century
the absolute detachment embodied in François of foundation.
doesn't the view of the same evangelical renouncement always
cause the same reactions?
What difference between the reactions of tradesman Pierre
Berbardone all to his/her/its commerce and those of our present
materialists who deny the occult or live at least as if he/it
didn't exist? François' father was quite stunned of
his/her/its son's change. For it the divine life was a reality
that had no hold on the orientation of his/her/its activities.
While seeing his/her/its son in compénétrer
his/her/its personal life, he/it is aggravated some. It is
a meaningless, a repudiation of that that makes his/her/its
glory, a decay. As he/it disowns it himself. We, modern materialists,
make the same thing. If they believe again, their faith is
far from giving a Christian hue to their life. If someone
wanted too much to press them in contrary sense, they would
resist, they would curse; they are confined in the natural;
station to those that tempt them to dislodge some!
What difference also between the reactions of the worldly
present and those of François' fellow citizens? For
all the gospel is a code of life that one adapts to the requirements
of the natural life. When the precise sense made not the business,
one resorts to the symbolic sense; and this is how one builds
itself an easy religion. ‘' God is not a savage,"
Well a that makes the opposite! It is the fashionable morals
that one opposes to the evangelical morals and one throws
some stones to those that pretend to interpret the gospel
again to the letter. It is the same gesture that the children
of foundation, when he/it shouted as much as possible; "oh
mad! oh mad"
IIlses are currently very rare, as at the time of the resurgence
of the evangelical poverty in François, the excellent
between the good that are content with the strict necessary
for themselves, and, without looking for apologies universally
admitted in the best of the worlds, give to the poor people
the part of goods that the necessary doesn't absorb. I could
mention in Montreal a gentleman's case whose house became
"the inn of the Lord. " in his/her/its poor people.
He/it is father of two little girls and, with the consent
of his/her/its less generous wife, adopted two small boys
of the manger last year. On the day of the Saint-Antoine,
he/it let his/its car to the exclusive service of the poor
people and patients between a friend's hands in the same arrangements.
These are gestures of charity comparable to those of Bernard
of Quintavalle stripping itself/themselves of all his/her/its
goods to give them to the poor people.
Very dear listeners, what will your reactions be at the sight
of similar spoliations?
Will you be rather little supernatural to prefer your goods
to God and to curse like Berbardone those to that the example
of the Christ and François will tempt to persuade you
that the detachment of goods of this world is the surest way
to go to God? Who will you be of these worldly interpret Jesus'
teachings in order to want to serve to the God faith and Mammon?
Won't you imitate François' first disciple rather?
He/it understood that he/it was worth to return to the Lord
better in his/her/its poor people the goods that he/it had
received some. For it it is sufficient to strip itself/themselves
in mind, and makes to of it, of everything that is not necessary
to life. Convenient resolution: make good face to the importunate
petitioners, for Jesus' love that is made itself poor and
of which they are the living picture: give to all alms at
least of a smile, and search for God in the poor people in
visits inspired by the charity: at the sight of these poor
wretches, you will bless the Lord in your again much least
tests that theirs. These acts of detachment reiterated will
bring closer your God's soul here below, while waiting to
deserve you the joys of Kingdom of the Heaven.
"My poor child, have him I say in substance, I get on
well well to your terrifying test. But let me tell you that
there are means to find him a consoling aspect: It is to rejoice
you to endure something in union with Jesus the divine spouse
of your soul. He/it likes you beyond all expression, since
he/it created you, purchased, placed in a Christian environment,
If he/it made you deaf and blind thus, it is that he/it wants
to make you insensible to the noises and to the beauties of
the earth, but of as much more sensitive to the inspirations
of the grace and to the sweets of the contemplation. So-called-Him
therefore of the bottom of the heart that you agree to empty
what is not He your senses and your difficulties gladly, but
provided that he/it appears to your soul in his/her/its infinite
perfections. From then on the knowledge of this sublime truth
will be an immense compensation for the sacrifice that it
Imposes you while depriving you to see and to hear, Say therefore:
‘Ita Domine, quia placitum is ante you: That he/it is
some thus, Lord, since it is your good pleasure". at
the end, she/it agreed to constitute itself/themselves victim
of love, but no without having put a lot of objections that
the mind - Saint gave me to solve according to the needs of
his/her/its soul.
Prayer
Oh good Antoine saint, who has been won by the example of
the Miners to the practice of the most absolute spoliation
and that knew the cruel sweets of the destitution, use your
power of intercession to deserve us to all to appreciate the
riches of the evangelical poverty better. Made those that
possess understand, that their goods will be worth them Kingdom
of the Heaven, if they only serve to the necessary to the
subsistence, but that they will drive them to the hell if
they let themselves insensible to the necessities of others.
Can us all to achieve finally that the riches have not been
put to the man's power to attach it inauspiciously to the
earth, to serve his/her/its selfishness, to multiply the injustice
and the iniquity, but to give him the advantage to practice
mercy towards the neighbor to the example of our Father of
the heaven that makes raise his/her/its sun on the good and
the mean. Big Saint, give to our patients, old men and infirm
the generosity to imitate the invalid of which I mentioned
the example and to constitute itself/themselves victim of
love in atonement of the sins of the world. So either him
God's love
The seraphic poverty ideal is approved by Rome.
September 23, 1941
 'Some
months were hardly himself schools since François of
foundation had changed of life, says one of his/her/its historians,
that already he was to the head of a small group of disciples.
" After Bernard, Pierre Cathani, and Silvester, it was
Gilles, an Assisiate him also; he/it was of humble origin
but he/it will become remarkable by his/her/its elevation
of soul, the discerning acuteness of his/her/its mind, his/her/its
love of the contemplation. As his/her/its ideal of poverty
was strong discussed among the supporters and especially the
clerks, François decided, when the number of his/her/its
mates had risen to twelve, to submit the reason in Rome and
to solicit the approval of Christ's Priest
In the first access the Pope took it for a manant, in modern
style one would say a beggar. But the following night, Innocent
III had a dream: in a vision he/it saw the church of the Latran
collapsing on his/her/its bases and a poor beggar to the weak
aspect that sustained it of his/her/its weak shoulders. What
was not his/her/its surprise to recognize under his/her/its
gaunt features the importunate visitor that he/it had dismissed
the eve. François continued to pray in the churches
of Rome for the success of his/her/its steps however and presented
itself again in presence of the holy Father, assisted in his/her/its
request by his/her/its Bishop Guido of foundation and a friend
of this last Cardinal Jean of Saint-Paul.
L ‘astonishment was big to the papal court, when François
proclaimed his intention to live in an absolute poverty, without
other resource that his/her/its confidence in the Providence
of God, and the charity of the men. In the audience of the
Cardinals there was a movement of disapproval first. Some
found to this doctrine of the heresy hues; all pretended that
this régime of life passed the capacities of the human
nature by far. The Cardinal only Saint-Paul Jean brought this
objection: "If we reject the demand of this poor like
a too difficult novelty to achieve, let's make sure not to
put us in opposition with the Christ's gospel. He/it only
asks the authorization to follow the evangelical life rule.
If someone pretends that it is unreasonable, impossible thing,
that one blasphemes the Christ, author of the gospel.
The Pope was won to François' idea, when he had heard
it to make the praise of the seraphic poverty under the shape
of an allegory. "Very Saint Father, he/it says, there
was a very beautiful girl, but poor that stayed in a desert.
This poor girl, explain François, it is Lady Poverty.
God's son himself was in love of his/her/its beauty. He/it
came in this world, married it and had many children that
he/it sent to his/its Father of it and that decorate the celestial
court now. Since his/her/its death on the cross, here is that
Lady Poverty remained widow on the earth. The mind-Saint inspired
me to take it for beloved wife and already she generated me
some children. Do I want to remain he faithful and don't see
yourselves, Very Saint Father, that our Father of the heaven
will take a care all particular of the offshoots that she
wants to give me again in the goal to decorate the run celestial?
"- The children in question were the twelve disciples
who came with it and all those that would come to enlarge
the number of the Miners in the course of ages.
The Pontiff had listened to the parabola and his/her/its application
attentively. He/it was charmed some and of doubted more that
Christ had spoken by François' mouth. He/it named it
Superior of the new fraternity, each of the members promised
obedience François, and then they moved away of the
Eternal City with the authorization to preach the penitence
and to live begging. From there his/her/its Order begging.
Cashless, without stick, without besace, ridded of all worries
of this century, receiving in alms even the fruit of their
work, happy to be for the world an object of contempt and
rubbish, the heart free of all attachment, they went preaching
God's love to all, while begging door in door. According to
François' poetic appellations that enlivened his/her/its
language of the literature, his/her/its disciples were of
God's Jugglers, of the Knights of the round-table, of the
Lady Poverty Troubadours. To the fashionable knighthood all
fragrant, curly, and gloved, François wanted to substitute
the true evangelical knighthood whose beauty is all interior
and that doesn't keep for ornament that the simplicity and
the detachment of that that are not God.
1. at the sight of François and his/her/its mates,
the world of the XIIIe century took itself to think, It began
to suspect that it could really be wrong to want to become
attached at the same time to God as well as to wealth and
to the pleasure. These examples of spoliation were not the
starting point of a spiritual movement as him was seen itself
of it of counterpart since the faraway time of the invasion
of the deserts by the Monks and the Hermits. One understood
that the man's destiny on earth is other that the enjoyment
and the accumulation of the riches and one knew how to sacrifice
them for the glorification of God and the possession of the
real happiness. It is what gave birth to a new conception
of life and to a flowering of scientific and artistic œuvres
all to the glory of the age of gold of the Christendom known
as means age.
Very dear patients, infirm, poor and forsaken of all sorts,
did you have believed it if history there was not to affirm
it to you? What makes the topic of your sadness was, after
François' conversion, the object of his/her/its desires.
As much you strive not to lack anything, in order to be able
to devote to you some following the piety and to the exercises
of devotion, as much naturally he/it wanted to lack all in
order to not to take pleasure in no of the things of here
below and not to look for rest that in God. Our soul is as
the dove that Noah sent after the deluge, to explore the earth
and to insure if she was in state to receive the humans: as
she/it doesn't find any place where to rest his/her/its feet,
she/it came back in the ark. in the same way, if we don't
find anything pleasing on the earth where pours themselves
so many tears, even during the terrestrial existence we will
return in mind and heart in the celestial ark that the holy
Trinidad lives in with the elected.
Bless God of that therefore that poverty, the illness, the
annoyances of all sorts force you to detach you of the earth
e t to attach you from now on Well to the Sovereign, only
capable to fill the immense desires of your cœurses.
The seraphic poverty ideal, as the evangelical ideal, is to
detach itself/themselves of created it to become attached
to the Incréé and know that he/it will encourage
God's love insofar as he/it will determine to more of generosity
in the detachment and the oblivion of oneself.
LETTER D ' A VICTIM D ' LOVE Reverend Father Ferdinand, O.F.M.
Convent of Rosemont, Montreal.
Last Tuesday you renewed at a time in me of the so happy and
so painful memories, that I want to express you well imperfectly
what I recall these two words: victim of love. has four years
these words me were given like spiritual bouquet at the time
of one closed retirement in Béthanie, first of all
they appeared well soft to me and consoling. I understood
them in the sense of joy and the spiritual consolations, God
let me in this illusion during three months. I was filled
with his/her/its favors; I knew all gentleness and of the
effusions of the divine love. I told Jesus that I didn't deserve
such a happiness, but in the intimate of myself I had the
innocence to believe that it would always last. These were
caresses before the big strokes, Jesus wanted to tie my heart,
before undertaking to purify it, irrevocably. It was necessary
to make he capable all to accept for His/her/its love and
you know to what terrifying test He/it submitted it
She/it came in the evening of a beautiful day. We had received
communion together the morning; to the return the action of
graces had continued home in a spiritual reading that produced
well the sound of our united souls in God; as to the plain
every Sunday at four o'clock, he/it had gone to go one hour
by the church for his/her/its visit to the Very Saint-Sacrament
and his/her/its path of the cross; after a small vigil at
our sick daughter we had just finished hardly our meditation,
when the Lord reminded it sudden to letting me to Him here
below only, as to wean me of all other love that the divine
love.
It is whereas all tearful and finding ray of hope that in
Jesus, I threw myself in His/her/its arms, on His/her/its
Sacred Cœur that the day even had given me so many proofs
of His/her/its infinite tenderness, And there, I accepted
all for His/her/its love. He/it even inspired me courage to
say the bottom of the heart: "Thank you, Lord! You could
not ask me of bigger sacrifice. I am happy that You provided
me this opportunity to prove You my love. »
1. during, that he/it rested in his/her/its coffin and the
days that followed, the two words "victim of love"
I appeared under quite another aspect. I understood them as
Jesus hear them. Yes, victim of love means: that one becomes
attached to the cross with Him: that one immolates his/her/its
heart by a generous trusted; that one throws itself to the
foot of the cross, while kissing the crucifix lovingly, while
embracing it of his/her/its two arms, in himself of it attached
supporter for not to weaken, until of Him the strength to
be able to say: thank you, my Jesus, or even as only joining
the hands with a look of love and sadness on the Divine Crucified,
the model of the true lovers.
2. when my heart was broken in this agony in spite of my resignation
and my good will, Jesus should have seen in me too much attachment
for mine. As He/it didn't want a sharing anymore. He/it continued
to prune. He/it took himself/itself of it to the one of my
children whose features had more resemblance with those of
regretted it defunct. During more of one year, He/it made
me attend impotent the pains extraordinary of that to be cherished.
Not having strength anymore to resist His/her/its holy will,
during a Mass to the elevation, I presented Him this dear
child crucified on his/her/its bed of pain and asked Him to
accept my sacrifice, so that he/it made his as generously.
My prayer was granted; Jesus gave to this martyrdom of the
graces of choice and his/her/its mother of the very soft consolations.
3. I understood in the pain the sense of this love words ‘Victim
"that I could not have understood in happiness. What
returns currently best arrangements of my soul, is this scream
of the heart: "The suffering is God's royal grant! ""
Some price that she/it costs, she/it is never paid too dear.
»
11 sept.1941 Respectfully yours
A Tertiary of François saint of Montreal.
Prayer
Oh good Antoine saint, who experimented yourself the sense
of these words ‘victim of love", give to each of
our patients the grace to understand that that the Lord waits
for them and the generosity to conform their conduct to His/her/its
holy will. A victim of love likes God above all and doesn't
have another ambition that all to sacrifice for His/her/its
biggest glory. He/it is not sufficient for it to address Him
of fervid prayers; it is necessary to let itself strip everything
that is not He, without complaining, without incriminating
no one, with very pleasure. Use your power of intercession
to deserve these arrangements to all people who make The Perpetual
Novena to the radio. Their sacrifices agreed generously for
God's love and because God asks for them, will make these
souls of the love" pleasant to the Lord ‘victims.
They can increase more and more on earth for the biggest glory
of God and a world of good of the human kind! " So either
him
God's love
 Saint
Claire Of foundation
Deuxième chapter: Claire of foundation
The seraphic poverty ideal attracts Claire and his/her/its
companions.
September 30, 1941
If you listened attentively since I restarted my weekly broadcasts,
I am to make you the apology of one of the required conditions
to arrive to God's love: the detachment of goods of this world.
To make these truths more living, I illustrated them of the
examples and the life of the Poverello of foundation; but
they knock some prejudices if anchored to the bottom of the
human heart, that they have need to shine a quick burst to
your eyes. I ask the mind-Saint to inspire my words and to
return they, according to the expression of Paul saint,"
efficient, sharper than no sword to two cutting, so discerning
that they are going as far as separating the soul and the
mind, the joints and marrows". (Hébr., 4,12.)
In the occurrence, they have the ambition to introduce the
division in yourselves, to pull your soul to what is not God,
to decide it to the practice of poverty makes some to infuse
him gradually poverty in mind necessary to the life of union
to God.
Following the approval of the Sovereign Pontiff, François
tied more than before to his/her/its ideal of poverty. He/it
put an unequalled ardor to browse the cities of Italy with
his/her/its disciples and to preach the penitence and the
detachment everywhere. Inspired of the purest love of God
and a goodwill all apostolic, this simple predication attacked,
directly to the popular feelings, gave to think and caused
some resolutions here and there generous all to leave and
to give his/her/its goods to the poor people to acquire God's
love.
One of the first to let itself/themselves touch after the
first disciples was a girl of the city of foundation of Claire's
name, of the noble family of the Favarones. In company of
a relative, she/it was going to ask for advice François,
after one his/her/its instructions. He/it exhorted it to despise
the world and to not to become attached to other spouse that
to Christ. Finally she/it was in love of the same seraphic
poverty ideal. In the evening of Sunday of the Branches, March
27, 1211, she/it left the paternal house furtively in company
of another girl of the name of Pacifica and all two surrendered
in the Portioncule where lived François with his/her/its
first mates. To the gleam of the candles of the small chapel
he/it cut them hair and donned them of the rough tunic of
the Poor Ladies. It was the first plants of the second Order
founded by François on the bases of the most absolute
poverty, the order of the Clarisseses.
The cradle of this order was Saint-Damien, the very chapel
that holy François restored after his confession. She/it
exists again. She/it is of a poverty to make quiver the nature
but she/it stands on a charming site to the foot of which
takes place the beautiful valley of Umbria. lived holy Claire
There, his/her/its mother the Bse Ortolana, his/her/its sœurs
holy Agnès and the Bse Béatrice; there, François
composed his/her/its Hymn of the Creatures that invites all
beings to rent the Lord; to the equal of the Portioncule,
cradle of the first Order, Saint-Damien was always dear to
François saint and to his/her/its children, because
these blessed places were the mute witnesses of the divine
communications with saints souls and that during more of seven
centuries they were as the hallway of the paradise for a big
number of elected.
The big characteristic of Claire saint as the one of François
saint, it is the detachment of everything that is not God.
Two Popes received of his part a demand instante of the poverty
privilege, Innocent III in 1215 and Grégoire IXS in
1228. After hesitations and tentatives to make accept some
alleviations, Grégoire IX surrendered to the saint's
ardent desires at the time of the canonization of François
saint and confirmed him "the privilege of the very high
poverty that had been granted him thirteen years before by
his/her/its predecessor" (Life of Saint François,
P. Cuthbert,p.222). It was as the consecration of the message
that François about to die had sent to Claire, "to
keep the poverty to which she had dedicated herself/itself"
firmly. - Hopeless man was not greedier of riches, that these
two holy souls he was not some most absolute poverty.
This ideal has in what terms François expresses it
in the rule that he/it let to his/her/its sons of the first
Order: "That the brothers don't appropriate anything,
nor house, nor place, nor no thing. And as pilgrims and of
the strangers in this century, I" (St. Pierre,2,2), serving
the Lord in poverty and the humility, that they are going
to ask confidently for alms; and it is not necessary that
he/it is ashamed, because the Lord made itself poor for us
in this world. It is there the excellence of the very high
poverty, who instituted you, my very dear brothers, heirs
and kings of kingdom of the heaven, made you poor people of
goods but raised you in virtues. That she/it is your sharing,
her that drives in the earth of the living. Attach yourselves-there
completely and please possess not anything for evermore something
else under the sky. " (Ch.VI)
Dear listeners, you are not necessary there to mistake, holy
François doesn't condemn the property, not more that
the gospel; no because, according to the teachings of the
theology, she/it is necessary to life, and she/it is besides
to the basis of all social organization, from the family until
the state and to the church. But she/it lent flank to so much
abuse and she/it is reason of so many divisions between the
men. The peoples as the individuals, that François
wanted in to detach the heart of his/her/its children and
to oblige them, to act as example in the world, to give up
the joint very possession. The church is guardian of the faith
and the morals and it approved this kind of life. Well more
she/it always held it in singular esteem and, in this century
of war caused by the bad distribution of the riches, she/it
proclaimed September 4, 1936 by the voice of Magpie Xi of
regretted memory that ‘the world needs a Franciscan
crusade."
Dear patients, there are new considerations to win you to
the detachment of that that is not God. It would not be necessary
to pity you anymore if you are poor, if he/it lacks you the
necessary, if you are not sure of the following day, if unemployment
or the impotence in which you are to win you-even your bread
forces you to resort to the kindliness of others by begging
or the help of the public powers. These deprivations bring
back to the sense of the proportions; they oblige and to recognize
that we have ourselves a powerful and good God above, that
he/it comes in help by his/her/its Providence to those that
confide some Him, that it is a honor to no one else similar
that to be a living instrument of this Providence by the needy
persons, that Jesus pushes condescension as far as considering
like makes to Him even what is made in favor of the smallest
created, as us, to his/her/its picture and resemblance doesn't
have anything to arrange to God's love as the detachment of
goods, operated in the exercise of the charity and the beneficence.
It is the means to your range to reproduce in you the ideal
of poverty of these two seraphic souls that is holy François
and holy Claire of foundation.
God's love
Nature of the evangelical and seraphic poverty
October 7, 1941
The evangelical and seraphic poverty is an act of faith in
the Providence. She/it sees God's action in the creatures
and sign to putting in Him his/her/its confidence; for the
purpose of the soul it is a revealed truth that it is necessary
to count solely on God's grace and there to correspond; for
the purpose of the body, as food, the garment, the table setting,
the Revelation orders to help itself/themselves by work and
the recourse towards the neighbor, without one stops for it
leaning on the Providence of God. Unfortunately when it is
about obtaining the necessary to the subsistence, the men
are minded to count only on them; beyond the tendency to the
greed, to lust, to the injustice towards the neighbor. In
the goal to correct this bad tendency, it is necessary to
call on the virtue of poverty that, for the bread of the body
as for the bread of the soul, sign to count less on oneself
that on our Father of the heaven, This faith in the Providence
has almost infinite degrees. The highest degrees require a
detachment that is not anymore from the earth; it is the ideal
that François of foundation achieved; it is the one
that he/it also proposes to his/her/its disciples and to his/her/its
imitators.
Saint François had the originality to want to live
a voluntary detachment going until begging. Of rich that he/it
was he/it became poor after his/her/its spoliation before
the bishop, and, in opposition to what one sees at the humans,
he/it made of his/its poverty a topic of glory: he/it wanted
to copy his/her/its Divine Mr. born in a stall and naked death
on the cross; all it asked for a heroic faith that made a
sign of contradiction of it in the middle of his/her/its fellow
citizens, all as Jesus in Nazareth.
But when this poverty had attracted him disciples of the two
sexes, the originality of his/her/its thought was again a
lot bigger. He/it wanted to establish his/her/its spiritual
families of the Miners and the Clarisseses on the bases of
the most absolute poverty; nonrevenue stationary, in direct
dependence of God and the neighbor for the least necessities,
without even the use of money. One understands that Rome hesitated
before giving his/her/its approval, and even after this approval
one explains itself that he not only met the opposition in
the world of the simple people but especially of the literate
and thinkers. The opposition was such that it will lead later
to struggles remained famous in the history of the university
of Paris, of Sorbonne, and known coin the name of "Quarrel
of the Begging Orders". It was to the very principle
of the absolute poverty that one took itself of it; he/it
is going without saying that these scientists had the pretension
to stop François from applying it to a grouping as
well as to the individuals. Their argument could be summarized
in some words: "If some individuals push the madness
as far as stripping itself/themselves of all to impose itself/themselves
then the task humiliating to beg, free to them. But to want
to erect this liberty in principle to spread it to the groupings
and by there to clutter beggar's society that lives to the
hook of others, is a non sense that it is not necessary to
let accredit itself/themselves and that is opposed to the
revelation. »
Whatever one said, the Begging Orders have had victory and
history proved that the church was right. Since seven centuries
the Seraphic order subsisted well that established on bases
that are a challenge to the human reason, but that are a sublime
faith act in the Providence of God, It is an obvious proof
that, in God's intentions, there are means to rise to such
a degree of detachment and trustworthy in God in the groupings
as in the individuals, and that God, according to Jesus' promise,
maque not to give the addition of the subsistence to those
that look above all for kingdom of the heaven."
In some surroundings one shouts to the scandal because apostles
of the absolute detachment let some families enter into this
way. I know some that dedicate to the poor people the immediate
surplus of their incomes. The spouse and the wife encourage
themselves to such a generosity and they train their children
to a similar mind of charity and devotion. Those hardly think
about saving for the bad days, but by love of God and the
neighbor, they give way admirably in Providence of God. They
miss to the prudence according to the flesh and even to the
first degree of supernatural prudence that counsels to hoard
here below, but they know how to rise to add it of the divine
prudence that says to accumulate some treasures in the sky
"where nor the rust doesn't gnaw the thieves steal".
This conduct is the fruit of the highest Christian wisdom,
"Make that that must, says a proverb come what may."
The faith is a jump in the emptiness, an abandonment perfects
to the solicitude of our Father of the heaven, that takes
care of his/her/its children, for the body as for the soul,
when they give Him the opportunity to exercise his/her/its
Providence freely to their consideration.
Very dear patients, these considerations of philosophical
and spiritual order should help you to understand the necessity
of the voluntary poverty to raise you in God's love.
You will seize of as much better these deep truths that you
will exercise yourselves from now on to detach you gradually
of goods of this world by love for God; recall yourselves
this feature of François' life before his/her/its conversion.
One day he/it had refused alms to a poor that asked for God's
love, because he/it was entire to a customer's service in
his/her/its father's store. The worry of the terrestrial goods
removed it for now to the worry of God and that that can please
to him. But he/it immediately recovers while wondering that
this poor asked in the name of God for what he/it would not
have refused, if for it was asked in the name of a big of
the earth. He/it ran by the poor and he/it punishes himself/itself
of his/her/its faith lack by one double alms.
For you, is not you he/it happened not to a lot of times to
refuse alms asked in the name of God? Did you know how to
recapture you like François to the thought that what
was refused to a needy person, is it hidden Jesus' in this
poor that you had refused it? Regret therefore as him your
greed and your callousness; and take the firm resolution to
exercise the beneficence for God's love.
lack of faith by one double alms.
For you, is not you he/it happened not to a lot of times to
refuse alms asked in the name of God? Have-vous su to
recapture you like François to the thought that this
qui était refused to a needy person, this est à
hidden Jesus in this poor that you had refused it? Regret
donc comme him your greed and your callousness; and,
take the firm resolution to exercise the beneficence for the
love of DieuL'amour of God
Nature of the evangelical and seraphic poverty
October 7, 1941
The evangelical and seraphic poverty is an act of faith in
the Providence. She/it sees God's action in the creatures
and sign to putting in Him his/her/its confidence; for the
purpose of the soul it is a revealed truth that it is necessary
to count solely on God's grace and there to correspond; for
the purpose of the body, as food, the garment, the table setting,
the Revelation orders to help itself/themselves by work and
the recourse towards the neighbor, without one stops for it
leaning on the Providence of God. Unfortunately when it is
about obtaining the necessary to the subsistence, the men
are minded to count only on them; beyond the tendency to the
greed, to lust, to the injustice towards the neighbor. In
the goal to correct this bad tendency, it is necessary to
call on the virtue of poverty that, for the bread of the body
as for the bread of the soul, sign to count less on oneself
that on our Father of the heaven, This faith in the Providence
has almost infinite degrees. The highest degrees require a
detachment that is not anymore from the earth; it is the ideal
that François of foundation achieved; it is the one
that he/it also proposes to his/her/its disciples and to his/her/its
imitators.
Saint François had the originality to want to live
a voluntary detachment going until begging. Of rich that he/it
was he/it became poor after his/her/its spoliation before
the bishop, and, in opposition to what one sees at the humans,
he/it made of his/its poverty a topic of glory: he/it wanted
to copy his/her/its Divine Mr. born in a stall and naked death
on the cross; all it asked for a heroic faith that made a
sign of contradiction of it in the middle of his/her/its fellow
citizens, all as Jesus in Nazareth.
But when this poverty had attracted him disciples of the two
sexes, the originality of his/her/its thought was again a
lot bigger. He/it wanted to establish his/her/its spiritual
families of the Miners and the Clarisseses on the bases of
the most absolute poverty; nonrevenue stationary, in direct
dependence of God and the neighbor for the least necessities,
without even the use of money. One understands that Rome hesitated
before giving his/her/its approval, and even after this approval
one explains itself that he not only met the opposition in
the world of the simple people but especially of the literate
and thinkers. The opposition was such that it will lead later
to struggles remained famous in the history of the university
of Paris, of Sorbonne, and known coin the name of "Quarrel
of the Begging Orders". It was to the very principle
of the absolute poverty that one took itself of it; he/it
is going without saying that these scientists had the pretension
to stop François from applying it to a grouping as
well as to the individuals. Their argument could be summarized
in some words: "If some individuals push the madness
as far as stripping itself/themselves of all to impose itself/themselves
then the task humiliating to beg, free to them. But to want
to erect this liberty in principle to spread it to the groupings
and by there to clutter beggar's society that lives to the
hook of others, is a non sense that it is not necessary to
let accredit itself/themselves and that is opposed to the
revelation. »
Whatever one said, the Begging Orders have had victory and
history proved that the church was right. Since seven centuries
the Seraphic order subsisted well that established on bases
that are a challenge to the human reason, but that are a sublime
faith act in the Providence of God, It is an obvious proof
that, in God's intentions, there are means to rise to such
a degree of detachment and trustworthy in God in the groupings
as in the individuals, and that God, according to Jesus' promise,
maque not to give the addition of the subsistence to those
that look above all for kingdom of the heaven."
In some surroundings one shouts to the scandal because apostles
of the absolute detachment let some families enter into this
way. I know some that dedicate to the poor people the immediate
surplus of their incomes. The spouse and the wife encourage
themselves to such a generosity and they train their children
to a similar mind of charity and devotion. Those hardly think
about saving for the bad days, but by love of God and the
neighbor, they give way admirably in Providence of God. They
miss to the prudence according to the flesh and even to the
first degree of supernatural prudence that counsels to hoard
here below, but they know how to rise to add it of the divine
prudence that says to accumulate some treasures in the sky
"where nor the rust doesn't gnaw the thieves steal".
This conduct is the fruit of the highest Christian wisdom,
"Make that that must, says a proverb come what may."
The faith is a jump in the emptiness, an abandonment perfects
to the solicitude of our Father of the heaven, that takes
care of his/her/its children, for the body as for the soul,
when they give Him the opportunity to exercise his/her/its
Providence freely to their consideration.
Very dear patients, these considerations of philosophical
and spiritual order should help you to understand the necessity
of the voluntary poverty to raise you in God's love.
You will seize of as much better these deep truths that you
will exercise yourselves from now on to detach you gradually
of goods of this world by love for God; recall yourselves
this feature of François' life before his/her/its conversion.
One day he/it had refused alms to a poor that asked for God's
love, because he/it was entire to a customer's service in
his/her/its father's store. The worry of the terrestrial goods
removed it for now to the worry of God and that that can please
to him. But he/it immediately recovers while wondering that
this poor asked in the name of God for what he/it would not
have refused, if for it was asked in the name of a big of
the earth. He/it ran by the poor and he/it punishes himself/itself
of his/her/its faith lack by one double alms.
For you, is not you he/it happened not to a lot of times to
refuse alms asked in the name of God? Did you know how to
recapture you like François to the thought that what
was refused to a needy person, is it hidden Jesus' in this
poor that you had refused it? Regret therefore as him your
greed and your callousness; and take the firm resolution to
exercise the beneficence for God's love.
lack of faith by one double alms.
For you, is not you he/it happened not to a lot of times to
refuse alms asked in the name of God? Have-vous su to
recapture you like François to the thought that this
qui était refused to a needy person, this est à
hidden Jesus in this poor that you had refused it? Regret
donc comme him your greed and your callousness; and,
take the firm resolution to exercise the beneficence for God's
love
God's love
Poverty becomes an ideal
September 18, 1941
Here it is how starts the Sacrum Commercium, poetic song of
an unknown author that celebrates the mystical nuptials of
the Bx. François of foundation with Lady Poverty: "Between
the noble and main virtues that prepare to God a home in the
man's conscience and show the way the most excellent and surest
to go to Him, the holy Poverty prevails over all other and
has particular stocks to the universal consideration; because
she/it is the foundation and the guard of all virtues, and
merit for this reason to carry queen's name. If they are established
on this strong basis as the rock, the other virtues don't
have to fear the coming down of rains, the damages of the
flooding, and the ruin coming from the violence of winds.
Here is, why, in his/her/its desire to operate the salute
on earth, liked it of a special dilection God's Son, Lord
of the virtues and King of glory. »
Of this virtue, yet in horror to the world and to the human
nature, François of foundation was in love since the
beginning of his/her/its conversion. At the time of his/her/its
spoliation before the bishop of foundation, he/it had the
intuition of his/her/its excellence and he/it appreciated
it in direct reason of the terrifying renouncements that she/it
requires, following the conquest of his/her/its first disciple,
his/her/its convictions didn't miss to consolidate itself/themselves.
They became evidently the unique ideal of his/her/its life.
A short time after the episode that wins Bernard of Quintavalle
to the practice of the evangelical poverty, a Ph.D. in law
of the university of Bologna, Pierre Cathani, heard the call
of the grace and wanted to stand also him under François'
conduct. This new master was one is not able to happier to
see a scholarly man, disposed to follow the simple ways of
the évangélique.Néanmoins poverty, as
he wanted to fade away in all and to let to the Lord himself
the care to direct his/her/its new disciples, he agreed with
Pierre and Bernard that the following day they would be going
to hear the Mass to the church Saint-Nicolas and that after
having prayed religiously they would ask God to show his/her/its
will to the opening of the book of the gospel.
All was made as agreed. To the fixed moment, in presence of
his/her/its mates, François opened the book at random.
His/her/its eyes fell on these lines of Matthieu saint, 19,21,:
" If you want to be perfected, go, sell what you have,
and give it to the poor people, so you will accumulate some
treasures in the heaven; come then and follow me. "--He/it
opened the book a second time and read these lines of Luc
saint, s9,3,: "Don't take anything for your journey,
nor stick, nor besace, nor bread, nor money, don't keep two
clothes. " - He/it opened for the third time and read:
"If someone wants to walk to my continuation, that he/it
gives up himself, that he/it takes his/its cross and that
he/it follows me. " (St. Mathieu, 16,24) TO these words,
François crying of joy turned toward his disciples
and says: "My brothers, there are life and the rule that
must be ours and those of all those that will want to join
us. Go therefore, accomplish the command that you have just
heard."
During the public distribution of Bernard's goods a typical
fact arrived that reveals François' mind admirably.
There were among the helpers a canon of Silvester's name.
Seeing that money was given to the poor people with full hands,
it was taken of lust. He/it advanced to ask for François
his/her/its due: of the stones that he/it had given up for
the repair of Saint-Damien and for which he/it had not received
anything. Without hesitating one instant, François,
took a handful of currency and threw it with contempt in the
besace of the poor miser. This revealing gesture opened him
the eyes and made it go back in himself. To the view of the
absolute detachment of these men, he/it understood his/its
squalid greed and stricken with remorse was going shortly
after to ask François with the forgiveness of his/her/its
mistake honor to arrange itself/themselves to the number of
his/her/its disciples.
What new mentality in this century where one saw to increase
the struggles of the feudalism! To argue of the temporal goods
the Lords delivered himself with impunity a war without thank
you and made participate their vassals, serfs and peasants
there. In this society, divided because of the riches, François
presents himself/itself in liberator while recalling the evangelical
message: by his/her/its gestures more that by his/her/its
words, he/it despises wealth, he/it flees it like the biggest
of the misfortunes, he/it distributes it with a quick satisfaction
to those that are deprived some and lacks the necessary. Since
the time of the holy Fathers where most fervid left all to
populate the deserts, the world had not been control of such
a detachment; he was some also first amazed and he/it is not
astonishing that his/her/its first transaction was to want
to implore the influence of it by the contempt, the opposition,
a persecution more or less veiled.
Nevertheless the light of the grace was stronger than darkness
of the passion and prejudices. She/it was so sincerely glaring
in the life of François income to the Lord, that she/it
attracted him the entirely won adepts as him to the idea to
like God, to the point to sacrifice him not only in mind but
also in truth all goods of this world, reason of so many pains
among the men.
In this century who proposes to the men an ideal without-God
and arrange them currently in two hostile camps to the holds
in an indescribable slaughter for the possession of wealth
and the scepters of the domination, would not the Christian
and seraphic poverty be the panacea to all pains that afflict
the individuals and the peoples? Since God prevails over his
work to the point that one must say: My God, my All, why give
itself/themselves so much pain to possess goods, reason of
so many misfortunes? He/it is not worth better to despise
them like François, and to be content with the necessary
to the subsistence? ‘That serves to the man to win the
whole universe, if he/it comes to lose his/her/its ' soul"
says Jesus?
It is not therefore without reason that poverty, in opposition
to the universal feeling, is called the queen of the virtues
and that François makes an ideal of life of it.
Among the listeners of the perpetual Novena to Antoine saint,
there are certainly a lot of poor people, in addition to the
problems caused by the illness, age, the infirmity, that has
to endure the numerous deprivations that poverty brings. If
you are enlivened of the mind of François of foundation,
to the leu to pity you, it would be necessary to rejoice you,
because she/it gives a feature of resemblance with God's son,
made man,: he/it is born in a trough of animals, he/it knew
the bites of the cold weather and the hunger, died on Mount
Calvary, has been buried in a sepulcher of loan. After these
examples of absolute poverty and perfect destitution, let's
go - to pity us us of the sufferings and renouncements that
impose us our modern civilization, friend of the luxury and
the comfort! Bless the Lord of that that he/it procures us
more to look thus like God rather than to the men. The honor
to look like God's Son makes man is worth the pain well to
lack the necessary; the humiliation to ask for it the neighbor
by begging and even the terrifying boredom to have to undergo
the refusal of the similar.
"Such is the excellence of the very high poverty, said
holy François, that she/it establishes heir and king
of kingdom of the heaven. »
The liturgical feasts that we celebrate this week must help
the patients to combine more the value of the suffering always:
Sunday, it was the exaltation of the holy Cross, yesterday
it was the feast of Our Lady of the Seven-Pains and tomorrow,
it is the feast of the Stigmata of François saint of
foundation. Each of these feasts exalts in its way the necessity,
the glory, the effects of the cross and would like to bring
the believers not only to not to complain about their crosses
but to search for them like a kindness worthy of desire. That
the patients at least keep that God's love only gets himself/itself
to this price, and that, since the Lord puts the cross to
their range, they must seize it with greed, and to wait in
return for a growth of love of God in their heart. Make yours
a prayer that will prepare you admirably to the role of love
victim, it is the prayer of François of foundation
that was worth him to carry in his/her/its flesh the Stigmata
of the Redemption; notice the sublimity of this prayer well.
Prayer
"" oh Lord Jesus, there are two graces that I ask
you to grant me before my death; the first is that, as much
as it will be able to itself I feel the sufferings that you,
oh my soft Jesus, you should have undergone in your cruel
passion: the second, that I feel in my heart as much as it
will be able to itself, this excessive love of which you burn,
you, God's Son, and that drove you to endure so many pains
gladly for us, miserable sinners. »
And you, oh big Antoine saint, thank you for interventions
all powerful that you multiply in favor of those that puts
in you their confidence. Give to all spirit of poverty, inspire
more generosity and compassion in favor of the needy persons,
and get - us to grow every day in this divine love that makes
if well to forget the whole remains, that returns happy to
endure the deprivations and pains to Jesus' example for the
glorification of our Father of Heaven. So either him
God's
love
Poverty and the real Christianity.
The detachment of that that is not of God, it is the religion
in mind and in truth that our Notre-Seigneur came to teach
on the earth. She/it doesn't consist in a pure formalism that
hardly changes the heart; but, by the light of the Revelation
and the grace of the sacraments, she/it raises the soul on
a supernatural plan, harmonize the bodily and spiritual activities
to the requirements to want it divine, model them on those
of the man-God, and in a word restores all in the Christ.
This real Christianity, François reminds it of living
way in his/her/its life and propose it to the believers in
his/her/its three Orders, always flourishing after seven centuries
of existence. For the laymen in particular that want to become
his/her/its children by the third order, this Christianity
aims to compénétrer the human activity until
in the least details of life and to restore in the Christ
the individual, the family, the profession and even the politics.
- It is a complete Christianity that François demand
to his/her/its children, whatever is their function in the
church or the society, and no an edulcorated Christianity
that composes before the renouncements to impose to the nature.
One is tempted in this century to reduce the religion in vain
formulas. Invite a lot of men of the world to one closed retirement.
- I don't have need of it, me, one retorts. I go to the Mass
every Sunday and I make my Easter without missing it.
To his/her/its eyes, the whole religion consists in outside
practices that ally very well with the attachment to the riches,
to the pleasures, to honors. He/it won't even come them to
the idea that the Christian faith has other requirements.
- And this pain is excessively general in the world, That
that bad is, the instructed class in is often the more attack,
It built herself/itself an easy religion, that doesn't ask
for too many sacrifices, that flatter the pride, the sensuality,
the heap of goods, in a word a bourgeois Christianity that
begins to make itself/themselves bad press among the Communists
and the enemies of the vain religiosity.
Those of fact, some believers that they show off in their
social environment, are actually the pagans, who have Christian
that the name. They are attached to all something else that
to God and they are ready to betray It on the least occasion.
Here is some of the irrefutable proofs; - one first, it is
that they will let the neighbor in misery in their sides,
without condescending to make the smallest sacrifice for their
helpful being,; they have all sorts of apology to elude the
law of the charity - A second proof, it is that they will
fall in the lust, the onanism, the adultery, the intemperance,
under pretext that it is the fashion in this social environment,
that c ‘is difficult to dominate itself/themselves,
that God is not a savage, that he doesn't take into account
these weaknesses, - A third proof finally, it is that they
will take themselves of it to the representatives of the cult,
when the faith will come to thwart their judgment or that
they will tempt to want to justify itself/themselves by some
scandal of priest. - In their heart of hearts these worldly
weaken before the smallest temptation, because they don't
know how to renounce themselves for God; and in time of persecution,
they would imitate Catholics of Spain and Mexico well, while
disowning their faith before God's enemies. For these Christian,
it is not God who counts in their thought and their feeling,
these are the riches, the pleasures, honors, and, in the goal
to procure itself/themselves them or to avoid itself/themselves
of the problems, they sacrifice God's love, while ignoring
the requirements convenient of the faith.
The detachment at least in mind, the seraphic poverty asks
for a different attitude. She/it inspires to the soul to recognize
God for the all of life and to train to act consequently in
the detail of the existence. All acts must suffer from this
primordial truth; in the intention at least virtual they must
be inspired of God and must be oriented toward God. Either
you ate, or you drank, whatever you make, make all for God's
biggest glory. " says holy Paul, I Horn., X 31. He/it
is not question of formulas to recite, nor of periodic exercises
of piety, but well of constant thought that we depend directly
on God and that our whole life must proclaim this whole dependence.
He/it is some thus actually, when always and everywhere we
like God above all and that, to fight in us the triple concupiscence
that can hinder this sovereign love, we value God this language
more or less:
1 - - Lord, the goods of which you established me the steward,
(I speak here in the name of the laymen won to God), all these
goods, I say, are Yours and, not to forget it myself, for
your poor people and the needs of the cult,; and this sacrifice
I make it because my love for incites me to You to give You
what I am useful, what I am necessary even.
2 the body that I hold your goodness and to that my soul infuses
life, I want to give him the necessary food, without cramming
it. The married people could add: without being slave of the
sensuality, I want to make to multiply the elected on earth
serve it; I even want that the human love helps me to know
the appeals of the divine love better.
3 - finally, Lord, my spiritual soul as You but bound to a
body must prefer the light that comes of the faith to the
knowledge that come of the senses and apply to make pass in
my whole life that for that You ask me in the revelation,
when it would be the sacrifice of goods, of the my joys, of
my very life.
If you want to establish your souls in these arrangements
that are yet only the real Christianity, you need prayers
and exercises of piety. The actual prayer raises the soul
toward God, if it comes of a heart in love of God rather than
of a memory filled of formulas. The exercises of piété,comme
the aid to the Mass and the company of the sacraments, deserve
graces of light and generosity, if they are accomplished with
respect and devotion. But so that so be it an interior habit
needs to prefer God to all and acts in this sense that maintain
the soul in the feeling of God's presence and in the desire
to please to Him.
 What
of more useful to this end, that to train to God's thought
and to multiply if well the acts of preference of God, that
he/it never comes to the idea to sacrifice His/her/its good
pleasure to a vain satisfaction coming of created it! A means
to manage to think often about God, it is to make a sign of
cross to his/her/its wakening; to move away all preoccupation
at the time of the prayer; to raise toward God his/her/its
heart in front of the contradictions to ask for grace and
advice; to see His/her/its infinite perfections in the created
beings and His/her/its picture in the neighbor; to accomplish
his/her/its duties of state with the purity of intention that
the Christ would bring Him-even to our place. A means to prefer
God always, it is to compare It to what is the subject of
the temptation and to tell him every time; My God, it is You
that I prefer, I want to accomplish Your holy volonté,dut
her to deprive me of all good, of my honor, of my very life.
‘non mea volontas, sed killed trusted! " said Notre-Seigneur
in the garden of the Olivier. The same language imposes itself
to all Christian in the least details of the existence, therefore
in his/her/its personal, domestic, professional, social life,
politics, national and same international.
The conscience is one, to some task that one is used, and
it is God who must inform it. ‘The soul is the throne
of wisdom, said holy Antoine, and the Christian wisdom must
be the life of the soul as the soul is the life of the body.
In other words, the fully lived Christianity is here below"
‘the man's supreme realization.
Very dear listeners, the poverty for that the gospel and the
mind of François saint ask, inspire the attachment
to God and the detachment of that that is likely to decrease
this love. If you take some means to be in love of God, as
François, his/her/its love will recall you His/her/its
presence and will determine generous resolutions that will
allow you to translate your faith in the illness, poverty,
a spouse's disloyalty, a child's misconduct, the slanders,
the calumnies, the injuries, the strokes,.
Your religion, not more that the one of the worldly, must
not consist reluctantly in so-called formulas while the heart
and far from God by the revolt or the whisper; even when these
formulas are the rosaries, of the paths of cross, a novena
Antoine's saint. Your religion must make accept you with resignation
otherwise with joy the renouncements asked by Notre-Seigneur,
they were the most terrifying to the nature. At first as to
the last rank of the social ladder, Christianity imposes God's
viewpoint it was cruellest of the crucifixions. It was the
religion of the Christ and François; it must be ours
in the world as in community
I finish by a quote taken in the rule that holy François
gave to his/her/its children of the First Order. She/it applies
to those of the Third Order and all supporters that want to
become sincerely poor in mind, as Notre-Seigneur requires
it, "such is the excellence of the very high poverty,
who establishes you, my very dear brothers, heirs and kings
of kingdom of the heaven, return poor people of all things,
but sublime in virtues, That it is your sharing, because it
drives in the earth of the living. " Has how the detachment
of that that is not God drives to the practice of the real
religion.Je finishes by a quote taken in the rule that holy
François gave to his/her/its children of the First
Order. She/it applies to those of the Third Order and all
supporters that want to become sincerely poor in mind, as
Notre-Seigneur requires it, "such is the excellence of
the very high poverty, who establishes you, my very dear brothers,
heirs and kings of kingdom of the heaven, return poor people
of all things, but sublime in virtues, That it is your sharing,
because it drives in the earth of the living. " Has how
the detachment of that that is not God drives to the practice
of the real religion.
God's love
The seraphic poverty for the Christian of the century.
October 14, 1941
The seraphic poverty could suit the rigor to individuals took
separately and to a greatly constituted religious family whose
members would like to put in practice to the letter the holy
Gospel of Notre-Seigneur. But a faith that inspires to strip
itself/themselves of all his/her/its goods to give way in
Providence, could not become an ideal of life to propose to
all Christian; François understood it as soon as he
lives to flow the recruits and that he noticed at the married
people the same desire all to leave to enter in his/her/its
Order. "Wait before putting your good intentions to execution,
tells them François; I will think of you and, God's
grace helping, I will find you a kind of life that will allow
you to achieve your desires of perfection without left, of
the century. " He/it thought from then on of the foundation
of a third order for the secular; from there the idea of his/her/its
Third party-Order.
François preached the detachment of that that is not
God. He/it had wisdom to prefer it to goods of the fortune,
the body and the soul; but he/it was far from despising for
it the property, the marriage, the science of created it,
as such some heretics of the time the Vaudoises, the Albigeoises,
the Cathars, that, to confound the abuses that one made to
some, condemned them without distinction. On the contrary,
he/it had a deep respect for God's work and he/it made each
of the beings called to the existence like a scale to rise
to Him. He/it saw them so to speak with God's œil, and
he/it wanted to teach to the men to serve itself/themselves
of it to his/her/its example like an echelon to come closer
of God. So that so be it, the man only has to submit to see
God in created it, the reason in the effect, his/her/its infinite
perfections in the specimen of perfection that falls under
the eyes; he/it becomes then easy to him not to use the beings
that according to the views of the author of all thing. Goods
to obtain the necessary to the subsistence and no the luxury;
the marriage no to satisfy his/her/its passions, but to make
itself/themselves a more precise idea of God's love and to
assist his/her/its intentions in this holy institution; the
science to make all to serve according to the ends wanted
of God.
This position of François' mind is like a return to
the original justice: she/it makes God centers it of the universe
and offers to model the activities of the men on those of
God's Son makes man, our blessed Lord Jesus. From then on,
according to the language of Paul saint. ‘those that
possess, are as not possessing; those that have a woman, are
as while not having; and those that use things of this world,
are as while not using. " (I Horn., VII,30.) what comes
back to say: Does ‘TO what act as to become attached
here below to something? For example to goods that the rust
alters, to a spouse of whom the death separates, to a supposed
independence, as if one was able to be sufficient itself to
oneself? " "The face of this world passes. "
Has God who stays only and he/it must be the all of our life.
An attachment to created it is only legitimate insofar as
she/it contributes to bring closer God, while helping towards
best to know, to like and to serve.
Such is the mind that must apply to seize the supporters who
get to François' school, to understand the program
of life that he/it proposes to the secular as to the religious.
He/it submits the religious to the vœux of poverty, chastity
and obedience, while ordering the detachment in mind and makes
some goods of the fortune, the body and the soul for God's
love; he/it submits the laymen to the mind of the vœux
of the religious, while only obliging to the detachment in
mind of the temporal, bodily and spiritual goods, to get God's
same love. For the first he/it requires the total sacrifice
of that that is not God; for the second he/it requires a detachment
of the heart that the property, the use of the marriage and
the acquirement of the knowledge necessary to the social life
hardly destroy. Of there for the secular a worry to constitute
them a régime of life that raises the soul toward God
and help to become aware of the obligations that iI imposes
in the society. It is this mind rather than the letter that
it is necessary to consider in the rule of the Third Order
as in those of the First and the Second Order and it is he
that makes some seize the depth and the efficiency, to guide
in the way of the perfection.
The rule of the Third Order wants to activate the relations
of the soul with our Father of the heaven, by all stimulants
that it gives to the piety: officie of the Paternoster, prayers
to the meals, soul searching in the evening, aid to the Mass
so possible with receipt of the Eucharist. The soul that submits
benevolently to such a régime, takes conscience of
the quickly all of God and the man's nothing and lean more
on God in all necessities of life. - The rule of the Third
Order orders the domestic and social relations according to
the requirements of the love of God and the neighbor: She/it
asks to avoid the luxury that flatters the pride, the social
life that attach vainly to the pleasures of this world, the
bad readings that perversion the mind and the heart; she/it
recommends the charity that opens the eyes on the neighbor's
needs, the will that avoids the contestations in the families,
the good example in all time, the justice and concord with
all and each; and especially she/it puts in guard against
the tendencies of the nature preaching the penitence and the
moderation in the use of the things. In short in these different
prescriptions, it is a detachment in mind of everything that
can encourage the triple concupiscence of which speaks holy
Jean: concupiscence of the eyes, concupiscence of the flesh
and pride of life.
In a letter to the three Generals of the Families Franciscan,
Conventual and Nasturtium, Pope Magpie X said September 8,
1912: "Our recommendation has for main object to bring
those that donned the liveries of the penitence, to not to
lose a view the picture of their very Founding saint that
they will endeavor to reproduce at the risk of seeing to vanish
the although one could wait for some. "To the testimony
of Bonaventure saint, God put especially holy François
in charge of preaching the penitence, to detach the men of
the love of this world to convert it to the one of the divine
Crucified. It is to obey this mandate that, stopping carrying
in his/her/its flesh Jesus' mortification, he/it excites all
sides, by a marvelous impetus, the world-weariness and the
love of the cross,; then he/it undertook by divine inspiration,
to satisfy the multitude greedy with to walk to his/her/its
continuation, without nevertheless to make come it out of
the conditions plain of life in the world. It was the origin
of the Third Order. »
Such is the character of poverty that François proposes
people of the century anxious to rise to a high degree of
perfection in God's love. As made it observe Léon XIII
in his/her/its Constitution Misericors Dei Filius. "the
observance of Christ's precepts is to the basis of the Franciscan
institutions, because their very founding saint didn't have
another goal that to open with them a sort of arena for the
practice more perfected of the Christian life. Definitely
the first two Franciscan Orders pursue an ideal more perfect
and more divine; but they are only accessible to the small
number, that means that to those that received of God the
Grace to aim to the holiness by the practice of the evangelical
advice. But the Third Order is, of by his/her/its nature,
created for the multitude,; the monuments of the past, the
very facts attest the power of his/her/its efficiency to make
penetrate in the mœurs the justice, the integrity, the
religion. " Very dear patients and you all that are to
monitorings, Tertiary or no, I don't want to make jingoism
while holding this language. Franciscan LeTiers-Order is not
family's heritage, it is our mother's spiritual wealth the
Saint Church.
To the example of Crucified it of the Alverne, the eyes fixed
on the crucifix, they will learn to carry their cross following
the Mr.. Far from moaning and to complain, they will unite
their sufferings to his, in atonement of their sins and those
of people that are dear to them and, in return of this mind
of faith and generosity, Jesus himself will use its grace;
He/it will sometimes substitute himself/itself for them and
always He/it will teach them to find "the Yoke of the
very soft Lord and his/her/its light burden. »
God's
love
The seraphic poverty for the Christian of the century.
October 14, 1941
The seraphic poverty could suit the rigor to individuals took
separately and to a greatly constituted religious family whose
members would like to put in practice to the letter the holy
Gospel of Notre-Seigneur. But a faith that inspires to strip
itself/themselves of all his/her/its goods to give way in
Providence, could not become an ideal of life to propose to
all Christian; François understood it as soon as he
lives to flow the recruits and that he noticed at the married
people the same desire all to leave to enter in his/her/its
Order. "Wait before putting your good intentions to execution,
tells them François; I will think of you and, God's
grace helping, I will find you a kind of life that will allow
you to achieve your desires of perfection without left, of
the century. " He/it thought from then on of the foundation
of a third order for the secular; from there the idea of his/her/its
Third party-Order.
François preached the detachment of that that is not
God. He/it had wisdom to prefer it to goods of the fortune,
the body and the soul; but he/it was far from despising for
it the property, the marriage, the science of created it,
as such some heretics of the time the Vaudoises, the Albigeoises,
the Cathars, that, to confound the abuses that one made to
some, condemned them without distinction. On the contrary,
he/it had a deep respect for God's work and he/it made each
of the beings called to the existence like a scale to rise
to Him. He/it saw them so to speak with God's œil, and
he/it wanted to teach to the men to serve itself/themselves
of it to his/her/its example like an echelon to come closer
of God. So that so be it, the man only has to submit to see
God in created it, the reason in the effect, his/her/its infinite
perfections in the specimen of perfection that falls under
the eyes; he/it becomes then easy to him not to use the beings
that according to the views of the author of all thing. Goods
to obtain the necessary to the subsistence and no the luxury;
the marriage no to satisfy his/her/its passions, but to make
itself/themselves a more precise idea of God's love and to
assist his/her/its intentions in this holy institution; the
science to make all to serve according to the ends wanted
of God.
This position of François' mind is like a return to
the original justice: she/it makes God centers it of the universe
and offers to model the activities of the men on those of
God's Son makes man, our blessed Lord Jesus. From then on,
according to the language of Paul saint. ‘those that
possess, are as not possessing; those that have a woman, are
as while not having; and those that use things of this world,
are as while not using. " (I Horn., VII,30.) what comes
back to say: Does ‘TO what act as to become attached
here below to something? For example to goods that the rust
alters, to a spouse of whom the death separates, to a supposed
independence, as if one was able to be sufficient itself to
oneself? " "The face of this world passes. "
Has God who stays only and he/it must be the all of our life.
An attachment to created it is only legitimate insofar as
she/it contributes to bring closer God, while helping towards
best to know, to like and to serve.
Such is the mind that must apply to seize the supporters who
get to François' school, to understand the program
of life that he/it proposes to the secular as to the religious.
He/it submits the religious to the vœux of poverty, chastity
and obedience, while ordering the detachment in mind and makes
some goods of the fortune, the body and the soul for God's
love; he/it submits the laymen to the mind of the vœux
of the religious, while only obliging to the detachment in
mind of the temporal, bodily and spiritual goods, to get God's
same love. For the first he/it requires the total sacrifice
of that that is not God; for the second he/it requires a detachment
of the heart that the property, the use of the marriage and
the acquirement of the knowledge necessary to the social life
hardly destroy. Of there for the secular a worry to constitute
them a régime of life that raises the soul toward God
and help to become aware of the obligations that iI imposes
in the society. It is this mind rather than the letter that
it is necessary to consider in the rule of the Third Order
as in those of the First and the Second Order and it is he
that makes some seize the depth and the efficiency, to guide
in the way of the perfection.
The rule of the Third Order wants to activate the relations
of the soul with our Father of the heaven, by all stimulants
that it gives to the piety: officie of the Paternoster, prayers
to the meals, soul searching in the evening, aid to the Mass
so possible with receipt of the Eucharist. The soul that submits
benevolently to such a régime, takes conscience of
the quickly all of God and the man's nothing and lean more
on God in all necessities of life. - The rule of the Third
Order orders the domestic and social relations according to
the requirements of the love of God and the neighbor: She/it
asks to avoid the luxury that flatters the pride, the social
life that attach vainly to the pleasures of this world, the
bad readings that perversion the mind and the heart; she/it
recommends the charity that opens the eyes on the neighbor's
needs, the will that avoids the contestations in the families,
the good example in all time, the justice and concord with
all and each; and especially she/it puts in guard against
the tendencies of the nature preaching the penitence and the
moderation in the use of the things. In short in these different
prescriptions, it is a detachment in mind of everything that
can encourage the triple concupiscence of which speaks holy
Jean: concupiscence of the eyes, concupiscence of the flesh
and pride of life.
 In
a letter to the three Generals of the Families Franciscan,
Conventual and Nasturtium, Pope Magpie X said September 8,
1912: "Our recommendation has for main object to bring
those that donned the liveries of the penitence, to not to
lose a view the picture of their very Founding saint that
they will endeavor to reproduce at the risk of seeing to vanish
the although one could wait for some. "To the testimony
of Bonaventure saint, God put especially holy François
in charge of preaching the penitence, to detach the men of
the love of this world to convert it to the one of the divine
Crucified. It is to obey this mandate that, stopping carrying
in his/her/its flesh Jesus' mortification, he/it excites all
sides, by a marvelous impetus, the world-weariness and the
love of the cross,; then he/it undertook by divine inspiration,
to satisfy the multitude greedy with to walk to his/her/its
continuation, without nevertheless to make come it out of
the conditions plain of life in the world. It was the origin
of the Third Order. »
Such is the character of poverty that François proposes
people of the century anxious to rise to a high degree of
perfection in God's love. As made it observe Léon XIII
in his/her/its Constitution Misericors Dei Filius. "the
observance of Christ's precepts is to the basis of the Franciscan
institutions, because their very founding saint didn't have
another goal that to open with them a sort of arena for the
practice more perfected of the Christian life. Definitely
the first two Franciscan Orders pursue an ideal more perfect
and more divine; but they are only accessible to the small
number, that means that to those that received of God the
Grace to aim to the holiness by the practice of the evangelical
advice. But the Third Order is, of by his/her/its nature,
created for the multitude,; the monuments of the past, the
very facts attest the power of his/her/its efficiency to make
penetrate in the mœurs the justice, the integrity, the
religion. " Very dear patients and you all that are to
monitorings, Tertiary or no, I don't want to make jingoism
while holding this language. Franciscan LeTiers-Order is not
family's heritage, it is our mother's spiritual wealth the
Saint Church.
To the example of Crucified it of the Alverne, the eyes fixed
on the crucifix, they will learn to carry their cross following
the Mr.. Far from moaning and to complain, they will unite
their sufferings to his, in atonement of their sins and those
of people that are dear to them and, in return of this mind
of faith and generosity, Jesus himself will use its grace;
He/it will sometimes substitute himself/itself for them and
always He/it will teach them to find "the Yoke of the
very soft Lord and his/her/its light burden. »God's
love
The seraphic poverty for the Christian of the century.
October 14, 1941
The seraphic poverty could suit the rigor to individuals took
separately and to a greatly constituted religious family whose
members would like to put in practice to the letter the holy
Gospel of Notre-Seigneur. But a faith that inspires to strip
itself/themselves of all his/her/its goods to give way in
Providence, could not become an ideal of life to propose to
all Christian; François understood it as soon as he
lives to flow the recruits and that he noticed at the married
people the same desire all to leave to enter in his/her/its
Order. "Wait before putting your good intentions to execution,
tells them François; I will think of you and, God's
grace helping, I will find you a kind of life that will allow
you to achieve your desires of perfection without left, of
the century. " He/it thought from then on of the foundation
of a third order for the secular; from there the idea of his/her/its
Third party-Order.
François preached the detachment of that that is not
God. He/it had wisdom to prefer it to goods of the fortune,
the body and the soul; but he/it was far from despising for
it the property, the marriage, the science of created it,
as such some heretics of the time the Vaudoises, the Albigeoises,
the Cathars, that, to confound the abuses that one made to
some, condemned them without distinction. On the contrary,
he/it had a deep respect for God's work and he/it made each
of the beings called to the existence like a scale to rise
to Him. He/it saw them so to speak with God's œil, and
he/it wanted to teach to the men to serve itself/themselves
of it to his/her/its example like an echelon to come closer
of God. So that so be it, the man only has to submit to see
God in created it, the reason in the effect, his/her/its infinite
perfections in the specimen of perfection that falls under
the eyes; he/it becomes then easy to him not to use the beings
that according to the views of the author of all thing. Goods
to obtain the necessary to the subsistence and no the luxury;
the marriage no to satisfy his/her/its passions, but to make
itself/themselves a more precise idea of God's love and to
assist his/her/its intentions in this holy institution; the
science to make all to serve according to the ends wanted
of God.
This position of François' mind is like a return to
the original justice: she/it makes God centers it of the universe
and offers to model the activities of the men on those of
God's Son makes man, our blessed Lord Jesus. From then on,
according to the language of Paul saint. ‘those that
possess, are as not possessing; those that have a woman, are
as while not having; and those that use things of this world,
are as while not using. " (I Horn., VII,30.) what comes
back to say: Does ‘TO what act as to become attached
here below to something? For example to goods that the rust
alters, to a spouse of whom the death separates, to a supposed
independence, as if one was able to be sufficient itself to
oneself? " "The face of this world passes. "
Has God who stays only and he/it must be the all of our life.
An attachment to created it is only legitimate insofar as
she/it contributes to bring closer God, while helping towards
best to know, to like and to serve.
Such is the mind that must apply to seize the supporters who
get to François' school, to understand the program
of life that he/it proposes to the secular as to the religious.
He/it submits the religious to the vœux of poverty, chastity
and obedience, while ordering the detachment in mind and makes
some goods of the fortune, the body and the soul for God's
love; he/it submits the laymen to the mind of the vœux
of the religious, while only obliging to the detachment in
mind of the temporal, bodily and spiritual goods, to get God's
same love. For the first he/it requires the total sacrifice
of that that is not God; for the second he/it requires a detachment
of the heart that the property, the use of the marriage and
the acquirement of the knowledge necessary to the social life
hardly destroy. Of there for the secular a worry to constitute
them a régime of life that raises the soul toward God
and help to become aware of the obligations that iI imposes
in the society. It is this mind rather than the letter that
it is necessary to consider in the rule of the Third Order
as in those of the First and the Second Order and it is he
that makes some seize the depth and the efficiency, to guide
in the way of the perfection.
 The
rule of the Third Order wants to activate the relations of
the soul with our Father of the heaven, by all stimulants
that it gives to the piety: officie of the Paternoster, prayers
to the meals, soul searching in the evening, aid to the Mass
so possible with receipt of the Eucharist. The soul that submits
benevolently to such a régime, takes conscience of
the quickly all of God and the man's nothing and lean more
on God in all necessities of life. - The rule of the Third
Order orders the domestic and social relations according to
the requirements of the love of God and the neighbor: She/it
asks to avoid the luxury that flatters the pride, the social
life that attach vainly to the pleasures of this world, the
bad readings that perversion the mind and the heart; she/it
recommends the charity that opens the eyes on the neighbor's
needs, the will that avoids the contestations in the families,
the good example in all time, the justice and concord with
all and each; and especially she/it puts in guard against
the tendencies of the nature preaching the penitence and the
moderation in the use of the things. In short in these different
prescriptions, it is a detachment in mind of everything that
can encourage the triple concupiscence of which speaks holy
Jean: concupiscence of the eyes, concupiscence of the flesh
and pride of life.
In a letter to the three Generals of the Families Franciscan,
Conventual and Nasturtium, Pope Magpie X said September 8,
1912: "Our recommendation has for main object to bring
those that donned the liveries of the penitence, to not to
lose a view the picture of their very Founding saint that
they will endeavor to reproduce at the risk of seeing to vanish
the although one could wait for some. "To the testimony
of Bonaventure saint, God put especially holy François
in charge of preaching the penitence, to detach the men of
the love of this world to convert it to the one of the divine
Crucified. It is to obey this mandate that, stopping carrying
in his/her/its flesh Jesus' mortification, he/it excites all
sides, by a marvelous impetus, the world-weariness and the
love of the cross,; then he/it undertook by divine inspiration,
to satisfy the multitude greedy with to walk to his/her/its
continuation, without nevertheless to make come it out of
the conditions plain of life in the world. It was the origin
of the Third Order. »
Such is the character of poverty that François proposes
people of the century anxious to rise to a high degree of
perfection in God's love. As made it observe Léon XIII
in his/her/its Constitution Misericors Dei Filius. "the
observance of Christ's precepts is to the basis of the Franciscan
institutions, because their very founding saint didn't have
another goal that to open with them a sort of arena for the
practice more perfected of the Christian life. Definitely
the first two Franciscan Orders pursue an ideal more perfect
and more divine; but they are only accessible to the small
number, that means that to those that received of God the
Grace to aim to the holiness by the practice of the evangelical
advice. But the Third Order is, of by his/her/its nature,
created for the multitude,; the monuments of the past, the
very facts attest the power of his/her/its efficiency to make
penetrate in the mœurs the justice, the integrity, the
religion. " Very dear patients and you all that are to
monitorings, Tertiary or no, I don't want to make jingoism
while holding this language. Franciscan LeTiers-Order is not
family's heritage, it is our mother's spiritual wealth the
Saint Church.
To the example of Crucified it of the Alverne, the eyes fixed
on the crucifix, they will learn to carry their cross following
the Mr.. Far from moaning and to complain, they will unite
their sufferings to his, in atonement of their sins and those
of people that are dear to them and, in return of this mind
of faith and generosity, Jesus himself will use its grace;
He/it will sometimes substitute himself/itself for them and
always He/it will teach them to find "the Yoke of the
very soft Lord and his/her/its light burden. »
God's love
The Letter on the Happiness of the suffering
LETTER ON THE HAPPINESS OF THE SUFFERING.
Here is an excerpt of a letter received in last October. He/it
is an encouragement to the suffering for all souls that are
up against the physical or moral pain.
Montreal, October 23, 1941
R.P.Ferdinand, O.F.M.
To your broadcast radiophonique of last Tuesday, made me smile
you, when you spoke of renouncement. I was well happy to hear
it to the radio this word that frightens the worldly.
Is that step yet the unique means to arrive to the sky? The
cross, the sacrifice, that means the renouncement to everything
that is not for God, there is what drives us toward Him. In
struggle with a stubborn illness, oppressive, often I wonder
why God granted me. Why me have-t--does he/it make grant of
one so big favor? If the worldly knew the whole happiness
that a cross procures, they would make some novenas so that
the Very High sends of it to them. It is the cross that would
allow them to return to Jesus what they received some.
The Christian that is familiarized itself with the teachings
of the faith and that thinks a little to what he/it owes to
God, knows that he/it is never alone at the hours of test.
Illuminated and sustained by this thought he/it must follow
his/its master therefore costs that costs, to take the narrow
road, the one that drives to Mount Calvary. To climb the mountain
of the perfection, it is necessary to pass by the path that
Jesus followed. He/it tells it to us in the holy Gospel: If
you want to be perfected, sell what you have, give the price
of it to the poor people and am I. Since God invites us to
follow It, we don't have anything to fear. He/it will be there
to sustain us, He/it is will make our Cyrénéen.
As one will advance, one will feel the quick satisfaction
to come closer of Him. " L.B.
And she/it continues on this tone in several pages.
Thank you to this victim of love of the beautiful example
of generosity that she/it gives to all souls felt to monitorings.
They can teach to this example to bless the Lord and to walk
to his/her/its continuation in the way that drives to Mount
Calvary, without any complaint!
Prayer
oh good Antoine saint, that, as the Seraphic Father, didn't
have any other ambitions on earth that of God initialed all
to leave to arrive to the love, give us to understand the
big law of the detachment of everything that is not God and
the necessity to agree to all sacrifices that he waits for
our love better. Since the love doesn't calculate and always
believes itself in debt with the Beloved, teach us to not
to calculate with God: to give Him this ' qu He/it asks in
the poor use of the things and the beneficence towards the
neighbor; to satisfy us of the necessary in food, the garment
and to sit on it, to rejoice us at the bottom of the heart,
if the Lord condescends to associate us to His/her/its sufferings.
- OH big Saint, use your powerful intercession by God to deserve
us to all this spiritual favor of preference to all other
that we solicit., what imports above all, more that success,
health, and the satisfaction of the desires, it is that God
is glorified in us and by us forever. So either him.
Kindness of the Suffering
(Testimony of Adolf Ratté)
Per viam dolorosam - has about ten years that I am sick, but
it is hardly only since four years that he/it was pleasing
to Notre-Seigneur to make others apply me the profit of all
my sufferings. Before…. He/it had not come me again
to the mind to conform me more to the Passion of the divine
Mr. while using my tests like an inexhaustible treasure for
the relief and the neighbor's acquisition. This light I was
given one evening where I read the beginning of the IIe Epistle
of Paul saint to the Corinthians. Here it is: "Blessed
either Christ who comforts us in all our tribulations so that
we can, us-same, to comfort those that are under the weight
of all sorts of pains also. Because, as the Christ's sufferings
abounds us of it, it is also by the Christ that our consolation
abounds. If we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and
your salute; if we are comforted, it is for your consolation…"
Encouragement to the suffering by Jesus' example, according
to Paul saint. This morning, I read a passage of Paul saint
that is one encouragement for all people in the test. You
will find it in his/her/its Epistle to the Hebrews, hp. XII,
1-5.
Here it is:
' TO the example of our precursors in the faith, let's reject
everything that weighed us and the sin that envelops us; and
let's run with perseverance in the career that is us open,
the eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and the consumer of the
faith, him that, instead of the joy that he/it had before
him, scornful ignominy, endured the cross and sat down to
the right of God's throne. Consider the one that supported
against his/her/its person one so big contradiction on behalf
of the sinners, in order to not to let you cut down by the
discouragement. You didn't resist again until blood in the
struggle against the sin. »
What luminous words for all people felt to monitorings! Who
that you are, poor people, sick, infirm, wives of drunkard
or adultery, spouse of unfaithful, talkative or neglectful
women, victims of injuries, injustice or calumny, that that
you are, I say, know how to resist the sin that envelops you
and solicit you, walk generously in the career that is yours,
the eyes fixed on Jesus the author and the consumer of the
faith., In your conscience. He/it reveals you what you have
to make in the situation where the Providence placed you and
He gives the example of a generosity to all the test. He supported
on behalf of the sinners of which we are a contradiction that
was worth him the sufferings and the ignominies of the cross.
He/it incites you by his/her/its passion to not to let you
win by the discouragement. Some cook that the crosses of the
pain are, of the abandonment, the contempt, the injuries,
the strokes, they are not even comparable to the crucifixion.
As says holy Paul: ‘You didn't resist again until blood
in your struggle against the sin."
It is not necessary to let you to floor by near that forms
a league with Satan to stop God from reigning in your soul.
Whatever he/it costs to some, you must remain faithful against
all. Look at Jesus who precedes you with his/her/its cross
and like good Cyrénéenses or the faithful Veronicas,
follow it with yours waiting for his/her/its merciful condescension
the help of his/her/its grace.
Prayer
oh good Antoine saint, who knew how to bend you for God's
love to the problems of the contradictions at the time of
your illness in Morocco, of the terrifying storm wiped on
the Mediterranean, and of the oblivion on behalf of your superior
to the Chapter of the Braids to Foundation, teach us to bend
us in the same way to the requirements of the situation that
are made us in the middle where we live; all annoyance puts
our patience to the test and we need a special help of the
mind - Saint to hold farm in the good. Get us these graces
by the help of your powerful intercession. Let's can us to
your example to lead the good fight always and to take back
the palm of the crown that God reserves to those that will
have persevered until the end finally! So either him.
The BX Luchesio in the way of the renouncement
December 9, 1941L'amour of God
Invited to come down from the sycamore where
he/it had perched without human respect to see to pass Jesus,
Zachée says while presenting itself/themselves before
the Lord: ‘has, Lord, that I give to the poor people
the half of my goods, and if I made wrong to someone, I give
him the quadruple. " Jesus approved it, saying,: ‘The
Salute came today for this house. »
So early that he/it was decided to get to François'
school following the sermon of San Geminignano, Luchesio held
the same language internally and got decidedly to the work;
He applied to make pass in the acts the new convictions that
his/her/its faith had just engraved in his/her/its soul. For
it's true that the real conversion appears in the detachment!
Jesus' presence in the soul shows the nothing of goods of
this world and the sacrifice of these goods for His/her/its
love forces It to establish in this soul His/her/its home.
"kingdom of the heaven endures violence, said Notre-Seigneur,
and it is to the violent that it is given to delight it. "
(S.Mathieu., 11,12) He/it had endured violence in Luchesio,
when coins pretext to make his/her/its life he/it obeyed in
his/its relations with others what one calls ‘
The commercial morals", using finasserie and taking advantage
of everything that could serve his/her/its selfish views at
the expense of the straightforwardness, of the fairness, otherwise
of the justice. His/her/its God's love had stood some, Mammon
had taken the place of the divine Mr. in his/her/its heart.
To dislodge this intruder whom there reigned in sovereign
and dictated him until his/her/its hard laws, Luchesio had
need to be armed of violence. It assault itself/themselves
toughly that to give back to that of right the very ill-gotten
and to repair the whole caused wrong. For himself déprendre
gradually of these riches of iniquity that had hardened the
heart so much, he/it promised from then on of more nothing
to refuse to the poor people. Since the following day of his/her/its
return to the country after his/her/its meeting with François,
Luchesio got liquidating his/her/its goods, His/her/its wife
first believed that it was only in the goal to withdraw from
the business.
Finally! I am going to be able to enjoy my husband and the
ease acquired. But as money entered, Luchesio put its resolution
in practice. He/it was going to find those that had endured
sess dealings and he/it returned the double of that that they
had lost.
--That you make therefore? asked for Bona amazed and anxious
Dona.
--I make what I must, he/it answered with calmness, without
retort.
Then it was the tour of the poor people. Luchesio first went
to them, And then they went to numbers of it to him. They
were never frustrated in their waiting. Imperturbably he/it
gave without counting for God's love, seeing in them Jesus'
suffering members.
' ' His/her/its wife didn't come back from it, Luchesio had
beautiful to explain him with a lot of sweetness and persuasion
what he had said François, to show to him that he could
not keep these goods, to speak him about and of justice, of
Kingdom of God, the sky and the hell,: she/it didn't understand.
- You didn't make anything of pain, she/it repeated with a
voice dolente, you made like everybody!
She/it moaned, cried, implored it to stop, to think of his/her/its
children, not to let them without heritage. For all answer,
Luchesio whispered:>
Our Lord said: Misfortune to the rich! I won't make my children
of the poor wretches, of the cursed as I was. No! …
I will teach them work, the honesty and the holy Gospel: it
will be to them more that the deniers.
At the end she/it overwhelmed it of reproaches:
- Man without heart! Denatured father! Don't have-you not
shame? You are going to put us on straw! to force us to beg
our bread!
But the answer was always ready:
- God, he/it said with an inspired calmness, God who made
the precept of alms, will know to can to all: He/it told it,
he/it won't permit that we lacked what to live. But similar
reasons could not convince it. All it passed it infinitely.
Ah! That it is difficult to believe in the gospel! to believe
there until has live it in the sublime logical! "(P.
Martial Lekeux, Luchiseio, p.24)
Seeing that she/it could not succeed in making hear him reason,
Bona Dona called its friends to his/her/its aide. She/it told
them his/her/its extravagances and here is that the gossips
begin to circulate. One observed it of all parts and his/her/its
acts of generosity as well as his/her/its penitences had passed
to the sieve of the worldly critique. Indeed he/it loses the
head! He/it doesn't have sense, to forget his in favor of
the strangers and to ruin his/her/its health thus in the fastings
and the mortifications, anymore.
Nevertheless Bona had to confess it; "To part his/her/its
madness he/it had become better, softer, more conciliatory
in all; and he/it doesn't find a pain to say that of himself.
" But it was the complete separation of these two cœurses
that God had united, while Luchesio became attached more and
more decidedly to God as detaching itself/themselves of his/her/its
goods and all vanities Bona Dona clung desperately to these
mere nothing, to the wealth that she saw deserting the home,
to the renown that was the appendage of it to the eyes of
the world. It was the realization of this Notre-Seigneur speech:
" I didn't come to bring the peace on the earth, but
the sword of the ‘separation I came to separate his/her/its
father's son, his/her/its mother's girl, his/her/its stepmother's
daughter-in-law, the man's enemies will be those of his/her/its
own house. "(St. math., 10,34.)
A miracle came to put a term to these divisions and to win
the wife to the same feelings that the spouse. one day of
big distribution of alms, it was control of a species of multiplication
of breads comparable to the one of the gospel. It was herself
convinced of a divine intervention. From this moment they
were two to lead the Christian life in this home and their
house became the inn of the Lord. Their beautiful fortune
melted under their fingers. But they had recovered, on the
superior plan of the divine love, the union of the cœurses
and the joy of God's children.
Very dear patients, the example of conversion of these two
spouses should be followed to the letter by all Christian.
You noticed how much the feelings of Luchesio in presence
of the Poverello of foundation looked like those of Zachée
in presence of Jesus, anxious to lodge at home. One quite
finds the same detachment that carries to alms and the restitution.
- So Jesus must also lodge at home and if you want to honor
it of a sincere love, it is necessary to detach you of the
goods and the multiple vanities that they accumulated at home.
What Jesus wants, it is a heart first oriented toward Him,
detached of everything that hinders the impetus of the soul
toward Him, settled to cut the ties that prevent the elevation
decidedly.
Do you want to have the proof that you don't lie while telling
God that you like It? -You how much money you dedicate uselessly
to the luxury and to futilities, and how many times you refuse
alms otherwise to that demande au name of God. To imitate
Zachée, François of foundation, Luchesio, your
resolution must really be firm and must shine in your acts;
A the future, it is sensible, more of simplicity in
room and board! ever of refusal that asks for God's love!
on the occasion of the feasts think to Jesus' gifts in the
poor people.
There is the way of the renouncement to follow to grow in
God's love.
ON VICTIM'S STATE
 Among
the favors gotten this week, there is the one of an old man,
faithful listener of the novena. The grace that it solicited
is all to the contrary of those that is wanted customarily.
He/it asked to suffer before dying for expier et to grow
in God's love. His/her/its prayer was sensible, since it is
now paralyzed. Him in bénit le Lord. Seeing the
years that he/it lost in one life égoïste sinon
in the sin, he/it wants to make time doubles the rest of his/her/its
days. One of his/her/its parents insures that it is the quarter,
of sick heures des that gave him to appreciate the value
of the suffering thus.
Done people afflict that are to monitoring, would not like
to imitate this vieillard et to constitute itself/themselves
with him victims of love? By your sufferings can you expiate
your sins and those of others, do you can mériter pour
your priests so that they spill in abundance the supernatural
life in the souls who are confided to them. I allow of leur suggérer
this short prayer that François recited in time of
maladie :
" Je thanks you, Lord, God, of all these pains that
afflict me, and please, oh my Lord, multiply them to the hundredfold,
so such is your good pleasure; he/it will be very soft to
me that you afflicted me without saving me. By the achievement
of your holy will, I abound with joie. "
Name of this saint is ©San Benedetto it Moro 3.jpg
Prayer
oh good Antoine saint, who translated so well in your acts
the two big virtues of the Évangiles : love and
sacrifice, give us to understand them at our turn and to know
as to make them to you to pass in our life, Our love for God
will only be indeed sincere if one gives up everything that
can hinder this amour : wealth, pleasure, honors. Not
to let us take to their misleading nets, help us to live detached
of the biens de the fortune, of the body, of the soul,
and inspire us to multiply the sacrifices in this sense by
acts of poverty, mortification and humility. To this only
condition, we will like God as He/it wants to be liked, as
you liked it. Our more most ardent desire is to walk on your
traces following Jesus crucified, in the love and the sacrifice.
So be-il.Un miracle came to put a term to these divisions
and to win the wife to the same feelings that the spouse.
one day of big distribution of alms, it was control of a species
of multiplication of breads comparable to the one of the gospel.
It was herself convinced of a divine intervention. From this
moment they were two to lead the Christian life in this home
and their house became the inn of the Lord. Their beautiful
fortune melted under their fingers. But they had recovered,
on the superior plan of the divine love, the union of the
cœurses and the joy of God's children
The Blessed and his/her/its wife enter in the Third Order
16 décembre1941 God's love
Let's consider again today the edifying history of the Bx
Luchesio and Bona Donna. - Once gained to the same ideas,
detachment of goods of this world, the first care of the two
spouses was of deviser of it between them, in search of a
kind of life capable to encourage their God's love until full
blossoming. Naturally because of his/her/its renown of holiness,
the thought had just become attached them to François'
steps, all as Bernard, Silvester, Pierre of Catania, as well
as Claire, Agnès, Béatrice, Amata, and so many
others. It seemed them that, in the company of the Poverello
or to his/her/its school, the virtue would be easy to them
and that they would run in the way of command of God. Their
desire of perfection was so strong, that they didn't want
to move back from no sacrifice to achieve it, it was necessary
to think of the separation, they had must leave their own
children. The love is jealous and don't endure any sharing;
God's love more that all other. " The one that likes
more than me, says Jesus, his/her/its father, his/her/its
mother, his/her/its spouse, his/her/its wife, his/her/its
children, that one is not worthy of me. " (S. Matth.,
10,37.) And them, what they wanted above all, it was to be
found worthy of God and to be able to intoxicate himself to
the torrents of His/her/its divine pleasures.
In His/her/its goodness, God went ahead of their secret desire
and sent His/her/its servant François to mean them
His/her/its will.
It was in the year 1221. To the return of Egypt, François
passed by Tuscany and stopped in Poggi - Bonzi. Luchesio heard
it to preach again, this time with his/her/its wife. After
the instruction, they went all those to pay a visit to him,
here is the dialogue that settles between them: _ We would
like to follow you and to share your kind of life well, says
Luchesio. But we got married. Do we therefore have to separate?
- Not, answered François, remain together, since together
you learned to serve the Lord.
- Would you be able then, to indicate us how, while being
married, could we sanctify ourselves as those that live with
you? François considered them with love. He/it had
just stopped with the cardinal Hugolin, to Florence, the details
of the rule of the Third party - Order. - Precisely, he/it
answered, since some times I think about founding a third
order, in which the married or retained people in the world
will perfectly serve God. Because a lot of other, prevented
to enter in the first or second order, made me the same demand
than you. You could be there the first yours to enroll: of
the sort, remaining in the world, you would not be anymore
from the world….
_Oui, yes, it is exactly it! discontinues happy Bona.
Because the important, see yourselves, pursues François,
is not the place, but the heart: to sanctify itself/themselves,
it like God and serve It in the purity, abnegation and the
charity; and it one can make it everywhere and in all states:
because the Lord commanded us all to lead a perfect life.
But as he/it is not good that the men remain alone to make
the good, I wanted to group them in fraternities, under a
director's obedience, and to give them a rule, so that they
encourage themselves mutually and are held to persevere in
their holy project: They will lead of the sort the religious
life without abandoning their secular functions." And
he/it exposed them the shape of life that he/it had conceived
for this new order. »
(Cf. Lekeux, Life of the Bx Luchesio,p.32-33)
It was the gospel adapted to the society people, but the complete
gospel all the same, makes renouncement, of love, of goodwill.
The renouncements asked by the rule of the Third Order are
not the wishes of religion, but c ‘is the mind of these
vœux that is prescribed in the poor use of the things,
in the flight of the sensuality, in the respectful obedience
to the established authority,; so detached of goods of the
fortune, the body and the soul, in the world as in the cloister,
the s heart ‘éprend more easily of love of God
and the neighbor; and, of course, in one as in the other state,
the love of God and the neighbor is born the goodwill for
the glorification of God and the salute of his/her/its brothers.
The idea was brilliant and answered the aspirations of these
two cœurses admirably intended to help itself/themselves
one the other to climb the trails of the perfection. Finally
they were conquered and since the following day François
donned them of the gray tunic of the Tertiary. Their example
was followed by several animate others of the same desires
of perfection and in a short time it formed himself/itself
in the locality a fraternity of Tertiary that vied of devotion
with the children of the First Order of François saint.
On the demand of the senate of the city, they had settled
in Poggi-Bonzi in the general satisfaction and Luchesio all
happy had been interested to their first installation, nothing
distinguished it more of the simple manœuvres, he/it
mingled gladly with the humblest for the most off-putting
works. His/her/its devotion for all good reasons made more
for the reconciliation of the classes that the most eloquent
speeches on the measures to take for the raising of the workers.
- on his/her/its side, Bona Donna shared his/her/its husband's
worries: she/it lived only for God and the relief of miseries.
Their goods were not sufficient anymore for the necessities,
they went to the quest to rescue the poor wretches. They accommodated
at home the poor people and the patients and their house was
not designated the name of "the inn of the poor people"
sooner than coin.
The results were stupendous, These examples converted to the
love of God and the practice of the beneficence the city and
all vicinity. More that it, the Third Order that had oriented
these good wills in the way of the detachment, made in the
same way all over the world in a lot of other places in Italy,
in Europe. "Overflowing the religious or better domain
prolonging this one, his/her/its influence won all branches
of the social and political domain: not only he/it restored
the piety, the good mœurs and the obedience of the supporters,
but he/it assured the triumph of the church and forced the
emperor to deposit the weapons. And all truth, according to
the prophetic vision of III innocent, François had,
grace especially to his/her/its Tier-Order, redoes a new Christendom
and saved the church and the society at a time. " (Lekeux,
Life of the Bx Luchesio,p.44.)
What was the secret of these triumphs? -L ' Gospel translates
in the detail of the existence
Very dear patients, God Thank you! In spite of the universal
blindness of the men that tears themselves between peoples
and individuals because they move away of God, a wakening
of Christian life ago, Among us one notices a sincere return
to the gospel, non edulcorated but complete, as understood
it a François of foundation with all saints.
This Gospel determines to give his/her/its goods to the poor
people without counting like Luchesio, otherwise in whole,
as François and Claire of foundation. These Christian,
loaded of family or unmarried, are in quest of the poor people,
if these don't go numerous enough to their home. Some times
ago I sent to one them a cool émoulu of jail that needed
shoe and asked alms. This poor wretch gets everything for
that he asked without having to undergo inopportune remonstrances.
He/it was only invited to thank the Lord of the kindness that
he/it had just granted to him. -The devotion for the poor
people is as at some, that they dedicate them everything that
is not necessary to the subsistence.
Won't these examples of Christianity done live find some imitators
among the faithful listeners of the Perpetual novena to Antoine
saint? What counts after all in life, it is God's love: and
to buy this precious pearl, it is necessary to give everything
that one has according to the letter of the gospel; and according
to an authentic interpretation, it is necessary to detach
itself of all goods at least in mind; to the work therefore,
that that you are! For God's love, less selfishness and more
of generosity! Entrench on the luxury and the useful to give
to God in his/her/its poor people and to the service of the
cult
 The
Blissful Luchesio Boss of the Catholic action
December 2, 1941 God's love
Last October 28, the broadcast of the Novena to Antoine saint
was dedicated to the Boss of the Catholic action and his/her/its
school of formation, Saint François appeared you, the
overflowing heart of love of God and anxious to communicate
this same love to the entire human kind. In this goal, with
the authorization of the Pontiffs Romains and many encouragements
during ages, he/it opened schools of sanctification where
the love is to honor and that teach to subordinate all human
activity to the requirements of the divine love; these are
all centers connected to the Three seraphic Orders of where
rayon the influence of the foundation Seraph.
The school destined to the laymen is designated commonly under
the name of Third party-Order. She/it reached her/its goal
admirably, since she/it is in God's church a nursery of Saints
and Blesseds. Those whose feast is celebrated currently, are
to the number of ninety, taken in all ranks of the society,
all militants of the Catholic action in their times and their
middle, accomplished models of the present militants called
with to all to restore in the Christ. At the head of this
phalanx of living copies of our modern apostles the first
Tertiary Franciscan appears, the Bx. Luchesio: This name deserves
to keep one instant our attention.Luchesio was contemporary
of François. He/it lived in Tuscany, in Caggiani first
and then in Poggi-Bonzi. It is there that God's grace waited
for it to François' sermon.
All had succeeded him until there; Intelligent, enterprising,
he/it had taken advantage of unrests of the time, to build
itself/themselves an enviable situation with the help of the
trade and the politics but also to the costs of the justice
and the charity. The conscience sometimes bitten by remorse
because of his/her/its greed and his/her/its toughness, he/it
lived in peace with his/her/its wife Dona Donna who shared
his/her/its feelings and touts two were delighted of what
their children would not know the problems of poverty. Christians
otherwise, they didn't miss the Mass, received the sacraments
periodically, took by to the religious demonstrations. "They
were Christian as one was of that time, said his/her/its historian,
as one is in short today: the religion stayed in the shapes,
but was not in the heart, nor hence in life. And the reason
of the pain was the same that today: the business. "
(P. Lekeux, Savie,p.11)
One day of the year 1212, three years about after the verbal
approval of his/her/its rule by Innocent III, François
of foundation preached in Tuscany. Luchesio had heard to speak
of the turning around that was operated itself of it him,
of his/her/its passion for poverty when he had signalled himself/itself
before by his/her/its luxury and his/her/its lavishness. He/it
was taken of the desire to see it and to hear it. He/it surrendered
therefore in San Gemigrano at one o'clock of Poggi-Bonzi.
He/it found the saint on the place surrounded with a crowd
of curious.
He/it had before him ‘a small weak man, covered with
rags, naked feet, girt on of a rope, stingy the people with
deep black eyes, an angelic smile on his/her/its very skinny
face; Luchesio believes to find a living statue of the renouncement
and the love, Already he was conquered. - close to the boundary-mark
was a brother. They began to sing: "Fear and honor God,
said-them, rent and rent and celebrate God. ‘Rendez
graces to the Lord and convert yourselves: because it is necessary
that you know that you will die soon! " Give, and he/it
will be given you! Forgive and he/it will be forgiven you!
- Persevere in the good œuvres: blissful those that die
in state of conversion, because they will go to kingdom of
the heaven! »
Then François spoke. He/it says very simple things,
but amazingly discerning, because, more that his/her/its speech,
it was his/her/its no one that spoke. He/it said his/its clear
and singing voice:
"Brothers, life is short and the near judgment: look
therefore for kingdom of the heaven and make penitence, Ah!
Brothers, despise the world, despise money: it is them that
divert you from God and return you unhappy! Fear to attach
you to the things that pass: because we add the pilgrims and
travelers here below only. Give to the poor people instead
of accumulating, like to be poor for Jesus' love-Christ, and
He/it will return you joy: where there is the poverty of mind,
there are not any desires anymore and therefore more of suffering;
where there are compassion and charity, there are neither
superfluous goods nor obduracy of the heart anymore; where
are the love and wisdom, there is not anymore nor feared darkness
nor. Yes that those go the fallen head, that belongs to the
devil; for us Christian, he/it agrees that we were delighted
in the Lord. »
These words went to the heart of Luchesio and inspired him
the desire to converse with François. He/it was decided
to make everything that he/it would tell to him. Luchesio
pulled it to part and exposed him his/her/its life, his/her/its
sin, the trouble of his/her/its soul. And François,
having listened it, tells to him: Brother, the Lord made you
a big grace while opening you the eyes, and you must be faithful
to answer there. Return these goods: because if those that
one possesses honestly are us so harmful, how much more those
that the injustice acquired!
Yes, and when I will have made it, will God return to me him
the peace? Oh! Brother, does he/it repulse the prodigal child?
Watch crucified it for you! It is He that speaks to you, it
is not anymore I; listen to it, and see to what He/it invites
you: "If you want to be perfected, go, sell your goods,
and give the price of it to the poor people: and am then I,
and will you have a treasure in the sky" you won't want
to follow It and to share the joy of the saints?
Oh! Brother François, oui…Merci, merci…Priez
for me.
And he/it fell in sobs in François' arms. He/it went
back at home with, to the heart, a marvelous peace and the
firm determination to conduct without delay the asked detachment.
Very dear patients, and you all Christian attachés,
as Luchesio, until there, to a lot of other things that to
God, François' speech to this faithful disciple invites
you to yourselves.
The first step to make to arrive to God's love, it is poverty
at least in mind. To detach itself/themselves of his/her/its
goods, it is necessary to make it in the concrete, for example
while escaping the luxury for the garment and the table setting,
while making alms to the neighbor in the need, This detachment
of a very clean in order to be pleasing to God frees the mind
and the heart of the slavery of created it, cut the ties that
join to the earth, allows the soul to rise in God's love,
it is like a bird, that a simple thread prevents to fly in
the serene regions of the occult.
More that all others, the militants of the actions Catholic
must start with detaching itself/themselves of what hinders
the impetus of the soul toward God, as everything that passes
the useful in the use of the things. And this detachment,
it is the simplicity in the maintenance and the charity towards
others that will do it, more that the loud demonstrations.
The acts are more eloquent than words. The example drags.
Who that you are therefore, sick, militant, or simple Christian,
to grow in God's love and to authorize your souls in view
of a happy influence, to the example of the Bx Luchesio, open
your cœurses to the detachment of goods of this world
by the simplification of your life and the exercise of the
beneficence.
God's love
 When
God castigates us, he treats us as his/her/its children
Here is a passage of Paul saint that encourages to appreciate
the test: "You forgot God's exhortation that tells you
like to sons: my son, don't despise the punishment of the
Lord and don't lose courage, ' lorsqu He/it takes to you;
because the Lord castigates the one that it likes, and It
hits the verge all son that it recognizes as his. It is for
your instruction that you are felt: God treats you as son;
because what the son is that his/her/its father doesn't castigate?
If you are exempt of the punishment to which all have part,
you are therefore illegitimate sons and no of true sons. Besides
since our fathers according to the flesh castigated us and
that we respected them, how much don't more have to us to
submit to the Father of the minds, to have life? When to those,
it was for a short time q'Il castigated us to the will of
their will; but God makes it as much as he is useful to make
we capable to participate in His/her/its holiness, All correction,
he is true, appears on the hour a topic of sadness and no
of joy; but she/it produces later for those that have been
exercised thus, a fruit of peace and justice.
"Raise your languid hands and your faltering knees therefore,
direct your steps in the right way, so that what is limping,
don't deviate, but firmed up rather. "(Heb. 12,5-13)
This Passage of Paul saint clearly demonstrates that the tests
of life are a proof of our divine filiation. Far from saddening
us, they should rejoice us. The gesture that imposes itself,
is the one of the child in his/her/its mother's arms as she/it
hits it to put it to the reason: he/it embraces his/its two
arms his/her/its mother's neck, and, as to disarm his/her/its
anger, he/it gives him a to offer to kiss. The effect is magic.
Wrath immediately falls and change himself in caresses. -In
the same way, as children well - born, let's thank in the
test the God who hits because of our misplacements; if the
test causes the love, it reached her/its goal; touched of
our arrangements, God will immediately change our sadness
in joy. But so that so be it, let's not forget to renew under
the strokes, whatever they are, the gesture in love with the
child by acts of recognition and love.
Prayer.
Oh good Antoine saint, throw a favorable look on the knees
at the moment on people with the foot of your picture and
in ardent supplication to get the spiritual and temporal graces
of which they have need. Grant to each the detachment at least
in mind what is not god, and, for l ' there to drive more
surely, inspire them to get to the school of the soft François,
while becoming some his/her/its children by the Third Order
in one or the other of the (700) seven hundred Fraternities
of the Province. In possession of the seraphic poverty, he/it
will be more easy to them to like God above all as us and
to be able to say the bottom of the heart following François
our Father: "My God, my All. " So be-il.Montréal,
October 23, 1941
R.P.Ferdinand, O.F.M.
God's love
A letter of recognition
Montreal, October 17, 1941
Reverend P. Ferdinand, O.F.M.
Guard, Rosemont.
 A
long time ago that I want to thank you for your beautiful
programs to the radio. I am not a patient, but I like listening
to you because I find profit there for my soul. As to the
time where the crowds followed Notre-Seigneur to hear it,
they would like to make stop, to collect itself/themselves,
to hear to speak of things of the soul. Jesus promised that
he would be with his/its Church until the end of the centuries.
It is therefore his/her/its divine thought that brings us
your voice, on the waves. I don't like to represent me your
invisible audience in the decor of the "Sermon on the
mountain" and Christ blessing our souls by your hand.
This minute has something moving when one believes in the
communion of the saints. Several maybe, in the isolation of
their sickrooms, believer joy tressaillent to recognize the
voice of the Mr. in the one of his/her/its minister. Your
words of encouragement, your advice of surnaturaliser their
sufferings while accepting them, make them so much good. Maybe
also, that on the lone road, rolling by car, another Zachée
is there. He/it only listens to your religious program following
another, curious to know what one says again on Christ, him
that doesn't go anymore to the church. And, it is God's hour,
for this new Zachée to the look-out.
It is necessary to continue to give us the means to take to
go up toward God. Poverty, the detachment, it is difficult
to understand and especially to practice. The quivering nature
doesn't want some. It is necessary to speak of it again and
again. The spring of wills is sometimes very hard to make
play. Can God to have mercy of us while illuminating our souls
and while giving us his/her/its strength. To put God in his/her/its
place in our lives, c-have-d -. to the first place, to cut
the attachments, to renounce itself/themselves,; when one
understood it well the remains goes all alone. The last summer
as speaking of the Beatitudes you had the words that went
to the intimate of the soul. Thank you my Father, for the
good qu you made me. Thank you for the quarter of hour of
Antoine saint that ' will listen to faithfully. Well respectfully,
I stay Mrs. R.E.M.
Prayer
Oh good Antoine saint, give us to understand the necessity
of the detachment of all to attach us to God. The attachments
to created it can be only a thread, but this thread is sufficient
to stop the soul from going up and to rise toward God. You
broke, you, with goods of this world, your family, your homeland
and in this interior liberty, you found your God; teach us
in the same way to been detached of what is not God, to multiply
the sacrifices to give to our soul the liberty of God's children,
that we can say in all truth: My God, My All. So either him
God's love
Convenient advice to wives of adultery.
Among the advisable intentions, the conversion of six adulterous
Tuesdays ago. Some of these last sacrifice to their cursed
passion a part otherwise the totality of their incomes; they
frustrate of their rights many creditors and attract on their
head the thunderbolts of the divine vengeance. Instead of
being joy and the consolation of their home, they are the
cross and the misfortune of it.
To the tearful people who have to suffer from seeing their
unfaithful spouse, let me communicate the dialogue that I
had with one among them;
- Instead of pitying you and to think about putting an end
to your days, he/it is worth to go better to Notre-Seigneur,
unrecognized of his, ridiculed, flogged, and to tell him of
the bottom of the heart: After all, Lord, I don't have to
suffer that a part of the punishments that I deserve.
_ But, that I did make to God so that he/it treats me thus?
My dear sister, didn't have committed you that a deadly sin,
you would deserve the hell. although your test is terrifying,
God thank you! it is not again the hell. But she/it can be
considered understandably as brands of hell. If they burn
you the heart at present, it is that God wants to help you
to make you a just idea of this torment place from now on
and to inspire you the beneficial fear to be there precipitate
for the eternity. Tremble for you, tremble for your husband
and, in order to avoid you this misfortune, agree to constitute
you victim of love in union with Jesus at the moment, crucified
for your sins and himself bidder to his/her/its Father for
your Redemption.
- But that to make to establish me in these arrangements!
Recall yourselves your mistakes, even accused and forgiven;
Appointment Jesus present to the mind and to the heart by
acts of love, by the communion, by good œuvres,; Don't
visit it in his/her/its poor people, in the patients, refuse
Him anything of that for that he/it asks in the holy Gospel.
She/it let me full of courage, and promising to conform his/her/its
life to these instructions. Keep them well, you all that have
to deplore similar misconduct; it is there for you the way
of the peace and for the poor wretch who causes you these
pains, the means surest to bring back it to God. - That leaves
the thought to sulk him, to move away it more by an affected
independence, by bitter reproaches, by similar misplacements,
far from you! Rather increase in attention, of good processes,
of delicate smiles, while asking God to achieve the ideal
of the wives perfectly. To see you capable walking thus on
your heart for the love of God and him, will disgust it of
his/her/its unworthy conduct and will bring back it, contrite
and humiliated, to his/her/its control home of so many virtues.
The mind - Saint promised it: (Horn., 7,14.) does His/her/its
virtue become the price of the conversion wanted, is it that
the happiness to see to come back it to God at the same time
as to you is not worth any such sacrifices?
Prayer
Oh good Antoine saint, that, following the Seraphic François
and the less Seraphic Claire of foundation, knew how to like
God to the point not to let you divert this love by none of
the setbacks and no of the life tests, teach us by these examples
to walk on your traces.
Let's can us all to be if very detached of everything that
is not God that we learned you to bless the Lord in health
and the illnesses, in poverty as the prosperity, in the praise
and the injuries, in the exaltation and the strokes!
It is the praise perfected of the elected to the sky, the
most adequate expression of the sovereign love due to our
God. So either him
Montreal, October 23 1941 R.P.Ferdinands, O.F.M.
God's love
The ideal human of François before his/her/its conversion
July 1, 1941
Very dear patients. And you all, souls anxious of perfection,
Among the Christian plain the ideal to honor is all to the
contrary of the Christian ideal as describes in the beatitudes.
He/it wants to serve two masters, the Creator and the creature,
God at the same time as wealth, honor, pleasure. From then
on, unconsciously, with the best faith of the world, several
take some habits to think and to act contrary to what God
waits for his/her/its children, elevated to the supernatural
state by the baptism. I will take like proof of this advanced
the mental attitude and the kind of life lived by François
saint of foundation before his/her/its conversion, TO this
period of his/her/its existence, he/it is a case typical of
the fashionable Christianity in our best society of the 20
ième century.
François belonged to the bourgeoisie of foundation,
His/her/its father, Pierre Bernardone, was merchant and one
of these enterprising tradesmen that doesn't hesitate to furrow
the seas to assure the success of their commerce, His/her/its
son is born during the course of one of his/her/its journeys
in the south of France. In to remember this fact, he/it changed
upon his/its return Jean's name in the one of François,
the French. Since his/her/its childhood he/it will go to the
beautiful country of France in company of his/her/its father
and he/it will return an imperishable memory that will be
translated in his/her/its love for his/her/its soft to speak,
for his/her/its songs of gestures, for the noble profession
of Lord, of it. His/her/its mother, Lady Pica, was herself
Provencal and should have fed his/her/its quick imagination
of the novels of the knighthood, since he will maintain in
his/its soul until his/her/its conversion the desire to become
knight. It was for him the summit of the human glory, as currently
wealth is the big passion of the young modern man. François
nevertheless took to gladly to the business and, according
to Th. of Celeno, he/it appeared of it prudent. Contrary to
his/her/its father's habits that was hard and greedy of the
gain, he/it was soft, agreeable, and prodigal with his/her/its
friends. One had nicknamed it ""the king of the
foundation youth," and he/it made himself/itself notice
everywhere by his/her/its gaîté, his/her/its
beautiful manners, his/her/its lavishness.
François' first historian, Thomas of Celano, made to
this topic a remark that finds his/her/its application nowadays.
: "At the Christian, as at the infidels, took root a
fatal custom and became implanted in pernicious doctrine to
which all obey as to a madness; she/it wants that the parents
raise their children, since the cradle, in the softness and
the pleasure. Also the poet has him reason to say: ‘'
because we grew in the middle of the habits of our parents,
all pains pursue us since our childhood. " This testimony
is exact: the desires of the parents are of as much more fatal
to their children, that these grant them more easily. Then
when they took a little age, it is of their own impetus, that
they always run to actions worse, and when they cleared the
doors of adolescence, that you think that they are going to
become! Taken away by the whirlwind of the pleasures of all
sorts and free to make what pleases to them, they deliver
themselves with ardor to all vices,… not keeping anything
of the Christian religion, nor in their life, nor in their
mœurs, he/it doesn't keep Christian that the name….
'' Such was the miserable training that of life made since
its childhood this man that we venerate like a saint, the
incomparable François of foundation' "
Assisted of the help of in-top, said holy Bonaventure, François
didn't surrender however, in the middle of young debauchees,
to the practices of the flesh, although he delivered himself/itself
to the rejoicings. " Naturally good, he/it let himself/itself
move at the sight of the poor people and made alms; he/it
also kept a certain formalistic piety that inspired him acts
of religion, But on the whole, he/it was a young man of which
the mind and the heart were oriented toward the earth; he/it
liked the pleasures; he/it liked the money that he/it especially
used to give itself/themselves of the big Lord airs; he/it
liked the honors whose knighthood embodied to its eyes highest
degree of glory.
He/it will be right later to call this period of his/her/its
existence until the age of twenty-five, "the time where
he/it lived in the sin. " Of fact, the love of oneself
rather than God's love excelled in his preoccupations. He/it
dreamed of riches, of honors, of pleasures, to rise, to impose
of it, to get drunk of personal influence,. Fortunately the
vision of Spolète revealed him the normal outcome of
one life used to these vanities. Liking God that superficially
on earth, of the lips and no of the heart, he/it could not
long for the reward promised to those that sincerely like
God, are detached of the whole remains, and accomplish God's
will generously.
If François' life before his/her/its conversion, as
the one of the bad rich, had led to the hell and his/her/its
torments because of his/her/its disorganized attachment to
goods of this world; that to say the ideal of life of nearly
all our Christian! The biggest number of the parents doesn't
know how to subordinate to God's real love their love of the
riches, of the pleasures, of honors and makes of these last
the constant preoccupation of their life. As they are the
first to throw their children in similar preoccupations as
they become aware of the realities of here below. from then
on at home more that at their parents thought it of God and
the desire to please pass him at second and even to the hundredth
rank, and as soon as God's interests comes in conflict with
their personal interests, these are those of God that are
sacrificed by the sins against the justice, against the temperance,
against the humility. And from then on the life of the Christian
becomes a life of sins, interrupted of some acts of contrition,
the priest's absolution. But the most often, it is the sin
that predominates, because one is slave of oneself, of the
world, of Satan, rather than of God; the normal outcome of
this slavery, it is the damnation.
Very dear patients, and you all friends who listen, he/it
is time of it, let's recognize as Mr. and Lord our God and
no what he/it created, no matter that it is called wealth,
pleasures, honors. From then on, let's obey to him of all
heart, in thoughts, in words, and in acts; let's sacrifice
to his/her/its love everything for that he/it asks and let's
grant to not to use the things of here below that insofar
as they harmonize to the requirements of God's will.
If we imitated François of sat in his/her/its vanities
and even though we passed it by the overflow of the mœurs,
let's know how to stop us as him in the way of the iniquity.
what we like, riches, pleasures, elevations, it is necessary
to despise them; and what we hate, poverty, illness, desertion,
it is necessary to like it. ""That non remuntiat
omnibus quae possidet, non potest esse propels discipulus:
the one that gives up all for the love of me, said Jesus,
cannot be my disciple. " (St. Luc,XIV,33)
Who that you are, don't flatter yourselves to be disciple
of the Christ, to be believer real, if you continue to live
to accumulate, to enjoy, to signal you in the world. ‘or
you ate, or you drank, whatever you make, it is necessary
that you make all thing for God's biggest glory. " (1Cor.X.31.)
On the received correspondence
Here is a letter that I take the liberty to communicate you;
she/it shows the sublime feelings that God likes printing
in the souls felt by the illness once besides and that know
to correspond to the grace.
Montreal June 23. Reverend Father Ferdinand
Very reverend Father.
 Every
time that I hear someone to speak of God and his/her/its love,
I envy his/her/its fate. Sick since eighteen years, I am deprived
of happiness to hear to speak of God, Presented of excellent
parents, God permits that I am a little upset and when I speak
of him, one makes me say nothing about, what works hard me
a lot.—since I listen you to the radio, I made the sacrifice
of all others programs radiophoniques, and when my guardian
angel forgets to tell me that it is the hour of the novena
Antoine's saint, I don't forget to scold it. Blissful those
that speak of God, the Angels listen them. That I would like
to speak of Him to the micro, I would not fear that the number
of the listeners decreases, because the Angels replace them,
and the whole sky is in feast when one speaks of It. To every
broadcast you light so only in the heart of a small patient
the beautiful fire of the divine Love, one only, the Trinidad
Saint will bend on you with an ineffable to smile year adding
a diamond of big price to your crown.
Come back again, good Father, always come back, of your divine
gesture to give us the Almighty's blessing and that God to
return you all… all…
A small thankful patient. Thank you to this patient, who wanted
to keep the incognito, for this superb testimony of recognition,;
God gives to him as well as to all patients to grow in God's
love and to constitute itself/themselves victims of love to
help the priests to maintain itself/themselves at the height
of their mission. I finish by the prayer for the priests that
to recite to their intention likes of the patients:
Prayer for the priests.
July 1, 1941 The mind of sacrifice, oh my God, pour it in
his/her/its fullness on your priests. C ‘is as much
as their duty their glory to be the victims, to consume itself/themselves
for the souls, to live without human joys, to undergo the
distrust, the injustice and the persecution often. That they
think of what they say every day in the altar: "It is
my body, it is my blood… "That they wonder there
and that they apply it: ‘' I am not anymore I, I am
Jesus, and Jesus crucified; I am as bread and wine, a dedicated
substance that quit to be herself! " Oh my God! I burn
the desire of the sanctification of your priests; I would
like that all hands that touch you fûssent of the hands
friends whose contact is soft and that these mouths that pronounce
words so sublime never restore themselves to the trivial formulas!
That they keep in all their person the habit of their noble
functions. That each finds them simple and big as the host,
accessible to all and superior to the other hommes.Oh! Make
that they carry away the Mass of today the thirst of the Mass
of tomorrow and that, full themselves of that that they give,
they have the grace to communicate it extensively to the other |
