 The
small virtues of the home by My Lord Chevrot
published at the same publisher the life of
the abbot Roger headless Derry in Cologne October 15, 1943
nihil pobstat parislis die 12nd aprillis 1949 E. Gabel A.A.
Impirmatur Parislis die 21 aprillis 1949 Petrus Brots, v.g,
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Table
of matters
The small virtue of courtesy.
The small virtue of erasing
The small virtue of gratitude
The small virtue of sincerity
The small virtue of discretion
Christmas, joy to the home
The small virtue of hope
The small virtue of the good mood
The small virtue of kindliness
The small virtue of economy
The small virtue of accurateness
The small virtue of diligence
The small virtue of patience
The small virtue of perseverance
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The
small virtue of courtesy.
In
a letter to Mrs. of Chantal, holy François of Dirty
wrote: Small courtesy, low virtue, but marks very big d,une…
And it is necessary to exercise itself to the small virtues,
without which the big are often false and misleading. He/it
is rare, indeed, that one is in ecstasies regularly before
a person gracious and polite. However, this affability and
this politeness suppose a surveillance masters one little
common.
However a certain number of small virtues exists that, similar
to the courtesy, uprising not a loud admiration; but when
they make defect, the relations between the men are stretched,
laborious, stormy even, not has to succeed sometimes to disasters.
These" low virtues" are precisely those that make
tolerable and pleasant our life of every day. It is why, dear
listeners, the station of Radio Luxemburg having procured
me the honor of you address the speech, I would like to dedicate
this set of talks dominical bookbinders to the small virtues
of the Christian homes.
To first view, that is there a very modest subject, yet, since
the waves make you hear the message of the gospel in your
home, he/it is not logical that it is first at this home that
the Christ's teaching brings his/her/its light, his/her/its
heat and his/her/its seeds of joy? Probably ask usually yourselves
to the Radio to teach you what happens out of your home, and
you appreciate the religious talks that put you informed of
the big events interesting the Catholic world I would speak
of it gladly one day to you or the other. He/it is also true
that someone could wait a preacher that he/it treats high
truths of the religion. I don't think, when to me, that at
this hour of the morning where, the finished lunch, each must
bustle again to the cares of the household or the toilet,
the moment is hardly favorable to the audition of scholarly
speeches and a few abstract. Let me hold you a language at
a time very elevated and very simple, the very language of
the gospel. You can listen to it, dear Mr., as finishing your
cigarette the first cigarette of the day is the best, say
the smokers, and you, Mrs., all while resewing a button to
your kid's jackets, it won't prevent your mind is attentive
to welcome to your home, the visit of the Lord whose invisible
presence will sanctify it.
To
the truth, is this not above all between the four walls of
the piece, where you are e this moment qu you have to observe
Christ's law? On c dawns, there would be some mistakes to
rectify in a lot of minds.
The some imagine that the only object of the religion is to
guarantee to the men the happiness in another world. Undoubtedly,
Christ made us this promise and it is to get it to us that
God's Son took rank in the human family, that he was embodied
and that he purchased us. However, this stupendous grant of
an eternal happiness, without comparison with us revitalize
and our ambitions, has for conditions our faith, our good
will, our sincere efforts, all things that he/it makes us
accomplish from now on. Actually, we only have a life that,
beyond the death, won't have of end. Our blissful eternity
is begun since the day of our Baptism. It is here, on earth,
that we begin our sky, while asking God and while observing
his/her/its commands. The religion is not only a business
that concerns the beyond; she/it has her/its function altogether
on this side in the. She/it must adjust our present ive.
I say our present life, therefore, dear listeners, our real
life, our daily life. On that also, a lot of people are mistaken
and sometimes of good Christian. Those operate an artificial
separation enters what they call the profane life and duties
of the religion, the what would form a brief parenthesis in
the life of everybody. But if, for most men, the time reserved
to the prayer is necessarily very course in look of their
other occupations, let's not forget that we live all day under
God's look, and that we constantly must him the homage of
our obedience, this homage resulting in the explicit offering
of all our activities. Strictly speaking, the expression"
profane life" doesn't have a sense for a Christian, because
his/her/its life all whole is dedicated to God, that it must
honor in all his/her/its actons, until to the plainest. That
you ate or that you drank, writing holy Paul, whatever you
make, make all for God's glory.
Some
people are sorry not to have the time to go frequently at
the church; in the present complexity of the domestic works,
they don't find the time to grant to God a long prayers, don't
you believe that, very short, can your prayer be however very
fervid? And why look for God on a road where he/it doesn't
wait for you? He/it gives you appointment on the path where
his/her/its providence placed you; it is there that you will
meet it toughly, among your daily obligations. Only think
about to offer them to him while filling them better of your.
You days listen to themselves either on the place of your
work, either inside your house, and for family's mother these
two fields of action, makes to some that one, since his/her/its
work is at its home. It is that you have to practice the Christian
virtues.
Certainly you must observe duties there sometimes very bass
tones it is then about devoting you to a patient or to face
a critical material situation, or to forgive the wrongs that
made you suffer, but as a rule, a Christian doesn't escape
before the difficult virtues and the opportunity only presents
itself of it intermittent. On the other hand, the domestic
life implies quantity of small duties that one often disregards,
or because it is very numerous, or because they don't seem
very important. Them l e is nevertheless, and it is the motive
for which they deserve your attention.
To the surplus, as made it notice holy François of
Dirty, these low virtues ask for a big virtue, it is - to
say a big love, the one that appears in the smallest details.
In you while proposing, the practice, it is not at a discount
a perfection that I will preach you, but the divine virtue
of charity, of which the small virtues of the home are as
the change.
Excuse me of me to be delayed to these exploratory reflections:
it was necessary to explain you my intentions. Will I have
encor the time to present you the small virtue of courtesy?
What words will be sufficient there.
What charming interior that the one where all endeavor to
appear polite and comely, our forebears said polite!
To be polite, the word indicates it, suppose that our eased
the asperities of our character. An object that was not polite
is qualified of coarse, and this epithet, when one applies
it to the men, doesn't have a flatterer really well. But has,
the politeness is enough often considered like an export.
Polite and gracious, for people of the outside, once gone
back at home, one is not inconvenienced anymore. Doesn't one
come back after all, home to relax?
Either, so long as the spring doesn't wound anybody while
relaxing too suddenly.
Is it indispensable to relax dd to enlarge the voice enormously
or to take unattractive airs? To darken the eyebrows or to
make the pout are not the sign of a true détente, rather
than the smile, the attentions and the mutual attentiveness
create at the home an atmosphere of rest and peace.
The courtesy of obliges the inferior not only towards the
superior. Keep yourselves, said Notre-Seigneur, to despise
none of these small, Jesus wants that we respected in all
man his/her/its double dignity to be reasonable and of child
of God. All man, whatever is his/her/its condition, has the
right to our considerations. One would not know how to define
the courtesy better.
Your home, dear listeners, will so already be there a home
in Christian all vie of considerations one for another. Have
consideration, at the age of the old whose hair whitened,;
take into consideration the weakness of those that you must
counsel to take; take into consideration the fatigue of those
that withdraws a little too much into them even. Banish your
vocabulary and bone attitudes the uncouthness that don't express
the true and deep feelings of affection that you feel one
for another. Do you want, you there to apply this week? I
promise you eight days of happiness.
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The
small virtue of erasing
What
other model of erasing that holy Joseph! The gospel signals
its presence every time that the child and his/her/its Mother
of which need of his/her/its services. After what, he/it is
not anymore question of him.
As for Jesus, God's Son who went down to our level of creature,
recall yourselves how he/it evades the ovations of the crowds.
He/it doesn't want that one becomes known the recoveries that
he/it operates. He/it fades away before his/her/its Father
of which he/it is only the messenger. I came, he/it declared,
non can be served, but to serve. As can recommend him to his/her/its
disciple not to solicit the honorary situations. You, tells
to him him, when you are invited to a feast, go get at the
last place. If you are worthy of a more elevated rank, one
will know hoes to drive of it to you.
You heard the advice of Notre-Seigneur: "erase you before
the other. If you have the choice, occupy the last place.
Don't complain of it, dear listeners, will be thus closer
to him, Charles of Foucauld, the hermit of the Haggar of which
you know the strange career, owed his conversion to the abbot's
simple speech, Huvelin,: Jesus took the last place that no
one could delight it him so. But there is always one but,
doesn't our self-esteem find his/her/its account in this erasing,
and did it make to claim his/her/its rights quickly when it
doesn't require them, what often occurred, to fade away? To
disappear? One yawns it to him beautiful. Self-esteem affirms
itself, it spreads, it gets settled, it brings back all to
it. Do you oppose him the other? He/it only knows what the
other must him or what he/it can pull of it. Beyond turn sour
the conflicts that ruin the good understanding between the
men", Why would pass me after the other I am not as capable
as they? will "think one. I have the same needs that
them, express an opinion the other, at the very least as many
merits. Am I the chief, do estimate another, my role is he/it
to erase me, since I must exercise the authority? "And
one is not more distant to conclude than the humility cannot
be held for a virtue, because if one put it in practice, she/it
would drive to all personality's annihilation.
No charity, dear listeners, told ourselves last Sunday, without
the respect of others that results in the considerations that
us him pure rendons`mais that the courtesy reigns to your
home, a second virtue is there necessary, the small virtue
of erasing.
Evangelical virtue, to in not to doubt. See the Blissful Virgin
Marie. The beginning of the narration of Luc saint revolves
around it; it is her that gets his/her/its Son the miracle
of Died; then she/it intervenes only once during the Savior's
missions. The rest of the time, she/it disappears, letting
the place to the holy women who take one of the Mr. and of
the apostles. She/it fades away until at the tragic hour of
the cross, where she/it comes back by his/her/its Jesus who
is going to die.
Here is, dear listeners, who denote an extreme confusion in
the ideas. The gospel we will have the opportunity to retell
it is a school of size and audacity. Well far from ruining
us, he/it obliges us on the contrary to pull the whole output
possible of our natural qualities, to put us forward to act,
but after having acted better of our, to not to enhance us.
It is the first aspect of the erasing virtue.
To the rest, the word enough clearly indicates it. The schoolchild
would not have anything to" to erase" on his/her/its
slate if he had written down the numbers or letters there
before, I cannot fade away that after having acted; me then
to disappear only after being shown me. The humility doesn't
consist in hiding not to make anything, but to not to admire
itself/themselves when one makes it the more and possible
best. I will say more. If one wants to succeed a work, it
is necessary to have seen this work, without looking for the
applause, only. If one had succeed a work, it is not necessary
to have in view that this work, without looking for the applause.
If one wants to speak usefully, it is necessary to think solely
of that that one one says, without flowing out to speak. One
would not know how to be at a time spectator and actor; one
cannot get at the window to see itself/themselves passing
da kicks it. The good worker is entire to his/her/its heart;
he/it fades away before her. So long as she/it is made well,
he/it is satisfied and he/it repudiates as unworthy of him
all return of vanity and all feeling of sufficiency. Will
one pretend that his/her/its modesty ruined it? do I find
for my part that this humble trust curiously. Because the
pride the pride is not: well more, she/it excludes it.
Not only the small virtue of erasing doesn't decrease us,
but it presents another aspect under which it is like the
charity. Christ's disciple, if he/it doesn't admire himself/itself,
enjoys on the other hand to recognize what the other make
of comes, and especially what they make of better than himself.
One doesn't hear it to brag, but he/it is the first to rent
the successes of others joyously. As he/it disappears behind
his/her/its well made work, he/it fades away very merely before
the qualities and the merits of the similar. Of this disposition,
holy Paul doesn't hesitate to make an universal precept: That
each among you, writes - him, esteem in all humility that
the other are superior to him. The apostle doesn't ask you
to deny the evidence. No, don't close the eyes on your own
qualities; you also, on several points, you are more clever
or more virtuous than a lot of people. He/it is not some less
true than even those to which you have the right to judge
you superior have some faculties and maybe also of the virtues
that you don't possess, of the less has degree even. If we
observe with the objectivity. doesn't have no one that passes
us by some place: such is more energetic, such more skillful
other, this one is quicker, that one more indulgent. Always
try to recognize the qualities of the other and let's erase
ourselves fairly before their superiority.
A step besides and we arrive to perfection. Since the other
have as us of the merits and rights, why would require ourselves
that them himself full always to all us wills? Let's know
how to erase us before the desires or the preferences of those
with that we live. Definitely, there are the circumstances
where a head of household must impose his/her/its decision,
at the risk of betraying his/her/its duty of state,; but then,
it is not his/her/its opinion or his/her/its personal taste
that he/it makes prevail: he/it requires the respect of a
law superior to which he/it submits the first. Outside of
these cases where the authority has the duty to exercise his/her/its
responsibilities, the good understanding will always be better
insured in the home when each will intend to make pleasure
to the other.
Hopeless here won't contradict me, do I think, If the mother
deserved to be called the queen of the home, that are less
because all obey to him that because she fades away continually
to get to the service of all, Jesus doesn't have - t he affirmed
not that biggest is the one that the other serve? the mom
is the soul of the home, because she looks after all: lying
the last in order to arrange what drags it, raised the first
so that nothing misses; to no one, she/it never pities his/her/its
pain, she/it never collects a compliment; she/it doesn't worry
of what would agree to him best; she/it knows what is pleasing
to the dad and the children and she/it strives to satisfy
said nothing about those that she/it likes.
Hey well! it would be unjust that the mom was alone to fade
away, all must imitate it and, that making, all contribute
to the well-being of the home. The unhappy homes are those
that govern the two awful laws of the" each for oneself"
and of the" me first ". To the reign of the selfishness,
the Christ substituted the one of the love, that implies the
oblivion of oneself. In the Christian homes, the selfish order
reverse: "The other first; me then. "One finds his/her/its
happiness to return the happy others. Instead of seizing the
most comfortable seat or to watch the best part, each thinks
about offering them to the other and he/it is delighted with
to grant them this pleasure.
The spouses agree always, when, before expressing a desire,
get married it and the woman, each on their side, wonder internally:
"What does she/it" prefer? What does he/it wish?
"It is to that will want happy the other.
And you, the children, you believe that dad and mom don't
often give up their joys to give you a satisfaction? They
are happy to your joy. On your turn, don't let pass no opportunity
to guess their preferences and erase yourselves gently, without
making notice it, don't say: "One doesn't think about
me, I am sacrificed." In a family where everybody endeavors
to practice the virtue of erasing, no one is sacrificed. One
doesn't have need anymore to think about oneself, the other
think of it before you. No one is forgotten when each forgets
itself for the other.
- That is the paradise on earth?
My faith, I believe it well, and I wish all my heart that
you make the experience of it.
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The
small virtue of gratitude
The
small virtue of gratitude, of which I will speak you today,
dear listeners, complete the first trilogy of the virtues
of the home. One fades away without effort before the other
as soon as one thinks of what they give us, and our recognition
appears while using courtesy to their consideration.
Within the families, the positive ingratitude, the one that
results in the spitefulness, is fortunately can frequent.
The ungrateful child who runs away of the paternal house while
slapping the ports, the father despot who treats his/her/its
wife and his/her/its children in slaves constitutes the monstrosities,
what is less rare, on the other hand, it is forgotten him
of the services that the other us rendrent or only the troublesome
habit of ever to express them our contentment of it. To these
regrettable shortcomingses, he/it is right to oppose the small
virtue of gratitude.
The forgetful are, he/it decorated, numerous enough. An episode
of the gospel would allow us to believe it, I want to speak
of the ten lepers that Jesus had healed on the outskirts of
a village. When these people turn that their pain had disappeared,
it was only one of it to come to throw itself/themselves to
the Savior's feet and to thank it.
Can Jesus n e stop from making the remark of it: have not
the ten been healed? Where are the new other? Those probably
blessed in their court God's messenger who had had mercy of
their misery, but, hurried to be going to make note their
recoveries by the official authorities in order to be able
to bring da the common life in, they yet disregarded a gait
of recognition very elementary. However the nine forgetful
were Jesus' compatriots, and the only one that thought to
show him his/her/its gratitude was a Samaritan, a stranger!
Our Lord underlines himself at first sight this contrast paradoxical,
but that is not extraordinary thing. Whereas often one waits
in vain for people acknowledgments that one one helped at
the cost of real sacrifices, of others for that we made a
lot less remember themselves a long time of it after and know
only to imagine to pay us back. Doesn't he/it happen to more
that attentive to thank a stranger of an occasional kindness,
let's not seem us to see the services of every day even that
return us our near? Of their part, these kindness is all that
there is more natural? Either, but him he/it would be also
to tell to them that we are of it sensitive.
Our memory is curiously capricious, unless it is our heart.
If we forget a kindness of which we were the object, with
what precision we keep the memory of a lack of considerations
or a hurtful word! A proverb affirms it: Memory of the pain
has long trace, memory of the good soon pass. As we know how
to remind to the other our good offices or the pain that we
took to oblige them! The memory of the returned kindness is
more tenacious than their of the kindness received. The vanity
splices themselves if well to distort the perspectives! And
probably he/it is less serious than we ingratitudes are attributable
to an itch of self-esteem rather than to a defect of affection
towards those that like us; best would be yet that our affection
was strong enough to stay always we present to the mind.
It
is necessary to fight our cursed self-esteem therefore and
to begin the struggle early. In what home didn't one hear
the following dialogue? To bruises it familial,e the child
asks a piece of bread to his/her/its father. This one seizes
the loaf and in size a good slice, where the child immediately
bites to full teeth.
- Hey well! do interrogate dad, that one does say?
The full mouth, the kid whispers a shy thank you.
Thank you, who?
Thank you, dad…
And how many times won't this stage reproduce it? 'one of
the first words articulated by your babies is: no. That one,
useless to teach it to them, but how many repetitions are
necessary to instill to them the habit to say: thank you.
Instinctively, they stretch the hand to receive: "again,
again!… "The thanks, him, doesn't carry up dark
regions of the instinct; he/it comes out of a conscience that
the education illuminated.
A lot of adults stay in this respect small children all their
life. They are never satisfied; they ask again; they always
want more, insatiable, they make unhappy, they sadden and
they tire the others of that they require again and always
more. How to bring them to recognize that what misses to them
so little thing next to all that they received?
How especially to persuade them to appreciate this more that
they possess? They would have to them also to learn to say
thank you.
Thank you, quite this small happy word that ends on a crystalline
sonority, it is the magic mount that introduces to the home
the courtesy, the good order and the serenity.
Thank you, it is already the prayer that rises toward God
of a Christian home for that to return graces. Did you notice
the place that this act of gratitude occupies in our usual
prayers? We say the morning: ""My God, I thank you
for all graces that you made to me up to here. It is again
by an effect of your goodness that I see this day… "And
in the evening: "What actions of graces will return you
me, oh my God, for all goods that I received you. You thought
of me of all eternity, you pulled me from nothing, you gave
your life forms to purchase and you fill me again every day
with an infinity of favors… "think there, only
one day ago where God didn't grant you a particular kindness;
even in our days of tests, let's look for well, we will observe
that next to our sadness he/it slipped himself a small joy.
And this is not a big happiness that the union that reign
to your home? you that you like, thank God of a fate as soft.
But know to address it to you also one to the other
this small word that costs to say so little and that makes
so much good to hear. Before lulling you, iron some times
in your mind tower that that, in the day that ends, you received
the other. Of all others, by the number is considerable of
the men and women who work every day to feed you, to clothe
you, to procure you the comforts of the existence. even though
you limit this calculation to your family's members, you will
have marveled literally of everything that in only one day
you will receive them: everything that they learned you; the
advice that they gave you; the assistance that they lent you;
soon an encouragement, soon a warning, but always for your
bien`une agreeable speech that touched you, a funny word that
dissipated your worries,; their successes of which you were
proud; their efforts that stimulated yours; without speaking
together of the shared meal and that the mom knew prepared
carefully, or of the small surprise that returned in the evening
dad. The account is good of that that that at the home each
receives the other. And has certainly of what to advise you
to not to be always the one that receives. Ask yourselves
therefore: "What I have them data? What can I give them
in return?
But while waiting for the opportunity to serve them with as
much generosity, don't miss the one to tell to them thank
you. when she/it presents herself/itself. Thank you to the
least returned service by that that it is, but pronounced
without affectation, as one exchanges a look. To him only
this small word rewards their the pains; he/it repairs the
sentence if need be had live little that escaped you before;
he/it is equivalent to a smile and often he/it provokes it;
he/it makes happy the one that says it and the one to that
one addresses it.
It is striking to observe that to the moment where Notre-Seigneur
surrenders voluntarily to the death to deserve to the men
an eternal life, it was anxious to thank his/her/its apostles
of the attachment that they had proven to him so much that
it lived with them. You, tells to them him, you are stayed
by me in my tests. The size of Jesus' soul is revealed in
this gentleness. He/it didn't stop filling his/her/its apostles,
he/it gave them everything, and it is he that thanks them.
This ace is not always the essence of a really generous heart
that to appear thankful towards the other of the few that
them essayent to make pure him? The ungrateful recruit themselves
among the selfish cœurses, the shabby minds and the mediocre
characters. The small virtue of gratitude is the proof of
a big heart. Same back the one that is clumsy, or that is
mistaken, since he/it has good will, be thankful to anoint
it of his/her/its intention.
As for the one that speaks you at the moment, dear listeners,
since you had the patience to listen to it, he/it cannot finish
better than while telling you: thank you.
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The
small virtue of sincerity
So-called
yes, if it is yes; no, if it is no. Such is, my dear listeners,
the rule that Jesus imposes to his disciples. He/it wants
that oh pushes to believe us by word of mouth.
Of possible social life ago, indeed, if one cannot trust the
declarations of others. to Deceive someone, it treat it in
enemies, but it is the same stroke to dishonor itself/themselves
and to make unworthy trustworthy. One understands that Notre-Seigneur
doesn't accept that some Christian lips utter a lie. No subterfuge
nor of ruse: let's say the truth merely: yes, it is yes; no
if it is no.
I would make you injury, dear listeners, if I appeared to
suppose only that one dares to lie in a Christian home, I
would be more categorical: where rages the lie, there are
the appearances of a home maybe again, but their walls are
lounged some and the ruin, alas! is next. One can like itself
outside of the truth and, in the language of the affection,
the lie is no more no less a treason.
But if he/it is superfluous and, do I repeat it, offending
to recall the duty of the exemption to the members of an united
family, can one say as much the small virtue of sincerity
of it?
When a young kid becomes muddled in the explanations that
he gives his/its conduct, the mom interrupts it: What do you
tell me there? your nose moves", and probably if the
guilty party looked at itself in ice, he would contest on
his/its turn his/her/its mother's veracity. However, this
one doesn't deceive itself of it. The nostrils, the lips,
the lids of a small paleness mark a light quivering that reveals
that he/it is in silvering to take some liberties with the
truth. However this defect is not only the fact of the small;
the big, even the very big are there also subject, and, that
one wants it or no, these sprains to the truth constitute
a certain abuse to convince, they risk in addition to open
the door to more serious deceptions. One himself right to
bar them.
The essence of the sincerity is to want to say true things
only. Some advanced that this word would come of the Latin
sine cera, without wax, by allusion to waxes, doughs and ointments
whose Roman ladies used to conceal the wrinkles of their face.
Our French also knows these secrets of beauty, and since they
use them, I think, in the desire to be more pleasant to those
that surround them, one would appear well stern to blame them
of one as laudable attention, again, that no habiliment will
never be worth the natural freshness, of youth. But one would
not know to excuse whoever resorts to similar artifices to
embroider, to color or to make up the truth.
The sincerity is about what we think and on that that our
make.
Of
it obliges us therefore in the first place to not to be of
the opinion of the last that spoke and to not to conceal our
manner to think. He/it arrives in family that, under pretext
of charity, one prefers to abound in the sense of those that
has show their opinion more energetically, by fear to irritate
them or says amen to all their judgments. "Why contradict
them, since one would not convince them? "probably assure
yourselves so your tranquillity, but don't cover your retreat
under charitable outsides. Is - him flattering for the other
to assign them a character whole and authoritative? If you
believe that they are mistaken, the charity would rather counsel
you to illuminate them mildly, while submitting them your
viewpoint that can widen their vision, the charity forced
not you to adopt an opinion that you don't share, it only
wants that you didn't wound the other while giving out an
opinion different of theirs.
When the holy king Louis asked the lord of Joinville if he
didn't seem less serious to him to be reached of the leprosy
that to commit a deadly sin, Joinville didn't fear to confess
him ingenuously his/her/its way of thinking. "And me,
he/it took, that oncques didn't lie, I tell to him that I
would like to have committed ten deadly sins better that to
be hit of the leprosy. "Certainly, the sovereign was
right and we admire his/her/its holiness, but the knight's
loyalty is not less admirable; "Me that lied ever…
has the type of the sincere man, incapable to feign.
The virtue of sincerity doesn't only exercise itself in the
expression of our thought, but on the vast field of the facts
of which we are the witnesses or the authors. On this point,
a lot of people have difficulty being perfectly objective,
because they don't only see the facts with their eyes and
don't judge them solely with their cold reason. They interpret
them under the impulse, often unconscious, of their desires
or their fears, of their clever sympathy to excuse their friends
or of their antipathy expeditious to suspect a bad intention
at the other. Do you know that witness's office is not easy
to fill? Himself in to acquit well would suppose that our
attention observed everything and that our memory kept everything
as precisely that a photographic plate. Also, for lack of
an absolute, rarely possible objectivity, one must and it
is a virtue to possess enough disinterestedness to declare
that we return the things as we believe them to have seen
sensible either, such of the less that we understood them,
as well as to express our judgments with the nuances that
the risk requires that we always run to alter the reality
is had so much.
However,
the risk is bigger when we speak of what we made ourselves.
It is necessary to a to trust courage not to accentuate what
enhances us or in not to attenuate what is us unfavorable.
But to enlarge the truth or to trim it adroitly, it always
alter it. Poor truth, he/it appears that while leaving the
well she/it doesn't have a garment; this spectacle is rarely
granted us, because, when it presents herself/itself in public,
someone generally took care to dress it. That it is decorated
with innocents embroideries, the crime is benign, so long
as by dint of exaggerations it is not made hardly recognizable.
But who didn't ever exaggerate? One exaggerates to intensify
the interest of a history; one also exaggerates by vanity,
to give itself/themselves the beautiful role,: it is already
less well, and this is not anymore of the all if one arranges
the truth; in the goal to flatter the tastes or an interlocutor's
leanings, to flatter someone, that fatally deceive it.
Would be maybe pleased you indulgent towards those that the
shyness pushes to veil their mistakes or their wrongs. He/it
arrives, undoubtedly, that one can, without lying to, not
to say the whole truth, but the most often reticences and
the prétéritions result to distorting. Is it
therefore necessary to condemn itself/themselves overtly?
It is some times a duty, that includes the right on the other
hand to plead it the extenuating circumstances. But one always
wins to speak of oneself with severity: when one confesses,
the other find you of the apologies. And vice-versa.
Finally the silence can, him also, to testify against has
truth. For example, one is interrogated and, to give a satisfactory
answer, it would be necessary to enter in all sorts of commentaries.
Then, by laziness or by weariness, one simplifies, one schematizes,
and of the truth, he/it doesn't remain bigger thing.
However, of the shortcomings that we have just reviewed, this
one appears most dangerous to me, because he/it undermines
the confidence that one must in family. If you decide than
you activities don't interest the other or that they don't
have anything to see there (exempt, surely, the case of a
secret of which one is depository), you create to the interior
of the home of the closed zones, where individualism gnaws
little by little the ties of the domestic community.
He/it seemed simpler of not all to say; soon it will
be simpler not to say anything, and one will end up living
under the same roof strangers the some to the other. The hour
is not maybe more distant where this silence will encourage
the hiding of feelings and actions that is not anymore completely
innocent. Imperceptibly one cleared the step, one is tempted
in the lie.
We will say the next time that the charity brings some limits
to the sincerity. But if you are allowed to say nothing about
some things to those that you like, precisely because you
like them, the same principle wants that usually you opened
them the sanctuary of your thoughts of your conscience extensively,
that all you put joint your experiences, your reflections,
your desires, that you have confidence the some in the other.
That a Christian affirms or that he/it denies, no one must
be able to contest his/her/its speech: it is yes, if he/it
says yes, and if he/it says no, it is no.
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The
small virtue of discretion
To
the duty of the sincerity of which I spoke you eight days
ago, you will have, dear listeners, brought the corrective
that he/it asks, to know that" all truth is not good
to say ". I subscribe gladly to this reserve, since it
is not about the many no one to that one speaks: in this case,
the charity is a legitimate limit; but if the truth had to
only attract some problems to the one that speaks, it would
not be still a reason plausible to be quiet, and it would
be able to that the truth was good to say, even to our prejudice.
He/it remains irrelevant that one must not speak without discernment,
and the art to discern what it is necessary to say, as well
as the manner to say makes it the object of the discretion
virtue.
Again a "small" virtue, but that contributes to
the peace of the home mightily. The virtue of discretion first
consists in not wanting all to know, and secondly to not to
know all to say.
Hay of the indiscreet that tries to inquire known all by all
and that put you point-blank of the questions in matters that
don't concern them! He/it is too clear that one doesn't owe
the truth to those that there doesn't have right, and that
would be able to, to the surplus, to make a bad use of the
answer that they would have pulled you. The inopportune questioner
didn't found to complain if you eluded his/her/its stroke
of probe politely or… suddenly. All family has his/her/its
history, his/her/its projects, his/her/its secrets that she
can defend against the curiosity of these sorts of burglars
that is the indiscreet.
But has a more delicate case, is it that to the same home
one can have some secrets one for another? I answer that each
is obliged there to respect the personal life of the other
and not to tempt to force the access of it. it goes without
saying that when a head of household is physician or lawyer,
he is bound rigorously by the professional secrecy, that no
one must try to discover. Also agree that a woman, so tenderly
that she/it likes her/its husband, is not allowed of favors
them to make him part of a friend's confidence that came to
look by her for an advice in a business all intimate. As well
as we would not know how to have a sum of money that we accepted
in deposit, in the same way the secret that we agreed to hear
doesn't belong us, he/it is the property of the one that confided
it to us; we don't have the law to reveal it. The parents
can already have some secrets with regard to their children
big; but the inverse can occur, and it asks for a lot of tact
on behalf of the parents.
Probably,
in the critical hours that cross the teenagers sometimes,
they will rarely find, in general, of the confidants more
attentive and more helpful than their father or their mother.
Again they would like to invite themselves to them that if
the parents don't make them undergo, a cross-examination tight
bip and if they don't complain too bitterly about the silences
prolonged of the child who grows. I would tell last: Let's
"go, shake you a few, made effort to mingle you to the
conversation of the domestic table", and I would advise
the parents: "You see it anxious, dull, vote intuition
doesn't deceive you, it has a secret. That vote affection
is at a time heedful and patient. A too direct questioning
would jail it in his/her/its muteness. Make an attempt. A
word will betray it soon. Don't immediately raise it. But
when you will be in head to head with him, ask him mildly
for what this word meant. The confession will come of himself.
"
The good method is to be oneself open and confident, to listen
to the other always Oh! Yes, it is necessary to take care
to listen, but also to respect their silence. The confidence
of others is worthy of our discretion.
Is it necessary to add that if the confidences don't look
for themselves, it is then a duty of justice to keep them
jealously for what? E this us conduct to the second aspect
of the discretion virtue, therefore we have multiple opportunities
in life of every day, I hear the precaution not to say everything
that one knows thoughtlessly.
The old had made of the discretion a goddess. His/her/its
statue represented it the lips under seal, and they had placed
it in the temples of joy. It is very instructive, because
the discretion carries in herself his/her/its reward, too
to speak overnight, affirm a proverb; on the other hand, one
has customarily only to be delighted with not to have spoken
too much. The apostle holy Jacques declares that the man capable
to master his/her/its language is a man perfects, but he estimates
that this mastery is not common property, such was also the
monk's opinion that wrote the book of the imitation"
More of once, it confesses, I regretted not to have kept the
silence. "
Definitely, a certain abandonment is quite appropriate in
the conversations in family. One must be able to say what
one thinks freely: again it is necessary to take the time
to think before speaking. And then, even in family, he/it
is pleasant to all that one doesn't speak without stop; one
tastes then more maybe the pleasure to be united, while each
pursues its personal occupation, that reading, that the sewing,
that the studies. To be held, to take a rest, to work together
is already one of the joys of the friendship, a lot more sensitive
when one doesn't disturb it step by speeches without interest.
Nevertheless, especially in family, the most often one will
speak. First precaution to take: to avoid to repeat everything
that one taught to the outside, before him to have controled
is even. Naturally, more the news is unexpected, pungent,
funny, more one has hurry and more one enjoys becoming known
it. Attention to the neighbor's reputation. Don't reassure
yourselves too quickly.
There
is not any smoke without fire ", tell yourselves. In
general, there are in the stories more smoke than of fire.
"This comic word is not very mean! Is this "the
opinion of the one on the back of which you place if allégrement
of sugar? The sting of the mosquito is less thick than a hair:
doesn't his/her/its sting have anything however pleasant.
And would you be flattered that one used some in the same
way to your consideration?
The discretion obliges to discern the truly of the forgery
in the history that one told us; in the uncertainty, let's
not repeat it; rather give up making the detriment of the
truth laugh and at the expense of the other. Even though the
other facts unfavorable to the are exact, they were the secret
of punch, let's not give an advertisement to a mistake. The
Catholic theology formulated, about the slander, a rule of
high wisdom,: "One doesn't have the right to speak of
the mistakes and the neighbor's shortcomingses that when one
in the e duty. "Yes put the other in guard relates the
troublesome influence or the bad dealings of a third. So-called
then what you know certain science, but say it seriously,
without mischief, solely in the interest of those that you
have the duty to protect.
Finally, the virtue of discretion orders us not to tell the
other what would cause them uselessly of the pain, notice
the adverb" uselessly ". The parents must take a
guilty child; between brothers and sœurs, one can signal
itself mutually himself shortcomings: it is part of the education.
If the warning is public, that they are brief and that one
immediately speaks of something else. But the reproach will
be more efficient and less humiliating s,il is made in particular.
Jesus in person gives us the advice of it: If your brother
how a mistake, go finds it and take the one to one.
And outside of these necessary cases of brotherly correction,
let's be careful to not to make a pain to someone that likes
us, even though occasionally he/it annoys us or antagonize
us. You pretend to tell him his/her/its four truths. Why four?
I don't know anything of it, but I know well that you are
in anger. If you want to tell him his/her/its truths, hey
well! Start with recognizing all his/her/its qualities: next,
you will pass to the chapter of the shortcomingses; during
this time, your wrath will have fallen and you will know how
to take it very gently and for a surer profit
No, don't make yourselves a pain in this home where you have
so many other motives to be indulgent one for another. You
tease yourselves, definitely. One only teases those that one
likes well. Only learn to handle the teasing amiably. The
best jokes are the shortest; don't insist on this small shortcoming,
on this small blunder. It is necessary that your victim is
the first to laugh of your reflection. Stop yourselves as
soon as the laughter-trade to become yellow. Erase the small
sting with a good mark of tenderness. But you ever hear, ever,
especially the most aged towards the youngest, don't use the
irony wounds always and his/her/its injuries are deep.
You exclaim: "The cousin Berthe; feel a need incoercible
to sing, and the poor wretch sings off-key. Will I tell him
q'elle sings rightly? "No, definitely, but as she/it
has ms all his/her/its heart to sing (or to execute his/her/its
romance), tell him this romance is very pretty, you won't
lie and you won't annoy it. After all, his/her/its innocent
craze will have amused you a little. Then everybody will be
happy.
The world? Don't think yourselves that he/it divides in deus
categories. next to those that try to make the pain, there
are all those, a lot more numerous, that try to make pleasure.
Your choice is made for a long time, my dear listeners, you
are all among the second. Here is that will help you to contrast
with the wanted discretion the cases of conscience that I
submitted you, with an equal respect of the truth and the
charity.
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Christmas,
joy to the home
You
will have, I hope for it, dear listeners, passed a good feast
of Christmas. Are maybe gone you to the Mass of midnight to
sing: He/it is born the divine child. Of the less, have yourselves
in the day drives your all-kids, to elects it so that they
contemplate it there the manger. You followed their curious
looks that retailed all characters, and before the hardly
clothed baby, extended on straw, they told you: "the
small Jesus should really have been cold. "But while
I speak you, I believe to see the eyes of Jeannette or Pierrot
to turn of the side of the dresser, toward the small manger
of the home that they prepared themselves. Nothing misses
it, the Virgin in prayer, the shepherds and their sheep, the
bœuf and the donkey, surely. And Jacques the small brother,
would like to add the teddy bear that he/it found in his/its
shoe there, but the eldests don't admit a similar sprain to
the tradition, For me, what I admire the more in this manger,
it is that she/it is the pledge d,une precious small virtue,
joy to the home.
Let me congratulate you, dear Catholic populations of the
North and the East, on not to have adopted the" Santa
Claus awful invention ". At home, it is even holy Nicolas
who distributes the gifts, has the good hour, you didn't damage
the imagination of your small while representing them Christmas
under the features of an old peddler of toys escaped from
an one-price store. Christmas doesn't have anything to see
with this fellow with white beard, Christmas, that is a small
child, the boss and the model of all Christian children.
This small child is rich of his/her/its mom's tenderness,
but he doesn't possess anything besides, because he is poor,
Christmas, feast of the children, is also the feast of the
poor people gathered around the illuminated fir, to the branches
of which is hooked some toys surely, and of the pralines,
but especially of the very hot woolens. In your parish one
gotten along some, I think, to carry to the domicile of the
poor people the packet of victuals has that permitted them
feasts of Christmas, them also, in their house, It is necessary,
is not this, that that day the more disinherited forget to
the moment their distress and receive their small part of
happiness.
It
is than indeed, the small child poor qu we celebrate is not
anything of less that God's Son become one of us and that
liked the men that his/her/its life among us only had a goal,
our happiness, so much. "To be happy, will tell us him,
you that are bent on the earth or thought on you tools, hope
in God who waits for you in the sky, our homeland to all.
Don't treat yourselves in rival or in enemies, but like yourselves
as brothers and you will live in peace. Don't argue the riches,
but share them fairly between you. Cause vote misfortune as
much as the cupidity, the pride and the toughness. The man
doesn't find his size of it to serve his/her/its similar,
but to help them, as the true masters of the world are those
that, while dominating their instincts and while mastering
itself/themselves them even, doesn't make to endure the other
and use themselves on the contrary to alleviate the pain of
others. "The God-Child who took rank among the humble
wanted to prove us that the worse hostile some man is the
selfishness, source of all sin, and to drag us to his/her/its
continuation in one right and brotherly life that will make
us better and happier.
But where begins the happiness of the men, if it is not at
the home. As see ourselves to the Joseph manger, who devotes
himself to saint Wife, and Marie, all proud to press on his/her/its
chest the Body delicate of the dear kid that the sky gave
to him. In Bethlehem, the Saint Family doesn't have a roof
to her. But it is not the stones that make the home, these
are the cœurses. Nowadays again, the joy of the home
yours not to the decor in which one lives: she/it is often
bigger in the modest insides that in the sumptuous homes;
she/it is the appendage of the families where all put in practice
the law of love that the child of the manger came to teach
to the world.
Can this feast of Christmas to bring you to all, unknown brothers
who listen me, a renewal of joy! You have all your worries,
I know it, but deposit them for some hours between Jesus'
hands: you will take them tomorrow, you won't even have difficulty
taking them, they will come back of themselves. Ever as much
that at Christmas one doesn't have the opportunity to taste
joy to like itself/themselves in family.
ONE cannot celebrate the birth of the God newborn without
feeling rejuvenated oneself. Yesterday, grandparents had made
toilet. Don't be this that grand'mère is again very
pretty under his/her/its white hair, and that of goodness
one can read in his/her/its eyes! And good dad is even strong
in spite of his/her/its rheumatisms.
Christmas is the day where one thinks with sweetness
of the extinct whose portraits decorate the walls or the chimney
of the room. One evokes the prominent features of their history,
always the same, that one doesn't get tired of repeating,
because they connect the young that grow to those that let
them a monsa stains.
At the Christmas, one likes to speak for a long time of the
absentees; those that left the nest are sometimes more numerous
than those that recover themselves of it for the domestic
meal. There is the married girl who could not come back, or
the big son that went to run his/her/its luck far from the
country, or the cadet who makes his/her/its military draft,
or the benjamine that entered to the convent, and the strength
to speak of them, he/it seems that one hears their voice.
The letters that they wrote you are unfolded again on the
corner of the office: it is necessary that each learns about
it and mom has need to reread them before answering there.
Christmas operates the collection every year invisible of
those that one likes.
However, of all absentees, he/it is an of which one pronounced
the name more often of it, while wiping a tear furtively,
the one or the one that takes care of itself, far from you,
in overcrowded some sana where, more that of his/her/its pain,
he/it endures a cruel isolation. The dear patient didn't stop,
him either, to think home; he/it read and reread the mom's
lette. With what emotion he/it opened the packet containing
the sweets that she/it had sent him for" his/her/its
small Christmas!"
And because you could not tighten it in your arms, I would
wager, dear mom, that in the afternoon of yesterday you knew
how to distract the time of one visit to a neighbor or a sick
neighbor them also. You procured them the comfort of a sympathy
that would have liked to relieve all sufferings of all patients.
And in the bottom of your heart, you hoped that to your place
an unknown friend had gone to liven a smile your patient to
you.
But it was necessary for you to go back well quickly in order
to place to the oven will spoil it of Christmas that all guests
savored, not without one appropriated the part that the kids
bridge carried from across to the old damsel, that, in this
Christmas day, didn't wait for letter nor visit.
As one understands better, one evening of Christmas, the truth
of Jesus' admirable speech,: One feels more happiness well
to give that to receive! As each applies to think about the
other! As one is happy to have contributed to the domestic
joy! As one would like in so-and-so day to spill happiness
all over the world to full hands! It was there, you know it,
the heart of the divine Child of Bethlehem!
In good, Pierrot, Jeannette, we are going to ask him to grant
us. Let's make a prayer owing your manger together. What?
Claude and Christiane waive to me that there is not a manger
in their house. It doesn't matter join your hands only. In
the manger, there are only some pictures, whereas Jesus himself
is really in your cœurses.
Are you there? I will speak more slowly so that you can follow
me. So-called with me: "Dear small Jesus, I thank you
for having come from the sky to make we happy. Me also I like
you a lot and I promise you to be good to make pleasure to
my parents. Make that they are happy, that dad doesn't miss
work, that mom is not sick and that all one always likes well
home itself. Bless our absentees. Heal our patients. The grown-ups
say that there are mean men who think about to make the war
again. Prevent them, small Jesus. Grant to the world the peace
that you promised the men of good will. So silly him. "
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The
small virtue of hope
All
finishes here below, my dear listeners, and however nothing
finishes, all restarts. Friday, while exchanging between you
the kiss of in the evening, you sighed: "Again one year
of finished! "and you made the account of that that these
three hundred sixty-six draining days brought you joys and
pains. The beautiful days passed, the bad also: we won't see
it anymore again. Maybe the memory of a mourning has you it
then tight the heart: the face to be liked, is not only too
true, you won't see it anymore again. Melancholy of the days
that leaves and that won't come back. However, yesterday morning,
the house filled itself of the screams happy of your children
that addressed you the traditional wish: "Good year,
good health! " After having kissed you, the smallest
didn't lose some eyes only one gesture of your hands, these
hands that pulled sudden from some unknown hiding place the
marvelous gifts, anymore. And the joy of the young to awake
in you something more marvelous that God put in the heart
of the men, the small virtue of hope.
Small virtue, you exclaim, the second of the three virtues
théologales!
You are right, the hope is a very big virtue, and because
his/her/its object is God himself possessed in the sky, and
because not to question such a happiness, us that live in
the obscurity, in the difficulties, in the suffering, us must
make a total faith act in God's goodness and like it of a
love similar to his, the love that gives itself before having
received.
But this rich ingot of the supernatural hope cashes itself
all during life in quantity of deeds of trust in God, that
allow us to speak, after Péguy, of the small "daily
hope", the one that every morning gives us the hello
". It is it that I would like to see to shine to all
your homes in the beginning of this new year.
In the Christian language, the hope is not a forecasting,
in opposition to what imagines a lot of people for that"
to hope" consists in scrutinizing the future, to weigh
up the probabilities to establish some prognoses,; after what,
they conclude: I have good hope, or on the contrary: I don't
have big hope, what actually means,: I believe to have or
no of the odds to succeed. Will surprise you me while declaring
that these calculations don't have anything common with the
Christian hope?
This one, although turned toward the future, holds entire
in the present. To hope, it is not to be sure of the following
day, it is to have confidence today, non confidence in the
unforeseeable events, maie in DFIeu that directs them and
that likes us.
"Let
to the pagans, said Jesus, the torment to know if they will
have to eat or of what they will clothe themselves tomorrow.
They will have beautiful to get martel in head, their preoccupations
won't lengthen the length of their one minute life. God would
not have called you to life if he had not provided to your
means of subsistence. There is on the earth of what to feed
and to dress all men. That all are faithful to his/her/its
commands and practice the justice, hopeless won't miss anything
here below. In what concerns you, make your duty conscientiously,
give yourselves bravely to your task and have confidence in
your Father of the heaven who knows your need", And Jesus
draws us our rule of conduct in a formula become proverbial:
Don't worry about the following day. Tomorrow will take care
of himself. On every day his/her/its pain is sufficient.
There is the hope according to the gospel: she/it doesn't
found on the impossible security of the following day, but
she/it procures us the peace dan the insecurity of every day.
It is today that we hope, without anything knowledge of that
that tomorrow reserves us: our security resides in the certainty
that God likes us; it is e him that we hope.
Alas! an instinctive fear pushes us to interrogate the future,
this Specter always masked that follows us side by side and
that one names demand as says the poet. Oh! tomorrow, that
is the big thing, of what will it be made tomorrow?…
Tomorrow, that is the lightning in the veil, that is the cloud
on the star…
The verses Victor Hogo haunt our memory, However, the big
poet is mistaken here, tomorrow is not the big thing. The
big thing, it is today, we can implore tomorrow's pains that
would result from our imprudences: tomorrow, it would be too
late. Today we can weigh the consequences of our acts: tomorrow,
there will be only to undergo them.
On every day his/her/its pain is sufficient. The Christian
hope, while obliging us to live from day to day, save us the
disappointments and the discouragements. To build some castles
in Spain is the surest means to lie down under the stars;
inversely, the crying not to have any more roof paralyzes,
our efforts. We don't delude of fantastic following days,
let's not worry about tragic following days, let's fill our
task of the present day quietly that we know and we will know
how to fill the one of tomorrow that we ignore.
On every day his/her/its pain is sufficient. That God is good
of us to have hidden the future! If we knew the test that
waits for us in the days that will come, his/her/its weight
would frighten us and would crush us beforehand. Load ourselves
only of the burden of today, it is worthy of our shoulders.
Tomorrow will take care of himself, God will give us tomorrow
of new strengths to face the new difficulties that are us
unknown.
Does
Jesus defend us him to prepare these unknown following days?
Non point, because those that don't see farther than the present
day run to the ruin. The Lord only prohibits us from worrying
us of the following day. Improvidence is a mistake, because
it sacrifices the future to the present: but the concern is
not a least mistake, since it sacrifices the present in the
future. The concern, always harmful, is generally illusory.
When grant protected well against all misfortunes that one
believes possible, or it doesn't occur some none and one in
is for himself expenses, or it occurs another one that one
had not foreseen. This one went without during years in order
to not to be without the need on his/her/its old days, and
has the devaluation that of it lets to him that of the worthless
papers. This another one that gets in guard against all future
illnesses, doesn't enjoy his/her/its present health so him
the fear of the microbes and drafts. "The craven, written
Shakespeare, die several times before their death. "
The concern is demoralizing; she/it doesn't suppress the dreaded
misfortunes, her to anticipate them; she/it enlarges the difficulties;
she/it destroys the passion of the risk without which the
man doesn't have any courage anymore, recall yourselves these
lines so simple and so goods of Péguy: "I don't
like, says God, the one that speculates on tomorrow. I don't
like the one that knows what I am going to make better than
I. Think about tomorrow, I don't tell you: calculate this
tomorrow. Don't be" unhappy that turns around and consumes
itself in his/her/its bed to know that that will be the day
of tomorrow of which one always speaks is the day that is
going to come and that he/it will be under my command as the
other. "
Dear listeners, cultivate to your home the small virtue of
hope that, while raising your looks toward God, will make
you capable of all courages because she/it will deliver you
of all fears. To this price, me then, without deceiving you,
to wish you at my turn a good year.
Yes, good year, because God is always good and will watch
over you. Good year, because while living from day to day,
without losing one of the present opportunities to make well
and to make the good, by turns, you will taste and you will
give happiness. Good year, by that that to the place to worry
you without reason, you will appreciate all restful hours
that God will grant you. Good year, even though the test must
emerge all of a sudden, because the moments lasted will consolidate
your energy and God won't let himself/itself person nor a
drop of your sweats nor one only of your tears. Live every
day in the hope while repeating the old expression French
that is an affirmation of courage at the same time as one
prayer: To God's grace!
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The
small virtue of the good mood
When
it happens to you to fast, said Jesus, don't take any sad,
dark, frowning airs. Certainly, Notre-Seigneur knew by experience
the toughness of life; he/it didn't ignore that the those
of the men are sometimes ground by the test; before the tomb
of his/her/its Lazare friend, he/it shares the grief of the
deceased's sœurs so that he/it cannot refrain tears.
But has enough unavoidable pains there not to make unhappy
as to pleasure. Also, when we don't have a motive serious
of sadness, Jesus defends us him to take the overwhelmed airs:
Don't make yourselves sad.
Did you notice, my dear listeners, that the vocabulary of
the shortcomingses is a lot more extended and varied than
the one of the virtues? So one hears to speak of morose, dull,
taciturn, or surly, grumpy people, let's grumble, cantankerous;
these are capricious, lunatic, acrimonious; those seem unattractive,
a fold of bitterness to the corners of the lips and to the
mouth of the sour words; these are of disturbs them-feast,
of the killjoy. On the other hand, the dictionary only provides
us a tiny number of virtues to oppose to so many bad arrangements.
However, the sad mates that I have just signalled have a common
denominator one says them that they are in a bad mood, when
him s is not of a slaughtering mood. Here is that will permit
me to propose to you, to maintain at the home joy and the
hope that me your wished these last two Sundays, the small
virtue in a good mood.
But some mind grief, will want a to take in defect in my turn:
"Our mood, good or mean, will object to me-t it, doesn't
depend on us. Doesn't one have to an unpleasant person that
she/it rose on the left foot, what denotes the absence of
all calculation? By one morning of sun, one is naturally happy
t, rather than a time of fog us overcast. Such is cheerful
because he/it possesses a complaisant, such stomach another
one that, has laborious digestions finds to retell to all.
»
He/it is true that some outside influences modify the aspect
of our character, I will even keep this observation that in
presence of someone that is in a bad mood, it is charitable
to grant to him, the profit of these extenuating circumstances.
Don't hold him rigor of the his/her/its terseness, indeed
he/it is maybe sick or only tired, or his/her/its business
works al, or alas! he/it endures a moral injury that it would
be cruel to aggravate bone reproaches!
As for us, when we don't feel in our plate, let's endeavor
to reconquer our serenity, because him rarely impossible to
react against outside reasons of discontent. One can sing
when it rains, one can dominate his/her/its weariness (or
to grant some rest), one can conceal his/her/its worries in
order to not contrister the other; but, let's not be not mistaken
there, one doesn't succeed in taking and to keep his/her/its
moral balance that to the price of an energetic effort, and
it is exactly because her st set conquest of will that the
equality of mood deserves to be called a virtue.
Our
mood is not only the reflection of the clear or cloudy sky;
she/it is also the reflection of our soul that has his/her/its
high and his/her/its low, his/her/its impetuses and his/her/its
depressions, but that our can contain or correct, but that
our can contain or correct. "The time and my mood have
little link, noted Pascal: I have my fogs and my good weather
inside of me. "Yes, our personal arrangements are as
glasses tinted last which we see life in pink or grayed. One
day we show an immoderate brightness that our trend deaf to
the pains of others, or a precipitate optimism that hides
from us the obstacles tale the what we will be going to stumble;
the following day, on the contrary, the excitement made place
to the déballement, one doesn't have malarias of taste
for anything, one enlarges itself the difficulties, one is
to load to the other, impatient, susceptible, intolerable.
Ah! Let's leave these glasses that lead astray us, life st
all to gray or pink tower, let's take it as her st, let's
Look at it with our eyes, our eyes of Christian. Let's make
an act of faith in God who likes us and that doesn't permit
to some that we are felt to him - over of our strengths, but
also an act of faith in ourselves. Let's believe in the utility
of our actons, to our capacity to really fill our task, and
especially to our mission of devotion to our similar. Then,
this time, we hold the good mood, that depends altogether
on our will.
The good mood springs d,une pure conscience and of a generous
heart. He/it remains to develop it with the help of a double
exercise, let's accustom ourselves to see the good side of
the things and the beautiful sides of people.
"You can see to your choice in a puddle or the mud lying
at the bottom, or the picture of the sky that is above. "
This speech is of Ruskin, it is of a striking truth and d,une
universal application.
The pain is the good are mingled everywhere. It is not about
being naive and while underestimating the pain to get dirty
in the mud; but begin by considering the good, the sun that
is day in the dangerous water and we will get round the puddle.
we don't hypnotize before the difficulties, but look for well
and we will find the means surely to surmount them. An event
us contrary; will we change something there while manhandling
our setting as if he/it had to be punished of our disappointments?
That that our arrives is troublesome? It would have to be
worse. What lesson of staying we sometimes receive toughly
tried people that we pity all our heart and what makes us
this answer so touching L has more unhappy than I! "
Of instinct we take our annoyances to the tragic and those
of others to the light. The Christian must make the opposite
precisely, to sympathize sincerely to the tribulations of
the other and support his/her/its own setbacks valiantly.
Our projects are foiled: let's make against fortune good heart.
Who knows if this failure won't turn more surely than our
forecastings to our advantage? All things have their inconveniences
and their good sides: first look at the good sides and we
will come more comfortably at the end of the inconveniences.
Let's
adopt the same tactics with regard to our similar, let's Approach
them by their s leaseses sides. They have all their shortcomingses
(as us besides), but all have their qualities. Will you have
them correct versions of their shortcomings while speaking
them on a brittle tone? Rather put to profit their qualities
and support their shortcomingses while thinking of it least
possible. When are obliged us to address an observation to
someone, don't limit yourselves to notice his/her/its wrongs
or his/her/its mistakes, congratulate it at the same time
of what he/it made good, and finish while encouraging it.
a lot of remarks can beings made with simple good-heartedness,
or even on a jolly tone: these are those that carry best.
Moreover, the good mood must not be confounded with the craze
to joke to all subject. More that in bursts to laugh often
forced, she/it recognizes herself/itself to the smile. She/it
is always gracious and it is what makes it pleasant and beneficent.
The good mood, it is the song on the road that makes forget
fatigue, breaks the monotony and wake up liveliness. On the
road, and home also. God's servant, said holy Philippe Néri,
must be always in a good mood. "and he/it added: "Out
of my house the sadness and the melancholy."
Someone stops: it is well easy to say when one doesn't have
any worries.
I answer: it is necessary to say to move away your worries.
There are the virtues that only pay long-run t has some of
others of which one is rewarded all in succession: it is in
a good mood the case of the small virtue.
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The
small virtue of kindliness
I
told you, eight days ago, my dear listeners, that one of the
secrets and the good mood is to oblige itself/themselves to
look at the beautiful sides of people with that life puts
us in relations. However the habit to see the luminous sides
of the souls only and to search for everything that is beautiful
us conduct, to practice another virtue that, as the brightness,
is by force a sign moral and a condition of happiness, I named
the small virtue of kindliness.
Let's hear ourselves. Me ais not the intention to drive an
open door: I think hoes that inside the family, except very
rare exceptions, you have good feelings one for another only.
In my mind, it is about the kindliness towards those that
don't live in s coin your roof. And I will say a word that
the beautiful homes, the happy, the really Christian homes
are those where one doesn't say pain of the absentees or where
everybody st sure to receive a good welcome.
The kindliness first consists in carrying on others of the
judgments imprinted of charity, to not to decrease his/her/its
merits, to be delighted sincerely with his/her/its virtues
and his/her/its successes, even when it succeeds there
Where we failed. The kindliness makes us grant to the other
the favorable prejudice. Who didn't you observe this instinctive
tendency pushes so many people to believe in the pain more
easily than to the good? Someone is accused of a mistake,
they start with admitting his/her/its guilt, leave to recognize
then that they were or that they were mistaken. The understanding
man, on the contrary, start with refusing to believe so much
in the mistake that he/it won't have some of irrefutable evidence;
then, if he/it has the certainty that this third party really
committed a reprehensible act, it imposes himself/itself of
doesn't dawn to speak of it, unless it is to find it an excuse
or the extenuating circumstances. Don't condemn, said Notre-Seigneur,
and you won't be condemned. Without doubting, when you interpret
the conduct of others favorably, the indulgence risks d to
deceive you; but if you judge it with severity, your judgment
is nearly surely marked of mistake.
From where does the malevolence come? Maybe of the pride that,
while lowering the other, give us the illusion that us their
is superior. Maybe also of an unavowed feeling to envy; we
support with pain that the other have the qualities or advantages
of which us in doesn't add provided also and one is not annoyed
to find them of the shortcomingses or to take them in mistake.
Curious thing, he/it arrives that the better gifted carry
to envy to less favored than they, as a Persian proverb said
it: "The sun is envious of the moon that rises. "
Let's make sure there. The lowest feelings prowl around those
that think of it the less and, to preserve itself/themselves
of it, it is necessary to fear to agree there always. And
he/it is thus of this" bad look" thrown on our brothers,
and he/it says himself/itself in Latin invidia, of where came
our French word" envies ". painter Giotto, in a
church of Padua, represented the desire under a woman's features
to the tremendously widened ears by dint of listening to the
pain too avidly, and whose eyes are bitten by a snake: but
the snake doesn't throw himself/itself on her of the outside,
he comes out of his/her/its mouth. The venom that darkens
corrupts it his/her/its vision is secreted by the very heart
of the malevolent person.
Christians, dévirons
us of this disparagement illness, and for it, let's make ourselves
a rule to admire beauty and goodness everywhere where we meet
them. Instead of raising at the other the shade that attenuates
the burst of their qualities, let's remind ourselves that
there would not be a shade that there is not had sun and let's
persist us to consider c that they have good and what they
make good, let's be the first to rent the qualities and actions
which way they pass us.
It is necessary to distinguish with care between the critical
mind and the mind of critique. The first is laudable: thanks
to distinguish ourselves to him truly the of the forgery,
the just of the unjust, the a lot of pain he/it puts us safe
from the daring impulses of the naive obstructions and the
premature condemnations. All other is the mind of critique,
the craze not to see, to look only for the pain. What sad
character the one that is incapable to admire what is worthy
of praise honestly! To know how to admire is the fact of the
intelligent and valorous men. As well as the slanderous poisons
itself of all the bitterness that he/it distills, in the same
way the understanding becomes richer of all beauties that
he/it admires. While admiring one grows himself, one breathes
in an atmosphere of respect and enthusiasm. Unconsciously
one rises toward God, principle of all highness and beautiful.
This is not by this that the admiration is a shape of prayer
that it procures us the t peace forces it?
It is why we like the house so much where, around the domestic
table, the reputation next d is never tarnished, for this
motive one calls it God's house, and for this other reason
also that one is welcomed there always well. It is the second
aspect of the agreeable virtue of kindliness.
Do say me where reside the holiness, otherwise in this Christian
who is held at the disposal of all, always ready to help?
One would believe that he/it only has it to make. One doesn't
disturb it pain, and some in abuse, but he/it doesn't make
it notice. For a few, he/it would thank you for having had
resort to his/her/its kindness. I affirm that this shape of
renouncement prevails to the eyes of the Lord over a lot of
other sacrifices, apparently more expensive. Immediately the
Christian understanding enters in the preoccupations of the
one that land it. He/it possesses the marvelous art, of which
speaks holy Paul, to be delighted with those that are in joy
and to be afflicted personally of the pain of those that suffers.
He/it makes himself/itself all to all.
Let's listen to those that confide in us patiently. "Nothing
is pleasing to a big talker so much that a perfect earphone
", said holy François of Dirty. Must probably
plan your time: it will be necessary to abridge the visitor's
speech sometimes, but you will make it with so much simplicity
and friendship as he/it will feel that nevertheless you understood
it. And leaving you he/it will leave better and more courageous.
To make itself/themselves all to all doesn't imply that one
interferes in all to domineer everybody, to the manner of
the fly of the stage coach. The understanding is not a meddler.
He/it is only to the service of whoever has need of him and
he/it endeavors to help it to the extent of his/her/its means.
In all parish, in all districts, these houses exist at the
door of which one doesn't hit in vain: these are true emergency
stations "; one finds there, otherwise help immediately
necessary, of the less the interest and the sympathy that
are a first comfort. The domestic intimacy doesn't already
tighten itself of it the narrowness of a selfishness collectif`elle
blooms in joy to be useful to the other.
In
opposition to those that think to be sages, while bragging
about to live at home without taking care of the other",
r louse what one is rewarded, they add, one only attracts
of the problems ", the Christian homes, them, don't criticize
the other (in this his, they are right of not to occupy itself/themselves
of it), but they don't lose interest in some. Their door,
their heart, their hands are open to all those to that they
can help a, and their reward is in joy to have been understanding.
"It would be necessary, wrote Gratry, to get ready to
the death, every evening, appeared an act of love. It would
be necessary to imitate the small child that before being
going to take his/her/its sleep under the look of God and
angels, go kiss everybody, not only his/her/its father, his/her/its
mother, his/her/its brothers, his/her/its sœurs, but
also the strangers who pierce themselves there. And us also,
before being going to sleep, it is necessary for us to kiss
all men, by an act of charity! It will be one "blessed
night.
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The
small virtue of economy
I
fear, my dear listeners, that to the announcement of the title
of this talk, several among you jumped. "How, bridge
they thought, as things go today, where we have so much pain
to join the them tips, can he/it be question to make savings?
"
I hasten to warn you that such is not my subject. It is one
of the oddness of the French language to accept that one to
put money of quoted to have it before oneself. Moreover, this
measure of prudence would pass with difficulty for an act
of virtue. The small virtue of economy consists in endeavoring
not to lose anything and to pull from all thing the best possible
use. You will agree without pain that she/it has her/its role
to play your homes and even that she/it is quite of actuality.
I add, and it is what emboldens me to approach this topic,
that Notre-Seigneur in person preached us the economy, in
a circumstance that you know well, after the first multiplication
of breads. You remember that a crowd of five thousand men
had listened to its teachings a whole day; come in the evening,
the Mr. didn't want to send back them at home on an empty
stomach; but, close to the desolate place where they pierced
themselves, not a village where one could get a stock of bread.
Jesus made arrange his/her/its listeners therefore by breves
of hundred and fifty and, taking the five pancakes of barley
that he presented a young boy, he multiplied them in such
abundance that all helpers had some has repletion. Well more,
considering the prudent guests who didn't fail to keep for
the road a few fragments of the really fallen food of the
sky, he/it remained here and there on soil, of the remnants
of the meal. One lets more easily drag the bread that one
didn't have difficulty winning by oneself. It is whereas the
Savior, applying to the apostles, gave them an order that,
at first sight, contrast curiously with the lavishness of
which he had just given proof; Collect, tells to them him,
the pieces that remain, so that nothing is lost. Effectively,
the reliefs so gathered filled twelve baskets. The lunch of
the following day, in short. The precaution had not been useless.
Would I confess you that this lesson of economy doesn't impress
me month that the miracle himself?
One can be therefore at a time generous and saving; it is
necessary to be even saving in order to be able to appear
generous, besides, Jesus means us that God's grants, even
most unexpected, must not make we passive. To count on God
doesn't dispense us to count known r us; we receive him so
many goods: the time, food, the clothes, the money that procures
them to us, and health, intelligence, authorized it, strength…
The good output of our activity and the aid of the home order
us of in to waste anything and to use to best our least resources;
it is the object of the economy virtue.
The word "economy" comes of Greek and would be translated
literally: the law of the house, or the order in the houses.
You know it: a house is only pleasing if the order reigns
of it. I hear the dear mom, heedful guard of the home, to
repeat you Jesus' word,: "Collect everything that drags.
"And the dad to link: "a place for every thing and
every thing to his/her/its place. "Of the regularly brushed
clothes and bent carefully makes a longer use. The tight utensils
after one his/her/its is served are himself less exposed to
the breaking of them. The time that one takes r louse to arrange
his/her/its business is less long than the one than one loses
to look for where one could lead astray them.
In a neat house, waste is not appropriate and one makes use
of things that of other makeshift to rubbish. A sheet of paper,
a small piece of material, a tip of string or wool, instead
of being thrown to the basket, is collected in a box or a
special drawer, and one is happy to find them one day.
The economy must not be confounded with the skimping, it permits
unlike to spend, but to good knowledge. There are the people
who ruin themselves in expense made â subject badly.
They let themselves tempt little by the decoy of a price elevated,
but they don't have some that for their money. Someone told
to me: "I am not rich enough to buy the trumpery. "
To calculate is not meanness, but shrewdness in view of the
useful expenses. Certainly it is presently difficult to establish
a budget, even the one of a family, Here the economy doesn't
go again mercilessly to greenhouse the cords of the purse,
but to order the expenses wisely, while trimming on the accessory
to insure the main. If I had voice to the chapter in tunic
matter, I would tell the husband: "Give to your wife
a few more that she/it doesn't ask you ", and to the
woman: Always "spend less that you didn't intend to make
it. Here is that will re-establish the balance and that will
protect the peace of the household.
We are well far from the religion, will think someone.
Not at all, dear listeners. The speech of Notre-Seigneur that
I mentioned in a little while is sufficient to convince you
that we didn't leave the religious land.
The virtue of economy, indeed, learns us to respect God's
work while recognizing the price of all goods of which we
have the enjoyment. Who can tell God: Do give us today our
bread, the one that wastes it or the one that doesn't want
anything to lose of it, because he/it knows the value of it?
Remind yourselves under what features Jesus depicted us the
sinner. He/it didn't go to look in the shallows of the society
for a squalid criminal. He/it put in stage a farmer's junior
son, who squanders the fortune slowly acquired by his/her/its
father stupidly. The prodigal, the sink offends God, because
they underestimate the fruit of the human work.
Why do we have to manage the goods of which we arrange wisely?
Because he/it is only no of it us possessed without the contest
of our similar. It is well you that earned the bread that
you eat; but this bread is also the work of the other. You
owe it to the peasant who sowed wheat, to the harvesters that
one broke and stored, and to the miller who transformed it
in flour, and finally to the baker. Review all objects therefore
you use: they attest the admirable collaboration of the men,
where each is to the service of the other. He/it follows that
we don't have the right to waste. In one magnificent page
where he/it condemns the men who abuse their wealth, the P.
Graty interrupts itself to preach the respect and the esteem
of money. "That it is than therefore that money, does
he write, and from where he comes? Money, it is some accumulated
work, it is of the time, it is of the human life, it is blood,
are sweats, of the tears. There is what you hold in your hands.
You don't have the right to desecrate it. "
Yes, the one that spends unreasonably not only dark to his/her/its
own interests, he/it makes the wrong to the other, while annihilating
what would be able to, therefore what must serve to someone.
If the gospel orders us the economy, it is above all to increase
our means to come helps some to less favored than we.
Seen under this angle the economy doesn't appear us anymore
as a small old insular and stingy that has fear always to
lack all and that finishes by meeting a swindler who strips
it. The economy, I see it on the contrary like a very tidy
person in his/her/its holding and clear-sighted: one doesn't
make him to delude of it, but there are not two of them as
her to unearth the good opportunities. She/it manages of what
she/it has, because she/it is rich… of all useless needs
that she/it didn't create herself/itself. Does she/it see
you in the embarrassment? does She/it well pull quickly of
it to you, because not letting anything get lost, what does
she/it always have to give.
You recognized it, dear listeners, she/it is not far from
you. I congratulate you about it, your home will lack me anything.
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The
small virtue of accurateness
Several
times per day, dear listeners, the Radio made you know the
"exact" hour to one second near! In the current
language, to say some, one that he/it is exact, it rent it
to be present on agreed hour, We repeat that" the accurateness
is the politeness of the kings ". It is only there one
of the senses of the accurateness. Us "exact" word
is the translation of a Latin participle meaning finished,
or executed in accordance with a model or a rule given, so
that speaks - t one of an exact reproduction or an exact calculation.
An exact work is made with care, like an objective and precise
narration constitutes an exact narration. This care and this
specify characterize the prompt man, which fact to named bridge
what he/it must.
So vast st the domain of the small virtue of accurateness
of which I have to speak you that I will limit myself this
morning to consider it under the aspect of punctuality, that
is besides his/her/its most common meaning.
Does commit the punctuality would not she/it be a virtue,
since his/her/its opposite, inaccuracy, is a terrifying defect?
That the meal is not served when all guests are succeeded,
or that it is necessary to wait for a straggler to get to
table, it is not necessary more of them to load electricity
the atmosphere of the home. Probably he/it can arrives us
to double occasionally, the hour, to have measured our time
badly, or of have been delayed by an unforeseeable incident.
One tolerates an exception, on the other hand the usually
late people are of real calamities. Did you notice the place
that the accurateness occupies in the parabolas of Gospel?
It is the history of the five damsels of honor that arrives
late to the room of the marriages and that find the door mercilessly
closed, or in contrast the apologue of the servants that watches
their master's return in order to open him as soon as he/it
will hit.
Inaccuracy implies a default to the charity and often to the
justice towards the neighbor. The child who doesn't go back
on so-called hour sometimes causes to his/her/its mother a
concern that he had to save to him.
S,il is unbecoming of area to wait for a superior, made wait
for an inferior is a casualness all wound. In any case, the
straggler makes those that wait for it a time lose that they
could have used better. One returns the knight of Aguesseau
that at hours condemned of irregular meals of the domestic
fantasies, that he/it deceived his/its impatience while writing;
he/it arrived thus, while waiting for the feeding time, to
compose an important work that he/it has dedicated naturally
to his/her/its wife; agreeable and just vengeance. Everybody
not having this resource, he/it remains only the one to curse
the without hindrance of the "chronographs" to which
thought this American businessman, who made appear in the
newspapers, to the intention of those that had stolen from
him his/her/its time, the following announcement,: M.X…
lost this week two gold hours, each of sixty minutes made
of diamonds. One doesn't promise a reward, because one will
never" recover them.
He/it enters in inaccuracy a strong dose of selfishness that
should give us to think. And since he/it is so unpleasant
to us to wait, let's apply ourselves to not to make wait for
the other. Not to make wait for the mom who supervises the
dial of the clock in the fear that the roast is cooked too
much. Not to make wait for the customer who would like to
enter in possession of his/her/its order. Not to make wait
for the regulation of the supplier's note that needs his/her/its
money, And generally not to make wait for the service promised.
A proverb says: "Who gives quickly, give two times. "
But
if the straggler carries prejudice to his/her/its similar,
he causes himself/itself a big wrong to himself. His/her/its
inaccuracies are the proof that it is incapable to impose
itself/themselves a discipline, or he/it drags and waste his/her/its
time, or he/it wants not to make more thing than he can it.
There is, indeed, two sorts of stragglers, those that always
have the time, the strollers, and those that are always hurried,
the breathless.
However the time is the most precious of the riches that God
placed at our disposal and he will ask us for account of the
use that we will have made to some: anything doesn't need
to lose therefore of it; but God also fixed the rhythm of
the time and we must respect the walk of it. Someone said:
"I don't have the time rightly to be hurried", Nothing,
of folds. If one pretends to send in twenty minutes a task
that at a discount the double, work will be botched, the work
makes badly; one should restart it and, to have wanted to
win of the time while going too quickly, one will finally
have gotten late.
Will be us exact if we avoid these those shortcoming. And
first the losses of time. Toward the end of his/her/its ministry,
Notre-Seigneur made this reflection owing his/her/its apostles:
It is necessary that I accomplished my work so much that he/it
is daylight: the night come, one cannot work anymore. Mr.
of the time, Jesus knew the price of the hours. To his/her/its
example, let's take the time seriously. He/it is true that
our life is short: so much things however one can make in
one life of man, if one uses the days precisely! Too many
people, instead of undertaking a necessary work immediately,
postpone it on the following day while saying: "I have
the time well. "And when, after some days they didn't
begin it again, they put forward for excuse, with a perfect
illogicality,: "I didn't have the time. "
I know, dear listeners, that most of you have to provide the
working hours that absorb the best part of their activity.
However, without counting the days of rest of which you have
the free arrangement, even in the workdays you have a little
time to you. Take to profit the time that belongs you. On
his/her/its bed of hospital, Jacques of Arnoux wondered: "Your
life will be short, it is necessary full ", and it prayed
thus; "My God, give me the execration of the lost minutes.
"
In not wasting time, we can learn and make a lot of things
and of the same stroke we avoid the precipitation, this other
enemy of the accurateness. Organize our days without congesting
them, while even foreseeing the part of the contingency. The
progress plays us bad towers: to divide the time often the
precise mechanism of our watches that ignores the state of
the sky, we came from it to more to distinguish the day and
the night again. The farmer, him, adjusts his day on the sun
and he counts with the seasons, as the fisher counts with
the moon and the movement of the tides, remaining in contact
with the nature, they obey the Creator's laws: also their
work is it more methodical and their more regular life, they
don't waste time while taking their time.
Let's know as them to consult the nature and to take our time.
To be ready without being hurried. The overworking and the
éparpillement harm to the quality of the action; many
believe to act when they do be agitated only; they say that
they knock work down, but, sad return of the things, the excess
of work knocks them on their turn down. Let's reserve ourselves
every day of the moments of détente; these are not
of lost minutes, especially when one dedicates them to converse
and to entertain itself/themselves in family.
Let's believe in the irreplaceable power of rest.
From where does come that there is so many stragglers? of
what they rise to the last minute and cannot catch up the
delay of the morning then. And why they rise late? Because
they went to bed late.
Gratry, that I like mentioning you (because this precursor
said everything), wrote: "We are more again than work
due to a lack of rest… rest for the body, it is the
sleep… rest for the mind and for the soul, it is the
prayer. "The time granted to the prayer, dear listeners,
is not either of the ineffective time. That one, one regained
it quickly. As placing us every day owing God us consists
better of the value of the time and we learn to fill our task
accurately.
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The
small virtue of diligence
Today,
Sunday of the Septuagésime, the missal made us read
the parabola of the workers that a wine grower hires at different
hours of the day. On in the evening, he/it finds hard souk
of the vacant men again all around: Why, does he/it tell them,
do you remain the whole day to nothing made? This question
brings back us to the topic that we treated last Sunday and
that I would like to complete this morning.
Don't fear, my dear listeners, I would not retail you the
misdemeanors of the idleness; this vice is not in use among
you. To your home, said nothing about while refreshing you,
you don't remain inactive, there is always to tinker for the
dad, unless he/it opens a book; the mom and the girls, when
they finished to arrange the dish, to verify the state of
the t linen of the clothes, take their work or their knit.
This virtue, traditional in the Christian homes, carries a
name rather little used, I confess it, it is the small virtue
of diligence.
Good has your boy, who guffaws to laugh.
A diligence, he/it exclaims, it was, before the railroads,
a big car, harnessed of several horses, who served to the
transportation of the travelers. And then, under way, there
were the brigands who attacked the diligences…
Very well, my boy, you are very scientist; you also know,
I think, that this name was given them by what these cars
went very quickly naturally for the time, diligence being
synonymous of speed. However, this curious word has other
senses: he/it wants to say promptness not only, but as attention,
happy activity, and he/it comes of a Latin verb that means
to like. Of all it he/it results that the virtue of diligence
consists in liking his/her/its work, ` has make it with liveliness,
allégrement and of his/her/its better. And to define
it I will send back you gladly to the exclamation that springs
one day of hundred chests to the address of Notre-Seigneur:
"He/it made all things well. " Weigh each of these
words: you will find all there a program.
He/it made. Jesus made his work. The verb "to make"
is one of the vaguest that is, because one uses it to all
subject; he/it has a precise significance nevertheless originally.
To make, it produce, to give the to be or to give a shape
to what exists, God, you doesn't ignore it, placed Adam in
the garden of Eden so that he/it maintained it by his/her/its
work. The man was created to work, his/her/its biggest joy
will be to invent in his/her/its mind, to manufacture his/her/its
hands, to produce a work in which it will embody his/its creative
thought, God charges us to continue his/her/its creation,
that it tired incomplete voluntarily. To the man's tour to
embellish the universe. He/it won't feel a bigger pride that
the one to discover one of the laws of the natures, to use
all riches of it, or to compose a work that will survive him
and that will mark his/her/its passage on the earth. To waste
his/her/its time, what madness, when the time is granted us
"to make" a few something!
Of
the pharisiens having reproached to Jesus have heal a paralytic
during l cuts down that had to be dedicated to rest, the Savior
retorts to them: My Father never stops working; me also I
work. As Jesus, will follow the Creator's example. During
the rest of the nights our brain works although to our unawareness,
the rest that we take in the day must not be the désœuvrement.
Rest is not idleness but diversion, it is - to say change
in work, the instructive, or diverting reading for the one
whose members are tired, the culture of a small garden for
the employee to align some numbers, the works to the needle
for the sténodactylo, and so forth. Thus, to the vigil,
unite under the same lighting, the family's member takes to
each to the occupation of his/her/its choice, of which then
it will have the other benefitted.
But what the Savior's compatriots admired in his activity,
it is that she/it spread to all. "He/it has hoed makes
all things ", declared - them Jesus didn't disregard
anything of that that brought da his/her/its mission in, let's
endeavor to imitate it in this lign offs even, without wanting
all to make and all to make by ourselves; we won't succeed
there. Definitely and see in it the divine indications of
our origin and our destiny our desires of action are unlimited.
He/it would please us all to see, all to learn, to be able
to practice all professions. Alas! Several existence would
not be sufficient there. Is better to know a science and the
only well to know, to succeed in an art rather than me to
be mediocre in several.
What imports, it is to be poured in toues the knowledge that
our state, in order to really fill toues our functions, requires.
Dear Miss, don't abuse reading, teach your mother the difficult
art but so necessary of the sewing, help it in the preparation
of the meals. While pitching in, you will get a stock of a
few good kitchen returns, more modest science probably that
the one of which he/it is question in your books, but your
husband will appreciate the first against more that the second.
Of your quoted, the boys, also learn to serve you your fingers
and to handle a little all tools: so much savings you will
achieve later if you can do the slim damages that the maintenance
of a house requires! Several times I had the pleasure to hear
mothers of families to say with a very legitimate pride: "My
husband, he/it knows all to make" and of the husbands
to praise their wife: "She/it has fairy's fingers. "For
merit of equals compliments, it is not necessary omits the
works for which you feel a little reluctance, nor to invent
the supplementary duties that would make you disregard your
real duties.
Finally, dear listeners, let's accomplish all our tasks of
our better, in order to look entirely like Jesus who made
all things well. To get rid of a task is not worthy of a man
who respects itself, and those to that one presents a work
that is not nor made to make" are right e to think that
one estimates them little. Some work that one undertakes,
it is necessary to want that she/it is beautiful. Notice the
attention of the conscientious worker thought on his/her/its
tour or on his/her/its established; observe the craftsman's
meticulous care that corrects the least imperfections of the
object that he/it shapes, he/it caresses it of the hand as
if he/it acted of a living being; recall yourselves the advice
given by Boileau to the writer:
Twenty times on the profession put back your work,
Constantly polish it and repolish it.
I remember a shoemaker showing me the shoe that he/it executed
and telling to me: "Our profession is an art. There are
some creators.
The hard-working truth doesn't worry to have finished to the
earliest, it worries about to produce a work that is finished",
flawless, and as perfect as possible. The statuaries that
decorate the portals of our cathedrals are also tidy in the
part leaned at the walls that on the face turned toward the
public; the unknown sculptors to which we owe them would be
believed themselves so dishonored same what doesn't see itself
had not been finished entirely" ". don't abandon
a work that when there is not only one detail anymore ` has
touch up there. The work kindness, even most modest, must
be dealt with the ambition and the gentleness that one would
bring to finish a chief-d'œuvre. has display a way to
drape a material, to have some flowers in a vase, or to present
a dish on bruises it, as there is a manner to suspend a picture
in the defensive wall or to fix a shelf that will carry the
signature of the good maker, all as much that the luxury items.
Believe it, the true luxury of a house is made of the care
with which all endeavor of there well to make touts things.
Mozart, whose career was at a time so short t so full, composed
in the last weeks of his/her/its life his/her/its famous Requiem.
The very day of his/her/its death, he/it tells his/her/its
daughter: my task is finished, the Requiem, and recovering
with intention my Requiem is finished ", then, aiming
to his/her/its child the last leaflets that it had just written,
it asked it to get to the harpsichord. And on the last agreements
of his/her/its ultimate chief-d'œuvre, Mozart died, a
smile on the lips. Happy those that can leave from it toward
the big rest, with the conscience to have accomplished and
very accomplished the work of their life!
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The
small virtue of patience
During
the summer, on the roads that cross the forests one sees the
placards recommending to the walkers not to throw any matches
without having taken the precaution to extinguish them. An
all small flame, indeed, can provoke, immense fires. Also
want yourselves, my dear listeners, to save to your home the
disasters caused by disputes without end, put the foot on
the match that ignites, I want to say repress all continuation
the movement of impatience that would make you to pronounce
an unhappy speech or to accomplish a clumsy gesture.
You answer me that the essence of the impatience is exactly
not to be reflexive. Released the word that it was not necessary
to say, impossible to catch up it, once. The riposte didn't
make itself wait, it was violent or unjust. You retorted.
And the spouses, the parents, the children are going to cause
themselves mutually of the pain while striking itself/themselves
of the unpleasant things that pass their thoughts and don't
correspond to their real feelings. All it because of a light
impatience.
Don't exist - t him not a small virtue of patience capable
to precede or to dominate this brief unjustified and useless
anger access? Yes, and she/it will form the object of this
talk, because, for c that is of the big virtue of patience,
the one that allowed us to support the illnesses, to face
the tests, to come at the end of difficult work, us observe
it generally, although she/it asks for the expensive and prolonged
efforts. But one loses temper about a simple annoyance, one
irritates of a setback, one makes a scene for a clumsiness;
It is yet in these incidental menus of the daily life that
it is necessary to use, of patience. I will start however
with repeating about this virtue the very good commercial
warning; "Mistrust the counterfeitings. There are the
abuses and injustices against which one has the duty to protest:
to support them would not be a proof of patience, but a sign
of apathy, otherwise of cowardice.
No one must jeopardize your dignity. You know as me that some
authoritative husbands became of unspeakable tyrants by what
their wife accepted their least reasonable pretensions thoughtlessly;
she/it would have overcome the masculine despotism if, at
first misses considerations, she/it had had the firmness to
require the respect that was had to him. It is often a duty
of charity that not to support a shortcoming, apparently innocuous,
and that generates intolerable shortcomingses with time. So
some too weak husbands first underwent in silences the caprices
of a young wife a little disorganized; then they have been
irritated some, and now they explode to himself least requirements.
How many parents regret to have supported a kid's impertinences,
that his/her/its father declared shrewd like a monkey, yes
the pranks of the disobedient youngster to that his/her/its
mother passed all to avoid that him she doesn't sulk! Today
the badly elevated child made their despair.
You must oppose the pain, was this with the last energy. The
anger is a sin, when it explodes without reasonable motive,
or if, in this case, one lets him a disturbed course; on the
other hand, there are some angers or, if you prefer, of the
legitimate, necessary indignations even: those are inspired,
no by the desire to sustain our opinions or our personal interests,
but by the obligation to defend the truth or the justice,
to condemn or to prevent the pain. Jesus n,a not given up
to the impatience when he/it has hunted with ropes the sellers
of the Temple, he/it wanted to make to respect God's rights
only and to protect the pilgrims against the abusive invasion
of the merchants.
What is then the truths face
of the patience, if she/it doesn't have to support the pain?
She/it makes us support the mistake, the contradiction, the
hindrance and, in a general manner, touts the annoyances that
come us the men and the things. To be patient, it keep empire
on oneself. The susceptible or violent beings don't possess
themselves. If their vivacities or their angers are not caused
by a physical deficiency, they are the indication of a will
weakness. Strength appears in the mastery of oneself; but
this one is not natural to us; we must make some, the training.
One acquires the patience of two ways: thanks to convictions
and to exercises.
Of the convictions first. Since the most often our impatiences
precede all reflection, he/it imports to maintain in us a
frame of mind that facilitates the control of our first transactions.
To the people nun I will counsel a very efficient means. He/it
consists in actualizing God's presence often. In herself this
habit is excellence, because, so fast that either one elevations
of the mind toward God, it constitutes a prayer of worship;
by backlash, she/it places us in a serenity that absorbs the
shock unexpected of the annoyances. Instead of losing patience
because our plans are reversed suddenly, if, according to
Pascal's advice, we consider the events as" masters that
God gives us his/her/its hand ", we immediately modify
our projects to face the difficulty that emerges.
To all of the less I will recommend; "Apply yourselves
to think about the other before thinking about you, and you
will repress a lot of movements of impatience. Say yourselves;
those that I like have their crazes and their shortcomings
that irritate me; this one I harp on ten times the same thing,
unless it is he that obliges me to renew the same observations;
that one interrupts me when I have need to give my attention
to my work.
What there is not to come out of his/her/its hinges? But those
that surround me also have their worries and their problems,
and maybe as bass tones as mine. Who knows if, as them disturbing
me, don't they have more need of me that I don't need my tranquillity?
Why do we live together if it is not to help each other? Saint
Paul who found the accents of the highest pure lyricism to
rent the charity, when he/it descends to the convenient advice,
simply written all,: Support yourselves one another. I am
not sometimes intolerable myself? Let's go, If I thought less
often about me and more often to the other, I would appear
more patient."
Having created our spiritual climate thus, let's adopt two
exercises of daily use. We will be patient if we know how
to be quiet and if we know how to wait.
In order to learn to say nothing about us when it is not expedient
to speak, let's apply ourselves in all time to not to speak
too early. Let's let the other finish to express their thoughts
without cutting them the speech; let's take some instants
then before answering to them. This once acquired habit will
keep us of the precipitate repartees. Since it is necessary
to be two to argue, wisdom is not to be the second. Don't
immediately answer the one that nor loses patience to the
one that annoys you. An observation prote, an explanation
only persuades if the himself interlocutors are not irritated.
It can happen that you have the duty to speak or to justify
you, but wait. The farmer doesn't sow his wheat by one day
of storm. You will speak tonight, or tomorrow, when calmness
will be re-established. Postpone on the following day what
would be made badly today.
The
patience asks us to know how to wait. Let's accustom ourselves
therefore to not to require, and even to not to give an immediate
satisfaction to all our desires. Again a beneficial exercise.
This is not, Mrs., that if your husband is urgent you to resew
him a button, you won't succeed in threading the needle? And
you will lose patience all two. Why your big son who, while
dressing, did find his/her/its cord of shoe tied, does he/it
push so many sighs, unless it is savage's screams? He/it pulls
on the lace, what tightens the nœud,; finally, he/it
decides it of a penknife stroke. Advise him for the next time
to sing a cheerful air, all while loosening the inauspicious
nœud quietly; he/it will make a double economy thus:
the one of the lace and the one of his/her/its anger.
Dear listeners, I fear to pass the hour, I will come back
thereon next Sunday, letting you this morning on this proverb,:
"Patience passes science" to carry through a work,
or the education of the children or your domestic relations,
it is not sufficient to know ", it is necessary again
and well more to be patient.
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The
small virtue of perseverance
While finishing
today, my dear listeners, our talks on the small virtues of
the home, I want to thank those of splices you whose letters
encouraged me. He/it is very pleasant to me to know that our
old advice of Christian wisdom found an echo in your cœurses,
however these small virtues that contribute to the family's
happiness so ask for your part, in addition to an attention
of every instant, a continual application of will. They have
all requirement to arrive to maturity of the contest of a
small complementary virtue. Of his/her/its proper name, she/it
is called the constancy; in the current language, one says
the perseverance more gladly. Let's not quibble on the words,
the important is that in the pursuit of the Christian ideal,
you are decided to want always and to restart every day.
When the tenacity exercises itself about the mistake or the
pain, it is only stubbornness, persistence, stubbornness,;
she/it becomes perseverance as soon as his/her/its object
is the good; of the less the topic there he/it opens out the
same energy to triumph over all obstacles because his/her/its
will doesn't change. Under the vivid shape that was familiar
to him, Notre-Seigneur imposes this condition of an unchangeable
will to whoever hears to live according to gospel: '' After
having put the hand in the plow, he/it said, that one doesn't
look backward!
What plowman would infringe, to this rule? S.Il disregarded
to watch before him, the furrow that it digs would depart
of the straight line. But while, the hands to the plow, he/it
doesn't have the idea to return the head, the man hired in
the work of his/her/its moral perfection, is tempted to look
backward to consider the path that he/it already browsed.
Or he/it takes pleasure in the first results acquired and
takes pretext of it to stop, either on the contrary that afraid
of the long distance that separates it more term to reach,
he/it comes to regret his/her/its previous efforts of which
he/it estimates himself/itself sufficiently salaried tie,
in the two cases, the Christian must not give up to the fatigue
that all man feels to progress in the virtue. It needs the
word is of François saint of Dirty" a heart long
breath ".
We recover here the necessity of the patience of which we
spoke last Sunday. The big intentions don't achieve themselves
in one day. To say truly, no lasting work can come true without
the help of the time that doesn't respect what one pretended
to make without it of it. We don't let discourage by the reader
of the results. Didn't imitate the small child that, after
having sowed some seeds in a corner of the garden. Lose patience
not to have the grass to appear and believes to deliver to
him passage while displacing a little earth with his/her/its
finger, whereas he/it condemns it to die hardly exit of the
germ. It is not overnight that one becomes virtuous, and even
less a saint; similar enterprise requires the uninterrupted
work numerous years. Let's know how to wait.
There
is more. When one got to Christ's school, this Mr. so good
drag us farther and higher than we suspected it to the departure.
In spite of the already cleared stages, you have the impression
soon to be always also far from the goal. Other temptation
of discouragement. Repulse it quickly, because this observation
have to rather encourage you. When you discover that the term
of the perfection is farther than you had supposed it, it
is a proof that you advance. Actually, you are not content
more with a mediocre virtue, this a manifest sign of progress.
Speak makes even that you rise in the good, you place higher
sen besides your ideal. And he/it is not true that the slope
makes itself especially rough that one approaches the summit?
My Lord Hust compared the walk in the way of the virtue to
a race in mountain: "What from afar appeared an unique
massif, easy enough to climb, decomposes itself as one advances
in an increasing set of teeth and valleys that it is necessary
to go up and to descend also at the cost of increasing fatigues.
However, one ends up reaching the true summit. "
A third causes discouragement comes of the mistakes where
it happens to us to fall in spite of our most generous resolutions.
The humiliation that these failures inflict to our self-esteem
gives us desire all to plant there. Saint François
of Dirty counsels us then, non point to be amazed to see us
on the ground, but how we can stay standing to astonish us
". Our failures can at least to make us progress in the
humility. The same Saint laughs at the Christian mildly that,
while discouraging itself/themselves, makes to multiply their
mistakes only. "I knew several of them, he/it writes,
that having gotten in anger are then in anger to have gotten
in anger…, are angry then to have been angry of the
quarrel. All it looks like the circles that make himself in
water when one threw a stone there: he/it makes himself/itself
a small circle, and that one makes a bigger and this other
others one. "
To want always, it means to want nevertheless. The progress
rarely appears always like a straight line ascending, but
rather like a sinuous line, with himself high and his/her/its
low, and that rises imperceptibly to the total. The perseverance
is satisfied with our relapses, so long as we recovered our
courage a faltering instant. To persevere doesn't imply that
one never falls, but that one always stands up.
It is why I proposed you a second advice: to restart every
day. We heard the recommendation that Jesus made us to live
from day to day previously, sure means not to look backward
and at a time not to disturb us of the difficulties of the
following day. Take the resolution every day to practice the
one of the small virtues of the home that you have more pain
to observe.
The Catholic philosopher Léon Ollé - Laprune
wrote: "The child who wants every evening to be farther
than he was the morning, will be well quickly a man. "Us
other adults, can make an analogous experience, while fixing
us for every day a new effort, us progression to our unawareness.
Every day our can make a little better: it is little in this
small of every day that rédie the progress. To arrive
to destination, to advance step-by-step is worth better than
to make big in jambées that tires us and force us to
sit us. Recall yourselves the hare and the turtle of the fable.
Since I invoke the authority of The Fountain, he/it gives
us a good description of the daily progress not again when
he/it shows us the fox repeating his/her/its master's lessons,
the wolf?
First he/it took himself/itself
badly of it, then a few better, then well, he/it didn't miss
anything then finally there.
However the Christian possesses a last motive, that is at
the same time the last secret of the perseverance. Who therefore,
dear listeners, does put in our these desires to be good and
to become better, when he/it would be at the bottom so pleasant
to let itself/themselves live instead of supervising and to
make effort? Is not this Notre-Seigneur who tells us internally:
Do "follow me?" And because we like it, we cannot
remain to deaf to his/her/its call. However, holy Paul specifies
that God operates to want it to us and to make it of it. God
author of the all our desires of the good, our would not inspire
them if we were not capable to answer there and if his/her/its
grace had to not help us to execute what normally passes our
strengths. God can worry, he says again, infinitely or beyond
that for that we ask him and of that that our can conceive
even.
Restart every day, the eyes fixed on Jesus our model and our
help. It is he that will reward the one that have persevere
until the end. What says - him to the servants courageous
of the parabola? It is well good and faithful servant. Did
they accomplish some exploits? He/it doesn't appear there
hardly, because he/it tells each of them: You were faithful
in small things. It is not not here about you, that you will
be exercised to the small virtues: You were faithful in small
things. It is not here about you, that you will be exercised
to the small virtues of the home, by small efforts and at
the cost of small daily sacrifices? What will your reward
be? Between in the joy of tone Mr.. In the definitive joy,
we hope well for it, but from now on joy will be the divine
answer to your good will. Is he/it softer joy than the one
to have been good? You can know it: she/it is the immediate
price of the small progress of every day.
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