Morning Meditation

[RRLeath]

Graces are multiplied upon graces till they get beyond
our power of reckoning. His compassions are new
every morning. And then, after all, there is yet to
come the recompense which eye has never seen, nor
ear heard, nor heart conceived!

Alas! for our dearest Lord ! Up to this day, what
have we done for Him? And see what he has done
for us ; and the end of His doing it all was to gain our
love! We look upon the cross, and it hardly moves
us. We hear of His bitter Passion, but our eyes are
dry, and our hearts indifferent. We kneel down to
pray, but we can hardly keep our thoughts fixed upon
Him for a quarter of an hour together. We go into
His own most holy presence, and we hardly bend the
knee before the Tabernacle, lest it should spoil our
clothes. We see others sin, and what matter is it to
us that Jesus is offended, so long as it is not we who
are risking our souls by offending him? Oh, these
are strange signs of loveI Surely Jesus cannot be
much to us, if this is the way we feel about Him.
Yet so it is. We go our own way, and do our own
will. The great thing is to please ourselves, and to
make things easy to us. Life must be taught to run
smooth. As to penance, it must be kept at arm's
length. We must have bodily comforts and -worldly
conveniences, and our spiritual life must be nothing
but a sufficiency of those inward consolations, without
which our souls give us pain, because they are not at
rest. If we worship God, it is for self; if we do good
to others, it is self we are seeking, even in our charity.

Poor Jesus Christ!
Jesus Christ ! Who thinks of Him? who weds His
interests ?

-Frederick Faber