June 14
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeFriday of the Third Week after Easter
Show My people their transgressions and sins. Isaiah 58:1.
Ask God, then, in earnest prayer to show you wherein your chief fault lies. Think, when death and the Day of Judgment comes before you, what sin most frightens you; or by what you fall most often; or for what your conscience most reproaches you; or against what you have made most good resolutions and have broken them; or what fault it would seem hardest to you to give up; or what makes you most unhappy when alone; or what seems most to keep you back from God, or afraid to think of Him; or what stands in your way when you wish to serve God; or in what you would least like others to know you just as you are; or what you feel most guilty about when it is blamed in others; or what frightens you from coming to Holy Communion, or when you come to it; or what sin you are most tempted to turn away from and hide your own eyes from, that you may not see it. Or again, on the contrary, what subject your thoughts, when you have nothing else to do, most dwell upon; or what thoughts flash across you, amidst other occupations, and come oftenest to you and you entertain them; or for what others have so often blamed you. In some or other of these ways God will show you wherein your chief sin lies; or those who know you well and love you, could help you; or God may, at once, if you are in earnest, bring it before you.
But ye perchance Are deeper plunged in sorrow's trance. Your God forgives, but ye no comfort take Till ye have scourged the sins that in Your conscience ache.