March 26

Tuesday after Seragesima Sunday

Beloved of God, called to be Saints. Romans 1:7.

OUR great business in this world should be to become Saints.

Every single work we take in hand may be a help to the same end. And next to prayer and the blessed Sacrament, I know of no greater means so to advance in spiritual life as these: the more disagreeable any particular task is, to do it the more heartily and thoroughly (just as there is no more likely way of losing progress than the doing it hastily and half-heartedly and unthoroughly); and then the other, to remember that temptation is in itself not an evil. If it may become the greatest of evils, so it may become one of the most blessed of blessings. People are so apt to think that if they are victorious, they have great cause, indeed, to thank God, but that it is only avoiding an evil. No, indeed; it is the having won a great good. You stand on completely different ground before and after a defeated temptation. And see how needful that must be to all who would follow our Lord, and the more needful, the more closely, when He Himself would not begin His public work till He had been tempted by Satan. It is not only the lot of the Saints, but their making.

How little of that road, my soul! How little hast thou gone! Take heart and let the thought of God Allure thee further on.

The freedom from all wilful sin, The Christian's daily task; Oh, these are graces far below What longing love would ask!

Dole not thy duties out to God, But let thy hand be free; Look long at Jesus, His sweet Blood, How was it dealt to thee?