Resolutely Determined to Keep Going

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Suffer the Children by Carl Bloch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The other day I was reading in Saint Francis de Sales that a person of a melancholy turn of mind, of a cold and disagreeable disposition, might love God as much as another born with better inclinations, but he would not have as much joy and satisfaction, although he would have the same merit. ... A little impatience with the children who are around you is not a fault that removes you from God when it escapes without your will sharing therein. As soon as you see that you have failed in meekness, try to regain it quickly. ... In short, when you have committed a fault disavow it before God. Ask his pardon, promise to do better in the future. Make a good act of love and after that go your way as though nothing had happened. Think no more about it, except when you go to confession. It is not necessary that you should have a feeling of the divine presence during your daily occupations; that is not practicable in our vocation of an active life. Make a good offering of all your actions to God in the morning, and then from time to time during the day. ...

May God's holy will be done! This is what we must come back to under all circumstances, and this is what we must start out with—Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven! Call to mind this beautiful petition of the Our Father when you feel discouraged, seeing the little success you have with your classes; when you feel that you do not inspire others with the feelings you think they ought to have for you. All this will be very meritorious if borne with love and resignation. Then, too, you might draw profit from these contradictions by accepting them in a spirit of penance.