Nov 22 Wed
Perseverance is a grace from God, which requires our full response.
God, who called us, will give us the means to respond faithfully to his successive calls, until our very last breath. Say, The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"
What are the enemies of perseverance?
Thinking, “I am doing enough, no need to exert more effort.”
Then, lukewarmness and inconstancy in the apostolate.
Sometimes, it is bad example of our best friend, who weakens and doesn't respond to grace...
“At other times concupiscence disguises itself as refinement, poetry or even spirituality: not long ago I encountered and wept over a spirituality of this type, poor soul! It tries to make us believe that dedication to God is a state of mind, a passing situation that is too lofty for us..."
At other times, the temptation is cowardice: “I'm weak. I know myself. It's true that, thanks to God's mercy, I don't offend him as a rule. But... these daily struggles!: always on the edge of the precipice. I'm afraid to give myself... and then fall. I'm not worthy to give myself entirely to God."
That humility has only the appearance of humility. You think you are exceptional: that you alone have to struggle or, at any rate, that the struggles of others are not like yours.
“What is happening to you, happens to everyone. And it will go on like that until the end of your mortal life, so that you may not become proud."
What are the means to be faithful? Our Lord gives us his grace to persevere. He only asks us to use them.
In the first place, to be truly prayerful souls.
We attain this with the norms of piety, by having a plan of life. “I can tell you that a person who fulfills the norms, who struggles to fulfill them, in health and in sickness, in youth, in maturity and in old age, when the sun is out and when storms are raging, when it's pleasant and when it's hard, that person is predestined, if they persevere to the end.”
“Those norms could be prayer, presence of God, friendship with the Blessed Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - and with the Mother of God, Daughter of God and Spouse of God, and with St Joseph, whom I call our Father and Lord and whom it makes me so happy to think about, and with our Guardian Angel."
Besides leading a life of piety, we have to flee from occasions of sin, guard our heart, and never give in to insincerity, the "dumb devil".
Devotion to our Blessed Lady will help us to be very faithful to our Christian vocation.
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