George Matulaitis Journal

1 Sacred Congregation for Religious. 66 Besides this, every hour he would think of some mystery of the life of Jesus, or of one of the attributes of God or of some saint, and so on. He would pray for each province or house of the Society, for the conversion of sinners, pagans, and heretics, for the needs of the Church, and for the special problems of his day, and so on. He used to jot down the important events of his life in his notebook and celebrate them by offering them up to God is some way. By these means St. Francis nurtured his spiritual life and remained in constant union with God, with the result that his very active life became a continual prayer. Lord, grant that through the intercession of this great saint, I may learn to pray always, even while I am working; to remain in Your Presence, to be ever in accord with Your holy will, continually attentive to Your beloved Son, Jesus—who gives Himself to me daily in the sacrifice of the Mass and who lives in my heart—to stay there with Him as in a chapel—to rejoice, to suffer, and to work in union with Him. January 24 In the event that someday we are divided into provinces, it would be a good idea to refer to the system used by the Jesuits. The elected delegates from the different houses of each province could assemble to discuss the problems of their province, to make various suggestions, to express their desires, and so forth. All these matters, however, must be submitted to the Superior General and his Council for confirmation or to the general Chapter. The Chapter would consist of the provincial superiors and delegates—two from each province. The general Council should be made up of elected representatives of the different nations by turn. For very grave reasons, and after consultation with the Sacred Congregation 1 , the members of the general Council should have the right to convoke a general Chapter. In this case the authority of the Superior General would be suspended. There is not much danger of such a thing in our Congregation because superiors do not remain in office for life as with the Jesuits, but only for a term of a few years.