Lest You Remain

14 Contemplate that only a pure conscience can be unafraid of anything on the day of the Final Judgement. Since you do not know in which moment you are going to be taken from among the living, to pass to the gate of eternity, shouldn’t you rather, in this very joyful period offered to you, simply to put your conscience in order, try constantly and with all your heart, to free it from any fear? Your enemies are going to accuse you before God, the Highest Judge, particularly concerning the issues which you willingly pledged yourself to, so now in a careful examination of conscience, review your vows and pay attention to how you have kept them. ( Inspectio Cordis ) 15 Contemplate that the Lord expects from you constant devotion and with the passage of time, greater growth in the virtues. What an indiscriminate ruler He would be, if He constantly and generously rewarded a soldier, who was good, dili- gent and obedient, only at the beginning of his service and later, turned lazy? God, who is to give you the eternal reward, wants you to keep vigil ceaselessly and to earnestly act, labor and progress. For God’s soldier, it would be not only unbecoming but dishonorable if, only at the beginning of his service, he were zealous and courageous in his fight with temptations, willing to practice numerous mortifications, prayers and all the virtues, but shortly after, slackened off and with lazy and hampered hands, he hand- ed to the enemy, a palm of victory. Prepare yourself for greater and greater hardships and longer periods of lone- liness. If you desire for perfect happiness, you should always keep vigil, at the first watch, that is during the preparation for Religious Life, or at the second, that is the vows, or finally at the third watch, with your death in sight, when your life comes to an end. ( Inspectio Cordis ) 16 Apart from contemplating the benefits of creation, salvation, justification and His calling you to faith and the Religious Life, you should consider the other ben- efits which God gave to you in a particular way: mainly, the everyday graces with Fr. Founder’s Selected Thoughts on the Religious Life 183