279 part i: sunday meditations for the entire year crowd. You will not be able to restore your spirit in any other way, unless you keep yourself apart, unless you pull yourself together again outside of the crowd. Hiding here, therefore, apply yourself seriously to the recollection of your spirit, and think primarily about how you may supplement and correct your lack of obedience, and how you may restore and retain your ardor of spirit, so that you would no longer be deaf and dumb. 3. “they begged [H]im” (Mk 7:32). Consider the fact that health of the body is to be entreated from the Lord [f.75v] by earnest prayer. Hence, those who brought the deaf and dumb man to Him besought the Lord to restore his hearing and speech. Thus, the health of the soul, which is based on the infused virtues, is obtained from God only with many prayers. Therefore, beseech Him that, as He in His goodness made this deaf and dumb man of the Gospel to hear and speak, so He may grant you, in the same goodness, a sound soul and adorn it with the most beautiful ornament of all kinds of virtue. After Holy Communion 1. “looking up to Heaven, [H]e groaned” (Mk 7:34) [DRB]. Christ groans, although He has no need to groan. I believe, however, that He groaned, looking up to Heaven, because He saw how few would strive to enter the gates of the heavenly palace, already opened by Him, while very many would value the fleeting goods of the earth over the eternal riches of Heaven. And so, He groaned, because countless men would value so little the Fatherland bought and redeemed for us by Him at an immense price; and they would trade it for hell instead, for the solace of the most miserable and abominable sensual pleasure of some sin. As for you, learn to look up to Heaven more often and groan, because you have lived so long in exile from it. Implore the divine help with incessant sighs, lest at some point you lose Heaven altogether because of one final evil deed.
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