293 part i: sunday meditations for the entire year would give gifts to a friend or a patron128 for his client out of their mutual kindness, either for remembering him fondly or for supporting him in his need. Lastly, watch yourself more intently: what have you been like till now? How have you used your tongue, mind, heart, senses, will, and the other faculties of your soul? How have you behaved in regard to your vows, deeds of mercy, and good works? And, finally, briefly review your whole life, and in a composed state of mind, as if adorned in a wedding garment, go to the banquet of the Savior. 2. “And behold, there was a man before [H]im who had dropsy” (Lk 14:2). O my soul! How greatly you are beset with an enormous dropsy of sins and imperfections! Hasten, hasten as quickly as possible to Jesus the physician, lest the dropsy penetrate to your very heart, and lest you thereby suffocate yourself. Consider the specific kinds of this dropsy: lust, sloth, gluttony, anger, and other deadly monsters of this kind. Unless they are cured with suitable remedies, there is no hope for your salvation, O soul. Therefore, do not delay, passively waiting for a guide, but by yourself hasten at once to Jesus, the best and most merciful Physician. Prostrate yourself in tears at His feet and cry aloud: “O Lord, heal me, for I have sinned against you” (cf. Ps 41:4). After Holy Communion 1. “[H]e healed him, and let him go” (Lk 14:4). Consider that every illness of the soul is most certainly cured through the Holy Eucharist. Just as corporeal medicine, spreading all through the veins, chases away any sickness against which it is used, so this spiritual medicine, the Most Holy Body of our Savior, after it hides itself in the heart of the one receiving it, drives out all lusts, bad inclinations, and grumblings that are very 128 In the Latin St. Stanislaus used the word Maecenas to mean “a patron,” because Clinius Maecenas (or Mecaenas) was the patron of Horace and Virgil (cf. SLL, vol. 2, Typis Seminarii apud JoannemManfrè, Patavii 1758, pp. 3, 15 (s.v. Mecaenas, Clinius)). Cf. CLD, p. 328 (s.v. Maecenas, Clinius).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mw==