305 part i: sunday meditations for the entire year After Holy Communion 1. “Go; your son will live” (Jn 4:50). O how great was the joyful exultation of that despondent father when he heard these words of the Lord: “Go; your son lives.” What joy filled the servants, when they saw that the royal official’s child was recuperating! As for you, rejoice that the health of your soul has been restored to you in Holy Communion, since heavenly beings also rejoice for the same reason. As you begin seriously to apply yourself to penance, you will fill them with even greater joy, for “greater is the joy in Heaven upon one sinner that does penance, than upon ninety-nine just” (cf. Lk 15:7). 2. “his servants met him and told him that his son was living” (Jn 4:51). Consider that those servants are nothing else than your senses. They hasten to meet their master, that is, the intellect, as many times as a decayed mortification rises up in you again, and, when it revives, they announce that it is alive. If it is necessary that you mortify yourself in all things always, it is much more necessary today when you have the Heavenly Host enclosed in your heart. Not only is it unbecoming, but it is an evil deed to commit even a small act of foolishness in His presence. Therefore, bridle your eyes, your tongue, your [f.87r] hands, and feet, which are prone to do evil; curb your gluttony, and your irascible and concupiscible appetites; and make good progress every day in the practice of mortification, which is the only thing preventing the death of the soul. 3. “he himself believed, and all his household” (Jn 4:53). Consider that God granted the grace to this royal official as an extraordinary favor so that he would believe. But what was it that led him to believe? The son’s deadly illness brought salvation to the father and to his whole house. Shall not the death of your soul, which has been already revived by divine grace, serve you as a means to acquire eternal salvation? Yes, it shall if you will believe with your whole house, namely: with the senses and powers of your soul, with
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