465 part ii: meditations for more solemn feasts from vain conversations; avert all curiosity from superfluous talk and useless reading; unless you divert your sight, your hearing, and your step from useless viewing, listening, and wandering; unless you renounce seeking and divulging rumors that bring forth great distraction leading to desolation; unless, finally, you remove from yourself all that can and usually does impede devotion and estrange your mind from God. 3. “How often would I have gathered your children together” (Mt 23:37). The Lord always tried through the lawgivers and the prophets to bring the Jews into union and to His love, while they resisted Him [f.149v] and through mutual hatred also lost their state. Being deserted by Him, they perished. He does the same to you, when He tries through such frequent reception of Holy Communion to focus your senses on His love alone, to drag you away from worldly things and from self-love, and to bring you to devotion. You resist it, and you create for yourself the cause of your internal desolation. But see to it, lest perhaps the Lord finally abandons you because of this more stubborn negligence, and never (or indeed very late) comes back to you. FOR THE FEAST OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST Before Holy Communion 1. “Peter turned and saw following them the disciple whom Jesus loved” (Jn 21:20). Consider that the reasons for the love that the Son of God bestowed on the holy Evangelist were his numerous virtues. As the first, we may ascribe to him, although being younger than the others, the virtue of following Jesus most promptly. He left his work of fishing (cf. Mt 4:21-22), and afterwards never wanted to withdraw from His Lord’s sacred side. The second is that of a generous and resolute spirit, with which he offered himself to suffer with Christ and for Christ, and to carry
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mw==