examination of the heart 476 can seem the one who, wanting to make progress in the school of the cross with Jesus as the Teacher, would not want to endure anything adverse, harsh, and painful. Truly, here only the patient is wise. Therefore, in the present Communion do not look so much for the heavenly delights and pleasant sweetness, but ask rather that your heart and spirit be strengthened for suffering. 2. “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete?” (Lk 14:28). Consider that you should first seek the means for attaining perfection of religious life before you start climbing to the summit of perfection. For as there is no building without funds, so either is there no virtue without means. However, do you want to know which means are to be used towards perfection? None other than the rules that God gave you for observing. For no perfection is greater than the genuine observance of the rules. Hence, he who stays outside of the Rule finds himself outside of the way of perfection and closer to hell than to Heaven. Therefore, may nothing be more sacred in your life than the observance of the religious Rules and God’s commandments, for you shall make as much progress in the love of God as you observe the Rules. After Holy Communion 1. “will not sit down first and take counsel” (cf. Lk 14:31). As one needs peace of mind before starting a job in order that the method of accomplishing it may be better considered; similarly, one must go back to the same peace, after the business has been accomplished, in order to ponder what was lacking in it, what could be best added or avoided. [f.154r] O my soul! Do you realize from what task you are returning? Your undertaking was with God Incarnate, Whom you have consumed. Therefore, stand still for a moment and, recollecting your senses, consider how you have conducted yourself in this undertaking, in what manner you managed it. If something was
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