Thought for the Day – 21 July – Meditations with Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1881-1971)
Our Dominant Passion
“Holy and God-fearing people know their own particular weakness.
They accept it as a cross and will not rest until they have conquered it with God’s help,
The battle cannot be won in a day but, in most cases, takes a great many years.
Often the ultimate victory is not gained until the hour of death.
It has been said that self-love dies three days after ourselves!
We are enormously attached to our own ego and humility is a very difficult virtue to acquire.
Sometimes, we have struggled for years to gain it and quite suddenly, we meet with another disastrous fall.
It would be easy to be overcome by discouragement at this stage but, this should not be allowed to happen.
When we fall, we should say to God in our repentance: “It is good for me to be humbled.”
To ourselves, we should say immediately: “Let us begin all over again.”
St Francis de Sales was endowed by nature with a sharp and hasty temperament, against which he fought for many years with great determination and reliance on God’s help.
Finally, he conquered and came to regarded as an angel of peace.
Nevertheless, even in the late years of his life, he still experienced inward tendencies towards anger, so that his exterior gentleness, was really a supreme act of victory!
He as known as the “Gentle Christ of Geneva.””
Antonio Cardinal Bacci
PART ONE:
https://anastpaul.com/2020/07/20/thought-for-the-day-20-july-our-dominant-passion/
AnaStpaul 