Letter to the Friends of the Cross by St Louis de Montfort
[B. Let him renounce himself]
If anyone, therefore, wants to follow me thus abased and crucified, he must glory, as I did, only in the poverty, humiliations and sufferings of my Cross. “Let him renounce himself.”
Excluded, then, from the company of the Friends of the Cross are those who take pride in their sufferings; the worldly-wise, the intellectuals and the sceptics who are attached to their own ideas and puffed up with their own talents.
Away from you those endless talkers who make a great show but produce nothing but vanity. Away from you those so-called devout Catholics who in their pride display the self-sufficiency of proud Lucifer wherever they go, saying, “I am not like the rest of men;” who cannot endure being blamed without making some excuse, being attacked without answering back, being humbled without exalting themselves.
Be careful not to admit into your society those delicate and sensitive people who are afraid of the slightest pin- prick, who cry out and complain at the least pain, who know nothing of the hair-shirt, the discipline or other instruments of penance, and who mingle, with their fashionable devotions, a most refined fastidiousness and a most studied lack of mortification.
AnaStpaul 