He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house; you gave Me no water for My feet; but she has bathed My feet with her tears, and has wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss; but she, from the moment she entered, has not ceased to kiss My feet. You did not anoint My head with oil; but she has anointed My feet with ointment. Wherefore I say to you, her sins, many as they are, shall be forgiven her, because she has loved much.
Luke 7:36-50
First Point – Where were you one hundred years ago? In nothingness. Who has drawn you out of it? God, who, by a preference that you have not at all merited, has created you to His own image and likeness. For what end have you been created? To glorify God, to know and to serve Him, to do His holy will and to keep His commandments. We glorify God by knowing and by loving Him; we give testimony of our love by serving Him; we serve Him by keeping His commandments.
Father François Nepveu
The service of God is not only our most important, but our sole work. This is so obvious that it requires only to be stated. Time and words would alike be wasted in the attempt to prove it. Yet, alas! even spiritual persons need to be reminded of this elementary truth.
Fr Faber
O my Lord and my God! my heart is filled with bitter grief when I call to mind the years of my past life. Alas! far from having employed them in Thy service, I am one of those unfaithful servants who have had my own self interest in view. However, as You are my Lord and King, I this day take an oath of allegiance and from henceforth swear that my wish is to live and die in Thy service.
Henri Marie Boudon
We begin at once to go back in the spiritual life when we become lukewarm or lax in the service of God. It is the first step that leads to sin and death.
Fr Louis Bordaloue
Sometimes I allow the world to show them what it is, so that, feeling its diverse and various passions, they may know how little stability it has, and may come to lift their desire beyond it, and seek their native country, which is the Eternal Life. And so I draw them by these, and by many other ways, for the eye cannot see, nor the tongue relate, nor the heart think, how many are the roads and ways which I use, through love alone, to lead them back to grace, so that My truth may be fulfilled in them. I am constrained to do so by that inestimable love of Mine, by which I created them, and by the love, desire, and grief of My servants.
The Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena
First Point – Death is fast approaching. Everything we see, everything we hear, proves it. In a short time we will be summoned to appear before the great Judge. We must die, indeed, but we must die a good death, if we would be saved. We try to persuade ourselves that death is still far off, as if by so doing we could keep away from us death itself. We should weep constantly over the brevity of life. A young man builds his hopes for a long life, on his youth; a man in middle life, on the vigor of his age; and an old man, on the strength of his temperament. Each one believes that he has resources against death that other men have not. How strange, but how common an illusion!
Father François Nepveu
