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.
Henri Boudon
What is the result when we compare our worldly promptitude and industry with our preference of the service of God over all other things? Are we in any way on the look out for His greater glory, or our own greater union with Him? Is it plain at first sight that we have no object or pursuit so engrossing and so decidedly paramount as the service of God?
Fr Faber
The state of lukewarmness is hurtful to everyone, inasmuch as it is one of those maladies of the soul to cure which the strongest remedies are often found to be ineffectual. Such a state is also in direct opposition to the grace of penance, because in lieu of that holy fear which it ought to excite within us, it substitutes fruitless fears which result in nothing.
Bourdaloue
The earnestness, the zeal, the love of Mary Magdalen, compelled our Saviour to console her. She knew Him by His voice. Oh my God! What were at that moment, the transports of love, the tender gratitude of that holy soul! Those who are lukewarm in the service of God cannot realise this, because they love so little, and consequently cannot know how much she loved Him. Such as these would wish to be all for Jesus, but they wish it if God will be satisfied with a divided love – if God would accept of a service of their own, and not the one He desires.
Fr Croiset
Vain are the desires, frivolous are the pretexts, of a heart steeped in tepidity.
Fr Croiset
However long you may have lived, howsoever persevering you have been in doing well, oh! do not say, ‘It is enough, I am all right now,; for this would be as much as to say, ‘It is sufficient, I will now begin to slacken and fall off.’
St Augustine
