(Side Altar, Cataldo Mission in Idaho)

Today's quote is once again from the great Claude de la Colombiere. I'm going to take it apart instead of showing it as a block so we can talk about it:

"Would you see what occasions we have of imitating Jesus Christ, Who submitted Himself without reserve to the Will of His Father?"

Ah yes...although He was God Himself, as Man, Our Lord completely immolated His Will to that of God the Father. Everything He did as Man, was because it was the Will of His Father. He shows how to submit to the Will of God.

"We shall find them in the changes of the season, in public calamities,"

Who among us is innocent of having complained (perhaps at length) about the weather or about something in the news? Don't answer that. 😉 We all have. But we could use it as an opportunity to submit ourselves to God's Will!

"in illness,"

I always think of these statements as referring to something like - finding out your child has leukemia. But it also applies to the stomach flu, a bad cold, chronic sinusitis...and chicken pox. :)

"in the worries of business, in all that concerns our relations, our children, our friends; we shall find them in the faults of others, of children, of servants."

Okay, so I don't have servants. :) But I've had affairs that thwart my will in all those other categories! Have I looked on them as an opportunity, or as a frustration of what I wanted?

"What a vast field we have before us for the exercise of virtue!"

Whoa! I've rarely thought of it in that light!

"And if we look at ourselves the horizon is wider still: what occasions occur for self-denial in our own weakness and imprudence! We fall, we are wounded, we speak when we should have kept silence, or we say that which we should never have said: on the one hand, what weakness! But on the other, what a source of spiritual riches!"

I love the thought that we can actually benefit from our failures...that we can offer up the humiliation that they caused, and find in them a wealth of spiritual gain!

"If only we profited by the occasions we should become holy in a very short time."

What are we waiting for? Let's get started!

(This quote was taken from his Fifth Meditation on the Passion.)