The following are quoes from the book THE WAY by St. Josemaria Escriva.
39. "Pray that I may never be satisfied with what is easy" you say. I've already prayed. Now it it up to you to carry out that fine resolution.
40. Faith, joy, optimism. But not the folly of closing your eyes to reality.
41. What a sublime way of carrying on with your empty follies, and what a way of getting somewhere in the world: rising, always rising simply by "weighing little", by having nothing inside - neither in your head nor in your heart!
42. Why thos variations in your character? When are you going to apply your will to something? Drop that craze for laying cornerstones, and finish at least one of your projects.
43. Don't be so touchy. The least thing offends you. People have to weigh thier wrods to talk to you even about the most trivial matter.
Dont feel hurt if I tell you that you are...unbearable. Unless you change, you will never be of any use.
44. Use the polite excuse that Chritian charity and good manners require. But then...keep on going with holy shamelesness, without stopping until you have reached the summit in the fulfilment of your duty.
45. Why feel hurt by the unjust things people say of you? You would be even worse, if God ever left you. Keep on doing good, and shrug your shoulders.
46. Dont you think that equality, as many people undersatnd it, is synonymous with injustice?
47. That pose and those important airs don't fit you well. It's obvious that they are false. At least, try not to use them either with God, or your director, or with your brothers; and then there will be between them and you one barrier less.
48. You lack character. What mania for interfering in everything. You are bent on being the salt of every dish. And you won't mind if i speak clearly- you haven't the qualities of salt: you can't be dissolved and pass unnoticed, as salt does. You lack a spirit of sacrifice. And you abound in a spirit of curiosity and ostentation.
49. Keep quite. Don't be "babyish", a caricature of a child, a tattle-tale, a trouble maker, a squaler. With your stories and tales you have cilled the warm glow on charity; you couldn't have done more hard. And if by chance you-your wagging tongue- have shaken down the strong walls of other people's perseverance, your own perserverance ceases to be a grace of God. It has become a treacherous instrument of the enemy.
50. You're curious and inquisitive, prying nad nosey. Aren't you ashamed that even in your defects you are not much of a man. Be a man, and instead of poking into other people's lives, get to know what you really are yourself.
51. your manly spirit - simple and straightforward - is crushed when you find yourself entangled in gossip and scandalous talk. You dont understand how it could happen, and you never wished to be involved in it anyway. Suffer the humiliation that such talk causes you, and let the experience urge you to greater discretion.
52. When you must judge others, why put into your criticism the bitterness of your own failures?
53. That critical spirit - granted you mean well - should never be directed toward your apostolate in which you work nor towards your bothers. In your supernatural undertakings that critical spirit - forgive me for saying it - can do a lot of harm. For when you get involved in judging the work of others, you are not doing anything constructive. Really you have no right to judge, even if you have the highest possible motives, as I admit. And with your negative attitude you hold up the progress of others.
"Then" you ask worriedly "my critical spirit, which is the keynote of my character?
Listen. I'll set your mind at east. Take pen and paper. Write down simple and confidently- yes briefly - what is worrying you. Give the note to your superior, and dont think any more about it.
He is in charge and has he grace of state. He will file the note..or will throw it in the waste basket, And since your criticism is not gossip and you do it for the higherst motives, it is all the same to you.
54. Conform? It is a word found only in the vocabulary of those who have no will to fight - the lazy, the cunning, the cowardly - becasue they know they are defeated before they start.
55. Man, Listen! even though you may be like a child - and you really are one in the eyes of God - be a little less naive: don't put your brothers "on the spot" before strangers.
See you in December
2 weeks ago
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