We sometimes hear it said that it depends upon ourselves...and upon ourselves only...whether or not we become a St. Theresa, a St. Margaret Mary, a St. Thomas Aquinas, or a St. Francis.
That is not true. God does not necessarily destine everyone for the same degree of sanctity as his neighbor, and my problem is not how to sanctify myself with my neighbor's grace, but with my own grace, with my own measure of sanctity.
How am I to know this measure of sanctity?
For me it is determined to a large extent by the very nature of my Institute. As a Carmelite I do not hawe to sanctify myself according to the Rule of a Visitandine; as a Little Sister of the Poor, I do not have to sanctify myself according to the manner of a Bernardine or a Canoness of St. Augustine.
Even within the same religious family, there is still room for diversities without number, according to particular attraction; special divine inspiration; lights received; difference in physical or moral resistance; different reading done; different comprehension of the same things according to different spirits.
In his treatise on the Love of God (Bk. ii, Chap. vii), St. Francis de Sales explains well how admirable Divine Providence is in the diversity of graces that it distributes. I will be able with profit to meditate upon it.
"I can and ought to be a saint, I understand it now, Lord. Give me the grace to become the saint You wish to see me become in truth."
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)
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