What can I still want if the Lord be with me? Can poverty continue to be poverty when it is found with the greatest riches? I am nothing, but I have with me, Him, who is all.
If Mary in the Magnificat could speak of her lowliness - humilitatem ancillae - what shall I say? But like her - and with greater reason, since my original nothingness is greater - I shall exalt the immensity of the Lord's gifts to me; He gives Himself to me in so many ways; He has done great things to me! Fecit mihi magna! He has given me the gift of Himself in sanctifying grace which brings the Holy Trinity to dwell in me and the gift of Himself through the Eucharist.
Truly what immense happiness is mine to have my God thuswith me!
How I ought to yearn that all the souls upon earth might come to the possession of God; that all souls might live the supernatural life; that all might know the Holy Host and consent to receive It.
I will think of all this each time I hear the priest say Dominus vobiscum during Mass.
An English soldier crawling along under a bombardment during the World War succeeded in reaching a shell hole; at the depths of the temporary shelter, he found a man seriously wounded and in a dying condition. He felt he should express at least a word of sympathy. The wounded soldier's identification tag bore the initials R. C., Roman Catholic. Utterly bereft of words, all that the English comrade could finally succeed in stammering out was Dominus vobiscum. But what more beautiful wish could be expressed for one about to die: May the Lord be with you!
I will send out in thought upon all the dying in the world today this wish. Oh, that not one of them die without having God with him, without God in him. My own happiness is so great! But is that true of everyone? I will pray, pray ardently, above all, for the dying.
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)
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