Just for Today, November 1

I am He who made all the saints; I gave them grace; I have brought them to glory. I know the first and the last; I embrace them all with an inestimable love.

I am to be praised in all My saints; I am to be blessed above all things, and to be honoured in everyone of them, whom I have thus gloriously magnified and eter­nally chosen, without any foregoing merits of their own.

Take heed, therefore, my son, that thou treat not curiously of these things which exceed thy knowledge, but rather make it thy business and thy aim that thou mayest be found amongst the number of those who inherit the kingdom of God, although thou shouldst be the least amongst them.
-Bk. III, ch. lviii.
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For a long time I wondered why God has His pre­ferences, and why souls did not all receive the same measure of grace. I was astonished that great sinners like St Paul, St Augustine and St Mary Magdalen should be granted such extraordinary favours, and al­most forced to accept them. When reading the Lives of the Saints I could not understand why Our Lord treated some as privileged souls even in their cradles, removing any obstacles that might keep them from Him, and preserving unspotted their baptismal innocence, whilst on the other hand innumerable savages died without ever hearing the name of God.

Jesus Himself taught me this mystery. He laid open before me the book of Nature, and I understood that all the flowers He has created are beautiful; that the loveliness of the rose and the purity of the lily in no way lessen the sweet scent of the hidden violet or the appealing simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the little flowers wanted to be roses, Nature would lose her garb of Spring, and the fields would no longer be starred with little blossoms. It is the same in the domain of souls, the living garden of the Lord.

-The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Âme).
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Adapted from Just For Today(©1943 Burns & Oates)
Nihil Obstat: Reginaldus Phillips, S.T.L.,Censor deputatus
Imprimatur: Edwardus Myers, Vic. Cap.