Thursday, August 12, 2010

An Easy Way to Become a Saint - August 12

Continued from yesterday...

Chapter 3. The Wonderful Things Gos Has Done for Us

The Gift of Divine Grace

Scarcely had we been born when our parents took us to the Baptismal Font. We had come into the world covered with a hideous leprosy, the filth and corruption of Original Sin, which we inherited from our First Parents.

The Baptismal water was poured on our heads; we were bathed in the Precious Blood of Jesus, the same that was shed for us on Calvary.

These saving waters cleansed our souls from this hideous leprosy, leaving them as pure as the Angels in Heaven, while God, by an infinitely Divine act of love, clothed our souls with a dazzling mantle taken from His own shoulders, viz., with the robe of Divine Grace. This is a real participation in His Own Divine nature, as St. Peter assures us.

Did we see our soul clad in this Divine mantle, we should be inclined to fall down and adore it. Nothing on this Earth can give us even a faint idea of a soul in grace, an image of God, radiant, resplendent with divine beauty.

This divine grace is not only a robe of beauty, it is a divine force, a new life which raises up our natures, giving them a new dignity. It penetrates into our faculties, illuminates our intellects and strengthens our will.

With it we can see and do what would be otherwise utterly impossible to our poor human nature.

How little do we understand the wonders God has done for us!

Foolish, ignorant parents are so blind that they sometimes leave their children for days without Baptism. The life of the newly born babe is so fragile that it may die at any moment, and then! That dear soul will never see God, through the culpable neglect of those who should love it most.

And even if the child does not die, why leave it wallowing in the corruption and filth of original sin?

Fathers and mothers strive to save their children from the least bodily defect, yet owing to crass ignorance, they allow them to remain so long under the curse and malediction of sin. Sad, woeful ignorance!

[Continued tomorrow]
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From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949

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