Martel could say that. He lived his Catholicism intensely, and in the exercise of his remarkable charity, he recoiled before nothing. Each week he went to wash the feet of a sick man whose stiffened body made all personal care of himself impossible.
Our age is not satisfied with good religious but waits impatiently for saints.
Is this not an opportune time to examine my spiritual status?
A bad religious? - No, I hope not.
Merely a "good religious"? - That is not enough.
A saint? - That is what I must know. It is no risk to wager that I am far from it. But then I am betraying my rule, the expectation of God and the desires of my superiors and companions. Is it not time to begin?...I must question myself, pass judgment on myself. Does it suffice that the coming months be like those that have passed? Ought there not be something else; more generosity, more enthusiasm, more love?
A brave young girl, Eve Lavalliere, who had been thoroughly converted from a shameful life, asked that these words be inscribed on her tombstone:
"You who have created me, have mercy on me. I shall trust the past to God with confidence. For the future, I shall march on to sanctity!"_________________
Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)
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