FEBRUARY

LOVE OF THE CROSS

February 1: How good is the Good God who tries us! Let us live for Him, let us die for Him! If we live by crosses we shall die of love.

2: We should imitate Our Lady by practicing blind, prompt, and entire obedience, like Mary’s at her purification, when she obeyed a law from which she was exempt. For Mary was at once a Virgin and a Mother.

3: Let us live in the habitual disposition of being victims of God’s good pleasure in the different states by which He wills to try us. It is at such times that Our Lord expects proofs of our fidelity.

4: Ask the Good God to bless the crosses which His adorable Hand lays upon us. So long as He is with us all will go well, very well.

5: The cross is the hallmark set on all works which tend to the greater glory of God and He never leaves His dear children without it.

6: My dear Sisters, you ought to be Seraphim and Cherubim, you ought to be souls who run after humiliation and crosses as a thirsty stag runs to water.

7: “My Jesus, fasten me tight to Thy blessed Cross and hold me there for I am nothing but misery.”

8: Praised be our dearest Jesus! Praised be His blessed Cross! Let us love it, let us carry it, may it be our only happiness.

9: My dear daughters, we must pass through fire if w are to be purified and if we are to do anything of value for God’s glory. May His Holy Will be done in us. That is the only thing that matters on this earth, so far as we are concerned.

10: Let us be cross-bearers. My dear, dear daughters, let us love the cross. In the cross, just because they cherish it, true Sisters of Notre Dame find peace.

11: Let us drink the chalice which our Divine Master holds to our lips; let us drink it willingly and gladly.

12: Courage, let us keep our eyes on heaven. Let us go out of ourselves by the little sacrifices God asks of us moment by moment, one at a time. So shall we enrich our crowns, so shall we reach a happy eternity.

13: Our Lord’s wish is that our Institute should be founded on the Cross; it is His gift to us. Be faithful to the cross and it will take you to heaven.

14: My dear child, our Institute must be built on the foundation of the cross. Let us accept the sorrows which come to us from the Hands of a good Father. Let us rest quietly in His blessed Will, submitting for love of Him to all manner of privations.

15: Courage, courage! Like St. Paul let us only glory in crosses and humiliations. My dear child, the thought strikes me that we are beginning to be really Sisters of Notre Dame -- crosses are pouring in upon us on all sides. “It is only now,” said St. Ignatius the martyr, when he was found worthy to suffer for Christ’s sake, “It is only now that I begin to be a Christian.” How happy we are! What a joy it is to have something to suffer for God during the little space of this short life.

16: Since we must drink the chalice to the dregs, let us drink it, dear friend. I seem to see your souls owing by means of all these painful shocks. These are capital days in heaven. Courage! Go to the God of all strength and of all consolation.

17: Courage, my dear daughters! I only love you to make you die. A strange way that of loving my children - to want to put them to death!

18: Let us carry our cross willingly with our good Jesus, if we want to be glorified with Him.

19: Contradictions, humiliations, persecutions; these are the true marks by which the work of God is to be recognized. Yes, dear daughters, the seal of the cross must be set upon it - the cross in yourself, the cross in others, the cross in your children, then our dear Master will know you for His own. But notice that your cross must be faithfully and lovingly borne.

20: True Sisters of Notre Dame are victims ever living, ever dying, ever living by the fire of love and the zeal for God’s glory, ever dying by the continual immolation of themselves to God.

21: For a Sister of Notre Dame there must be no question of caprice, of fancy, of inclination; she must be dead to all such things and live only the life of Jesus crucified. Each day she should take one step forward to Calvary.

22: Remember what our Lord Jesus Christ said to St. Paul: “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name’s sake.” So do not be afraid of suffering too much; rather, be afraid of not being found worthy to suffer for the blessed interests of the good God and His greater glory.

23: You tell me that you possess some particles of the true Cross; honor it well the Cross of our Divine Savior, for it is the very foundation of our Holy Institute.

24: Courage! Let us all bend to the good pleasure of God! We must have crosses, but do not let us choose our own; let us allow the hand of our good God to give them to us. He knows so well the exact measure of our strength.

25: We must always go on, along the road where God has set us. Provided we do not lack crosses, all will go well; if we carry the cross as we ought, it will be a strong foundation to our holy Institute.

26: Let us look at our daily trials with the eye of faith - - - the cross is the most excellent present, the most precious gift that God can give to His children. I have read somewhere that the more crosses God prepares for a soul, the more light and grace He also prepares for her. So let us try to help one another to carry the cross He sends.

27: We must live a life of sacrifice, that is all that counts for heaven. The whole earth is one vast Calvary, where all good Christians carry their victim to be immolated. Let us offer our victim for immolation there. The good God will be pleased if we do this provided that the victim is our own heart, the heart of each one of us.

28: Do you know what it is that fashions a soul? Crosses, humiliations - - - the cross alone will make you advance in the way of holy abandonment. A Sister of Notre Dame must expect to have many tribulations. Many crosses - - - you must be fashioned by the cross, if you are to make any progress in the interior life.

29: Sisters of Notre Dame must be souls ready for sacrifices, if they wish to be worthy of their sublime vocation and to procure great glory to God by saving souls. None must surpass them in the spirit of self abnegation and love.