Untitled - Saints' Books

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70 Material for Sermons. [PART i
money, practise strict fast, sleep on the hard floor, and
macerate yourself by hard labor. But no; he says, Feed
my sheep."
On the word my, St. Augustine remarks
that our Lord wished to say: Feed them as my sheep,
not as thine; seek in them my glory, not thine; my
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profit, not thine." In
these words the saint has taught
that he that desires to labor for the salvation of souls
should seek neither his own glory nor his own gain, but
only the advancement of the divine glory.
After reading the lives of the holy martyrs, and of the
holy workmen in God s
vineyard, St. Teresa 3 said that
she envied the latter more than the former, on account
of the great glory which they that labor for the con
version of sinners give to God. St. Catharine of Sienna
used to kiss the ground that had been trodden by priests
employed in saving souls. Such was her zeal for the
salvation of sinners, that she desired to be placed at the
mouth of hell, that no soul might enter into that land
of torment. And what do we, who are priests, say
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What do we do ? We see so many souls perish, and
shall we remain idle spectators of their perdition ?
St.
Paul said that to obtain the salvation of his neigh
bors he would have consented to be separated from Jesus
Christ, that is, according to commentators, for a time:
For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my
brethren? St. John Chrysostom desired to be blind, pro
vided the souls under his care were converted. 5 St.
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Poterat dicere: Si amas me, abjice pecunias, jejunia exerce,
raacera te laboribus. Nunc vero ait: Pasce oves meas. Serm. de
B. Philog.
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Sicut meas pasce, non sicut tuas; gloriam meam in eis quaere,
non tuam; lucra mea, non tua." /;/ Jo. tr. 123.
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Found, ch. i.
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Optabam enim ego ipse anathema esse a Christo pro fratribus
meis." Rom. ix. 3.
Millies optarem ipse exsecrabilis esse, si per hoc liceret animas
vestras convertere." In Act. horn. 3.