Untitled - Saints' Books

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INSTR. ix.j Exterior Mortification. 379
up and flourish. 1 Should a person have ever violated
chastity, reason requires that he should afterwards
chastise the flesh: For as you have yielded your members to
serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now yield
your members to serve justice unto sanctification?
4. INVOLUNTARY MORTIFICATIONS.
If we have not courage to mortify the flesh by works
of penance, let us at least endeavor to accept with
patience the mortifications arising from the infirmities,
the heat and cold, that God sends us. St. Francis Bor
gia once arrived late at a college of the Order, and was
obliged to remain all night in the open air, exposed to
the cold and snow. In the morning the Fathers of
the college were afflicted at what had happened; but
the saint said he was greatly consoled by thinking that
God had sent the wind, the frost, and snow. Hasten,
O Lord," says St. Bonaventure, hasten to wound Thy
servants with Thy sacred wounds, lest they be wounded
by deadly wounds of vice." This we, too, should say
when we are afflicted with sickness and pains: Lord,
chastise me with these healing wounds, that I may be
freed from the deadly wounds of the flesh; or let us
say with St. Bernard: "It is just that he should be
bowed down and become sad who has despised Thee, O
Lord! Yes, my God, it is just that I who have in
sulted you should suffer affliction: I have been con-
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Lilia haec oriuntur in monte myrrhae, et nusquam magis illsesa
servantur: ubi carnis mortificantur affectus, ibi lilia castimonise
nascuntur et florent." In Cant. s. 28.
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Sicut enim exhibuistis membra vestra servire immunditiae et
iniquitati ad iniquitatem, ita nunc exhibete membra vestra servire
justitiae in sanctificationem." Rom. vi. 19.
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"Curre, Domine, curre, et vulnera servos tuos vulneribus sacris,
ne vulnerentur vulneribus mortis."
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Conteratur contemptor Dei; si recte sentis, dices: Reus est
mortis, crucifigatur." Medit c. 15.