Untitled - Saints' Books

Rule of Life. 431
And if the priest should be temperate in eating, he
should be particularly so in the use of wine, the excess
of which is most pernicious to virtue, especially to the
virtue of chastity.
On Saturdays, let him endeavor, in honor of the
Blessed Virgin, to keep at least the common fast, if he
thinks that he cannot fast on bread and water; let him,
however, be content on that day with one course. More
over, on some other days of the week, as on Wednesday
and Friday, as also in all the Novenas of our Lady, let
him at least deprive himself of something at table.
II.
Exercises after
Dinner,
i. SPIRITUAL READING.
After the needed rest, the priest shall recite Vespers
and Compline, and shall afterwards make a half-hour s
spiritual reading. For the spiritual reading he may use
the Knowledge and Love of Jesus Christ by Father St.
Jure, or Christian Perfection by Father Rodriguez,
books that are filled with piety and unction. He may
also read other works; * but let him, above all, read the
lives of the saints, as the life of St. Philip Neri, of St.
Francis Borgia, of St. Peter of Alcantara, and the like.
In the books that treat of spirituality we see virtues in
theory, while in the lives of the saints we see them in
practice; and this will stimulate us more efficaciously
to imitate the saints. St. Philip Neri never ceased to
exhort his penitents to read the lives of the saints.
How many saints, such as St. John Colombini, St. Ig
natius Loyola, St. Teresa, have been induced by the
1
It
may perhaps
be needless to recall here to mind the ascetical
works written by St. Alphonsus himself. Many well-instructed priests
avow that they seek no other books of piety, because they find all that
they desire in those of the holy bishop, who seems to have provided for
all the wants of the soul. ED.