Look at your dignity, you brothers [who are] priests, and be holy since He is holy. And as the Lord God has honored you above all other persons because of this ministry, so you should love, reverence, and honor Him above all others. It is a great misery and a miserable weakness that when you have Him present within you in this way, you concern yourselves with anything else in this entire world.
Go, proclaim peace to men and preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Be patient in trials, watchful in prayer, strenuous in work, moderate in speech, reserved in manner and grateful for favors, because for all this an eternal kingdom is being prepared for you.
It is therefore my duty to teach by my actions the men now in the Order, as well as those who will be in it in future times, so that they wil be without excuse before God in this world or in the next.
This son of yours wants to serve God, and you shouldn't be sad about that; you ought to be happy about it. Not only in the eyes of God, but in the eyes of the world as well it will be looked upon as an honor for you and a good thing for your souls and bodies, because God is being honored by your flesh and blood, and all our brothers will be your sons and brothers.
The devil is sly and clever. Thanks to God's mercy and grace he hasn't the power to harm my soul. to attack me, he hampers the doings of my body. He keeps me from sleeping and then won't let me stay up to pray either. This is his way of hindering my devotion and stifling the joy of my heart, and getting me to complain about my ailments.
There are many who busy themselves solely with advancing their learning and are concerned with that and that only. If they preach to the people and then learn that some of them have been edified or converted to penitence, they get puffed up, or they flatter themselves because of the works which actually others have done. Because of the prayers of the holy brothers, the Lord had done the work of edifying and converting to penitence which these men think they had done by their words. Those holy brothers don’t know what they have accomplished, because it is God’s will that they remain unaware of it, lest they become proud. These are my Knights of the Round Table! They are the brothers who go and hide themselves in the wilderness or in secluded places so that they can give themselves the more assiduously to prayer, and weep for their own sins and the sins of others.
Each should take stock of his own nature, and provide his body with what it needs. Just as we must be careful to avoid overeating, for this would be bad for both body and soul, so we must be careful about excessive fasting, and particularly because the Lord wills mercy and not sacrifice.
Blessed are those who die in penance, for they shall be in the kingdom of heaven.
You are holy, Lord, the only God, You do wonders.
See, daily He humbles Himself (cf. Philippians 2:8) as when He came from “the royal throne” (Wisdom 18:15) into the womb of the Virgin; daily He comes to us in a humble form; daily He comes down from the bosom of the Father (cf. John 1:18) upon the altar in the hands of the priest.
What a man is in the eyes of God, that he is and nothing more.
Strip the altar of the Virgin and take the decorations away if there is no other way to assist the needy. Believe me, she will be much happier to see her Son's Gospel observed and her own altar bare than to see the altar fully adorned but her Son scorned. The Lord will then take care of sending someone who will give the Mother what she has lent to us.
If a body tranquilly eats the food that will become a meal for worms along with it, how much more peace and tranquility will the soul need to take its food, which is God Himself!
Finally, in prayer we address God, listen to him and dwell among the angels as if we were living an angelic life.
Those who are weighed down by sickness and the others who are wearied because of them, all of you: bear it in peace.
And I beg the sick brother to give thanks to the Creator for everything; and whatever the Lord wills for him, he should desire to be that, whether healthy or sick, since all those whom God has predestined for everlasting life (cf. Acts 13:48), He instructs by means of the afflictions of punishment and sickness and the spirit of repentance. As the Lord says: I correct and punish those whom I love (cf. Revelation 3:19).
Pause and reflect, for the day of death is approaching (cf. Genesis 47:29). I beg you, therefore, with all possible respect, not to forget the Lord or turn away from His commandments by reason of the cares and preoccupations of this world, for all those who are oblivious of Him and turn away from His commands are cursed (cf. Psalm 118:21) and will be totally forgotten by Him (Ezekiel 33:13). And when the day of death does come, everything which they think they have will be taken from them (cf. Luke 8:18). And the wiser and more powerful they may have been in this world, so much greater will be the punishment they will endure in hell (cf. Wisdom 6:7).
Trust in the Lord and He will take care of you.
Alas, brother lamb, innocent animal, you represent Christ to men. A curse on that impious beast that killed you; may no man or beast ever eat of her.
