| the best, not the conspicuous | | Date Created: Sep 12, 2006, 09:22 AM |
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Well... I'm not sure I'd ever use the phrase 'internal mortifications' myself, but I was challenged by this from Introduction ot the Devout Life by St Francis of Sales (1567-1622):
Among such virtues as have no special adaptation to our own calling, choose the most excellent, not the most showy.
A comet generally looks larger than the stars, and fills the eye more; but all the while comets are not nearly so important as the stars, and only seem so large to us because they are nearer to us than stars, and are of a grosser kind.
So there are certain virtues which touch us very sensibly and are very material, so to say, and therefore ordinary people give them the preference. Thus the common run of men ordinarily value temporal almsgiving more spiritual; and think more of fasting, exterior discipline and bodily mortification than of meekness, cheerfulness, modesty, and other interior mortifications, which nevertheless are far better.
Do you then choose the best virtues, not those which are most highly esteemed; the most excellent, not the most visible; the truest, not the most conspicuous. |
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