Second Meditation: On the end for which we were created
4 min • Digitized on September 27, 2021
From Introduction to the Devout Life, page 19
By St. Francis de Sales
CHAPTER X.
Second Meditation.—On the end for which we were created.
PREPARATION.
- Place yourself before God.
- Beseech Him to inspire you.
CONSIDERATIONS.
God has not placed us in this world for any need He has of us, who are altogether unprofitable to Him, but only in order to exercise his goodness in us, by giving us his grace and glory. And to that end He has enriched us with an understanding to know Him, with a memory to be mindful of Him, a will to love Him, an imagination to represent to ourselves his benefits, eyes to behold his wonderful works, a tongue to praise Him, and so of our other faculties.
Being created, and put into the world with this intention, all actions contrary to it are to be avoided and rejected; and those which do not conduce to this end should be despised as vain and superfluous.
Consider the wretchedness of worldlings who never think of this, but live as though they believed themselves created to no other end but to build houses, plant trees, hoard up riches, and such like follies!
AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS.
Confound yourself, reproaching your soul with her misery, and for having forgotten these truths: Alas! you shall say, how did I employ my thoughts, O God, when I placed them not upon Thee? What did I remember when I forgot Thee? What did I love, when I loved not Thee? Alas! I ought to have nourished myself upon truth, and I have glutted myself with vanity: slave of the world, I have served that which was created only to serve me.
Detest your past life: I renounce you, O vain thoughts and unprofitable fancies. I abhor you, O frivolous and hateful remembrances: O unfaithful and disloyal friendships, impure and wretched slaveries, ungrateful contentments and irksome pleasures, I abhor you.
Return to God: And Thou, O my God, my Saviour, Thou shalt be from henceforth the sole object of my thoughts: I will no more apply my mind to such as are displeasing to Thee. My memory shall entertain itself all the days of my life with the greatness of thy clemency, so mercifully exercised on me: Thou shalt be the delight of my heart and the sweetness of my whole being.
Ah! such-and-such vanities and amusements, to which I applied myself; such-and-such unprofitable employments, in which I wasted my days; such-and-such affections which captivated my heart, shall henceforth be objects of horror to me: and to this end I will use such-and-such good remedies.
CONCLUSION.
Thank God, who made you for so excellent an end: Thou hast created me, O Lord for thyself, and for the eternal enjoyment of thy incomprehensible glory: Oh, when shall I be worthy of it! When shall I bless Thee as I ought?
Offering: I offer Thee, O my dear Creator, all these affections and resolutions, with all my heart and soul.
Prayer: I beseech Thee, O God, to accept these my desires and vows, and to give thy holy benediction to my soul, to the end that it may accomplish them, through the merits of thy blessed Son’s blood, shed upon the cross for me. Pater, Ave, Credo.
[Make here a little spiritual nosegay.]