Annual Retreat Exercise #7: Affections to be exercised after this examination
1 min • Digitized on October 22, 2021
From Introduction to the Devout Life, page 273
By St. Francis de Sales
CHAPTER VIII.
Affections to be exercised after this examination.
After having quietly considered each point of the examination into the state of your soul, you must afterwards proceed to the affections in this manner:
Return thanks to God for the little amendment you may have found in your life since your resolution, and acknowledge that it has been his mercy alone that has wrought it in and for you.
Humble yourself exceedingly before God, acknowledging that if you have not advanced much it has been through your own fault, because you have not faithfully, courageously, and constantly corresponded with the inspirations, lights, and good impulses which He has given you in prayer and at other times.
Promise that you will eternally praise Him for the graces by which He has withdrawn you from your evil inclinations by this little amendment.
Ask pardon for your unfaithfulness and disloyalty in not corresponding with his graces.
Offer Him your heart, to the end that He may make Himself the entire master of it.
Beseech of Him to make you faithful to his graces.
Invoke the saints, the Blessed Virgin, your guardian angel, your patron, St. Joseph, and the whole court of heaven.