22 September, Antonio, Cardinal Bacci: Meditations For Each Day

Depending Always On Jesus

1. Virtue is difficult, and life holds more trials than consolations. Sometimes we feel discouraged because virtue seems impossible and we fall so often in spite of our best resolutions, or because our cross seems too heavy and we feel that we are overburdened.

Where will we find comfort in our sufferings and strength in our weakness? “Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt. 11:28) Go to Jesus and depend always on Him.

Difficulties will be overcome, the cross will grow lighter, the pain will be less severe if we rely always on Jesus. Isaias, the Prophet, placed these words on the lips of God: “I have made you and I will bear: I will carry and I will save.” (Is. 46:3) At that time Jesus had not yet come; He was not yet present among us with His doctrine, with His consoling spirit, and with His Divine Eucharist. Now things are different; we have Emmanuel, God with us. Why, therefore, do we not allow ourselves to be carried by Him? It is necessary for us to allow ourselves to be “carried by the grace of God,” (Imit. of Christ, Bk. II, Chap. 9) as the “Imitation of Christ” puts it.

If God is with us, who or what can prevail against us?

We must, as St. Francis de Sales writes, lean on the arm of Jesus as the child leans securely on the arm of its mother. “It matters little,” he adds, “where she walks, on a grassy plain or on a steep path surrounded by precipices.” She is his mother and she carries him; that is enough to make him happy and content. We must trust Jesus in this way, relying always on His support in joy and in sorrow, in moments of trial and in moments of satisfaction, in life and in death. Let us not be afraid; Jesus is better and stronger than our earthly mother. If He guides and supports us, we can be sure of Heaven no matter what happens.

2. When we abandon ourselves to Jesus, we must do so cheerfully as well as trustingly. St. Basil calls the devil the angel of sadness. The evil spirit is, in fact, sad, for this is the lot of one who has lost God forever. He wishes, moreover, to communicate that sadness to us also when he has drawn us into sin.

We should be happy in the Lord, as St. Paul exhorts. Joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. He who possesses Jesus and His grace is touched by that holy joy which radiates from Him. The Saints were joyful in persecution and in martyrdom as the Apostles were before the Sanhedrin because “they had been counted worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.” (Acts 5:41) It is related of St. Romauld that in spite of great austerities he was always smiling, so that he communicated happiness to those who saw him. Let us, therefore, rely always on Jesus; let us remain close to Him and the path to Heaven will seem smooth in spite of the many obstacles which we are sure to encounter.

3. We must continue to trust in Jesus even when we have been guilty of imperfection or of sin. Sin, according to St. Thomas, is the denial of love, and therefore of God Who is charity. It places a distance between God and the soul. Precisely because of this, whenever we fall into sin or imperfection, we should return immediately to Jesus and ask Him to support us once more in our weakness. There is no need to be afraid. It was for this purpose that He became man, and suffered and died for love of us. We can be sure that whenever we return to Him in a spirit of repentance, He will receive us lovingly and will grant us forgiveness. He will support us with His omnipotent power so that we may not fall again.