Fourth Sunday of Lent 2019-03-31

God has given us a most lovely Religion, which He made expressly to help us, to make us happy. How is it that we do not understand this? Simply because we neglect our great duty of daily meditation, and therefore our ideas are vague and of little or no use to us. One clear idea is worth a thousand hazy ones. The easiest and best way to have clear ideas is to make a short daily meditation.

Meditation does not consist in thinking all the time. We read a little, think a little, and make short little acts, as we shall now explain. Nothing is easier.

Why must we make meditation?

1.	Every Catholic should make daily meditation. St. Teresa says that the person who does not meditate needs no devil to throw him into Hell; he is going there himself.
2.	Meditation is by no means hard to make, if only we learn how to make it, and this presents no difficulty.
3.	If we do not meditate, we never see our faults, and so we never correct them.
4.	If we do not meditate, we can form no idea of the malice of sin, and as a consequence, we do not feel sorry for it; we do not avoid it.
5.	If we do not meditate, we do not see the awful danger we are in of falling into Hell. For this reason, thousands of men and women - men and women like ourselves - are falling into Hell every day.
6.	If we do not meditate, we do not prepare for death; we are afraid of death; we are afraid to think of it. That is just the reason why so many have bad deaths. Those who know how to meditate on death are no longer afraid of it, and moreover, they are sure to have happy deaths. "Think of your last end and you shall never sin", are God's own words.
7.	The greatest happiness anyone can have on this Earth is to have a good friend, a true friend, a friend who can and is ready to help him. If we do not meditate, we shall never see how good, how sweet God is; we shall never be holy, and we shall never be happy.