I wish that you should be continually with Me, and by being with Me enjoy all perfect felicity. But why do I not fulfil this? You may by My grace increase daily in goodness and at every moment be made richer in merit. Seeing that this is so, how foolish do you think them to be, and how much to be lamented, who spend the most precious time of grace that I have allotted to them, not only not to My honour and their own profit, but to the heavier aggravating of their damnation by a wicked life? Oh, if only you knew how much you might increase in the virtues of your soul, and in merit, by My grace every hour. For then you would undoubtedly take care with more diligence that the smallest moment should not pass you vainly, nor yet slip away without reaching some benefit for your soul. With the rising of the sun every day, there should arise a new joy in your mind, that I had granted you the commodity of that day, and by it so much longer space to honour and serve Me. Think, therefore, and say to yourself at every hour: Our Lord Who loves me has given to me this hour, this moment, and has prolonged the course of my life, that I should begin even now to turn to Him, and endeavour myself to please Him.Above all things carry this opinion, that the present moment in which you live, is the first time you begin to do well, and contemn all that you have done before as worthless. Whatever the occasion, whatever business, whatever idle time, or any other thing that either may or shall happen to you, use them so as to employ them to My glory, and convert them to some benefit for your own soul. For I have stirred you up and excited you to depart from all vanities, by shutting the gates of the senses against them, and to return to Me with a recollected and quiet mind.
It remains now that I add to this, as it were, a rule to teach you how to live godly, which I have heard from you, by the inspiration of My grace, desire often at My Hands. For there remains yet bashfulness in you, which I well like, and which makes you ashamed in the opening of your infirmities, faults, errors, and negligence. But seeing that you desire to return to My grace, there is nothing that I likewise do more affect or desire. For what other joy have I in being among you, than to receive every sinner into My favour? How much more then do I desire, or rather long, to bring you home to Me, when you go astray, among the briers and thorns of worldly vanities; I am so desirous to recall you, as I will prescribe you a plain path, wherein you shall be sure to follow My Steps, and never wander again out of your way. Come, therefore, unto Me, and by your return procure Me a new joy, such as I delight in most, and desire ever to possess.
~ Alloquia Iesu Christi ad Animam Fidelem, by Lanspergius ~
