The Eighteenth Day of the Four Men Boot Camp

Do You Value Grace? 
(Excerpt from Devotion to the Dying
by Ven. Mary Potter)

How sad it is, Dear Reader, whoever you may be now reading what I write. Think: do you value grace? Do you believe that gold and silver and precious stones are but dirt in comparison with what may be termed a little grace, though indeed all grace is great? You do know it well enough; you fully believe it. Then, bring that faith into practice. Look at your past life. You have perhaps had to move from one place to another. Was your first thought to look to the spiritual advantages you might gain by your change of residence, daily Mass and the rest? You may have many a time taken a holiday in the country; did you previously ascertain whether there was a church in the place, or perhaps have you not known there was not one and yet determined to spend your holiday in one place you fancied more than another, though there was no Blessed Sacrament there, no daily Sacrifice of the Mass, no opportunity of receiving the Sacraments?      Think of it, Dear Reader. Look through your life, your daily life, as well as long years back, and see if you are the least bit as anxious to obtain spiritual riches as to obtain worldly goods. Do you not allow any little matter to interfere, for instance, with a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, God put aside for your own comfort! How sad it is! I have said it in another work, [The Path of Mary] but I must say it again: Souls are being lost daily, hourly, momentarily; with every breath we draw, a soul has drawn the last breath in this world of mercy and has entered another region, a region where the Divine Justice is exercised with a severity we shrink back from contemplating; and if we could ask each miserable soul that has already commenced its eternity of woe why it was lost, what, if it answered truly, must be its answer? It had neglected grace. I beg, I entreat all who read this, think of what I say. Do you value the salvation of your soul? Then value grace. Do you care for the souls of others-----your children, relations, those around you whom you love, or those unknown to you, but whom you love because Jesus loves them and died to save them? Do you care to assist with Him in saving them? Then you must value grace. Do you care, with Jesus, to glorify your Father Who is in Heaven? You must value grace.

   These are three motives. You may look at them separately and influence yourself by whichever has most weight with you. You may say to yourself, "For my own good, I will get all the grace I can;" or "for my neighbor's good I will strive not to lose graces that so many poor souls are in such great need of." Or you may say, "For God's good, to glorify Him, that His wonderful mercy may be shown upon this sinful world, I will treasure, I will esteem His graces, as it is His wish I should." Take these three motives separately, if you will, though they are but one in reality, and see if they will not induce you to make a strong resolution for the remainder of your life, to look at grace in a different light, to realize that it is an entity, a real thing, far more real, far more valuable than the greatest treasure this world could give us.

Excerpt for Devotion for the Dying
by Venerable Mary Potter
Tan Books pgs 83-85
First Published 1880

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