Ninth Friday After Pentecost

Adam Paige
Aug 14
4 min read

Ninth Friday After Pentecost. Rules to be Observed in Making Visits.

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

We will continue to meditate upon visits, and we will study the rules to be observed before, during, and after our visits. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to make all our visits in a Christian spirit, with the object of pleasing God, and for God; 2d, in making them, to watch over our words and our actions, so that we may banish from them anything that may breathe the spirit of the world. We will retain as our spiritual nosegay the words in which Our Saviour tells us the object of His visit to this world: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (John x. 10).

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore Our Lord in the different visits He made to men; He visited them all in general, through descending from heaven upon earth by the Incarnation (Luke i. 78); He visited them in particular during His life, as when He visited Zacharias (Luke xix. 5); He visits them every day in general and in particular in the Sacrament of the Altar (Ps. viii. 5). Let us love and bless our divine Saviour for the great goodness He shows us by this behavior.

Rules to be Observed before our Visits.

We must first of all examine, in the presence of God, whether it is permissible, proper, and useful to make the visit, or whether it is not a dislike to solitude, the love of the world, frivolity, a spirit of dissipation and of curiosity which leads us to make it, rather than a solid reason of duty and propriety. The visit being decided upon after this examination, we must settle the intentions in which it is to be made. These ought to be the same intentions which Jesus Christ would have had if He had been in our place. If those whom we visit are afflicted persons, we must propose to ourselves to honor the suffering Saviour in His members, and to imitate Him carrying consolation to all who were in sorrow, for example to Mary and Martha after the death of Lazarus, to the apostles and St. Mary Magdalene after His resurrection. If they are poor persons, we must propose to honor in them Jesus Christ, who was poor, and to treat them with kindness, love, and respect, as being the best friends of the Saviour, who embraced their position and chose them to be the foundation of His Church and the apostles of the universe. If they are sinners who have wandered away from God, we must propose to withdraw them from so unhappy a state, and to recall them to a better life, with all the tenderness which a perfect charity inspires. Lastly, whoever they may be whom we visit, we must propose to induce them to esteem Christian truths, a love of the maxims of the gospel, the practice of solid virtues, by frankly condemning the spirit and the maxims of the world, by laboring with zeal to strengthen and perfect in their souls the reign of Jesus Christ, according to the example of the Blessed Virgin, who visited her cousin Elizabeth for the sole purpose of making all who were in her house know and love God. The means for having grace to do all these things in a holy manner is, before we go out, earnestly to ask God for it (St. Jerome, Ep. xxii.). Are we faithful to this practice ?

Rules to be Observed During our Visits.

Having been received by those whom we are visiting, we ought, 1st, to salute their angel guardian as being the principal host of the house where we are making a visit; to remember that we are going to converse in his presence, and that we must not allow a word to escape us which would be unworthy of so illustrious an auditor. It would be better still to recall to mind that the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are present at our conversation, that they listen to and register all our words in order to ask an account of them at the last day. We ought, 2d, to pay great attention to our words and our behavior, so that everything in us may not only be irreproachable, but calculated to lead hearts to God, to make them love religion and practise virtue. We ought, 3d, to terminate our visit as soon as charity and propriety admit, that we may avoid the loss of time. Have we followed these rules?

Rules to be Observed after our Visits.

Having returned home we ought, 1st, to resume our exercises and occupations with the same zeal as though we had not quitted them, and return to our rule of life with the same exactitude. We ought, 2d, to purify our interior from all we have heard which has a tendency to disturb the spirit of piety and of recollection, not lose our time in going over in our memory and representing to our imagination all we have seen or heard, but shut ourselves up in our interior with God, and with perfect freedom of spirit employ ourselves solely with what ought to occupy us.

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.

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