Girl Scouts, February, 1952 - Photo by Edward Clark
I. Consider what abundant opportunities God has bestowed on men of meriting, of advancing in holiness, and increasing their meed of future glory. In every period, place and condition of life men can merit. If each position has its special difficulties, it has also its peculiar opportunities. God places a person in a certain state of life, and He accords such light and strength as that state requires. In the world as well as in the cloister, in prisons and in royal courts, in the lecture-room and in the labourer's cottage, amid the corruptions of Babylon as in the temple courts, men and women have sanctified themselves and won the position of saints. Meritorious service is not limited to the strong and well-endowed, or to the period of maturity and vigour. Children and the aged, the bed-ridden and the silent toiler in obscurity can do the work of God in their own souls and in the world, and can earn the highest degree of reward by the meritoriousness of their daily duties and the fervour of their good-will. The power of meriting, of atoning, of impetrating, is exercised more fully perhaps by those who can only suffer and pray than by those who are gifted with brilliant energies for external action. Never think that the accidents of time or place or employment can prevent you from serving God and advancing in merit. They may obstruct some particular forms of well-doing, but they afford other opportunities of greater merit, if you know how to seek them out and employ them.
II. Consider the different ways in which we can merit from God.
1. If we be in the state of sanctifying grace and in an habitual religious frame of mind, all our good actions, even without our special advertence, have a supernatural value and merit.
2. If we form at intervals the intention to "do all for the glory of God" (1 Cor. x. 31), our most trivial and colourless actions become works of supernatural merit, glorifying God and sanctifying our souls.
3. The prophet was commended for being "a man of desires." As an evil desire is a sin of the same class as the positive act, so by good desires which we may not be able to carry into effect, we acquire before God the merit of corresponding deeds of benevolence, of religion, of self-sacrifice.
4. Prayer is the great source of energy and spiritual life on earth. Tranquil and sluggish as the carnal-minded consider it to be, it is one of the chief forms of activity. By prayer we are able to advance effectually, and to bear an actual share in the preachings of Apostles, the sufferings of Martyrs, and the multifarious works of priests, religious orders, and the lay soldiers of the Cross. What abundant opportunities you have of meriting grace and glory by the service of God ! Do not live thoughtlessly, neglecting and wasting them, but treasure them and use them as the merchant does the smallest chance of gain.
III. Consider the shocking waste of supernatural energy and future prospects. Many remain plunged in mortal sin, dead to Christ, and their works are all unprofitable. Others are incarnations of the spirit of evil, hating God and goodness, trampling on the Precious Blood of Christ, violating every law, natural, moral and spiritual, filling the world with miseries, and heaping up wrath to themselves. Others again resist the light of truth, and will not come up higher whither God calls them; they refuse to render a complete service to God, and fail of their vocation. Others again labour on temporal things, working from the superabundance of their natural energies, pleasing themselves and seeking commendation from men. Others live carelessly from day to day, doing little harm, but troubling nought about spiritual things. To all these the Lord says: "You have sowed much and have brought in little: you have eaten but have not had enough . . . you have clothed yourselves but have not been warmed: and he that earned wages put them into a bag with holes" (Agg. i. 6). Be careful that you do not thus squander your opportunities.
Read from the Original Book.
