POINT III. What are we expected to do during this triduum?
We must aim at a thorough renovation of the religious spirit; and for this purpose generous souls will devise various means. But to a certain extent our Society undertakes to direct our efforts by describing certain definite practices, which must be faithfully used by all. They are clearly marked out in the Letter of Father Vincent Caraffa: 1. Avoiding all unnecessary intercourse with the outside world; 2. Observing a strict silence, even during the times of the ordinary recreations; 3. Half an hour’s reading daily of a practical spiritual book. 4. Making two earnest meditations daily, one of them before the Blessed Sacrament exposed; 5. Examining one’s spiritual progress for half an hour every day; 6. A general confession of the last six months; 7. A public self-accusation of faults in the refectory; 8. A clear account of conscience to the superior. If all this is observed and performed in the right spirit, much profit will result.
Colloquy. Offer good resolutions, and ask further light and grace to correct all faults.
MEDITATION III
What Kind of Men Does Our Vocation Require?
1st Prelude. Imagine Christ says to you: “I have given you an example” (St. John xiii, 15).
2nd Prelude. Pray to understand this great truth and to imitate that glorious model.
POINT I. Consider that the men required by our vocation are to be like to Christ: “Whom God foreknew he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son” (Rom. viii, 29). A parable will explain this. A very rich man had an only son, a model of every virtue and adorned with every human accomplishment. He devoted a large portion of his fortune to educate a number of other boys that should be fit companions for that son as like to him as possible. Thus God is treating all His elect, and in particular the members of the Society of Jesus. That is the very purpose for which St. Ignatius was inspired to found our Society and to give us his Constitution. We are destined to be perfect images of Christ.
POINT II. Consider some special points of resemblance that the Lord requires of us. We must be: 1. Like Christ in our outward behavior, so that He may appear reflected or reproduced in each one of us. That is the purpose of our Rules of Modesty, to which St. Ignatius was taught by the Holy Ghost to attach more than usual importance. Do we observe them faithfully? If we do not, it is because we fail to realize fully the ideal of our founder, which was nothing less than the image of the Son of God.
2. Like Christ in our inner sentiments, in compliance with His own invitation: There is so much meaning in His words inviting us to this special manner of imitation: “Learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart” (St. Matth. xi, 29). These two virtues are so conspicuous in our Divine model.
Meekness is emblemized by the gentlest of animals, the tender lamb; and Christ was figured in the Old Testament by the sacrifice of the lamb, and proclaimed in the New Testament by St. John the Baptist with the words: “Behold the Lamb of God” (St. John i, 29). This is not the characteristic virtue of a warrior, such as St. Ignatius had been; but he had laid aside that garment of his youth and instead had put on Christ, as St. Paul teaches us to do, saying: