Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Spiritual direction: wise words by Pope Pius XII

While he wrote these words in an Encyclical to commemorate a certain day, I think everyone would be well advised to ponder these words and their spirit on each and every day.

10. May it be for the Faithful a day of grace, on which the fire that Our Lord came to cast upon the earth will kindle with ever greater light and purity. May it be a day of grace for the lukewarm, for the weary, for the afflicted, that their heads, which have become faint, may give proofs of interior renewal and regeneration of spirit. May it be a day of grace also for those who have not known Christ or who have lost Him; a day when from millions of faithful hearts will rise to Heaven the prayer that "the Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world" (Saint John i. 9) may make clear to them the way of salvation, that His grace may stir in the "troubled heart" of the wanderers a homesickness for things eternal, a homesickness that impels them to return to Him, Who from His sorrowful throne of the Cross thirsts for their souls also and Who is consumed by a desire to become for them, too, "the Way, and the Truth and the Life" (Saint John xiv. 6).

Summi Pontificatus
Pope Pius XII