223rd Subject. Dispositions in which we should take our Repasts

Not on bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.—ST. MATT. iv. 4.

To enter into the views of Jesus Christ, our adorable model, and to perform this action as a true religious, have we gone to the refectory through submission to the will of God, and not through inclination and to satisfy nature?

Have we approached the table with modesty, and have we taken, as true children of God, and as from His hand, the nourishment of which we had need, as a poor person would take it who received it in alms?

Have we made with piety and modesty the prayer before and after repast, in order to testify to God our gratitude for His goodness in providing for our wants, and to ask of Him the grace to make a good use of the strength which the food would give us?

Has the thought of the privations to which a large number of persons are condemned, made us seize the occasion to offer to God some sacrifice? Has the recollection of the gall and the vinegar which were given to Jesus Christ to drink on Calvary, made us find everything delicious which was served up to us?

Have we not permitted ourselves to establish comparisons between what is served to us and what is served to others, to examine whether the aliments suit our taste, our daintiness, either in quality or quantity? When our desires have not been satisfied, have we not grown impatient? have we not murmured in thought, and even sometimes in words, forgetting that we might perhaps have been condemned to even much greater privations if we had remained in the world?

Have we not sought to justify our complaints by alleging reasons of health, our fatigues, our occupations, without considering that we might scandalize the whole community, by introducing into it a spirit of sensuality and a spirit of immortification? Have we reflected on the baseness of such conduct, the result of which is to live only for the body and its gross pleasures? To preserve ourselves from this blindness, have we entered into the sentiments of David, who in remembering his sins said: I did eat ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping?—Ps. ci. 10.

Pause.

ACT OF CONTRITION.—Thou wert pleased, O my Divine Jesus, to subject Thyself to drink and to eat, in order to teach us to sanctify our repasts; and nevertheless, far from imitating Thee in the practice of Thy privations, it would be my choice to suffer no want, to be served even better than many persons in the world. I am confused and humiliated at it, O my sweet Saviour, and I ask Thee, through Thy infinite merits and through the mediation of Mary,the grace to be more reserved and more mortified in future.

I make the resolution to......