Annual Retreat Exercise #13: General affections on the preceding considerations
1 min • Digitized on October 28, 2021
From Introduction to the Devout Life, page 280
By St. Francis de Sales
CHAPTER XV.
General affections on the preceding considerations, and conclusion of these exercises.
O dear resolutions! ye are the fair tree of life which God, with his own hand, has planted in the midst of my heart, and which my Saviour desires to water with his Blood, and make it fruitful. I will rather endure a thousand deaths than suffer any wind of prosperity or adversity to pluck thee up. No; neither vanity, delights, riches, nor tribulations, shall ever withdraw me from my design.
Alas: O Lord, it is Thou thyself who has planted, and eternally preserved in thy fatherly bosom, this fair tree for the garden of my heart. Alas! how many souls are there who have not been favoured in this manner, and how then can I ever sufficiently humble myself beneath thy mercy?
O fair and holy resolutions! if I keep you, you will preserve me; if you animate my soul, my soul shall live in you; live then for ever, O resolutions which are eternal in the mercy of God; bide eternally in me, and let me never forsake you.