Annual Retreat Exercise #15: The sentiments we must preserve after the conclusion
1 min • Digitized on October 29, 2021
From Introduction to the Devout Life, page 282
By St. Francis de Sales
CHAPTER XVI.
The sentiments we must preserve after this exercise.
On the day you have made this renovation, and for some days following, you ought frequently to repeat from your heart these fervent words of St. Paul, St. Augustin, and St. Catherine of Genoa: "No, I am no more my own; whether I live, or whether I die, I am my Saviour’s. I have no longer anything of me or mine; it is Jesus who lives in ne, and all that I can call mine is to be wholly his. O world, thou art always thyself, and I have hitherto been always myself; but from henceforth I will be myself no more. No, we shall be no more ourselves, for we shall have our hearts changed, and the world which has so often deceived us shall be deceived in us; for not perceiving our change but by little and little, it will think that we are still Esaus, but we shall be like unto Jacob.
All these exercises ought to rest in the heart, and when we finish our consideration and meditation, we must turn gently and softly to our ordinary affairs and conversations, lest the balm of our good resolutions should be suddenly spilt; for it must soak and penetrate into all parts of the soul, without either straining the mind or the body.