Spiritual Gems of Elizabeth Ann Seton: Correspondence with Grace
Not a single grace was given you but was bought with the blood of Jesus, your compassionate Savior. Not one grace is given you but might, by your fidelity to it, become for you an eternal treasure. Not one grace is given you but you must give an account of it in your hour of death and judgment.
Give some time every day, if it is only half an hour, to devotional reading, which is as necessary to the well-ordering of the mind as the hand of the gardener is to prevent the weeds from destroying your favority plants.
To correspend to the grace of the moment means a wonderful union between you and God all day.
Without prayer I should be of little service.
Pray, pray incessantly, pray with fervor and with confidence. Be sincere in your wish to know the truth and firm in your resolution to follow it.
Truth does not depend on the people around us, or the place we are in.
Why should others be more persistent in persuading me to trifles than I in adhering to that which I know is right?
That peace which is the portion of the chosen servants of God is seldom unmixed with interior struggles.
Your steadiness of conduct will never injure you, even in the minds of those who act differently from you, for all will respect and esteem you the more for persevering in what you know to be your duty.
Every step we take all day long is a step of nature or a step of grace.
When so rich a harvest is before us, why do we not gather it? All is in our hands if we will but use it.
Keep on with the hard-earned, but eternal, blissful merit.
You must be in right earnest or you will do little or nothing for God.
Every good action is a grain of seed for eternal life.
Through piety and gratitude we come to the deepest recess of peace and true contentment.
My daily object is... to take every event gently and quietly, and oppose good nature and cheerfulness to every contradiction.
Our dear Savior was never in extremes.
You will help others more by the peace and tranquility of your heart than by any eagerness or care you can bestow on them.
The best ingredients of happiness are: order, peace, and solitude.
I see that faith is a gift of God, to be diligently sought and earnestly desired, and groan to Him for it in silence, since our Savior says I cannot come to Him unless the Father draw me.
He spares me a little while to see if any fruit will grow on His barren tree, and perhaps to make amends for the bad example I have often given.
One particular point you must attend to: as soon as you have committed a fault, make your quick act of contrition for it, for fear it draw you into another, as one weight pulls another after it. Make your sincere act of contrition by loveing and sorrowful turning of your heart to our dear Savior; and then, instead of pondering on the fault, try to think no more about it, only to guard against repeating it, or to say Paters and Aves in penance for it while you work.
Every day must bring its trials: why then are we troubled and surprised?
Oh, when we are sick of ourselves, weakened on all sides, discouraged with repeated relapses, wearied with sin and sorrow, we gently, sweetly lay the whole account at His feet! Merciful Savior! Can there be any comparison to this blessedness?
