Jean-Baptiste Berthier

“ Let every one, then, who cannot snatch from his occupations the time necessary to shut himself up in solitude and meditate there, reflect every day while attending to his duties, and study in good books, and in the silence of a recollected soul, the heroism of saints and the glorious thoughts of our faith. ”

“ But in order to know what state will best suit our end, we must reflect. We must interrogate the experience of our past falls, the causes of our sins, the nature of our aptitudes, the excellences, the advantages, the dangers, of the several states of life. ”

“ If they have had the misfortune to lose their souls, what have they now of all their wealth, their pleasures, and their honors? Remorse and torments that shall overwhelm them forever as long as God shall be God, and leave them not a ray of hope ever to retrieve their eternal loss. ”

“ It is true that, while living in the world, it is not always easy to enter into one's self; and hence theologians [10] and the masters of the spiritual life advise persons who are about to choose a state of life, to spend some days in retreat in the quiet and retirement of a religious house, far from the noise of the world and the bustle of business. ”

“ What noble talents are buried in the earth, what grand intellects become utterly powerless ! What countless souls, capable of the sublimest achievements, waste away in trifles and folly ! " O ye sons of men, how long will you be dull of heart? ”

“ It is this absence of reflection that every day throws into careers not made for them men who are swayed, not by reason or by grace, but by the threefold concupiscence spoken of in St. John. Who can tell the amount of evil which this thoughtlessness begets in individuals, in families, and in society at large? How many beings lead hapless lives because they are out of their true way ; into how many dangers for salvation are not souls plunged inconsiderately, which might have been avoided by a little care and foresight ! ”

“ Consider likewise what may be the consequences of the state that you choose, either in going into the world, or in giving yourself to Jesus Christ. The world offers you the goods of this earth ; on the other hand, Jesus Christ holds out to you a cross. That is what he himself preferred while he was in this world. But he unites with it two immense advantages : peace of heart in this life, and heaven in the life to come. Blessed is he who saves his soul ”

“ But thinking, or reflection, ought to be used by a man chiefly in important undertakings, and therefore in the choice of a state of life. It is then, above all, that he should meditate carefully on the end of man here below. ”

“ Wherefore they err who determine first to marry a wife, or take an ecclesiastical office or benefice, and then afterward serve God ; reversing the use of the end and means, and not going straight to God, but obliquely endeavoring to draw him over to their own perverse desires. The true way to act is the direct contrary : to set before ourselves first the service of God as our end, and then to choose marriage or the priesthood, as well as all other things, so far as it is expedient, they being ordered toward the end previously determined. ”

“ Man was created for this end, that he might praise and reverence the Lord his God, and, serving him, at length be saved. But the other things which are placed on the earth were created for man's sake, that they may assist him in pursuing the end of his creation ”