The Trip to Jerusalem for the Presentation at the Temple - The Incarnation - Bk 4 - Ch19
The Venerable Sister Mary of Jesus of Ágreda describes when the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph departed with the Infant Jesus in order to fulfill the law, by presenting Him in the Temple of Jerusalem. Mary, Our Mother, and Our Queen reminds us that how we do things is very important. She says, "My daughter, one of the misfortunes, which deprive souls of happiness or at least diminish it, is that they content themselves with performing good works negligently or without fervor; as if they were engaged in things unimportant or merely accidental. On account of this ignorance and meanness of heart few of them arrive at an intimate friendship of God, which they can attain only by fervent love. This is called fervent precisely because of its similarity to boiling water. For just as water is made to boil and foam by the fire, so the soul, by the sweet violence of the divine conflagration of love, is raised above itself and above all created things as well as above its own doings. In loving, it is more and more inflamed, and from this very love springs an unquenchable affection, which makes the soul despise and forget all earthly things while at the same time it becomes dissatisfied with all temporal goodness. And as the human heart, when it does not attain what it dearly loves (if that attainment is possible) is inflamed with ever greater desire of reaching it by other means; therefore, the loving soul, finds ever new things to strive after for the sake of the Beloved and all service will seem to it but little. Thus it will pass from goodwill to a perfect will, and from this to what will please the Lord still more until it arrives at the most intimate union with Him and at a perfect conformation with the will of God."
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