Spiritual maxims from the great Saint Alphonsus

St. Alphonsus is without doubt one of my favorite Saints, if for no other reason that his copious writings are full of such wonderfully edifying, truly helpful material.  Volume III of his Ascetical Works, the Great Means of Salvation and Perfection, contains a list of useful spiritual maxims for Christians.  I pray you find them as useful as I have!  These are brief statements of piety that can be returned to again and again, and should be.  They can serve as a check on our activities, state of conscience, and advancement (or lack thereof) in the interior life.

I will  break this up into two parts with part two, God willing, coming tomorrow. 

Spiritual Maxims for Christians:

Of what use will it be to gain the whole world and to lose one’s soul?

Everything has an end; but eternity has no end.

All may be lost, provided God be not lost.

No sin, however small, is a “light” evil.

If we desire to please God, we must deny ourselves.

That which is done for our own satisfaction is all loss.

In order to save ourselves we must be in constant fear of falling.

Let me die, so that I may please God.

The only evil that we ought to fear is sin.

All that God wills is good, and therefore to be desired. [That can be very hard to accept, especially when we are suffering]

He who desires nothing, but God, is happy and contented with everything that happens.

I ought to imagine to myself that there are no others in the world but God and myself.

The whole world cannot satisfy our heart; God alone can satisfy it.

All good consists in loving God. And loving God consists in doing His Will.  

All our riches are in prayer.  He who prays obtains everything that he can desire.

Let us consider that day lost on which we omit our mental prayer.  “He who leaves off praying,” says St. Teresa, “casts himself into hell of his own accord.”  [Now I feel really bad about missing that Angelus!]

Let us not pass a day without reading some spiritual book.

To be humble of heart and not merely in word, it is not sufficient to say that we are deserving of all contempt, but we must also be glad when we are despised.  And what has a Christian learnt to do, if he cannot suffer an affront for God’s sake?  When you are insulted, take it all cheerfully.

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More tomorrow!  Otherwise, the post would get a little long and the maxims themselves possibly watered down due to sheer weight of numbers.