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Chapter 2:
Means to Arrive at This End
Maxim 2:1
Begin by a complete purifying of your heart and of your conscience.
Atone for the sins of your past life by penance and tears.
Uproot any bad habits
and overcome them generously by contrary habits.
Rid yourself of the least faults and willful imperfections,
and even avoid any occasion that gives you
reasonable fear of falling into sin.
Until a heart is completely purified
it cannot receive those great communications of grace
necessary for the practice of great virtue.
Maxim 2:2
Detach yourself from all earthly affections.
Empty your heart of them so completely
that no created thing can hold it back.
A heart that is empty of everything is at the same time
filled with God.
Maxim 2:3
Work at tempering all of your passions.
Keep struggling with them until you have made them
completely submissive to reason
and to the light of grace.
Maxim 2:4
Strip yourself of the old self so that
you can put on the new.
In order to live in the perfection of this Maxim,
die to all self-love
and to every movement of the heart
that comes from a wounded nature resistant to the grace of the Holy Spirit.
When you have died to nature and to the old self,
live the life of Christ Jesus, putting on his humility,
gentleness, simplicity and all his other virtues.
Then you can say with Saint Paul:
"I live; no, not I; it is Christ who lives in me."
Maxim 2:5
With this life transformed into Christ Jesus,
love what the world hates;
hate what the world loves.
Empty yourself entirely of the spirit of the world
and be filled with Christ Jesus
and the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Maxim 2:6
In order to live more fully the life of the Saviour Jesus,
be, at least in desire,
the poorest person in the world,
the most gentle and kind,
the most humble and patient.
In a word,
excel in the practice of every virtue
of which he has left us an example in his holy life and
especially in his death.
Maxim 2:7
Living and dying in him,
with him, and through him,
make your own
the holy intentions of this divine Saviour,
that is, the glory of God and
the salvation and sanctification of all humankind;
in a word,
the whole purpose for which he chose
to live and die.
Maxim 2:8
In the same spirit of the Saviour Jesus,
lead a life hidden in God, in order to practise in him
great interior acts of adoration, admiration, glorification,
reverence and love and to draw from there the spirit of great virtue
mentioned in the preceding chapter.
To this truth we can be led only by grace
and by the imitation of Jesus
who is truly our way, our truth and our life.