How the Word of God should be heard and read.
Love to hear the Word of God, whether you hear it in the familiar conversations of your spiritual friends, or at sermon: always receive it with attention and reverence: make good use of it, and suffer it not to fall to the ground; but preserve it in your heart, like a precious balm, in imitation of the most holy Virgin, who carefully kept in hers all the words spoken in praise of her Son. Remember that Our Lord gathers up the words we speak to Him in our prayers only insofar as we gather up those He speaks to us through preaching.
Love to hear the Word of God, whether you hear it in the familiar conversations of your spiritual friends, or at sermon: always receive it with attention and reverence: make good use of it, and suffer it not to fall to the ground; but preserve it in your heart, like a precious balm, in imitation of the most holy Virgin, who carefully kept in hers all the words spoken in praise of her Son. Remember that Our Lord gathers up the words we speak to Him in our prayers only insofar as we gather up those He speaks to us through preaching.
Always keep with you some good book of devotion, such as those of Saint Bonaventure, Gerson, Denis the Carthusian, Louis of Blois, Granada, Stella, Arias, Pinelli, Dupont, Avila, The Spiritual Combat, the Confessions of Saint Augustine, the Epistles of Saint Jerome, and others like them; read a little of one every day with great devotion, as though these holy authors had sent them to you from Heaven to show you the way and give you courage to walk therein. Read also the histories and lives of the saints, wherein you will see, as in a mirror, the portrait of the Christian life. Adapt their actions to the benefit of your soul, having regard to the duties of your vocation; for although many actions of the saints are not imitable by those who live in the world, nevertheless they may all be followed, either closely or from afar. Thus you may imitate the solitude of Saint Paul, the first hermit, in the spiritual and actual retreats of which I have spoken to you, and to which I shall return later. You may imitate the poverty of Saint Francis by the practices of poverty about which I intend to speak to you, and so with the others. But I admit that certain histories offer even greater guidance for the conduct of life: such as the Life of the blessed Mother Teresa, truly admirable in this respect; the Lives of the first Jesuits; those of Saint Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, Saint Louis, Saint Bernard; the Chronicles of Saint Francis, and others like them. Others offer more matter for admiration than imitation, such as those of Saint Mary of Egypt, Saint Simeon Stylites, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Catherine of Genoa, Saint Angela, and many others, which nevertheless impart a general taste for the holy love of God.