_POINT III._ _Infirma nostri corporis virtute firmans perpeti_, “Strengthen the weakness of our bodies with lasting power.” Give us the virtue of fortitude, an abiding willingness to do and to suffer whatever the service of God may require. This willingness is the test of our love for Him and the chief means of our sanctification. We exercise this willingness by patiently toiling along, suffering checks and contradictions, meeting with disappointments without being disheartened by them, enduring fatigue, pain, regret, shame, etc. We may meet all these trials in the sacred ministry, in the classroom, in humble labor, anywhere; and that not occasionally, but daily, hourly, yet without fretting or murmuring, but cheerfully, joyously, buoyantly, scarcely noticing them, but treating them as matters of course in a life of generous sacrifice. St. Augustine points out three degrees of patience. In the lowest degree are those who would rather endure their sufferings than commit sin to escape from them. Those are in the second degree who accept willingly what God sends, simply because God wills it. We ascend to the third degree when we desire to suffer that we may more closely resemble our suffering Lord. This is a special gift of the Holy Ghost, our third degree of humility. _Colloquy._ Ask earnestly that the Divine Spirit may increase in you all these precious effects. TRIDUUM C MEDITATION I On the Need of Frequent Renovations of Spirit _1st Prelude._ St. Paul writes to the Ephesians: “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (iv, 23). _2nd Prelude._ Ask grace to increase greatly your spirit of fervor. _POINT I._ It is one of the infirmities of our fallen nature that we are constantly drawn down to sensual and other selfish gratifications; and, to rise heavenward in our desires, we need the exertion of ever renewed efforts. As truly as the clock needs repeated winding up, so the soul needs frequent remindings of the vital truths which cause our lives to be supernatural. For this purpose, St. Ignatius has wisely provided these semi-annual renovations of spirit. If we did not care to renew our spirit of fervor at the proper time, the Lord might do it for us by means far more painful than we imagine. Bitter afflictions brought on individual persons or upon entire bodies of men, even such as are favorites of God, are often intended by Him to purify them from moral stains. Thus, some years before the suppression of our Society, Father Paradiso was instructed by the Lord to inform Father Ricci, then our Father General, that the calamities which were going to overwhelm us were intended to renew the spirit of humility, of faith and piety in the whole Church. (See B. N.’s “The Jesuits and Their History,” Vol. II, Page 179.)