Spiritual Exercises Day 4

This is my living memory of the roots of my Catholic Faith.  My mother was reared in the middle one of the thatched cottages. Situated on the Dingle peninsula Co Kerry, it nestles at the foot of Mount Eagle and looks down to the chapel at Ard A Bhothair and the sea beyond.  Mama was born in 1925  in the reign of the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius XI.  In that same year he instituted the feast of Christ the King.  Never stop thanking God for our parents and ancestors who passed on the authentic Catholic faith to us. "Give No Quarter" to anything less. 

Little tip: God created everything. Man makes loads of things using what God created and ONLY what God created.   Scientists never created anything ... ever.  God is creator - man is jigsaw maker. 

Exercises    Day 4

Creatures are from God

Creatures have the same origin as myself.  They, like me, have been taken from nothing, and He who drew them from nothing was God; but what difference between their creation and that of man!

Like me creatures occupied from all eternity the thoughts and heart of God; but they hald only the second place.  God loved me for Himself, because I was destined for His glory; He loved creatures for the sake of amn, because they were destined for the use of man, and because they only have reference to God distantly and through the medium of man.

Like me, they were created for the glory of God; but they have neither the understanding to know Him, nor the heart to love Him; they are incapable of possessing Him; they can only glorify Him in a very inferior and imperfect manner, that is, by the services which they render to His servants.  "Know O man thy dignity"  (St Leo).

I must render an account ...

I must, then, make use of creatures according to the order of the Divine will, not as a master who disposes athis pleasure, but as a steward who must render an account to his lawful superior.
I must make use of creatures with a spirit of gratitude, like a poor man who of himself has no right to the use of the things of this world, and who holds everything from the liberality of God to whom all belongs.

I must also make use of creatures with a spirit of fear; for on one side my corrupt nature contanatly inclines me to the abuse of created things, and on the other God will rigorously punish this abuse, which overthrows all the econom of creation.

Let me look back at the past.  In what spirit have I made use of creatures up to this day?  Has it not been in a spirit of independence? Almost always without consullting the will of God; often evern contrary to the order of Hisadorable will.  Has it not been with a spirit of ingratitude?

Not like worldlings...

I am for God and creatures for me.  From this follows that I cannot, like worldings, make creatures my end without making mself guilty and miserable. 
St Bonaventure tells us that the earth cries out against sinners for the universe knows the proper order of things towards God.
"All created things cry out, each according to their manner, and say: This is he who abused us. The earth says, Why mst I bear upon me this monster? The water says, why do I not instantly suffocate him?  The air says, Why do I not deprive him of my benefits?  Hell says, Why do not my flames devour and inflict on him a thousand tortures?" 

I am guilty of form of idolatry