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St. Marie Eugénie inspired countless others to strive for the building of the Kingdom of God through prayer and education.
The Assumption, A Mystery of Adoration
"You are daughters of the Assumption. This mystery which is more of heaven than of earth is a mystery of adoration. In Mary all was adoration; never was a right of God ignored or offended in her. If there has ever been an adorer in spirit and in truth, it is truly the Blessed Virgin. And when, departing from this world, she received the glory which crowned her grace, she was taken up into heaven to remain there eternally all adoration and love."
—From the Chapter of St. Marie Eugénie, February 24, 1878
The Spirit of the Assumption: Joyful Detachment
"The spirit of the Assumption tends towards a joyful detachment from earthly things and a going beyond trials and difficulties without complaining or wasting our time over them.
The Blessed Virgin calls us to rise with her to a celestial life by placing our thoughts and affections in heaven.
As we liberate ourselves from useless words and actions, complaints, worries and worldly affairs, we make the kingdom of God present. We speak more often to God and of God. Everything is to be gained here, and if there is anything to be lost, it is a certain need to think about ourselves. Let us ask God to take this need away.
Let us leave lesser and inferior things under our feet so that we can continually raise our minds and hearts towards God, busy ourselves with God, seek God, see God, talk about God and love God."
—From the Chapter of St. Marie Eugénie , May 19, 1878
In 1873 Marie Eugénie wrote of her desire to enter more deeply into a relationship of abandonment to God, imitating Christ in his passion. Let us echo her resolutions this Lent, preparing ourselves to enter into the Paschal Mystery.
Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, send forth your Holy Spirit to open the eyes of our hearts, that in contemplating the mysteries of Christ’s passion, we may learn to imitate His example.
Following St. Marie Eugenie, we pray that we may,
keep ourselves united to your will in all events, receiving all from your hand with confidence;
never mistrust your Divine Heart; that we may throw ourselves upon it with hope and love, believing that Jesus opens it to us and calls us there;
prepare ourselves to become accustomed to bear privations, difficulties and contradictions with good grace, gently and pleasantly.
Lord Jesus, you endured the Passion and Cross for our salvation. Help us to grow in knowledge, love and imitation of you. Teach us to empty ourselves of all that is not in conformity with you, that our lives, like yours, may be lived to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.
St. Marie Eugenie, pray for us.
In Lent 1873 St. Marie Eugénie wrote about the importance of meditating on the Passion of Jesus:
"Among many possible practices for Lent, one of the most useful, I think, is to meditate on Our Lord’s Passion. All the saints and all the masters of the spiritual life insist on this, especially St. Thomas Aquinas.
Indeed there is no stronger motive for ardent love for Our Lord than the thought of the love He showed us by dying for us on the Cross, when He was so ill-treated, hatefully abused, amid the most painful and cruel circumstances, with anguish of soul and body, and the indifference of his friends. The very apostles themselves had fled. In bearing all this He gave us the supreme proof of his love, as He himself has said: “This is the greatest love a man can show, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Certainly to give one’s belongings, one’s wealth, one’s affection is a proof of love. But nothing can be compared to the gift of one’s life and Our Lord made this gift in his Passion in the most painful circumstances, the most cruel sufferings.
And He bore it all without complaint."
—St. Marie Eugénie
"Look at Our Lord at the moment when he is delivered into the hands of his executioners, betrayed by one of his disciples, denied by another, abandoned by all.
What remained of his Church at the foot of the cross, where he died abandoned by his own, abandoned even by his Father? As God, he saw clearly that his Church was founded and that it would exist till the end of time, in spite of persecutions and the fury of hell. But as man, he suffered inexpressible pain from the flight of his Apostles. Only Mary was there to share in his sorrow, with Saint John and some holy women.
If we were at that moment of the Passion in Jerusalem, if we were allowed to offer refuge to Our Lord, would we not have been happy to bandage his wounds, to lavish our care on him, to surround him with respect, with adoration, with love? Well, let us open our hearts to him when we receive Holy Communion."
—St. Marie Eugénie , Easter 1885
“Be like children of light, for the effects of the light are seen in complete goodness and right living and truth.”
Ephesians 5:8-9
Our Lord came into the world to teach us that it is by the cross that we go to heaven. He has marked out for us a new way, and taught us that by humiliation, suffering and dying to self, we may attain eternal life. These are the true, enlightened paths that Our Lord came to teach by His Passion.
If you want the Light to produce in you these fruits of goodness, justice and truth, you must aim that the Light shines in you. Through the Passion of Jesus Christ, put yourself in an attitude to accept all that is in the Passion of Jesus Christ.
In all that we suffer, we must say “Our Lord has suffered more, for me”. The sorrow found in the Passion in a pre-eminent manner shows us that it is the way which leads to heaven.
I know that it is difficult. Our Lord, who came to teach us, knew that it was difficult, but if you are very united to Jesus Christ, if you ask without ceasing for these three things, to see the light, to love it and to long for it, the way will become smooth.
—St. Marie Eugénie, March 16, 1879
“Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not the things that are on the earth.” [Colossians 3: 1-2]
Marie Eugenie invites us to plunge wholeheartedly into the mystery of the Resurrection; to “live by the divine life Our Lord brings you in His resurrection.” She encourages us to “take on the Spirit of the Resurrection; a more courageous, a stronger spirit, which rises above difficulties and sufferings.”
For Marie Eugenie the mystery of the Resurrection brings “a deep joy which transforms us, which is adoration…” However, the Resurrection also invites us to engage in a spiritual struggle, since each person has their own “field of battle and triumph.”
The place of ‘joyful detachment’ in Assumption Spirituality sheds light on what Marie Eugenie means by this struggle, this “spirit of self-denial proper to the Resurrection”. Referring to Colossians 3, she teaches that, “in order to live by this higher life, we must renounce the earthly life.” Thus, she teaches that, “Instead of bewailing what we recognise as the will of God, we make the best of it, with a certain joyful detachment… Let us not complain unendingly about our crosses.” To moan, to be disconcerted, to reproach God, aren’t these the real sin? It is as if we were trying to escape from the human condition, trailing life like a burden we are unwilling to shoulder. The resurrection, as Marie Eugenie presents it to us, invites us to take up our cross, that is, our life, like a banner.
—St. Marie Eugénie
[Based upon "Resurrection" by Sr. Helene Marie r.a, in "The Faith of Marie Eugenie Today" Conferences given in Auteuil, 198O.]
"The joy of Easter is, first of all, a solemn, deep joy, a joy of eternity. For the Apostles, for the disciples, for the whole nascent Church, after having seen our Lord in such suffering, in such anguish, the hour of the Resurrection was undoubtedly a time of joy, a joy which, as with all passage from pain to a great joy, must have something solemn and profound in it.
... Easter is a great day, a day in which we ourselves must try to go from one life to another life. You know that is the meaning of the word Passover. How the Apostles were transformed! How, from weak beings before the day of Easter, they became strong, full of faith, ardent! How they began to be soaked in the spirit of the apostolate that would confirm in them the grace of the Holy Spirit! We have already received the Holy Spirit in such a way that Easter can produce all its transforming and forward-moving effects.
Try to allow the Spirit entrance everywhere, that He penetrate everything…that He reign everywhere, enlighten everything, transform everything, lead all on the paths of eternity, on the paths to heaven.
… The joy of Easter, a deep joy, a joy that transforms us… a joy that consists in renewing ourselves in the joy of our vocation, in wishing the same good to all, the same dwelling…"
—St. Marie Eugenie, MME, Chapter 13 April 1879
One of the defining notes of Assumption spirituality is our desire, prayer and action for God’s Kingdom. In Advent, this desire for God’s Kingdom is strongly expressed in the Church’s liturgical life. Throughout Advent the Church points us towards both Christ’s first coming, in humility, in a stable in Bethlehem, and his second coming, when His glorious Kingdom shall be definitively established, Christ having won the victory over death, evil and sin.
In Advent 1882, St. Marie Eugénie wrote an extremely beautiful reflection, encouraging her sisters to work and pray for the coming of Christ’s reign. She notes two main aspects of his reign; firstly, what she calls his ‘social reign’, where the values of Christ’s kingdom would be found in society, and secondly, his reign in us, in our hearts and in our lives.
In order to understand Marie Eugénie’s Advent reflection, it is necessary to understand the situation in which she was writing. By 1882 the congregation of sisters St. Marie Eugenie had founded in 1839 was flourishing, but times were far from easy for them. An anti-Catholic government in France had already forced the expulsion of the Assumption Fathers from Paris and Nîmes, and the Sisters too were under threat. Seeking the reign of God was far from the minds of most people, even practising Christians.
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On Christ’s reign in society
"Never before perhaps has the reign of God been as unrecognised as today. But, despite all, it is certainly not the moment to be discouraged. Consider the lives of the saints: despite the difficulties of their times they were never discouraged. They never gave up praying for the coming of the Kingdom of God, that His Name be honored, that He be adored, that the Gospel triumph in the world. … We must never stop asking that the universal social reign of the Lord come - no matter how bad the situation may be.
It is fitting then, that the faithful beg God to establish His Kingdom in this world even though it does not seem to want Him. It is fitting to pray with ardent desire and to say to the Lord: “Come with your gentleness which converts, with your power which subdues. Come with the charm of your Wisdom and your Beauty. Come with the splendour of your doctrine and your Truth. Come, enlighten the world, come and save us.” These days we shall repeat often in the liturgy: “Come, Lord Jesus, and save us.”
As well as praying for a truly Christian society, Marie Eugénie was determined to work for the coming of Christ into people’s lives and for the transformation of society. Obviously there are many ways in which we all can work for the Kingdom, all of which Marie Eugenie would delight in. She was a firm believer in each one working for the good in the ‘little sphere’ in which they are situated, in each person having a mission here on earth, a particular way in which they are called to contribute to the building of Christ’s kingdom.
Her particular mission was that of education, particularly the education of young girls. She saw that educating girls, bringing them to a true knowledge of Christianity and a personal relationship with Christ, was a ‘root from which truly Christian families would spring’. It was a long-term goal, and although the Assumption pupils were given an excellent all-round education, the goal was always Christ’s kingdom.
"We are engaged in various works of zeal. We work with youth. Is our main concern that they pass their examinations, that they know more or less history and geography? No, our concern is that the reign of Our Lord be formed in them, that His Kingdom come in them, and that, by education, we form a Christian family, the marvel of a family in which the Christian spirit reigns in such a way that from birth the children are filled with all that should make them true Christians."
For Marie Eugénie action for the Kingdom should always be rooted in and nourished by prayer – all is to be entrusted to God in prayer, “we are certainly too little to perform the works of God..."
Christ’s reign in our lives
Above all, Marie Eugénie urges us to look inwards and see how Christ’s reign in our lives could be furthered. She encourages us to pray for His Reign in ourselves, in our hearts and in our lives. Recognising that Christ does generally have precedence in our lives, she encourages to seek out ways in which we do not totally let him reign – perhaps times where we convince ourselves that our will is his will, or when our pride, selfishness or laziness prevents us giving God first place in our lives.
"Certainly, He already reigns in us, and we all say with all our heart that He is our sole Lord and our King. But is His reign total in us? Who does not feel that in his or herself there is something more to add to the Reign of Our Lord? We have to ask Him, then, to become ever more in us, the Master, the Saviour… We should pray that the word of John the Baptist is realized in us: “He must increase and I must decrease.” (John 3:30)
…We should tend towards this ideal, and, since this is not always what we find in ourselves, we should ask with ardent longing that Our Lord reign totally in us and that His coming be renewed in us."
—St. Marie Eugénie
The Visitation: Imitating the charity of Our Lady
It is a great consolation for souls who walk in the desert of life and who are travellers in this world, to often consider the Blessed Virgin as a traveller. God did not only want her to live in the land of Palestine and in this small house of Nazareth where she led such a poor and hidden life, but He permitted her to leave it to make many journeys which are spoken of in the Gospel.
The first is that of the Visitation, where, carrying Our Lord Jesus Christ, profoundly recollected in Him, she left to show her charity, her affection, her devotedness to her cousin Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, the great prophet.
The Blessed Virgin remained recollected within herself and carried to those outside the fruits of the Divine presence that she possessed in her heart. It was by this, above all, that she exercised charity.
She was so dependent on Our Lord, so united with Him, so completely under the action of grace; she was so well the beloved daughter of the Father, the mother of the Son, she maintained such intimate relations with the Holy Spirit that she communicated in this simple act a highly eminent grace.
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See how the Blessed Virgin has hardly spoken. The Gospel relates her Magnificat, but this is a canticle of praise. Apart from this canticle, the words of Mary are strikingly few in number. It was by her union with God, by humility, by the grace that she spread good and practiced her eminent charity.
We should ask God, during this feast of the Visitation, that we also may know how to practice charity in peace, in patience, in union with Him, in good example, in the renouncement of the "I", in the radiation of a living faith, that which at all times, in all places, enables the brightness of God to penetrate us, to envelope us and be spread around us. Let us also pray to the Blessed Virgin for she is very eager to grant us this grace - she who led such a humble, hidden life; she who did not seek to be seen or esteemed, she who did not preach, who never made long speeches. Let us ask her that, giving us the grace to imitate the holiness of her life, she may thus make us practice charity more than anything else.
Saint Marie Eugenie, 2. 07. 76
St. Marie Eugénie is speaking to her Sisters of their call to religious life. Her words of encouragement apply to all Christians; in diverse and complementary ways each one is called to ‘follow the star’.
“The star is generally looked on as a symbol of vocation, God’s call to a soul. All of us have received this call. There was a day when we saw the star and understood that we were called by God. This is something so great that we can never be grateful enough for it.
What made God choose us was His own great goodness, a goodness that we did not deserve at all; a love that nothing can explain. “I have loved you with an everlasting love, and therefore I have drawn you, pitying you.” [Jeremiah 31:3]
And when the star now shines in our soul by grace do we correspond faithfully? Too often we put off following the star. We do not know where it will lead us.
Undoubtedly it was a great miracle when He made a star to call the Magi. But is it less of a miracle when He makes light shine in a soul to draw her closer to Himself?
Set yourself then, day by day, with all your might, to be faithful to the many graces you have received. May the memory of them shine like the Epiphany star in your soul.”
—St. Marie Eugénie, 2 January 1884
"Mary and the holy women were with the Apostles begging in the most earnest and unceasing prayer for the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Our Lady asked this first for herself, because, holy as she was, she wanted to be holier still and to earn a more perfect fullness of the Holy Spirit who already reigned in her.
She prayed for herself, but she prayed even more for us. At the foot of the cross she became mother of all people, she asked that they might be enriched with the immense treasure that is the fullness of the Holy Ghost.
We are daughters of the Assumption, and so we ought to rise gladly from earth to heaven in the wake of our glorious Mother Mary. Why then do earthly things so often make us glad or sorry? Alas, it is because we do not let the Holy Spirit set us on fire and inebriate us enough. We weep sometimes for trifles, or if we are too grown up to shed tears we become sad and worried and cast down, instead of giving ourselves up to the Holy Spirit of God and letting Him lift us above such miseries.
I have said that the Holy Spirit inebriates us. I must add that he strengthens us. Look at the Apostles, so timid and frightened that they abandoned their master, denied him at the word of a servant. But after Pentecost Sunday they are strong! They go before the magistrates and are not afraid to say: ‘Judge for yourselves, whether it would be right for us in the sight of God to listen to your voice instead of God’s.’ [Acts 4:19] They divide the world up among themselves, they face all dangers, and die martyrs confessing their allegiance to Christ Our Lord.
Why then are we so weak, we who have received the Holy Spirit? Why are so few people strong in the face of humiliation, suffering and the inner and outward trials of life, when all the time the Holy Spirit lives in us? “You are God’s temples and God’s Spirit has his temple in you.” [1 Corinthians 3:16] We are temples of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of strength, the Spirit of Prayer, the Spirit of Love. But we are weak because we do not have recourse to our divine guest. We are too absorbed by the things we see. We do not live enough with him, nor do we let him rule over us enough to be our master.
Finally, the Holy Spirit raises us up, lifts our souls to higher things. Consult your own experience. How easy it is to pray when one is carried on the wings of the Holy Spirit! Have you not felt on certain blessed days that He carried you upwards and that by him your soul was able to raise higher and higher? To rise is truly in keeping with the spirit of the Assumption, and by the light and love from above, by the warmth and strength of the Holy Spirit, we can rise aloft in spite of all our weakness. During this Easter-tide, we have heard St. Paul say, “Rise, then, with Christ, you must lift your thoughts above, where Christ now sits at the right hand of God. You must be heavenly minded, not earthly minded.” [Colossians 3:1-2] Christ has risen, and we have sung the heavenly cry of joy, “Alleluia!” We must let ourselves be lifted up and we must offer to God the Holy Spirit Our Lady’s prayer that she said in the cenacle for herself, and still more for us. For the Apostles she obtained the grace of being no longer of the earth, earthly. We must beg for that same grace for ourselves, and not let this season pass without producing its fruits in us."
—St. Marie Eugénie, 7 June 1886
"The object of our faith is first and foremost the Blessed and Adorable Trinity whose feast it is today. It is by Our Lord that we know this mystery. … How often, in the Gospel, does Jesus tell us that His words are the words of the Father; that what He says, He says not of Himself; that those who hear Him hear God’s word? This is obviously true since Jesus is God; His word is the word of the Blessed Trinity.
One thing I specially recommend to you is unbounded trust in God. By this we are sure to have God Almighty with us and for us. It makes us His children in a special way. … Let us give ourselves to Him with boundless trust, with perfect surrender, with complete abandonment of ourselves into His hands, saying: “Since I am His child, He is my Father. And what greater support could one have than the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?”
—St. Marie Eugénie
Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Here we offer St. Marie Eugénie's thoughts on the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Blessed Sacrament: A Door to Eternity
"When Our Lord was on earth He was, like us, a traveller through life; but at the same time He was the Eternal, the Almighty, reigning at the Father’s right hand. That is what happens in the Blessed Sacrament. There, Our Lord is poor and destitute. Under the appearance of bread He feeds us on our life’s journey; but He is the Eternal and when He comes to us, we have Eternal Life in us.
This is not temporal life in which moment follows moment, in the succession of time, made up of an indefinite number of successive days, but the everlasting day of eternity. That is what we have in us at the moment when Our Lord comes down within us. What we see and adore on the altar and in the tabernacle is Jesus Christ, risen, immortal, almighty, King of Ages. Here we have the Lamb who was immolated on Calvary in His mortal life, the Lamb whom the Angels and Saints adore and will adore for all Eternity.
That, I think, is the great power of the Blessed Sacrament. In this temporal life it opens to us a door on to eternal life, and brings eternal life for us to live by."
—St. Marie Eugénie, 6 June 1880
"When you cannot meditate, stay at our Lord’s feet as the greatest poverty before the one who is rich in everything good and can give all to you. Several comparisons have been made: You are a poor earth which produces neither fruit nor flowers; miserable, arid soil that needs to be watered by grace. This grace comes from Our Lord. The earth has to be warmed and He is the sun of justice and holiness; let his rays shine on you.
If your lips are dry and a spring is before you, you know that, if there is nothing to unite your mouth to the water, you will stay thirsty. It’s not enough that the spring be close, that Jesus be in the house, nor that you go to chapel. You have to create a channel between the water and your poor, dry and cold soul. Try to create it by attention, by supplication, by ardent desire.
You don’t need many words. Look at the Samaritan. Jesus said to her: If you knew the one who tells you ‘Give me a drink’ you would ask him for living water. And she exclaimed: Lord, give me that water, (John 4:10). God sees your heart; in this prayer of simple presence to God, let this be the intimate cry of your heart. Ask Jesus to give you his grace, his Spirit, himself.
You are cold. Who isn’t cold in comparison with the saints? Present yourself to God as a person freezing with cold would seek the sunshine. Stay there as long as you can and let yourself be penetrated by the sun of justice and love. The longer you remain in his presence in this attitude of faith and humility, the more grace will come to you and the more fruit you will receive.
You lack virtues. As we receive grace and the ardour of love from Jesus, we can expect his virtues to come into our souls in the measure that we are united to him and give ourselves to him. By the ardour of your prayer, try to establish this bond which will make Jesus living in you overcome your defects. Beg him to cure you as he did the poor sick people who followed after him in Judea. Tell him that you want to sacrifice everything so that he can live in you. Ask him for grace and strength. Make acts of desire, of adoration, of love and thanksgiving.
When you are in this prayer of simple abandon to God, you belong to God. Ask for the graces you need for that to be true, so that you depend on God, so that you are truly a living branch, living on the sap of the true vine, Jesus Christ."
—Saint Marie Eugénie, 14 November 1884
"God rates holiness above all His attributes. Holiness is what He is looking for before all else. What He wants is to create saints.
People reason as if God had wanted to create a kingdom or a doctrine, and not as if He had wanted to create saints. It is saints that God wanted to fashion through the mystery of the Incarnation. And see first how He descended into the womb of the Blessed Virgin, because she was absolutely holy. What the world will never understand is that the most attractive trait which can draw God here below is holiness. In the entire world there was nothing resembling this young fifteen year-old, because she was the holiest person on earth.
So, holiness was the first attraction, the first love which brought Jesus Christ to the earth. But saints are formed only in the lowliness in which our Lord is found in his Incarnation. Here is the root of all holiness. Here is the principle of renunciation of all the things of the earth and of the emptying of self so as to live from God, like God, in the will of God. Read the lives of any of the saints: you will always find that they gave up their own wills entirely; that they entered into the lowliness of humility, poverty and obedience; that giving all their love to God, they sought every virtue in what Our Lord had shown them in making himself so small in the womb of the most Blessed Virgin."
—St. Marie Eugénie, 15th December 1878
"Scripture indicates two ways in which we are to listen to the Lord, for to listen is to obey; it is not only to pay attention with the mind, but to pay attention with the heart.
Firstly, the mind must be filled with truths; it must be filled with the words of the Gospel, with all that our Lord has said, with all that Our Lord has done, with all that he taught. Then everyday we must place before us in meditation some words of that divine life while proposing to imitate it. This is how the mind gets filled with Jesus Christ.
Secondly, there is attention of the heart, the attention of the will which urges us to do what our Lord tells us to do, what he teaches us, what he shows us. Do not forget that he is the beloved Son; conformed to Him we can be the beloved sons and daughters of our heavenly father. If we want to please God, let us enter into that divine filiation which will make us agreeable in his sight, remembering that this is only possible by resembling Jesus Christ.
Listen to him; listen to him with the ear of your heart. Fill your heart with his teachings and do what he tells you."
—St. Marie Eugénie, 22nd February 1875
"Mercy has a great effect which is this: every fault that is regretted has been forgiven, and not only forgotten but wiped out.
Charity demands that we love others; that we follow them with our heart full of love, so that they may get rid of every kind of imperfection. As soon as their fault or imperfection no longer exists, as soon as the soul regretted it and left it so as to walk in the path that leads to God’s service and His glory, then it is time for that perfect mercy, which is in God, which wipes out everything, forgets everything and throws past iniquities into the bottom of the sea.
Not only in the New Testament but in the Old Testament there are words of mercy such as “If your guilt be crimson-dyed it shall turn snow-white" (Isaiah 1:18). God will relent and have mercy on us... burying our sins away sea deep (Micah 7:19). That is the real quality of true mercy: it wipes out, it cancels.
If in the Gospel we see that Our Lord spoke with harshness and severity to those who persisted in their pride and hardness of heart, we see on the contrary that His Heart is open to the greatest sinner as soon as they are converted. It is not the greatness of the fault that counts with God, nor must it be with us; the whole question is the degree to which the soul rejects and detests the fault. A person whose sin is greater but who has completely rejected it, is nearer to God’s heart than another whose sin is less but who remains in it."
—St. Marie Eugénie, 28th October 1879
"Talking about St. Joseph, I will just mention two or three things where we should to try and imitate him: his simplicity, his obedience, and especially his abounding love.
His love was for Jesus and Mary, Jesus and Mary were everything to him. Jesus and Mary were his life, his love, everything centred on them. There he is our model.
There was nothing extraordinary in St. Joseph's life. He did everything which God told him in simplicity. He observed God's law with simplicity. In his simplicity, he became the greatest of the saints after the Virgin Mary, because he kept his eyes on Jesus and Mary and lived only for them.
That's how we can all be. Always doing what God wants, as he wants it, because he wants it. Doing his least wishes to the letter, walking uprightly and with simplicity before God, living only for Jesus and Mary and making that the basic principle of our life, our aim, our peace, the reason for our smallest as well as for our greatest actions.
In this simplicity, which permits no reasoning or objection, lies the complete obedience which, when it realizes that something is God's will - it knows or has been told - starts to do it.
That is the right kind of devotion to have for St. Joseph. … We should put our real devotion into imitating his fidelity to the law, his prompt obedience, the simplicity of his love."
— St. Marie Eugénie, 26th April 1874
"When Our Lord showed His Sacred Heart to Blessed Margaret Mary, He showed it to her surrounded with thorns, pierced deeply. When He said to her: “Behold this Heart which has so loved mortals,” He also said to her: “Behold this Heart which has suffered so much for love of mortals.” What shall we give back to Our Lord for this love if it is not the spirit of sacrifice? I think that this is the great devotion we should have to the Sacred Heart; look and see what spirit of sacrifice there is in you and seek to enlarge it.
Everyone has their share of suffering in this world. For us, as soon as intense sufferings come, we must accustom ourselves to offering them to God, stripping ourselves as much as we can of self. This is especially true of all the occasions which involve our egoism: it is there that constant sacrifice is necessary in order not to give in either to pride or to self-love.
St. Augustine says that the first Christian virtue is humility. When someone asked him, “What is the second?”, he answered, “Humility”. “And what is the third?” Again he replied, “humility”. Then they asked, “When would you name another?” He replied, “All the virtues are based on humility; it is humility which makes the Christian and the Religious; where there is no humility, neither is there a Christian nor a Religious, because humility is the renunciation of oneself.” The spirit of generosity must therefore be with us continually, to enable us to welcome the sacrifices which present themselves at every moment with regard to self-love.
I believe that it is above all from this point of view that we ought to envisage the devotion to the Sacred Heart in order to establish within us the generosity, the love of sacrifice, the acceptance of all the trials of soul, of the spirit, of the body, which God might send us."
—St. Marie Eugénie, 3 June 1881