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What kind of spirit is the spirit of preparation?
It is - alert, expectant, diligent, quiet, patient.
Alert: i.e., erect, wakeful, vigilant, standing on a height to
watch, and this is - spiritually attentive, keen, not torpid, watchful
for the low words and gentle touches of grace.
Expectant: No one is making serious preparation who is not expecting a
change, something to happen. If our work is to lead to nothing it easily
drops into routine. All the days in which I am struggling now, I am expecting
my change.
Diligent: Watchfulness for what is coming does not exempt us from
present exertion, or allow us to become unsettled, but it impresses upon
us all the more deeply the necessity to exert ourselves. ?Work while
it is day, the night cometh when no one can work.?
Quiet: Preparation is never well made in a fuss. In any ceremony
or public event, if the people are flying about, making arrangements,
changing them at the last moment, it is a sign of insufficient foresight
and poor preparation. ... the very object of preparation is to avoid these
chance experiments.
Patient: Preparation is spoilt by impatience and want of resignation.
?If the vision make any delay, wait for it, for it will surely come
and shall not tarry.? Few things are so restless, unsatisfactory
and useless as impatient waiting - especially following on hurried preparation,
and one of the hardest and gravest lessons is to learn to wait with patience
and resignation.
If Advent adds any of these qualities to our spirit of preparation, it
will have been well spent.
Janet Erskine Stuart - on Advent
Prayer for a new stage in life: Loving God, unseen Companion of our life,
give us faith and eager expectancy as we begin this fresh stage of our
journey. Take from us all fear of the unknown and teach us to wrest treasures
from darkness and difficulties. As the days come and go, may we find that
each one is laden with happy opportunities and enriching experiences;
and when this year reaches its completion, may our best hopes be more
than ever fulfilled. AMEN
Janet Erskine Stuart ? adapted
The quality of our joy depends on the spring from which it is drawn.
Where do we seek our joy? How does it come and go? Watch its flight as
of birds...Does it soar or flutter? Is it steadfast or changeable? Does
it go by days, by moods, by self-love, by the adventure of circumstances?...
To be a joy-bearer and a joy-giver says everything; it means that one
is faithfully living for God and that nothing else counts, and if one
gives joy to others we are doing God's work. With joy without and within,
all is well. I can conceive no higher way. Joy is the most heavenly atmosphere
found on earth - we ought to cultivate it as a duty always.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Try to render all possible service to others, not talking of the thing,
but doing it. If you are known to be a person who loves to serve, many
opportunities will come in your way, to your great inconvenience perhaps,
but to your far greater profit and instruction.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Cultivate the wish to learn, rather than the wish to be taught. Be determined
to "pick up" and do not wait for the Professor and the pedagogical
devices of his or her craft...Do not think that lessons will do it, if
you wait for lessons you will wait a life-time...If we wait to be taught,
we shall never learn.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Beware of extremes, beware of inhuman efforts, of violent measures, of
all that drives you off your balance....Don't attempt the impossible....Take
yourself as you are, whole, and do not try to live by one part alone and
starve the other. Control, but do not kill....
Janet Erskine Stuart
Those who make the most demands on us really render us the greatest service.
This is true for us and for our children.
Janet Erskine Stuart
We are called to a fuller, richer, higher life within...-called to work
with God, to walk with God, to have influence with God....
Janet Erskine Stuart
So we must remember that it is better to begin a great work than to finish
a small one...the work in the rough...may look ugly and yet be full of
promise...A piece of finished insignificance is no true success... Our
education is not meant to turn the children out small and finished, but
seriously begun on a wide-basis. Therefore they must leave us with some
self-knowledge, some energy, some purpose...If they leave us without these
three things they drift with the stream of life.
Janet Erskine Stuart
A runner to win the prize must despise everything else: fatigue, comfort,
praise, any ties that would hold back or interfere with the singlehearted
purpose to run till the prize is attained. That was the kind of person
we should have seen had we known St.Stanislaus...he shone as a star of
first magnitude, as a racer who bounded to the front at once by his uncalculating
generosity and the singleheartedness of his love.
Janet Erskine Stuart
We must remember that each one of our children is destined for a mission
in life. Neither we nor they can know what it is, but we must know and
make them believe that each one has a mission in life and that she is
bound to find our what it is, that there is some special work for God
which will remain undone unless she does it, some place in life which
no one else can fill....We must bring home to our children and to ourselves
also, the responsibilities of our gifts. We must put our talents at interest
not bury them in the earth and the reason is sufficient, that they are
God's.
Janet Erskine Stuart
We take our children as a trust and train them for eternity. As trustees,
we are given charge of these minors....We are responsible under the trust
to keep them from evil and train them to good; to "whatever things
are true, modest, just, holy, lovely, of good fame," in which there
is any virtue or praise of discipline. Remember that the principal end
is training to good; keeping from evil is not an end but a condition.
A soul kept from evil for a time, not trained to positive good, to discern,
to act, to judge, to do good,would leave us quite unfit for life. Whereas
one leaving us even young and undeveloped, but having a positive love
for good, an attraction for it and some practice, is fitted for life,
at least to begin the battle. Our education would be quite a failure if
we turned out nonentities without color or character or individuality.
Janet Erskine Stuart
"There is a deep-down unity, but there is no forced uniformity.
The spirit is one, but its manifestations are many ... no one is 'made
to order' of this or that shape, but each gives what she can for the common
good ? the common good demanding for its own sake, as well as for
hers, that she should remain - herself"
Janet Erskine Stuart
" ... Among human beings, strong personalities are most entirely
and permanently themselves; and without fear of losing themselves can
challenge the currents of circumstances to play upon them, adapt themselves
to new conditions. Change has not passed upon what was deepest in their
souls, but the discipline of change has called out its deepest response.
They have changed but that change was growth. They are unchanged; and
that unchangeableness is their truth."
Written by Janet Erskine Stuart about Mother Georgia Stevens, RSCJ
and several other Religious of the Sacred Heart.
There are two ways of preparing children for the government of themselves
in after-life, one direct and the other indirect. The first has its merits,
it is quick in results, often very successful. It fosters piety, inculcates
some clear principles, dictates the main lines of action, and by rule
and maxim, fits the being into its place in the world, and gives it means
to do its duty creditably. The indirect method is longer and less clearly
defined. It aims at giving a guiding light within, and power to climb
a difficult path, and pick a way through unknown country by that light.
This must be waited for, and slowly developed, but in the end it is of
greater worth. The training of the Sacred Heart aims at this.God hears
our unuttered desires and as they are satisfied they grow. ... The more
we desire and attain the more we shall desire and the more attain. ...
that is why our life is so immense."
Janet Erskine Stuart
"Your letter was a consolation to me, for it is so good to find
a fault frankly faced and humbly owned. I look on it as a grace for you
to have had this experience - it reminds me of what I used to be told
as a child - 'It takes twelve falls to make a horsewoman' - so I should
not like you to ride without a fall. One learns thus. Tighten your hold
on God again..."
Janet Erskine Stuart
"We bring up the children for the future, not for the present, not
that we may enjoy the fruit of our work, but for others... Therefore,
we must have to do with things raw and unfinished and unpolished... WE
must remember that it is better to begin a great work than to finish a
small one. A piece of unfinished insignificance is no success at all.
Our education is not meant to turn the children out small and finished
but seriously begun on a wide basis. Therefore they must leave us with
some self-knowledge, some energy, some purpose. If they leave us without
these three things, they drift with the stream of life."
Janet Erskine Stuart
"The higher we want to fly, the greater the risk, but that is the
glorious part of it. The great uncertainties in which we trust God, the
breathless risks we run, with no assurance but our great trust in God,
that seems to me to be of the essence of our life and its beauty. This
will grow upon you, you will get your balance in the risk and get to love
it."
Janet Erskine Stuart
?Joy is the song or psalm of the spirit under the pressure of happiness,?
and to give God the fullest and best service possible, we must train our
spirit to sing that psalm continually.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Where will our courage, confidence, joy and generosity stem from ?"The
practical conclusion is to let God work God's way upon us, and to correspond
with God's grace. The inner life is all in that. God working, we corresponding,
listening to His word that speaks within, commanding, inviting, praising,
reproving, asking. That is our real life, going on uninterruptedly, which
, if we are too busy with exterior things, we lose sight of. An irreparable
loss - there is so much to be done, and no time to lose. The work is done
in silence, tranquillity and recollection, and without them it is not
done at all."
Janet Erskine Stuart
St. Joseph's silence kept him so much in touch with God; at each crisis
or turning point in life, God's voice was heard indicating the way. ?
He waited and prayed and took counsel with God. ? Was not St. Joseph
a markedly singlehearted man of great purity of intention? 'Always seek
the Beholder of the heart.' A thing not learned in a day, but by constant
practice of letting go of the human standard. To seek simply 'What does
God think, judge, will, in this matter?' is an eternal thought, judgement
and decision, that will give peace, strength and stability. All human
thoughts and wills flicker so feebly. This is a steady light.
Janet Erskine Stuart
The little opportunities [for being humble and loving] are treasures,
they are like gold dust and we should have an enthusiasm for them.
Janet Erskine Stuart
We live much more under secular supervision than of old; it is unavoidable
if we want to do our work for children: all the more necessary then to
strengthen ourselves in truth, in personal humility, in independence of
the world, in the tendency to hiddenness which is characteristic of God's
work in the universe.
Janet Erskine Stuart
On willing acceptance of criticism: To very unenlightened people criticism
comes as a personal injury. To beginners it is a serious trial, but to
the proficient a most encouraging and interesting communication.
Janet Erskine Stuart
God is so simple that truth, sincerity and simplicity are the nearest
copy we can make of Him. .
Janet Erskine Stuart
The Presence of God is the best remedy against pride, vanity, sadness,
resistance. It gives the three lights we pray for in the blessing of the
candles: Light without, to see our way for action; light within, of the
Holy [Spirit], for our inner life; hereafter, light eternal: we pray that
we may be presented in heaven like the lighted candles in our hands, that
is especially the light of faith; we may go and ask it with assurance
of Our Lady who has in her arms the Light of the world. .
Janet Erskine Stuart
On Modesty: Think what this is for an educator to possess: to be one
in whose presence people are inclined to control themselves, whose presence
brings calmness to the mind and makes composure possible. It is an inward
principle of discipline which communicates itself.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Modesty in its perfect beauty is not the characteristic virtue of sub-normal
natures, who have to rouse themselves with difficulty from mental and
physical and spiritual somnolency, it is not the virtue of the limp and
the drooping and the dragging and the lacadaisical, they have another
battle to fight - to acquire dynamical energy, motor power of some sort.
Modesty is the homage of the strong and the resolute and expressive, keeping
themselves in hand.
Janet Erskine Stuart
"Religious Modesty which tends to droop, and blush, and hesitate,
and utterly efface itself, fails of its end with young, forceful things,
which do not hesitate or efface themselves! In these cases there is another
virtue to be first acquired, that is: resolution; ?"
Janet Erskine Stuart
In itself simplicity is the opposite of duplicity or multiplicity. It
is one-ness, integrity, consistence, the being one with oneself, i.e.,
not a dual personality. It is like all other virtues natural or supernatural,
a golden mean between two extremes.
Janet Erskine Stuart
The unsimple ways and manners are found in the intermediate layers, those
who are uneasy and anxious to be something which they are not and so become
unreal. So, a simple manner belongs to those who are at ease in being
themselves, not anxious to be taken for anything else, content and not
afraid.
Janet Erskine Stuart
The unsimple manner comes of having something to be afraid of, the ambition
to be taken for what one is not (more rich, important, intelligent, instructed,
etc.). (@1899)
Janet Erskine Stuart
Supernatural simplicity belongs to those who are not only one with themselves
but one with God. It is more than the 'simple life,' it is the life of
union. God is simplicity itself - one act; the nearer we come to God,
the less complicated we become.
Janet Erskine Stuart
An analysis of simplicity: 'Avoids all singularity.' So much of the silly
cunning of self-love is just that, and causes endless entanglements. 'I
have my privileges, exemptions, special hours, special allowances.'
Anything to say: 'This law is not for me.' It is very deep in some natures,
and singularly silly; the grace and strength of being like everyone else
is lost, and for what?
Janet Erskine Stuart
An analysis of simplicity: 'Chooses always the most straightforward and
obvious line of conduct.' Here is both a means to acquire, and an indication
of it. There are people with whom, when they ask a question or permission,
one has to ask oneself: 'What do they really want?' Their ways are neither
straightforward nor obvious.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Self-control is so vital to the conduct of life that no price is too
great for the habit; it is so indispensable that no kind of duty can be
well done without it, and no action is too small in which to practice
it. It is a vain expectation to hope that self-control and unselfishness
will come forth at command in a crisis, when they have not been practiced
in the small occurrences of daily life. The rare crises of life reveal
us to ourselves, but we are made in the small victories or defeats of
every day.
Janet Erskine Stuart
On Practicing Simplicity: Cultivate a real love of truth. This is not
a cheap investment but a valuable one; it takes real labor to be truthful
(not exaggerated, not literal, not rigid). A great part of the expense
is the attention it calls for.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Devotedness for souls in a spirit of zeal, forms the second half of our
vocation; it is not a secondary thing, but essential to our vocation.
Janet Erskine Stuart
We could not do better than look at our Mother Foundress's zeal, for
she possessed it in rare perfection. As we have already seen, our vocation
consists in the spirit of prayer and the spirit of zeal.
Janet Erskine Stuart
The interior, contemplative spirit of prayer is in itself the most perfect
spirit, and must be the foundation of ours. But there is the active life
that we must lead - a life of work for souls, and the mixed life becomes
relatively the most perfect only when the active life is, so to speak,
grafted on our interior life, and our zeal is the overflow of the love
and grace that God has given to us in prayer.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Some seek perfection in the contemplative life only, others are more
inclined to the active life, but in our vocation we must combine the two.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Zeal is principally shown forth in actions, less in words, and it should
be our earnest desire to use every opportunity and means to improve, always
bearing in mind that what we learn is not for ourselves, but to be able
to teach, and so fit ourselves for one of the means used by the Society
to save souls.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Real zeal is courageous and invulnerable, because unselfish and self-forgetting.
It can be put to any kind of work; it is indefatigable and never says
'too much'; it is persevering; it never gives in ?
Janet Erskine Stuart
The apostleship of prayer: It is open to all at any time; it is the surest
means of exercising zeal; it is infallible, though there may be nothing
to show for it. We have not got the full spirit of the Society unless
we have zeal for God's cause, and the wish to bring others to God.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Everything has a meaning and is a symbol of something else; everything
raises the mind to mysteries and leaves it there, and after all mystery
is the true home of the Christian mind. We grow weary of things we can
understand. ? it is the life of faith, most at home when reason fails
us:then our soul finds ever more firmness, assurance and joy. Then we
come to a mystery, it is reaching the enveloping, strong presence of God,
and our faith rests, exults, and rejoices in it.
Janet Erskine Stuart
? days full to the brim; serious work, not languidly done, not sadly
done (that would be taking back from the completeness of our gift), but
wholehearted work; and if we are tired at the end of such a day, then
blesses fatigue; we have all Eternity to rest, and only this short life
to labour and to give.
Janet Erskine Stuart
The way to do much in a short time is to love much. People will do great
things if they are stirred with enthusiasm and love.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Our thoughts are very important. Do we make enough effort to lift our
minds out of the little groove of daily difficulties?
Janet Erskine Stuart
Study the crucifix - ? it is a constant companion of our life, and
there is great grace attached to any meditation on the Passion, no matter
how clumsy or unskilful.
Janet Erskine Stuart
One day of fervour is worth a thousand tepid days.
Janet Erskine Stuart
The special grace of spiritual joy is that it tends to diffuse itself;
dispositions of soul are easily communicated. The most blessed thing ?
is to be an active element of joy. Joy brings God himself near.
Jane Erskine Stuart, RSCJ
We do not seek the showy, the great; a smaller work done with perfection
often calls our more love and faith than that which is great and show
- (as in the great Gothic cathedrals, the hidden carving is the proof
of the builders' faith). Our most skilled workmanship and loving care
should go to those things that no one but God can see.
Janet Erskine Stuart
It is a false ntion that to be honest we must always speak our minds,
etc.; to glory in always being outspoken may only mean that we are unmortified
and unrestrained, weak, and wanting to our ourselves out. Silence of prudence
means silence of mortification, holding in check our chattering tongues.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Without silence no real purity of heart, no real devotion to the Holy
Spirit, no real teaching from God who cannot make His still small voice
heard in the talkative soul.
Janet Erskine Stuart
? just as the soul must rule the body, so must our spiritual life
rule our outward life, and exterior work and activity then become the
overflow of what we have received from God by means of our interior life.
All that is not so gained is lost labour, personal work, of little value
in the long run.
Janet Erskine Stuart
In order that our work may be the overflow of our interior life we must
pray more than we work, not of course as to time, but by the intensity
with which we give the whole of the powers of our soul to our prayer,
and one such intense act of prayer is of more value than half an hour
of vague prayer ? There should be no vagueness in our interior life,
we should know at all times what we are aiming at, and be able to give
an account of our souls as to where we are going and why.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Joy is the song of the spirit under the pressure of happiness.
Janet Erskine Stuart
? with regard to the causes of joy and sorrow, let us for our own
guidance bear in mind that the sources of joy are deeper than the sources
of sorrow. The sources of sadness are temporal, are in ourselves, the
sources of joy are eternal and are in God.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Every life that is led very near to God is a life in which great sorrows
and great joys meet ? no close union with God is effected without
real suffering, and that the fruit of suffering is joy.
Janet Erskine Stuart
God gives to His nearest and dearest what God chose for Himself; great
joys and great sorrows, and they are so interwoven that it is hard to
say where one ends and the other begins
Janet Erskine Stuart
The joys and sorrows are not aimed at us from a great distance as bolts,
but God personally handles our life, adjusting it day by day to our capabilities
and our correspondence. When we feel ourselves in such a Master-hand we
may well be quiet and hopeful.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Things to be observed: The joy follows the sorrow in each case, as the
flower breaks from the thorny branch, not the thorny branch from the flower.
This is a mark of sorrows and joys that come from God. Those of God's
enemy are mostly in the other order, the joy first and the bitterness
afterwards: remorse, disappointment, etc.; that is a thought that spring
teaches us every year, looking at the black thorns and knotted branches
- 'I know that the hawthorn and the roses will break from these dry black
stems,' say this to every sorrow.
Janet Erskine Stuart
The best and greatest things in our lives, we cannot see or feel, but
we can trust. God expects it. Most of us feel that the work we are called
on to do is in some way beyond us, by quantity, by quality, by responsibility,
etc. God sends it to us and will give us the means of carrying it through.
But God expects also that we shuld show the good will of doing what lies
in our power. What lies beyond it He will do, even if a miracle were necessary.
If we fill our water jar with water (this we can do) God will change it
into wine.
Janet Erskine Stuart
The work is God's, not ours. We are not dispensed from labour and thought,
but from trouble of mind. If we understand God's meaning we shall keep
our peace of mind all through.
Janet Erskine Stuart
Our duties in the coming year are God's gifts to us: all that is best
and most unselfish, most devoted, most spiritual; all our most loyal faith
and obedience must respond to the call.
Janet Erskine Stuart
God has never found fault with anyone for trusting too much and expecting
too much of Him.
Janet Erskine Stuart
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