The week opens with the memorial of Saint Wenceslaus, martyred by his own brother over the struggle for the throne in his native Bohemia. We normally think of him at Christmas, from the famous carol which celebrates his miraculous footsteps in the snow, but he is notable for his capacity for forgiveness. On this day we have an interesting meditation from Saint Francis Borgia, which takes up the way Jesus points to a child in the Gospel for the day (Luke 9:46-50).
If it is, then, true that humility raises us to the possession of God, is it not reasonable that we should embrace the practice of it with the same ardour as a drowning man clings to a plank in shipwreck, in order to save ourselves from the perils to which this miserable life unceasingly exposes us, and to arrive at length, by the mercy of God, at the port of eternal life?
