Daily Primer — June 22, Amsterdam — Embark Our Cruise

The phrase self-conquest can come to sound odious because very often it can mean not the conquest of ourselves but a conquest by ourselves. A victory we have won by our own power. Over what? Precisely over what is other than ourself.
Real self-conquest is the conquest of ourselves not by ourselves but by the Holy Spirit. Self-conquest is really self-surrender.
Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.
More precisely—we have to have enough mastery of ourselves to renounce our own will into the hands of Christ—so that He may conquer what we cannot reach by our own efforts.
In order to gain possession of ourselves, we have to have some confidence, some hope of victory. And in order to keep that hope alive we must usually have some taste of victory. We must know what victory is and like it better than defeat.
There is no hope for the man who struggles to obtain a virtue in the abstract—a quality of which he has no experience. He will never efficaciously prefer the virtue to the opposite vice, no matter how much he may seem to despise the latter.

Everybody has an instinctive desire to do good things and avoid evil. But that desire is sterile as long as we have no experience of what it means to be good.
(The desire for virtue is frustrated in many men of good will by the distaste they instinctively feel for the false virtues of those who are supposed to be holy. Sinners have a very keen eye for false virtues and a very exacting idea of what virtue should be in a good man. If in the men who are supposed to be good they only see a “virtue” which is effectively less vital and less interesting than their own vices they will conclude that virtue has no meaning, and will cling to what they have although they hate it.)
But what if we have no virtue? How can we then experience it? The grace of God, through Christ Our Lord, produces in us a desire for virtue which is an anticipated experience of that virtue. He makes us capable of “liking” virtue before we fully possess it.

Florilegium is the Medieval Latin word for bouquet, or more literally flowers (flos, flor-) which are gathered (legere). The word florilegium was used to refer to a compilation of writings, often religious or philosophical. These florilegium are literary flowers—beautiful words/prayers/thoughts I have gathered.  During my sabbatical they will give me something to ponder each day. — PHL.

     You are the Lord “who is, who was, and who is to come.”  You desire for us that our joy may be complete. We gather in glad thanksgiving this dawn to give the day ahead as an offering to you.  We, who know of your love, rise up in joy to serve you this day.
And yet we acknowledge the sin of hubris which steals our joy and poisons our love.  We see how our excessive pride divides us from one another, from our true selves, and even from you.  In pride we refuse to seek you.  You offer your hand but we turn away.
Teach us, Lord, we who obstinately must be restrained with bridle and bit.  Instruct us in the virtue of prudence and humility.  Put your yoke upon us that we may learn from you — who are gentle and humble of heart.  May we discover the joy of humble service, following in the way of our Lord.
     We ask all this that we might enter into the joyful discipleship of those who follow you faithfully always.  We offer ourselves today as servants of our servant Lord, for we are the Body of Christ and each individual members of it.  In the name of the one who “for us and for our salvation came down,” even our Lord, Jesus, the Christ.  Amen.

     You, Lord, are “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”  In you our lives have both beginning and ending, initiation and completion.  You hem us in behind and before and lay your guiding hand upon us.  
     Now at the close of the day we seek your blessing as we enter into the time for rest.  As we relinquish consciousness in the gift of sleep, we give into your care:
† all of our unfinished business,
† our unresolved concerns,
† our worries for those we love.
     We entrust them all to your care that we might rest well and come into deeper communion with you.  All this we pray that we might be restored in our hours of rest and made ready to rise up in vigil and praise on the morrow and live fully as disciples of our Lord, Jesus, in whose name we pray.  Amen.