Choose a topic from Part 1:
1. The perfection of the universe is ascribed to the seventh day when the work of creation is seen completed. Perfection in a thing is either (a) its being completed as a thing, or (b) its doing what it was made to do. And the first perfection is the cause of the second. By the seventh day creation was complete,and, in this sense, perfect. But its purpose in existence, the salvation of men through Christ and his grace, will be fulfilled at the end of time, when it will have given all the help that bodily creatures can give to the serving and saving of mankind.
2. We read (Gen. 2:2) that "God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work." God rested, not as one tired out by labor, but as one who ceases from his operation. And rest as referred to God means his complete blessedness or beatitude in himself which needs no creatures.
3. Scripture tells us (Gen. 2:2) that "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." God sanctified all creatures. And the special blessing and sanctification of creatures is their rest in God. The day itself is blessed and sanctified; it is properly a day of rest for creatures. Further, the blessing of creatures is expressed to them in God's word, "Increase and multiply."
"When the devil has failed in making a man fall, he puts forward all his energies to create distrust between the penitent and the confessor, and so by little and little he gains his end at last."
St Philip Neri
* * *
"He who wishes to be perfectly obeyed, should give but few orders."
St Philip Neri
* * *
"To do God's will -- this was the goal upon which the saints constantly fixed their gaze. They were fully persuaded that in this consists the entire perfection of the soul. "
St Alphonsus de Liguori
* * *