GUIDELINES  FOR  SALVATION

Your external actions show you what you are in fact: whether you are humble or proud, good or bad, sensible or not, belonging to yourself or to God.  For Christ taught us that 'one's words flow out of the heart's abundance' and that 'the tree can be told by its fruit'. (Mt.12:34)

Acting merely for pleasure, for mere delectation, is a real disorder, for in fact delectation should lead to operation and not operation to delectation.  Eat so as to live and not live so as to eat.  But our nature is motivated only by what pleases it.      

Those who teach truth and justice but do not support their words by example are like those persons who build and then demolish what they have built.  Know well what the proverb says, that it is the eye that is first impressed by an object.  Human nature is much more influenced by a good example than by mere words.              

People are pleased more by a brief instruction, and if you want to drive it home into their heart, repeat it.  For, indeed, repetition is very helpful, as are the questions that follow it.  Strengthen that instruction also by giving a good example, for from objects that fall under the senses the intellect can rise to abstract concepts.            

Whoever loves Jesus Christ seeks only that which is Christ's.  In our relation with our neighbour, we should see in ourselves and in our neighbour, God's image and the person of Christ.  Christ considers whatever we do to the Christians as done to Himself.          

In this world there are no really great people except those who strive to make sin disappear, those who bring it about that sin would not be committed any more.  This can be done by teaching, praying, making sacrifices of self-denial, and by helping others, in so far as one can,in their needs.           

Hold as witness for your good deeds, not human beings, for then you will find yourself with empty hands and with no merits at all.  But hold only God as your witness, for He sees what is in secret, and will render you your reward.  You are perfectly right to fear being deceived when motivated by a natural intention.            

These are some preservative means against sin:  thinking of God's presence and of the Last Things, praying during temptation, shunning every proximate occasion of sin, showing mercy to those in need and the frequent reception of the Sacraments of Penance and of the Eucharist.     

What actually ruins the priceless treasure of neighbourly love is:  natural sympathy, ingratitude, the exclusive love of those persons who love us, the hope for revenge on earth, and the weakness of heart which shows mercy merely to free itself from a natural heartache.              

Avoid what you yourself consider distasteful in others.  You dislike curiosity and idle talk, vengeance, vanity in dress, quarrelling, theft, lying, vainglory, ambition, avarice, jealousy, over-eating and over-drinking, and so on.  Ask for God's grace and avoid them.                

From the writings of St.George Preca, the Maltese Saint.