329th Meditation
“Let faithful love and constancy never leave you: tie them round your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart” (Prov 3:3).
God’s fatherly admonitions point us in the right direction. We must never neglect the path of virtue, and we must always return to it if we have strayed even a little. After every defeat we must get up again and get back on track. This is the loyalty to which the Heavenly Father exhorts us. Let us remember how Jesus, on His way to Calvary, fell three times under the weight of the Cross and – as we meditate on the Stations of the Cross – rose again to accomplish the work the Father had given Him to do.
With loyalty and fidelity we must live our vocation. “Tie them around your neck” – as these holy words tell us. This means that we must never forget and always remember which is the right way. We humans easily forget the good resolutions we have made for ourselves and we need to be reminded of them.
To this end, any help, any reminder, any kind of discipline we impose on ourselves to stay on the straight path will be welcome. But above all we must invoke the Holy Spirit, asking Him to remind us of what it is our duty to do according to the Will of God.
“Write them on the tablet of your heart”. This means that we must deeply internalise these wonderful values of love and faithfulness. They must always be present before the eyes of our soul and deeply marked in our heart, until this love has kindled it and faithfulness has grown.
For this, day after day we need the “holy food”: meditation on the Word of God. Let us ponder the holy words in our hearts, as the Virgin Mary did (Lk 2:19), let us contemplate her example and implore the Lord’s help. In this way, love will be the bond that binds us to Him and He will dwell in our hearts.