12695028_988377641229163_7845648643030775253_oOur second excerpt of a book called An Abridgement of the Interior Spirit of the Religious of the Visitation of Holy Mary may assist those discerning a vocation to our way of life, or others interested in growing in their inner spiritual life.

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Continuation of: CHAPTER I.

Of the Interior Spirit of the Daughters of the Visitation founded on Mount Calvary.

They (Visitandines)are living holocausts, hosts and precious victims of perpetual sacrifice, who offer themselves to God on the altar of Calvary, to serve, without intermission, Jesus Christ crucified, their only spouse ; they participate in the spirit of the cross,they enter into the holy dispositions of his martyrdom, to learn, how to crucify them- selves at each moment. They renounce all the movements of their heart, except those which incline them to love him ; their tongues are employed only in praising him ;they make no other use of their thoughts than to adore him, and to admire his greatness. Their hands are occupied only in gathering at the foot of the cross the little virtues of humility, meekness, and simplicity, which grow there, and which are watered with the blood of their well beloved, fastened to their hearts as on his cross; their minds act only to learn and penetrate the meaning of this divine lesson of self renunciation, carrying the cross following their Crucified Savior,abandonments, privations, ignominies, in juries, agonies, other sufferings, as also of entering into the practice of these amiable virtues of indifference, tranquillity, equality of mind, of obedience, poverty, and charity, which are comprised in the great lesson taught us on Calvary.