Gabriel Garcia Moreno's Rule of Life

 Gabriel Garcia Moreno was a great Catholic statesman. He served as president of Ecuador in the mid-19th Century. Moreno was assassinated by order of a Masonic lodge in Germany on the Feast of the Transfiguration in 1875. A rule of life that he had written for himself was found after his death on the last page of a copy of The Imitation of Christ that Moreno always kept in his pocket. What follows is the rule:

“Every morning when saying my prayers I will ask specially for humility. Every day I will hear Mass, say the Rosary, and will read, besides a chapter of the Imitation, this Rule and the instructions which are added to it. I will endeavor to keep myself as much as possible in the presence of God, especially during conversation, that I may not exceed in words. I will often offer my heart to God, principally before beginning any actions. Every hour I will say to myself: ‘I am worse than a demon, and hell out to be my dwelling-place.’ In temptations I will add: ‘What should I think of all this in my last agony?’ In my room never to pray sitting when I can do so on my knees or standing. Practice daily little acts of humility, as kissing the ground; to rejoice when I, or my actions, are censured. Never to speak of myself except to avow my faults or defects. To make efforts, by thinking of Jesus and Mary, to restrain my impatience and go against my natural inclinations; to be kind to all, even with the importunate, and never to speak ill of my enemies. Every morning, before beginning my work, I will write down what I have to do, being very careful to distribute my time well, to give myself only to useful and necessary business, and to continue it with zeal and perseverance. I will scrupulously observe the law of justice and truth, and have no intentions in all my actions save the greater glory of God. . . . I will go to confession every week. . . . I will never pass more than an hour in any amusement, and in general never before eight o’clock in the evening.”