To be present here is itself a gift of Grace, won by accumulated merit; to be endowed with the badge is a rarer gift. Make the best of this grand chance. This badge is a ‘sapling’ that has broken through the soil, from the seed of merit that you have sown in the past. See that the sapling is watered and fostered by your honest service, not dried up in the dust of insincerity and hesitation. It provides you a valuable opportunity to cast off bad habits and assume good ones. You will have to discard self-conceit and the craving for display, so that you may win Grace.
(SSS Vol VII – Chap 31)
