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Painful things cannot indeed be loved when considered
in themselves, but viewed in their source, that is,
in the Divine Will and Providence which ordains them,
they are supremely delightful.
Look at the rod of Moses upon the ground, and it
is a hideous serpent; look upon it in Moses's hand,
and it is a wand of miracles. Look at tribulations in
themselves, and they are dreadful; behold them in the
will of God, and they are love and delights.
How often have we turned in disgust from remedies
and medicines when the doctor or apothecary offered
them, which, being offered by some well-beloved hand
(love surmounting our loathing), we receive with
delight. In truth, love either takes away the
hardship of labour, or makes it dear to us while we
feel it. It is said that there is a river in Boeotia
wherein the fish appear golden, but taken out of
those their native waters, they have the natural
colour of other fishes: afflictions are so; if we
look at them outside God's will, they have their
natural bitterness, but he who considers them in that
eternal good-pleasure, finds them all golden,
unspeakably lovely and precious.
If Abraham had seen outside God's will the necessity
of slaying his son, think, Theotimus, what pangs and
convulsions of heart he would have felt, but seeing
it in God's good-pleasure, it appears all golden, and
he tenderly embraces it. If the martyrs had looked
upon their torments outside this good-pleasure, how
could they have sung, in chains and flames?
The truly loving heart loves God's good-pleasure
not in consolations only but in afflictions also;
yea, it loves it better upon the cross in pains and
difficulties, because the principal effect of love is
to make the lover suffer for the thing beloved.
The Stoics, especially good Epictetus, placed all
their philosophy in abstaining and sustaining,
bearing and forbearing; in abstaining from and
forbearing earthly delights, pleasures and honours;
in sustaining and bearing wrongs, labours and trials:
but Christian doctrine, which is the only true
philosophy, has three principles upon which it
grounds all its exercises, - abnegation of self,
which is far more than to abstain from pleasures,
carrying the cross, which is far more than tolerating
or sustaining it, following Our Lord, not only in
renouncing our self and bearing our cross, but also
in the practice of all sorts of good works. But at
the same time there is not so much love shown in
abnegation or in action, as in suffering. The Holy
Ghost in Holy Scripture certainly signifies the death
and passion which our Saviour suffered for us, to be
the highest point of his love towards us.
- To love God's will in consolations is a good
love when it is indeed God's will that is loved,
and not the consolation which is the form it takes:
however, this is a love without contradiction,
repugnance and effort: for who would not love so
worthy a will in so agreeable a form?
- To love the will of God in his commandments,
counsels and inspirations is a second degree of
love, and much more perfect, for it leads us to the
renouncing and quitting of our own will, and makes
us abstain from and forbear some pleasures, though
not all.
- To love sufferings and afflictions for the love
of God is the supreme point of most holy charity,
for there is nothing therein to receive our
affection save the will of God only; there is great
contradiction on the part of nature; and we not
only forsake pleasures, but embrace torments and
labours.
Our mortal enemy knew well what was love's
furthest and finest act, when having heard from the
mouth of God that Job was just, righteous, fearing
God, hating sin, and firm in innocence, he made no
account of this, in comparison with bearing
afflictions, by which he made the last and surest
trial of the love of this great servant of God.
To make these afflictions extreme, he formed them
out of the loss of all his goods and of all his
children, abandonment by all his friends, an arrogant
contradiction by his most intimate associates and his
wife, a contradiction full of contempt, mockery and
reproach; to which be added the collection of almost
all human diseases, and particularly a universal,
cruel, offensive, horrible ulcer over all his body.
And yet behold the great Job, king as it were of
all the miserable creatures of the world, seated upon
a dunghill, as upon the throne of misery, adorned
with sores, ulcers, and corruption, as with royal
robes suitable to the quality of his kingship, with
so great an abjection and annihilation, that if he
had not spoken, one could not have discerned whether
Job was a man reduced to a dunghill, or the dunghill
a corruption in form of a man. Now, I say, hear the
great Job crying out: If we have received good things
from the hand of the Lord, why shall we not receive
also evil?(1)
O God! How this word is great with love! He
ponders, Theotimus, that it was from the hand of God
that he had received the good, testifying that he had
not so much loved goods because they were good, as
because they came from the hand of the Lord; whence
he concludes that he is lovingly to support
adversities, since they proceed from the hand of the
same Lord, which is equally to be loved when it
distributes afflictions and when it bestows
consolations. Every one easily receives good things,
but to receive evil is a work of perfect love, which
loves them so much the more, inasmuch as they are
only lovable in respect of the hand that gives them.
The traveller who is in fear whether he has the right
way, walks in doubt, viewing the country over, and
stands in a muse at the end of almost every field to
think whether he goes not astray, but he who is sure
of his way walks on gaily, boldly, ,and swiftly: even
so the love that desires to walk to God's will
through consolations, walks ever in fear of taking
the wrong path, and of loving (in lieu of God's
good-pleasure) the pleasure which is in the
consolation; but the love that strikes straight
through afflictions towards the will of God walks in
assurance, for affliction being in no wise lovable in
itself, it is an easy thing only to love it for the
sake of him that sends it.
The hounds in spring-time are at fault at every
step, finding hardly any scent at all, because the
herbs and flowers then smell so freshly that their
odour puts down that of the hart or hare: in the
spring-time of consolations love scarcely recognizes
God's good-pleasure, because the sensible pleasure of
consolation so allures the heart, that it troubles
the attention which the heart should pay to the will
of God.
S. Catharine of Siena, having from our Saviour her
choice of a crown of gold or a crown of thorns, chose
this latter, as better suiting with love: a desire of
suffering, says the Blessed (S.) Angela of Foligno,
is an infallible mark of love: and the great Apostle
cries out that he glories only in the cross,(2) in
infirmity, in persecution.
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