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Compassion, condolence, commiseration, or pity, is no
other thing than an affection which makes us share in
the suffering and sorrow of him whom we love, drawing
the misery which he endures into our heart; whence it
is called misericorde, or, as it were, misere de
coeur: as complacency draws into the lover's heart
the pleasures and contentments of the thing beloved.
It is love that works both effects, by the virtue
it has of uniting the heart which loves to the thing
loved, thus making the goods and the evils of friends
common; and what happens in compassion much
illustrates what regards complacency.
Compassion takes its greatness from the love which
produces it. Thus the condolence of mothers in the
afflictions of their only children is great, as the
Scripture often testifies. How great was the sorrow
of Agar's heart upon the pains of her Ismael, whom
she saw well-nigh perish with thirst in the desert!
How much did David's soul commiserate the misery of
his Absalom!
Ah! do you not mark the motherly heart of the
great Apostle, sick with the sick, burning with zeal
for such as were scandalized, having a continual
sorrow for the ruin of the Jews, and daily dying for
his dear spiritual children.
But especially consider how love draws all the
pains, all the torments, travails, sufferings, griefs,
wounds, passion, cross and very death of our Redeemer
into his most sacred mother's heart. Alas! the same
nails that crucified the body of this divine child,
also crucified the soul of this all-sweet mother; she
endured the same miseries with her son by
commiseration, the same dolours by condolence, the
same passions by compassion, and, in a word, the
sword of death which transpierced the body of this
best beloved Son, struck through the heart of this
most loving mother,(1) whence she might well have
said that he was to her as a bundle of myrrh between
her breasts,(2) that is, in her bosom and in the
midst of her heart. You see how Jacob, hearing the
sad though false news of the death of his dear
Joseph, is afflicted with it. Ah! said he, I will go
down mourning into hell, that is to say, to Limbo
into Abraham's bosom, to my son.93)
Condolence is also great according to the greatness
of the sorrows which we see those we love suffering;
for how little soever the friendship be, if the evils
which we see endured be extreme, they cause in us
great pity. This made Coasar weep over Pompey, and
the daughters of Jerusalem could not refrain from
weeping over our Saviour, though the greater number
of them were not greatly attached to him; as also the
friends of Job, though wicked friends, made great
lamentation in beholding the dreadful spectacle of
his incomparable misery. And what a stroke of grief
was it in the heart of Jacob to think that his dear
child had died by a death so cruel as that of being
devoured by a savage beast.
But, besides all this, commiseration is much
strengthened by the presence of the object which is
in misery; this caused poor Agar to go away from her
dying son, to disburden herself in some sort of the
compassionate grief which she felt, saying: I will
not see the boy die;94) as on the contrary our
Saviour weeps seeing the sepulchre of his
well-beloved Lazarus and regarding his dear
Jerusalem; and our good Jacob is beside himself with
grief when he sees the bloody coat of his poor little
Joseph.
Now the same causes increase complacency. In
proportion as a friend is more dear to us we take
more pleasure in his contentment, and his good enters
more deeply into our heart. If the good is excellent,
our joy is also greater. But if we see our friend
enjoying it, our rejoicing becomes extreme. When the
good Jacob knew that his son lived, - O God! What
joy! His spirit returned to him, he lived once more,
he, so to speak, rose again from death.
But what does this mean, - he revived or returned
to life? Theotimus, spirits die not their own death
but by sin, which separates them from God, their true
supernatural life, yet they sometimes die another's
death; and this happened to the good Jacob of whom we
speak, for love, which draws into the heart of the
lover the good and evil of the thing beloved, the one
by complacency, the other by commiseration, drew the
death of the beloved Joseph into the loving Jacob's
heart, and, by a miracle impossible to any other
power than love, the spirit of this good father was
full of the death of him that was living and
reigning, for affection having been deceived ran
before the effect.
But, on the contrary, as soon as he knew that his son
was alive, love which had so long kept the supposed
death of the son in the spirit of the good father,
seeing that it had been deceived, speedily rejected
this imaginary death, and made enter in its place the
true life of the same son.
Thus then he returned to a new life, because the
life of his son entered into his heart by
complacency, and animated him with an incomparable
contentment: with which finding himself satisfied,
and not esteeming any other pleasure in comparison of
this: It is enough for me, said he, if Joseph my son
be yet living.(5) But when with his own eyes he saw
by experience the truth of the grandeur of this dear
child in Gessen, falling upon his neck and embracing
him, he wept saying: Now shall I die with joy because
I have seen thy face and leave thee alive.(6)
Ah! what a joy, Theotimus, and how excellently
expressed by this old man! For what would he say by
these words, now shall I die with joy because I have
seen thy face, but that his content was so great,
that it was able to render death itself joyful and
agreeable, even death, which is the most grievous and
horrible thing in the world.
Tell me, I pray you, Theotimus, who has more sense
of Joseph's good, he who enjoys it or Jacob who
rejoices in it. Certainly, if good be not good but in
respect of the content which it affords us, the
father has as much as the son, yea more, for the son,
together with the viceroy's dignity of which he is
possessed, has consequently much care and many
affairs, but the father enjoys by complacency, and
purely possesses all that is good in this greatness
and dignity of his son, without charge, care or
trouble. Now shall I die with joy, says he.
Ah! who does not see his contentment? If even
death cannot trouble his joy, who can ever change it?
If his content can live amidst the distresses of
death, who can ever bereave him of it? Love is strong
as death, and the joys of love surmount the sorrows
of death, for death cannot kill but enlivens them; so
that, as there is a fire which is marvellously kept
alive in a fountain near Grenoble (as we know for
certain and the great S. Augustine attests), so holy
charity has strength to nourish her flames and
consolations in the most grievous anguishes of death,
and the waters of tribulations cannot quench her
fire.
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