The practice of the love of Jesus Christ - 022

XXII-” CHARITY IS PATIENT.”-THE SOUL THAT LOVES JESUS CHRIST LOVES TO SUFFER.

I. Now in the same manner as God has treated His beloved Son, so does He treat everyone whom He loves, and whom He receives for His son: For whom the Lord loveth he chastiseth; and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth-(Heb. xii. 6). For this reason He one day said to St. Teresa: “Know that the souls dearest to My Father are those who are afflicted with the greatest sufferings.” Hence the Saint said of all her troubles that she would not exchange them for all the treasures in the world. She appeared after her death to a soul, and revealed to her that she enjoyed an immense reward in Heaven, not so much for her good works as for the sufferings she cheerfully bore in this life for the love of God; and that if she could possibly entertain a wish to return upon earth, the only reason would be in order that she might suffer more for God.

II. He that loves God in suffering earns a double reward in Paradise. St. Vincent de Paul said that it was a great misfortune to be free from suffering in this life. And he added that a Congregation or an individual that does not suffer, and is applauded by all the world, is not far from a fall. It was on this account that St. Francis of Assisi, on the day that he had suffered nothing for God, became afraid lest God had forgotten him. St. John Chrysostom says that when God endows a man with the grace of suffering, He gives him a greater grace than that of raising the dead to life; because in performing miracles man remains God’s debtor; whereas in suffering, God makes Himself the debtor of man. And he adds that whoever endures something for God, even had he no other gift than the strength to suffer for the God Whom he loves, would obtain for himself an immense reward, Wherefore he affirmed that he considered St. Paul to have received a greater grace in being bound in chains for Jesus Christ than in being rapt to the Third Heaven in ecstasy.