CHAPTER VII.

ON PARTICIPATION IN THE MER1TS OF CHRIST, AND THE VALUE OF OBEDIENCE.

ST. MECHTILDIS praying for a certain person who was grieved that she had shed many tears almost fruitlessly, our Lord answered: “Let her beseech Me through My goodness to accept all the tears she has shed, as if she had shed them out of love for Me, or from devotion or contrition. For if she does this 250piously, she will, without doubt, succeed according to her faith and hope in My goodness.”

marvellous and stupendous condescension of the divine mercy, which relieves the wretched with such consolations! For what has been said of tears, may also be applied to past sadness, and to any tribulation, misery, or pain, which a person thinks he has endured in vain.

When St. Mechtildis, at the request of another, besought our Lord that Tie would deign to give that person a pure, humble, and spiritual heart, full of desires, she received this answer: “All that he wishes and stands in need of, he will find in Me. Therefore, whatsoever is wanting to him in purity, humility, desire, or love, lot him supply, or seek to have it supplied from the good that is in Me, and let him take to himself all My divine conversation.” She answered: “sweetest God, if it is so pleasing to Thee that man should take Thy virtues to himself, tell me, I beseech Thee, how he is to do this.” And our Lord replied: “Let him offer to my Heavenly Father or to Me, My purity and innocence for his impurity, My humility for his pride, My pity and charity for his hard-heartedness and tepidity, and lastly, My most holy and perfect conversation for his negligent and imperfect life. Let him offer also his desires, thoughts, words, prayers, tears, griefs, troubles, and works, in union with My desires, thoughts, words, prayers, tears, griefs, troubles, and works; for thus will they all be most pleasing to God. Every holy prayer will indeed penetrate the heavens, but that which is united to My prayers is by far more excellent and 251worthy. Let him also study to imitate My virtues according to his measure, and to govern his life and actions after the pattern of My life and conversation.”

Christ has often deigned to reveal that every Christian ought to imitate the humble obedience by which He obeyed His Heavenly Father, and men, not only the good, but also the impious. And this most important virtue may be well cultivated and practised, not only by monks and nuns, but by all men. Obedience brings man into subjection to the Church, and to her Sacraments, pastors, superiors, and to all her dogmas, precepts, institutions, and customs. It renders him prompt and accommodating in giving advice, in affording help and service, both temporal and spiritual, with discretion, and according to each one’s necessities. The truly obedient man readily abandons his own judgment and opinion, and utterly renounces his own wishes and dislikes; wherefore he need not fear hell. For an evil self-will (which is the foundation of all sins) alone constitutes hell; take that away, and hell will be no more. The truly obedient man gives up his own will, and delays not to execute what ever is required of him; as soon as anything is en joined he is ready,—yea, he often waits not for a command. He submits himself not only to God and his superiors, but even to all men; and the more men are his inferiors, the more he delights in subjection, the more willingly he obeys them; for here he finds more mortification of himself than when he submits to those above him. No one is so barren and destitute of divine grace but that if he wills to obey promptly, 252for God’s sake, he may not grow and flourish and produce abundant fruit. Doubtless, the safest way to heaven, and that by which the snares of the devil are most easily avoided, is obedience, by which a man of good will submits himself and chooses not to live by his own judgment, but arranges all his works and all his affairs (especially those that are arduous) by the salutary and holy counsel of a spiritual and enlightened confessor. By this resignation of himself all a man’s works abound with grace: but it is difficult to discern whether the works which a good man does of his own judgment, are done by nature or by grace. He, however, who has no one whom he can fitly obey in all things, and by whose advice he can regulate his works, should, nevertheless, keep himself in the disposition to obey, if he could meet with such a one.

If any one has attained, by the gift of God, to so high a degree of sanctity that he has God ever visibly present and abiding with him, he should humbly say to God, when he is called by obedience to any work: “O most sweet God, permit me, I beseech Thee, to perform this work for love of Thee.” For this abandonment of his own will is much more pleasing to God than if that man had then with all the blessed spirits penetrated heaven, as is shown by the following example. For when the sweet Jesus had appeared in the form of a little child to a certain virgin living in a convent, and praying in her cell, and she was required by obedience to do some work of the community, she immediately left the child Jesus, and with 253a willing mind and cheerful countenance, performed what she was bidden to do. Then quickly returning to her cell, she saw her beloved Lord, whom she had left a child a little while before, standing in perfect stature, as a most beautiful youth of four-and-twenty years old. And when the virgin enquired how, in so short a time, He had grown so much, He answered; “The deep humility of thy swift and ready obedience made me so tall in so short a time. Wherefore, O most dear daughter, if thou wishest always to please Me and to cleave to Me, do thou always obey promptly for love of Me.” And having said these words, our Lord disappeared. He is wise, therefore, who straight way postpones his meditations and prayers, and any other holy work or exercise, that he may obey for God’s sake.

Christ said to St. Bridget: “All true virtues spring from love, as branches from a tree; and among these, virtues obedience holds the first place. Wherefore he is most pleasing to Me who, out of humility, submits himself, and places his will in the hands of others, thus choosing not to follow it. For I also, who am the most perfect of all, and perfection itself, was obedient to My Father, even unto death, that I might show by My example how pleasing it is to God to deny one’s own will. But many who attend not to this virtue of obedience, and whose zeal is not discreet, follow the ideas of their own minds, and by their own judgment, but not by the impulse of the Holy Spirit, afflict their flesh so immoderately for a time, that for long after they are useless to themselves, little 254acceptable to God, and very burthensome to others. The counsels of the wise should be listened to; for I desire the death of sin, not of the flesh. He who, putting aside his own imaginations, submits his mind to others, will receive a double crown, and an increase of spiritual devotion. Obedience, which admits no self-will nor evil inclination, pleases Me more than a great sacrifice” (1 Kings xv. 22).

St. Bridget also heard the Lord Jesus speaking thus: “He who would rather fast than eat, and who yet takes food by obedience, will have the same reward as he who rightly fasts. And he will receive a similar reward, who eats because he is ill, though he would rather fast in honour of Me.” The Blessed Virgin, moreover, said to St. Bridget, “Let there be two men, one living under obedience, and the other at liberty; if he who is free fasts piously, he will have a single reward; if he who lives under obedience fasts not, but even eats meat temperately, according to his Rule, though he would wish to fast if obedience did not stand in the way, he will obtain a double reward, that is to say, one for his obedience, and another for the mortification of his own will and desire. Do thou, daughter, refresh thy body moderately with what is necessary. Make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences (Rom. xiii. 14), but abstain from unlawful indulgence. Fast, and pray, and visit holy places; these are, indeed, good works in themselves; but, unless they are done discreetly, humbly, and out of love, they merit not eternal life.”