CHAPTER VII

Of Sufferings

Be patient under all the sufferings which God is pleased to send you: if your love to Him be pure, you will not seek Him less on Calvary, than on Tabor; and, surely, He should be as much loved on that as on this, since it was on Calvary He made the greater display of His Love for you.

Be not like those, who give themselves to Him at one season, and withdraw from Him at another: they give themselves only to be caressed; and wrest themselves back again, when they come to be crucified, or at least turn for consolation to the creature.

No, beloved souls, ye will not find consolation in aught, but in the love of the Cross, and in total abandonment: “Whosoever favoureth not the Cross, favoureth not the things that be of God” (Matt. xvi. 23). It is impossible to love God without loving the Cross; and a heart that favours the Cross, finds the bitterest things to be sweet: “A famished soul findeth bitter things sweet” (Job. vi. 1) because it findeth itself hungering for God, in proportion as it hungereth for the Cross. God giveth the Cross, and the Cross giveth us God.

We may be assured, that there is an internal advancement, where there is an advancement in the23 way of the Cross: Abandonment and the Cross go hand in hand together.

As soon as suffering presents itself, and you feel a repugnance against it, resign yourself immediately unto God with respect to it, and give yourself up to Him in sacrifice; you shall find, that, when the Cross arrives, it will not be so very burdensome, because you had disposed yourself to a willing reception of it. This, however, does not prevent your feeling its weight as some have imagined; for when we do not feel the Cross, we do not suffer it. A sensibility of sufferings constitutes a principal part of the sufferings themselves. Jesus Christ Himself was willing to suffer its utmost rigours. We often bear the Cross in weakness, at other times in strength; all should be equal to us in the will of God.