CHAPTER XXXIV.

Of the joys with which God recompenses in this present life those who suffer for Him.

ON a joyful Easter-day the Servitor was once in very blithesome mood, and as he sat for a short time, according to his custom, in the repose of contemplation, he desired earnestly to hear from God what meed of delights they shall receive from Him in this life who have borne manifold sufferings for His sake. Whereupon, being rapt in ecstasy, a light shone into his soul from God to this effect:—Let all who suffer 152with detachment rejoice, for their patience shall be gloriously rewarded; and as they have been here below an object of pity to many, even so shall many rejoice eternally at the deserved praise and everlasting honour which shall be theirs. They have died with Me, and they shall also rise again with Me in gladness. Three special gifts I will give them, so precious that no one can reckon up their value. First, I will give absolute power to their wishes in heaven and on earth, so that whatever they wish shall come to pass. Secondly, I will give them My divine peace, which neither angel, nor devil, nor man, nor any other creature can take away from them. Thirdly, I will so inwardly kiss them through and through, and so lovingly embrace them, that I in them and they in Me, and we together, shall abide eternally, one undivided unity for ever. And since long waiting and praying are painful to restless hearts, this love shall not be withheld from them during this short present hour of life, which lasts but for a moment, but it shall begin even now, and be enjoyed eternally, so far as man’s mortal nature can in each case more or less support it.

These glad tidings filled the Servitor with 153joy; and when he came to himself again, he sprang up, and began to laugh so heartily that the chapel in which he was reechoed to the sound, and he said within himself joyously:—Let him who has suffered come forward and complain. God knows, I can declare that as to myself, methinks I have never had any thing at all to suffer. I know not what suffering is; but I know well what joy and bliss are. Power to wish and to obtain is given me; a thing which many erring hearts must be without. What want I more? Then he turned his thoughts to the eternal Truth, and said:—Ah! eternal Truth, show me now this hidden mystery, so far as words can tell it, for it is a truth of which many blinded men are altogether ignorant.

This mystery was inwardly manifested to him thus:—Mark those who have paid due attention to the breaking away from creatures,—in other words, to that death to self and all things with which a man must begin. Alas! there are not many such. The mind and thoughts of these men have so passed away into God, that they know nothing, as it were, of themselves, save only that they view themselves .and all things in their primal fountain-head; 154and therefore they have the same pleasure and complacency in each several thing which God does, as if God stood by unconcerned with it and inactive, and it were granted to them to carry out each thing according to their own mind; and thus it is that their will is absolute in might, for heaven and earth serve them, and every creature is subject to them, in what each does or leaves undone. Such persons feel no sorrow of heart about any thing; for I only call that pain and sorrow of heart which the will with full deliberation wishes to be freed from. Externally, indeed, they have a sense of pleasure and pain like other people, and it is more intense perhaps in them than others, because of their great tenderness; but in their inmost souls it finds no abiding-place, and exteriorly they remain firm against impatience. They are filled to the full even in this life, so far as this is possible, owing to their detachment from self, and hence their joy is complete and stable in all things. For in the divine essence, into which their hearts have passed away and become merged,—that is, supposing they have not gone astray from the right path,—neither pain nor sorrow finds place, but only peace and joy. If, however, thy own frailty entices thee to commit 155sin, from which pain and sorrow justly spring up for the sinner, and if thou committest sin, then, and then only, thou wilt find a flaw in thy happiness. But if thou avoidest sin, and goest out of thyself in this respect, and passest away into that in which thou canst have neither suffering nor sorrow—since pain is not pain to thee there, nor suffering suffering, but all things are unmingled peace—then it is well with thee in very truth. And all this comes to pass because their self-will is lost and gone. For these persons are of themselves driven onward with a longing thirst towards God’s will and His justice; and they find such a sweet savour in God’s will, and they so delight in it, and take such pleasure in all that He ordains concerning them, that they have no wish nor desire for any thing else. This, however, must not be understood as if they were forbidden to ask things of God and to pray to Him; for it is God’s will that we pray to Him. But it is to be understood of the due and rightful going forth out of our own judgment into the will of the supreme God head, as has been said. Now there lies in this a hidden difficulty, against which many stumble, and it is this. Who knows, they say, whether it is God’s will? See now. God is a super-essential 156good, and He is more interiorly present to every individual thing than that thing can be to itself; and against His will nothing can happen, nor can any thing exist for an instant. Therefore they must be miserable who are always struggling against God’s will and desiring to do their own will, if they could. They have the kind of peace which is in hell, for they are always in sadness and heaviness. On the contrary, a soul stripped of self has God and peace at all times present to it, in adversity as well as in prosperity; for if He is truly there who does all and is all, how can the sight of their own sufferings be grievous to them, since in them they see God, find God, make use of God’s will, and know nothing of their own will? not to speak of the consoling illuminations and heavenly delights with which God often secretly sustains His suffering friends. These persons are, as it were, in heaven. What happens to them or does not happen to them, what God does in all creatures or does not do, all turns to their advantage. And thus he who can bear suffering well receives in this world a portion of the reward of his sufferings; for he finds peace and joy in all things, and after death everlasting life awaits him.