CHAPTER XXXIII.

How a man should offer up his sufferings to the praise and glory of God.

WHEN the suffering Servitor had deeply meditated upon this long and weary warfare, and moreover had come to see in it God’s hid den marvels, he turned one day to God, sighing inwardly, and said:—Alas, Lord, these sufferings are in their outward aspect like sharp thorns which pierce through flesh and bone. Therefore, gentle Lord, cause some sweet fruit of good instruction to issue forth from these sharp thorns of sufferings, that we, poor men, may suffer more patiently, and be better able to offer up our sufferings to Thy praise and glory.

After he had continued for a long time earnestly beseeching God for this, it came to pass one day that he was rapt in ecstasy, and his bodily senses being abstracted, it was sweetly said to him within his soul:—I will show thee to-day the high nobility of My life, and how a 147sufferer should offer up his sufferings to the praise and glory of the loving God.

At these sweet interior words his soul was melted within him, and his bodily senses being stilled in ecstasy, the arms, as it were, of his soul stretched themselves forth, out .of the unfathomable fulness of his heart to the far-off ends of the universe, even to heaven and earth; and he thanked God with a boundless heartfelt yearning, saying:—Hitherto, O Lord, I have praised Thee in my musings with the aid of all that is pleasant and delightful in all creatures; but now I must joyously break forth into a new song, and a strange kind of praise, which I knew not before, since I have only now come to know it by suffering. And it is this: I pray from my heart’s bottomless depths that all the sorrow and pain winch I have ever suffered, as well as the woes and agonies of every human heart, the smarts of all wounds, the anguish of all the sick, the groans of all sad souls, the tears of all weeping eyes, the misery of all the oppressed, the distress of all needy widows and orphans, the pining want of all the poor and hungry, the out poured blood of all martyrs, the crushing of self-will in all who are young and blooming, the afflictive exercises of all God’s friends, and all 148the secret and open pains and sorrows, which I or any other poor sufferer ever endured in body, goods, or honour, in weal or woe, or which any one will ever have to suffer from now to doomsday,—all these I pray may be an everlasting source of praise to Thee, O Heavenly Father, and an eternal honour to Thy only-begotten suffering Son from everlasting to everlasting. And I, Thy poor Servitor, desire to-day to be the faithful representative of all sufferers who perchance have been unable to turn to full account their sufferings, by patient thanksgiving and praise of God for them; and I wish in their place to offer up their sufferings in praise of God, however they may have borne them; and I now offer them up to Thee in their stead, just as if I myself alone had suffered them all in my body and in my heart, as it is my heart’s wish to do; and I tender them all this day to Thy only-begotten suffering Son, that they may be an everlasting praise to Him, and that the sufferers may be comforted, whether they are still here in this vale of sorrow, or in the next world in Thy hand.

O all ye who suffer with me, look at me and give ear to what I say to you! We, poor members, ought to console ourselves and rejoice in 149our venerable Head, God’s lovely only-begotten Son, that He has suffered for us, and never passed one pleasant day on earth. Behold! if there is only one rich man in a poor family, the whole family rejoices in him. Ah, venerable Head of us all, Thy members, be gracious to us, and where through human frailty true patience fails us in any affliction, do Thou make it up for us before Thy Heavenly Father. Bethink Thee how Thou earnest once to the help of one of Thy servants, and when his courage was all but failing him through suffering, Thou saidst to him:—Be of good cheer and look at Me. I was noble and poor; I was tender and in misery; I was born from out the fulness of all joys, and yet I was full of sorrow. Therefore, as valiant knights of our imperial Lord, let us not lose heart; as noble followers of our venerable Leader, let us be of good cheer, and rejoice to suffer; for if there were no other profit and good in suffering, than that we became more like the fair bright mirror Christ, the more closely that we copied Him in this, our sufferings would be well laid out. It seems to me in truth, that even if God meant to give the same reward hereafter to those who suffer and to those who do not suffer, we ought still to choose suffering for our lot, 150were it only to be like Him; for love produces likeness and devotion to the beloved, so far as it can and may. But oh! how dare we presume to take upon ourselves that we ought to resemble Thee, O noble Lord, in our sufferings! Thy sufferings and our sufferings how unlike they are! O Lord, Thou alone art the sufferer who hast never deserved to suffer. But where is he, alas, who can pride himself that he has never given cause for sufferings? For if on the one hand he is guiltless in that for which he suffers, on the other he deserves punishment on other counts. Therefore we place ourselves, I mean all we who have ever suffered, in a great wide ring round and round; and we place Thee, our dear gentle Lover, in the midst of us, even in the ring of us suffering mortals, and we spread out far and wide our thirsty veins with great longing towards Thee, the rich outbursting fountain of all grace. Behold and marvel. Just as the earth which is most cracked with drought takes in best the stormy streams of watery rain, even so we heavily-laden men, the more guilty we are towards Thee, the more closely do we clasp Thee to us with outspread hearts, and our longing desire is that, come what may, according to the promise of Thy divine mouth, we 151may be washed in Thy streaming and trickling wounds, and be set free thereby from every sin; for all which Thou shalt receive everlasting praise and honour from us, and we shall obtain grace from Thee, since all unlikeness will be removed from us by Thy almightiness.

After the Servitor had remained sitting with out movement for a long time, during which all this was revealed to him with great solemnity in the innermost interior of his soul, he rose up joyfully and thanked God for the grace which he had received.