Of the Conformity Which We Should Have to the Will of God in the General Afflictions and Calamities Which He Sends Us

WE must not only practise conformity to the will of God in the troubles and mishaps that particularly concern ourselves, but also in those general calamities, famines, wars, sicknesses, deaths, pestilences, and the like, which the Lord sends to His Church. For this it is necessary to take for granted that, though on the one hand we feel these calamities and chastisements and are touched by the misfortunes and troubles of our neighbor, as is right; yet on the other hand, considering them inasmuch as they are the will of God, ordained by His just judgments to bring blessings and advantages which he knows to be to His greater glory, we are able on this consideration to conform ourselves therein to His most holy will. In the same way we see here on earth how, when a judge sentences a man to death, while he feels and regrets the necessity that this man shall die, for natural compassion or because he is his friend, yet he does pass the sentence and will his death, because it makes for the common good of the whole community. And while it is true that God has not been pleased to oblige us to conform ourselves to His will in all these things so as positively to will them and love them, but is satisfied with our suffering them in patience, without contradiction or repugnance to the divine justice, or murmuring thereat; yet theologians and saints say that it would be a work of greater perfection and merit and of a more perfect and entire resignation, if a man were not only to bear those things and suffer them in patience, but were actually to love them and wish them as being the will and good pleasure of God and the order of His divine justice and subservient to His greater glory, as do the blessed in heaven, who in all things fall in with the will of God. So says St. Thomas, and St. Anselm illustrates it by this comparison. He says that in the glory of heaven our will and the will of God shall go as perfectly together as here on earth do the two eyes of one and the same body, so that one cannot look at a thing without the other also looking at it; and thus, though the thing is seen by both eyes, yet it is always seen as one and the same thing. But as the saints there in heaven fall in with the will of God in all things, seeing in them all the order of His justice and the end of His greater glory to which they are directed, so it will be great perfection for us to imitate the blessed therein, wishing the will of God to be done here on earth as it is in heaven. To will what God wills, for the same reason and end that God wills it, can never cease to be a very good thing. Posidonius relates of St. Augustine in his Life that when the city of Bona [then called Hippo, near the modern Cape Bona], where he resided, was besieged by the Vandals, looking out upon that scene of ruin and mortality, he comforted himself with that saying of a sage: ‘He will not be a great man who shall take it for a great thing that stones and buildings fall and mortals die’”—WNon erit magnus magnum putans quod cadunt ligna et lapides, et mortales moriuntur. We have more reason to find comfort in the consideration that all these things come from the hand of God and that such is His will; and though the reason why He sends these afflictions and calamities be hidden, yet it cannot be unjust.

The judgments of God are very profound. They are a deep abyss, as the prophet says (Psalm xxxv. 7); and we must not wish to scrutinize and investigate them with our mean and limited understanding, which would be great rashness. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, and who hath been his counselor? (Rom. xi. 34; Isaias xl. 13). Who has given you a seat at His council board, that you should wish to meddle in this matter? We can only reverence in humility and believe that from infinite Wisdom nothing can come but what is well calculated to its end, and so well calculated that in the end it will prove to be to our greater good and profit. We must always go on this principle, believing that God of His infinite goodness and mercy would never send or permit the like evils and afflictions were it not to draw from them other greater goods. It is the purpose of God to take to heaven by this road many who would otherwise be lost. How many there are who under these afflictions return with all their heart to God and die in true repentance for their sins and are saved, and in any other way would have been damned! Thus what appears a chastisement and a scourge is a mercy and great benefit.

In the Second Book of Maccabees, after having related that horrible and most cruel persecution of the most impious King Antiochus and the blood that he shed without sparing child or man, married or unmarried woman, and how he plundered and profaned the Temple and the abominations that were committed in it by his orders, the author goes on to say: I beseech those who shall read this book not to be dismayed at these adverse events, but believe that God has permitted and sent all these afflictions, not for the destruction, but for the amendment and correction of our race (II Mace. vi. 12). St. Gregory says very well to this effect: The leech sucks the blood of the sick man and all his aim is to satisfy himself and drink all he can; but the aim of the physician is to draw off the bad blood and give health to the patient. This is what God aims at through the affliction and tribulation which He sends us. It would be unwise of the sick man not to let the bad blood be drawn off, looking rather at the lust of the leech than at the intention of the physician. So in our case, whatever trouble comes upon us, whether through the instrumentality of men or through that of any other creature, we should not look at them, but at that most wise physician, who is God; for they all serve Him as leeches and means to draw off the bad blood and give us entire health and salvation. Thus we should understand and believe that He sends us all things for our greater good and profit; and though the Lord had nothing more in view in the matter than to chastise us in this life as sons (Heb. xii. 7-8), and not keep the chastisement for the next, it would be a great blessing and benefit. It is related of St. Catherine of Siena that she was once much afflicted by a false witness that they had set up against her, impugning her virtue, when there appeared to her Christ our Redeemer, holding in His right hand a crown of gold, adorned with many pearls and precious stones, and in His left a crown of thorns, and said to her: “My beloved daughter, know that it is necessary to be crowned with these two crowns on different occasions and at different times; this being so, do thou choose which thou preferrest, either to be crowned with this crown of thorns in this life which thou now livest, and to have that other, the precious crown, kept for thee until that life that must last forever; or to have that precious crown given thee in this life, and have kept for thee the crown of thorns till after thy death.” The holy virgin answered: “Lord, I have already for a long time denied my own will to follow Thine; therefore it is not for me to choose. But if Thou, O Lord, willest that I should give an answer, I say that I always in this life choose to be conformed to Thy holy Passion, and for love of Thee I wish always to embrace pains for my refreshment.” So saying, with her own hands she took the crown of thorns from the hand of the Savior and put it with all her might on her own head with such force that the thorns pierced her all round; and from that time onwards, on many days she felt an actual pain in her head from the thorns entering in there.