Of Another Motive That Will Facilitate and Make Agreeable the Practice of Mortification, Namely, the Hope of Reward

THE motive that will render this practice of mortification easy and sweet is the greatness of the reward that we hope for. With this hope holy Job animated and consoled himself in the midst of his very great afflictions, saying: Who wili grant me that the words which I would fain utter may be written, to remain for a perpetual memorial to posterity! And for greater perpetuity he goes on to wish: Who will grant that they may be imprinted in a book, or with a punch or burin of iron may be engraved on a plate of lead, or with a graving tool may be sculptured and hollowed out on a flagstone! But why dost thou wish, holy Job, for such perpetuity to thy words? That all men, born and to be born, may have in their afflictions the comfort that I have in mine. And what are those words? I know by revelation of my God that my Redeemer liveth-—he speaks of the Son of God and of the future as if it were past or present for the great certitude that he has of it— and since He is risen and living, I know that in the last day of the world I also am to rise again from the earth and dust into which I shall have been turned, and once more I am to be girt about with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see God, Who is the reward of them that serve Him, whom I myself and mine eyes are to see and rejoice in, and none other—I, the same that now am suffering, am to rise again and rejoice in God—I keep this hope safe laid up in my breast (Job xix. 25), and from thence as from a treasure I draw relief and rich comfort in my afflictions. With this consideration God encouraged Abraham. For when he said: “Lord, I have left my country and my kindred, for so Thou commandedst me; what reward hast Thou to give me?” God answered him: J am thy recompense, and thy reward exceeding great (Gen. xv. 1). With this consideration St. Paul says that Moses encouraged himself to abandon honor and choose a mean estate. Moses, when he was grown up in faith and hope, reckoned nothing of being the son of the daughter of Pharaoh, who had adopted him for her child. All that he despised, and chose rather to be humbled and persecuted for love of God than all the riches and treasures of Egypt, for he had an eye to the recompense and reward that he hoped for (Heb. xi. 24). With this consideration the Prophet David encouraged himself to fulfil the law and commandments of God, when he said: I have inclined mine heart forever to keep thy commandments for the sake of the reward (Psalm cxviii. 112).

St. Augustine says: “Heavy work it is to keep at it, continually mortifying and curbing our will; but look at the prize and reward to be given you for it and you will see that it is all very little in comparison: hope of reward lightens the stress of toil.” So he says we see here in the labors of merchants, agriculturists, and soldiers. Now if the fury and force of the sea and its fearful waves do not dismay mariners and traders; nor rains and storms, field laborers; nor wounds and deaths, soldiers; nor blows and falls, wrestlers, when they set their eyes on the human hopes which they expect to realize by their labors, how shall one who looks for the kingdom of heaven quail before the labor and mortification that virtue requires? And they indeed for a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable (I Cor. ix. 25), says the Apostle St. Paul. If they for a perishable prize and reward, a thing of such short duration, expose themselves to such labors, what is it reasonable for us to do for a prize and reward so great, a prize that shall last for ever and ever! Why, what we do is nothing in comparison with what we hope to get for it; it is nothing that they ask of us in comparison with what they give—they give it away to us for nothing. You cannot tell whether a thing is dear or cheap by the price they ask you for it, without looking at the same time at the thing that is sold. Else I ask you, are a hundred ducats much to give for a thing? According as the thing is, it may be such that it would be dear at fifty farthings, or such that it would be given away for nothing if sold at a thousand ducats. If it is a very rich, precious stone, or if they give you a city for a thousand ducats, it is given away for nothing. Thus, if you wish to see whether what God asks is much or little, look at your purchase, look at the recompense which they give you for it. I am thy reward (Gen. xv.1). They reward you to the point of giving you God. Is that what they give me? Then they give it me gratis; they ask nothing for it in asking me to deny my own will and mortify myself; they give it me for a mere nothing. Ye that have no money, make haste, buy and eat. Come, buy without money, and without exchange wine and milk (Isaias lv. 1).

This means is also greatly recommended to us by St. Basil. ‘Ever remember the great glory and reward that you hope for, thereby to encourage yourself to labor and to virtue.”” The blessed St. Anthony Abbot thereby encouraged his disciples to persevere in the continued rigor of religious life. In admiration of the great liberality of God he would stop and say: “In this life the dealings and contracts of men are equal on both sides; one gives as much as he receives; what is sold is worth the price paid for it. But the promise of life and glory everlasting is bought at a very low price, since it is written: The life of man is commonly some seventy years, or at most, with care and coddling, one attains to eighty, and what passes beyond that is pain, affliction and infirmity (Psalm Ixxxix. 10). But when we have lived eighty years, or a hundred or more, serving God, they will not give us for that the same number of years over again of glory; but for those years they will give us to reign forever in glory so long as God shall be God for all ages of ages (Exod. xv. 18). Wherefore, my children (the saint goes on), be not affrighted, nor set before your eyes the hardship of this life, for all that we can suffer in this life in inconsiderable in view of the reward and recompense that we hope for (Rom. viii. 18).” For the labor of a moment they give us a weight of glory to last for ever and ever (II Cor. iv. 17). St. Bernard brings a very good comparison to bear on this point. There is no sower so silly as to think the sowing season long, though he spend many days in sowing; for he knows that the longer the sowing time lasts, the greater will be the crop. In the same manner, he says, the labor of this life should not appear to us great or very lengthy, for it is a sowing time, and the more we sow and labor, the more abundantly and plentifully shall we reap. And the saint adds: “Consider how from a little more seed sown there comes afterwards a great increase and multiplication.” When the husbandman sees at harvest time how a handful of wheat sowed has brought in twenty or thirty fold, he will wish that he had sown a great deal more.