What Has Been Said in the Preceding Chapter Is Confirmed by Some Examples

IT is told of one of those ancient Fathers that he labored much, and did great penances and mortifications. His companions and disciples bade him desist, and moderate those afflictions and mortifications, being as they were so great. He replied: “Believe me, my sons, if the place and state of the blessed in heaven were capable of pain and grief, they would be very much distressed at not having suffered in this life greater afflictions and mortifications, seeing the great reward and recompense given for them and how they might have gained so much glory at so small a cost.” This agrees with what St. Bonaventure says: “The amount of glory that we miss every hour that we spend in idleness is exactly in proportion to the good works that we might have done in that time.”

Something similar is related of the holy virgin Mechtildis. She was very frequently visited by Christ our Redeemer, her Spouse, to Whom she had dedicated herself entirely, knowing of Him many marvelous things. One day she heard the saints exclaiming: “Oh, how fortunate and blessed you are, you who still live on earth, for the amount of merit that you may gain! If a man only knew how much he might merit every day from the first moment of his rising, his heart would be filled at once with joy and satisfaction to think that that day had dawned on which he might live to God our Lord, and with His grace, to the honor and glory of the same God, might increase his merit; and this would give him courage and strength to do and suffer all things with the utmost cheerfulness.”

In the “Spiritual Meadow,” which was composed by John Eviratus, or according to others by St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and was approved in the Second Council of Nice, there is a story of a monk who had a cell at a great distance from water, about twelve miles; and one day that he went for water he fainted on the way from overfatigue. Seeing himself, then, so worn out, he said within himself: “Why need I take all this trouble? I have a mind to go and live near the water and fix my cell there.” Another time, coming for water with his pitcher, he planned as he went along where his cell might conveniently be, and how he would build it, and the life that he would lead in it. Hereupon he heard on his track the voice of a man, saying, “One, two, three, etc.” He turned his head, wondering how in that lonely place there should be anyone to measure and reason distance or anything else. He saw nobody, and once more went on with his journey, thinking over his plans. Once more he heard the same voice saying, “One, two, three.” A second time he turned his head, and saw nobody either. The same thing happened a third time and, turning his head, he saw a handsome smiling youth, who said to him: “Do not trouble yourself; I am an angel of God, and I come counting the steps that you take on this journey, for not one of them shall go unrewarded,” and so saying, he disappeared. The monk, seeing that, reflected within himself and said: ‘“HHow can I be so wanting in judgment as to choose the loss of such great good and such a gain?” He determined forthwith to change his cell, putting it even farther off from where he had it, so to have more labor and fatigue.

There is a story in the lives of the Fathers of an old monk who lived in the Thebaid, who had a disciple whom he had trained well. It was the old man’s custom every night to give him an exhortation and after that to have prayers, and so he sent him to bed. It happened one day that some secular persons came to visit the monk, moved by the fame of his great abstinence; and after having dismissed them, it being already late, he set himself to give his exhortation as usual, and it was so long that sleep came over him and he dropped off, that holy old man. The disciple waited for him to awake that they might say prayers, and he get his dismissal. But as he did not awake, thoughts of impatience began to worry him, pressing him to be off to bed. He resisted once; then other and other thoughts assailed him till seven times, all of which he resisted manfully. It was now midnight, and the holy old man awoke; and finding him seated where he had left him when the discourse began, he said: “Son, why did you not wake me?” He answered that it was not to give him annoyance. They recited their matins; and when they had finished, he gave him his blessing and sent him off to sleep. The old man, putting himself in prayer, was rapt in spirit, and an angel showed him a very beautiful and glorious lodging, and shining in it a chair, and on the seat seven very rich crowns. The old man asked: “Whom are those crowns for?” The angel answered: “For your disciple; and the lodging and seat the Lord has given him for the life he leads, and those crowns he merited last night.’”” The morning came, and the monk asked the disciple how he passed the night while watching him asleep. And the good disciple related all that had passed, and how he had resisted seven times over the thoughts of giving up his watching. Hence the old man understood that it was by this that he had won those seven crowns.

It is told of the blessed St. Francis that one day in midwinter his brother according to the flesh met him in rags and tatters, half-naked, perishing and trembling with cold, and later sent to ask him in mockery and scorn if he would sell him one drop of his sweat. The saint answered with a meek spirit: “Tell my brother that I have already sold it all to my God and Lord, and that at a high price.” Another time, some years afterwards, when he was harassed with very severe and continual pains and, besides, with new and troublesome temptations of the devil, insomuch that it seemed as though no human strength could withstand them, he heard a voice from heaven bidding him rejoice and be glad, for that for those evils and tribulations he was to earn in heaven a treasure so great that, though the whole earth were turned into gold and all its stones into pearls, pearls most precious, and all its waters into balsam, that would bear no comparison with the reward and recompense that they would give him on that account. This message relieved and lightened the saint so much that he no longer felt his pains; and having on the spot called together his religious, he recounted to them with great joy the comfort that God had sent him from heaven.