Chapter 4: How vile and despicable are all transitory pleasures

About the Feast of St. Bartholomew, Gertrude felt herself overwhelmed with an exceeding sadness and a temptation l Saint was martyred in Armenia, It is related in the Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, that when the Blessed Virgin appeared to her during the vigil of Christmas, she mentioned the Bartholomew, with St. John and St. Lawrence, as special ** lovers of Jesus." She added : *« If thou wilt consent to be deprived of afl that is dear to thee, and even of thy own will, I will obtain for thee the same reward that Bartholomew received when his skin was flayed off. If thou endurest insults patiently, thou wilt be like unto

TEMPTATIONS TO JM1 .SS. 135 to impatience. This caused such darkness in her soul, that she appeared insensible to all the pleasures which the presence of God imparted to her, and light was not restored to her until the following Saturday through the inter _ of the Mother of God, when they sang in her honour the Antiphon which commences " Mary, Star of the sea." * The following day, as she rejoiced inwardly at the sweetness and tenderness with which God treated her, she began to reflect on her late impatience and her other faults ; then, feeling exceedingly displeased with herself, she prayed to God for her amendment, but with such discouragement, that, beholding the enormity and the multitude of her she cried out in despair : " God of mercy, set bounds to my malice, since I place neither end nor measure to it ! 1 Deliver me, O Lord, and set me beside Thee, and let any man's hand fight against me ' n (Job xvii 3).

Our Lord, compassionating her extreme affliction, showed her a small, narrow garden, filled with many beautiful flowers, but surrounded with thorns, through which a little stream of honey flowed. He said to her : '• Would you prefer the pleasure which you might enjoy here to Me ? " She replied: "Assuredly not, O Lord my God." Then He showed her another little garden, filled with mire and dirt, but covered with some verdure, and containing a few common flowers. Being asked likewise if she would prefer this, she turned away from it to show her aversion, and exclaimed : " May I never prefer the fearful illusion of an apparent good, which conceals a real evil, to Him who is the only sovereign, true, unchangeable, and eternal Good ! "

Lawrence when he suffered martyrdom. If thou keepest when reproached and offended, thou wilt merit as John did when the wicked sought to poison him." * Stella Maria maris ; probably Art, mart Stella.

] 36 THE REVELATIONS OF ST. GERTRUDE.

Our Lord replied: "Why, then, do you mistrust, as one deprived of charity ; since the favours with which I over whelm you are a proof that you possess it ? And why do you speak despairingly because of your sins, since Scrip ture testifies that charity covers a multitude of sins, when you do not prefer your will to Mine, although by following it you might live without trouble, and in honour, in the esteem of men, and with a reputation for sanctity ? I have represented this self-will to you under the figure of a garden filled with flowers, and the pleasures of a sensual life by the verdure which covered the mire." She replied : "Oh, would to God a thousand times that, by the contempt of the garden of flowers, which Thou hast shown me, I may have altogether renounced my own will ! but I fear the insignificance of the place disposed me to do so more easily." " It is thus," our Lord replied, "that, in guiding the consciences of My elect, I only let them see temporal advantages to a small extent, in order to avoid exposing their weakness to great temptation, and to inspire them more easily with contempt for the false pleasures of earth." Then Gertrude renounced entirely all the pleasures of heaven and earth, and cast herself with such constancy and fervour into the bosom of her Beloved, that she believed no creature would now be able to remove her for a single moment from His arms, where she tasted with joy that lifegiving draught which flowed from the wounded Side of her Lord, and whose sweetness infinitely surpassed that of the most precious balm.