Chapter 58: Of the merit of patience

IT happened one day that a person was injured from an accident which occurred during some employment, and Gertrude, compassionating her suffering, prayed that the limb, which had been injured in a holy occupation, might not be endangered. Our Lord replied : " It will not be en dangered ; but, on the contrary, the pain will bring down on her soul a recompense of inestimable value. And further, all those who endeavour to soothe or cure her pain shall receive an eternal reward ; for even as a piece of cloth which has been dipped in saffron imparts the same colour to whatever it touches, so, when one member suffers, all the members who serve her shall be crowned with her in glory." " But, my God," inquired the Saint, " how can those who thus assist each other render themselves worthy of so great a recompense when they labour thus, not that she who is wounded may suffer longer or more patiently for love of Thee, but merely to lessen her pain ? " To this our Lord vouchsafed a reply full of ineffable consolation : " The patience with which any one endures an evil for My love and for My glory, which cannot be remedied by any human means, is not a patience which I condemn ; on the contrary, having sanctified it by these words which I ad dressed in My agony to My eternal Father, ' My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me ' (Matt, xxvi.), it becomes of incomparable merit and value." " But," in quired Gertrude, " is it not better to endure patiently every evil which happens, than merely to bear it because we can not prevent it ? " Our Lord answered : " This is a secret hidden in the abyss of My Divine perfection, and which sur passes human understanding ; but, to speak according to the manner of men, there is the same difference between these two kinds of sufferings as between two beautiful colours, which are both so brilliant and attractive, that it is difficult to give the preference to either." Then Gertrude prayed that our Lord would make this known to this per son Himself, and thus give her effectual and true consola tion ; but He answered : " This must not be \ but know that I refuse her this by a secret dispensation of My Divine wisdom, in order to prove her further, and to give her the merit of three virtues — patience, faith, and humility : pa tience, because if she found such consolation in these words as you now experience, all her pains would be so sweetened that the merit of her patience would be thereby much diminished ; faith, in order that she may believe on the word of another what she has not experienced herself, since faith remains without merit and unfruitful when human reason has perceived what it believes ; humility, that she may believe that others excel her, because they know by Divine inspiration what she does not merit to know."