Chapter XIV

Caritas omnia suffert.

He who loves Jesus Christ suffers all for Jesus Christ, and especially infirmities, poverty, and contempt.

We spoke in Chapter V of the virtue of patience in general. Here we shall treat of some particular matters in which patience must especially be exercised.

Father Balthasar Alvarez said that no Christian should think he has made any progress unless he has come to hold fixed in his heart the sufferings, poverty, and contempt of Jesus Christ, so as to bear with loving patience every suffering, every poverty, and every contempt for love of Jesus Christ.

Let us speak first of bodily pains and infirmities, which gain for us a great crown of merits when we suffer them with patience.

St. Vincent de Paul said: "If we knew the precious treasure contained in infirmities, we would receive them with the same joy with which we receive the greatest benefits." And thus the saint, being continually afflicted with so many infirmities that they often left him no rest by day or night, bore them with such peace and serenity of countenance, without complaining, that he seemed to have no ailment at all. Oh, what beautiful edification a sick person gives who bears his illnesses with a tranquil face, as St. Francis de Sales did! When he was ill, he would simply describe his ailment to the physician, obey him punctually in taking all the remedies however disagreeable that were prescribed, and then remain in peace without complaining of what he suffered. Unlike some who, for every small discomfort, never tire of complaining to everyone, and would have all their relatives and friends around them to sympathize with their woes. But St. Teresa exhorted her religious: "Sisters, learn to suffer something for love of the Lord without everyone knowing it." The Venerable Louis de Ponte on a Good Friday was gifted by Jesus Christ with so many bodily pains that there was no part of his body that did not suffer its particular torment. He related this bitter suffering to a friend; but after having told it, he so repented that he made a vow never again to reveal his sufferings to anyone.

I said he was gifted; yes, because the saints consider infirmities and pains that God sends them as gifts. One day St. Francis of Assisi was lying in bed greatly tormented by pains; a companion assisting him said: "Father, pray God to lighten this trial and not press so heavily upon you." On hearing this, the saint immediately leaped from bed and, kneeling on the ground, began to thank God for those pains; and then, turning to his companion, he said: "Listen, if I did not know that you spoke out of simplicity, I would not want to see you again."

The sick person will say: It is not so much the suffering of this infirmity that displeases me as it is that I cannot go to church to make my devotions, to receive Communion, to hear Mass; I cannot go to the choir to say the Office with my brethren; I cannot celebrate; I cannot even make prayer, because my head is all pain and confusion. But tell me, please: Why do you wish to go to church, or to the choir? Why do you wish to receive Communion and say or hear Mass? To please God? But God's pleasure now is not that you say the Office, receive Communion, or hear Mass, but that you remain with patience in this bed and bear the pains of this infirmity. But this talk of mine does not please you; then you are not seeking to do what pleases God, but what pleases you. The Venerable John of Avila wrote to a priest who was complaining of precisely this: "Friend, do not reckon up what you would do if you were well, but be content to be ill for as long as it pleases God. If you seek the will of God, what does it matter to you whether you are well or ill?"

You say that you cannot even make prayer because your head cannot bear it. Yes, sir, you cannot meditate; but why can you not make acts of conformity to the will of God? And if you make these acts, this is the most beautiful prayer you can ever make, embracing with love the pains that afflict you. So did St. Vincent de Paul; when he was gravely ill, he would gently place himself in the presence of God without forcing his mind to dwell on any particular point; and he would only exercise himself in making from time to time now an act of love, now of confidence, now of thanksgiving, and most often of resignation whenever the pains intensified. St. Francis de Sales said: "Tribulations considered in themselves are frightful; but considered in the will of God, they are love and delight." You cannot make prayer? And what more beautiful prayer is there than to gaze from time to time upon the Crucifix and offer him the pains you suffer, uniting the little you endure with the immense sufferings that Jesus Christ endured on the cross?

A holy woman lay in bed afflicted by many illnesses; a maidservant placed a Crucifix in her hands and then told her to pray him to free her from those pains. The sick woman replied: "But how can you expect me to seek to come down from the cross while I hold in my hands a crucified God? God forbid! I wish to suffer for him who chose to suffer for me pains far greater than mine." And this is precisely what Jesus himself said to St. Teresa while she was ill and greatly troubled; he appeared to her all covered with wounds and then said to her: "Look, daughter, at the bitterness of my pains, and consider whether yours can be compared with mine." Hence the saint would say whenever she was afflicted by infirmities: "When I think of how many ways the Lord suffered, being entirely innocent, I do not know where I have my wits in complaining of my sufferings." St. Lydwine for thirty-eight years suffered continually from many maladies — fever, gout, quinsy, and sores all her life; and because she always kept before her eyes the sufferings of Jesus Christ, she remained in her bed always cheerful and joyful. Likewise St. Joseph of Leonessa the Capuchin, when the surgeon had to make a great incision and the friars wanted to bind him with ropes so that he would not move from the violence of the pain, took the Crucifix in his hand and said: "What ropes, what ropes! Here is what binds me to suffer every pain in peace for love of him." And so he endured the incision without complaint. St. Jonas the martyr, having been placed in the ice for a night by order of the tyrant, said in the morning that he had not had a more tranquil night than that one, because he had set before himself the image of Jesus hanging on the cross, and so his pains, compared with those of Christ, had seemed to him caresses rather than torments.

Oh, how many merits can be acquired simply by suffering infirmities with patience! Father Balthasar Alvarez was given to see the great glory that God had prepared for a devout religious woman for an infirmity she had suffered with great patience, and he said that she had merited more in eight months of that infirmity than some other devout religious women in many years. By patiently enduring the pains of our infirmities, a great part — and perhaps the greater part — of the crown that God prepares for us in paradise is completed. This was precisely what was revealed to St. Lydwine. After she had suffered so many painful infirmities, as was said above, she desired to die a martyr for Jesus Christ. Now, one day while she was sighing for this martyrdom, she saw a beautiful crown, not yet finished, and understood that it was being prepared for her. Longing that it be completed, the saint prayed the Lord to increase her pains. The Lord heard her, and sent some soldiers who mistreated her greatly, not only with insults but also with blows. Then an angel appeared to her with the crown already completed and told her that those last outrages had set in it the gems that were still missing; and shortly afterward she died.

Ah, to souls that ardently love Jesus Christ, pains and ignominies are too welcome and sweet! And therefore with such joy the holy martyrs went to meet the racks, the iron hooks, the red-hot plates, and the axes. St. Procopius the martyr, while the tyrant tormented him, said: "Torment me as much as you will, but know that for one who loves Jesus Christ there is nothing dearer than to suffer for love of him." Similarly St. Gordian, also a martyr, said to the tyrant who threatened him with death: "You threaten me with death, but it grieves me that I cannot die more than once for my Jesus Christ." But perhaps, I ask, did these saints speak this way because they were insensible to torments or dull of mind? No, answers St. Bernard: Hoc non fecit stupor, sed amor. They were not dull; they well felt the pains of the torments inflicted on them; but because they loved God, they considered it a great gain to suffer all and lose all, even life itself, for love of God.

Above all, in time of illness we must be ready to accept death, and that death which pleases God. We must die, and in our last illness our life must end, and we do not know which will be our last illness. Hence we must in every sickness prepare ourselves to embrace the death that God has determined for us. The sick man says: But I have committed so many sins and done no penance at all. I would wish to live, not for the sake of living, but to render God some satisfaction before I die. But tell me, my brother, how do you know that by living you will do penance and not do worse than before? Now you can well hope that God has forgiven you; what more beautiful penance is there than to accept death with resignation, if God so wills? St. Aloysius Gonzaga, dying as a young man of twenty-three, embraced death joyfully with this thought: "Now," he said, "I find myself, as I hope, in God's grace. Later I do not know what would become of me; hence I die content, if it now pleases God to call me to the other life." It was the conviction of the Venerable John of Avila that everyone who finds himself in a good disposition, even a mediocre one, ought to desire death in order to escape the danger in which we always live on this earth of being able to sin and lose the grace of God.

Moreover, in this world one cannot live, because of our natural frailty, without committing sins at least venial; hence at least on this account, so as to offend God no more, we should embrace death with joy. Furthermore, if we truly love God, we should ardently long to go to see him and love him with all our strength in paradise, which no one can do perfectly in this life; but unless death opens the door, we cannot enter that blessed homeland of love. Therefore the God-enamored St. Augustine exclaimed: Eia moriar, Domine, ut te videam: Lord, let me die, for if I do not die, I cannot come to see you and love you face to face.

In the second place, we must exercise patience in suffering poverty.

It is certain that we must greatly exercise patience when temporal goods fail us. St. Augustine says: "He who does not have God has nothing; he who has God has everything." He who has God and is united with the divine will finds every good in God. Here is a St. Francis, barefoot, clothed in a sack, and poor in all things, who in saying Deus meus et omnia finds himself richer than all the monarchs of the earth. A man is called poor who desires the goods he does not have; but he who desires nothing and is content with his poverty is fully rich. Of such people St. Paul says: Nihil habentes et omnia possidentes (II Cor. VI, 10). They have nothing and possess everything, the true lovers of God; because, when temporal goods fail them, they say: My Jesus, you alone are enough for me, and so they remain content.

The saints have not only had patience in their poverty but have sought to strip themselves of everything in order to live detached from all and united solely to God. If we do not have the spirit to renounce all the goods of this earth, let us at least be content with the state in which the Lord wants us; and let our solicitude be not for earthly riches but for those of paradise, which are immensely greater and are eternal. And let us be persuaded of what St. Teresa says: "The less we have here, the more we shall enjoy there."

St. Bonaventure said that an abundance of temporal goods is nothing other than birdlime for the soul, which prevents it from flying to God. And on the other hand, St. John Climacus wrote that poverty is a way of journeying to God without hindrance. The Lord said: Beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum (Matt. V, 3). To the other beatitudes — of the meek, of the clean of heart — heaven is promised in the future; but to the poor, heaven — that is, heavenly joy — is promised even in this life: ipsorum est regnum caelorum; yes, because even in this life the poor enjoy an anticipated paradise. Poor in spirit — meaning that they are not only poor in earthly goods but do not even desire them; and having what is sufficient to feed and clothe themselves, as the Apostle exhorts, they live content: Habentes autem alimenta et quibus tegamur, his contenti simus (I Tim. VI, 8).

"O blessed poverty," exclaimed St. Lawrence Justinian, "which possesses nothing and fears nothing! It is always joyful and always abundant, because it makes every discomfort serve the profit of the soul." St. Bernard writes: Avarus terrena esurit ut mendicus, pauper contemnit ut dominus: the miser is always famished like a beggar, because he never arrives at satisfying himself with the goods he desires; the poor man, on the other hand, like a lord of all, despises them, because he desires nothing.

One day Jesus Christ said to Blessed Angela of Foligno: "If poverty were not a great good, I would not have chosen it for myself nor left it as the portion of my elect." And indeed the saints, seeing Jesus poor, have loved poverty so much. St. Paul says that the desire to become rich is a snare of the devil by which he has caused more men to perish: Qui volunt divites fieri, incidunt... in laqueum diaboli, et desideria... nociva, quae mergunt homines in interitum et perditionem (I Tim. VI, 9). Wretched are those who for the miserable goods of this world lose the infinite good who is God!

Well then did St. Basil the Martyr have reason, when the Emperor Licinius proposed to him that if he left Jesus Christ he would make him chief of his priests — well did he have reason, I say, to answer: "Tell the emperor that if he wished to give me his entire empire, he could not give me as much as he would take away by making me lose God." Let God, then, be enough for us, and let the goods he gives us be enough, rejoicing to see ourselves poor when we lack what we would wish and do not have it — for here lies the merit. Non paupertas, says St. Bernard, virtus reputatur, sed paupertatis amor. Many are poor, but because they do not love their poverty, they merit nothing; therefore St. Bernard says that the virtue of poverty consists not in being poor, but in loving poverty.

And this love of poverty must be had especially by religious persons who have made a vow of poverty. Many religious, says the same St. Bernard: Pauperes esse volunt, eo tamen pacto ut nihil eis desit — they wish to be poor, but they do not want anything to be lacking. So, says St. Francis de Sales, "they want the honor of poverty but not the inconveniences of poverty." For such as these, what Blessed Solomea, a Poor Clare nun, used to say holds true: "That nun will be laughed at by angels and men who wishes to be poor and then complains when something is lacking." The good religious do not act this way: they love their poverty more than any riches. The daughter of Emperor Maximilian II, a Discalced Poor Clare called Sister Margaret of the Cross, appearing before Archduke Albert, her brother, in a patched habit, was looked upon with amazement as something unbecoming her nobility; but she answered: "Brother, I am more content with this rag than all the monarchs with their purple robes." St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi said: "Oh, happy the religious who, detached from everything through holy poverty, can say: Dominus pars hereditatis meae! (Ps. XV, 5): My God, you are my portion and my every good!" St. Teresa, having received much alms from a merchant, sent word to him that his name was written in the book of life, and as a sign of this, the things of this earth would fail him; and indeed the merchant went bankrupt and was poor until his death. St. Aloysius Gonzaga said that there is no surer sign that a person is among the number of the elect than to see him God-fearing and at the same time tried with hardships and desolation in this world.

It pertains also in some way to holy poverty to be deprived in this life of relatives and friends through death; and in this too we must greatly exercise patience. Some people, on losing a relative or friend, cannot find peace; they shut themselves in a room to weep, and abandoning themselves to sadness, they become so impatient that they make themselves intolerable. I would like to ask such persons: By afflicting yourselves in this way and shedding so many immoderate tears, whom do you please? God? Not God, because God wants us to resign ourselves to his will. That departed soul? Not that soul either. If that soul is lost, it hates you and your tears. If it is saved and already in heaven, it desires that you thank God for it. If it is in purgatory, it desires that you help it with your prayers, and that you conform yourself to the divine will and make yourself a saint, so that one day you may be its companion in paradise. And so, what good does all that weeping do? The Venerable Joseph Caracciolo, a Theatine, when a brother of his died, was one day with his other relatives who would not stop weeping, and he said to them: "Come now, let us save these tears for a worthier object — to weep over the death of Jesus Christ, who was our father, brother, and spouse, and who died for love of us." On such occasions we must do as Job did: on receiving the news that his children had been killed, he, entirely conformed to the divine will, said: Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit: God gave me these children and God has taken them from me; Sicut Domino placuit, ita factum est: sit nomen Domini benedictum (Iob. I, 21): what has happened has pleased God, and so it pleases me also; wherefore may he always be blessed by me.

In the third place, we must exercise patience and show our love for God in suffering with peace the contempt we receive from men.

When a soul gives itself entirely to God, God himself causes or permits it to be despised and persecuted by men. One day an angel appeared to Blessed Henry Suso and said to him: "Henry, until now you have mortified yourself in your own way; from today onward you will be mortified as it pleases others." And the following day the blessed one, looking out a window, saw a dog that held a rag in its mouth and went about tearing it to pieces; then he heard a voice that said to him: "So you must be torn by the mouths of men." Then Blessed Henry went down and took that rag, keeping it for his comfort in the time of the trials that had been foretold to him.

Affronts and insults are the delights sought and desired by the saints. St. Philip Neri, because in the house of San Girolamo in Rome he had suffered much mistreatment from some for thirty years, did not wish to leave it and move to the new oratory of the Chiesa Nuova, which he had founded, where his beloved sons already lived and were inviting him to join them, until he found himself obliged to do so by an express command of the Pope. St. John of the Cross, having to change climate because of an infirmity that eventually brought him to death, passed over a more comfortable convent where a prior who was fond of him presided, and chose a poor convent where a prior who was his enemy presided — who in fact then for a long time, almost until his death, despised and mistreated him in many ways, even forbidding the other religious to visit him. See how the saints go so far as to seek out being despised! St. Teresa wrote this memorable maxim: "Whoever aspires to perfection must guard himself well against saying: They did this to me without reason. If you do not wish to carry any cross except one supported by reason, perfection is not for you." Famous is the reply the Crucifix gave to St. Peter Martyr when he complained that he was unjustly imprisoned without having done wrong; the Lord answered him: "And what wrong have I done, that I had to hang on this cross to suffer and die for men?"

Oh, how the saints, when they are insulted, console themselves with the ignominies that Jesus Christ suffered for us! St. Elzear, asked by his wife how he managed to suffer with such patience the many insults he received even from his own servants, answered: "I turn to consider Jesus despised, and I see that my affronts are nothing compared with those he suffered for me, and so God gives me the strength to suffer all with peace." In short, affronts, poverty, sufferings, and all tribulations, falling upon a soul that does not love God, become occasions for it to draw further from God; but falling upon a soul that loves God, they become motives for it to draw closer to God and to love him more. Aquae multae non potuerunt exstinguere caritatem (Cant. VIII, 7). Trials, however many and heavy they may be, not only do not extinguish but further increase the flames of charity in a heart that loves nothing but God.

But why does God burden us with so many crosses and delight in seeing us afflicted, despised, persecuted, and mistreated by the world? Is he perhaps a tyrant, of such cruel disposition that he takes pleasure in seeing us suffer? No, God is not a tyrant, nor is he cruel; he is all mercy and love toward us; it is enough to say that he loved us so far as to die for us. Yes, he delights in seeing us suffer, but for our good: that by suffering here we may be freed from the punishments we would have to suffer in the next life for the debts contracted with divine justice; he delights in this so that we do not attach ourselves to the sensible pleasures of this earth (a mother who wants to wean her child puts bitterness on her breast so the child may turn away from it); he delights in this so that by suffering with patience and resignation we may give him some proof of our love; finally, he delights in this so that by suffering we may gain greater glory in paradise. For these ends, all of mercy and love, the Lord delights in seeing us suffer.

Let us conclude this chapter. To practice holy patience well in all the tribulations that befall us, we must be persuaded that every trial comes from God's hands, either directly or indirectly through men; and therefore, when we find ourselves afflicted, we must thank the Lord and accept with a cheerful heart whatever he disposes for us, prosperous or adverse, because he disposes everything for our good: Diligentibus Deum omnia cooperantur in bonum (Rom. VIII, 28). Moreover, when some trial afflicts us, it helps to cast a glance at the hell we once deserved, since every pain in comparison with hell will always be immeasurably less. But to suffer with patience every sorrow, every insult, and everything contrary, prayer helps more than any consideration: the divine aid given us after prayer will grant us that strength we do not have. So did the saints: they commended themselves to God and overcame all torments and persecutions.

Affections and Prayers

Lord, I am already persuaded that without suffering and suffering with patience I cannot gain the crown of paradise. David said: Ab ipso patientia mea (Ps. LXI, 6). The same I say also: from you must patience in suffering be granted to me. I resolve to accept all tribulations in peace; but then, when they come, I immediately grow sad and dismayed; and if I suffer, I suffer without merit and without love, because I do not know how to bear them in order to please you. Ah, my Jesus, by the merits of your patience in suffering so many pains for love of me, grant me the grace to suffer my crosses for love of you.

I love you with all my heart, my dear Redeemer; I love you, my supreme good; I love you, my love, worthy of infinite love.

I repent above every evil for all the displeasures I have given you.

I promise you to accept with patience all the trials you send me; but from you I hope for the help to carry this out, especially to suffer with peace the pains of my agony and death.

My Queen Mary, obtain for me a true resignation to whatever remains for me to suffer in life and in death.