Suffering

There are two ways of suffering : to suffer with love, and to suffer without love. The saints suffered everything with patience, joy and constancy, because they loved ; but we, we suffer with anger, vexation, weariness, because we do not love.

If we loved God, we would love crosses, we would desire them, we would take delight in them. We would be happy to have it in our power to suffer for love of Him who vouchsafed to suffer so much for us.

Do you say that this is hard ? No, it is consoling, it is sweet, it is happiness even ! . . . Only we must love in suffering, we must suffer and love.

Oh ! what sweetness those souls experience in suffering who are all for God ! Suffering to them is as vinegar mingled with a great deal of oil : the vinegar is always vinegar, but its acidity is scarcely perceived, so disguised is it by the plentiful admixture of oil.

There is no happiness in this world except for those who possess tranquility of soul ; and these, amid the trials of life, taste the joy of the children of God.

All trials and sufferings are sweet when united to the sufferings of our Lord.

What matters it if we do suffer ? ’Tis but for a moment, and the price of this moment of suffering we should appreciate could we spend but eight days in Heaven. Ah ! then, indeed, we should not find our cross heavy enough, our trials bitter enough.

Trials for those who love God are not chastisements, but graces.

What are twenty years, thirty years, compared to

\ eternity ? . . . And what is it that we have so much to suffer here ? Some humiliations, some clashing with others, some cutting words. These do not kill. How good it is to die when one has lived on the cross ! We should run to seek the cross as the miser seeks silver.

The cross is God’s gift to His friends. We should never consider whence crosses come ; they come from God. They are always from God who gives us this means of proving our love for Him.

In the Way of the Cross it is only the first step which costs. The fear of the cross is our greatest cross.

One does wrong indeed who lacks the courage to carry his cross, for, do what we will, the cross clings to us, we cannot escape it.

He who goes forth to seek the cross, finds it before him, he meets it, but he is pleased to meet it ; he loves it, he bears it courageously ; it unites him to our Lord ; it purifies him and detaches him from this world ; it removes from his heart all obstacles to his spiritual progress ; it aids him on the journey of life, even as a bridge enables us to cross over water.

The worldly are afflicted when they have crosses, and good Christians when they do not have them. The Christian lives amid crosses as the fish lives in the water.

It is only crosses that will reassure us at the Day of Judgment. When that Day comes, how happy we shall be at our past trials, how proud of our humiliations, how rich in our sacrifices !

We must consider the recompense, not the labor. A merchant does not rest his attention upon the toils and troubles of his business, but upon the gain which he expects to derive from it.

Crosses transformed in the flames of love are like a bundle of thorns cast into the fire and reduced to ashes. The thorns are hard but the ashes are soft.

A delicious juice exudes from the grape when put under the press. Even so does our soul, under the press of the cross, produce a juice which nourishes and strengthens us.

When we have no cross, our soul is parched and sterile. When we bear crosses with resignation, we experience much happiness and sweetness ! . . . it is the beginning of Heaven.

The thorns give forth balm, and the cross exhales fragrance ; but we must press the thorns in our hands, and the cross upon our heart, in order to make them distil the juices which they contain.

Contradictions place us at the foot of the cross, and the cross bears us to Heaven.