Easter Weekday

EVERYONE GIVING BIRTH WILL SUFFER
From the “Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah” by St Aelred of Rievaulx5
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Oh brothers, there is no pain as of one giving birth. But there is a physical
birth, a spiritual birth, and a punitive birth. And certainly, a woman is sad when
she is in labor, because her hour has come. Pain takes hold of her members; death,
her eyes; and fear, her conscience. She does not know how it will turn out.

A spiritual birth takes place when the holy ones give birth to spiritual
children by instruction and care. One such holy person said, My little children,
with whom I am again in labor. And this birth is not without pain. For such a
person must rejoice with those rejoicing, weep with those weeping, be weak with
the weak, burn with the scandalized, and much more. It is also a spiritual birth
when the barren and unfruitful soul conceives by fear of the Lord. Turned toward
the Lord, such a soul gives birth to the beginnings of good works. And what pain
lies in this birth when the flesh resists the spirit and habit resists the will! One
moment, the mind desires good works, and the next it does not; one moment it
fears, and the next it trusts; one moment, desire for the good impels it, and the
next, the pleasure of evil pulls it back!

A harmful birth takes place when a person conceives pain and gives birth
to iniquity, when it conceives from a desire to acquire and gives birth by carrying
out that desire. This is why the Lord said in the gospel, Woe to you who are
pregnant or nursing! Woe indeed to those conceiving and giving birth in this
way. Even if now they exult when they do evil and rejoice in wicked things, as
though giving birth they will suffer pain when death draws near. For just as a
woman who conceives in pleasure suffers great pain when she is in labor, so too
the soul, corrupted by pleasures and vices, is crushed by sadness and pain when
the wages of corruption begin to appear at death. When the soul’s belated
repentance is turned back on itself, it will begin to feel what is written: Walk in
the light of your fire and in the flame that you lit for yourselves.

We can call a birth punitive when someone dies in a condition of
punishment as though giving birth. The dead receive the punishment they
conceived by sinning, as though giving birth to a most unhappy progeny. How
much more happily does a person conceive repentance for sins from the fear of
God and give birth to conversion of life! This birth, although not without pain,
prepares joy in tranquility of conscience, because when she gives birth to the
child, she does not remember her distress anymore on account of her joy, and
whoever sows tearfully will reap joyfully, and Blessed are those who mourn, for
they will be consoled. Therefore, everyone who abandoned the faith – whether
overcome by torture during persecution or corrupted by vice during peacetime –
as though giving birth will suffer pain, either by profitably repenting or unhappily
dying.

5 St Aelred of Rievaulx. Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah. CF 83. Trans.
Lewis White. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2018. 86-87.