Vigils Reading

HUMBLE YOURSELF AND BE COMFORTED

From the writing of St Alphonsus de Liguori2

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When you…are visited by God with any infirmity, or loss, or persecution, humble yourself, and say with the good thief, “We receive the due reward of our deeds. Lord, I deserve this cross because I have offended Thee.” Humble yourself and be comforted: for the chastisement that you receive is a proof that God wishes to pardon the eternal punishment due to your sins… Let this be my consolation, that the Lord may afflict me and may not spare me here below in order to spare me hereafter. O God! how can he who has deserved hell complain if the Lord send him a cross. Were the pains of hell trifling, still, because they are eternal, we should gladly exchange them for all temporal sufferings that have an end. But no: in hell there are all kinds of pain — they are all intense and everlasting. And though you should have preserved baptismal innocence and have never deserved hell, you have at least merited a long purgatory: and do you know what purgatory is? St. Thomas says that the souls in purgatory are tormented by the very fire that tortures the damned. Hence St. Augustine says that the pain of that fire surpasses every torment that man can suffer in this life. Be content, then, to be chastised in this life rather than in the next; particularly since by accepting crosses with patience in this life your sufferings will be meritorious; but hereafter you will suffer without merit.

Console yourself also in suffering with the hope of paradise. St. Joseph Calasanctius used to say: “To gain heaven all labor is small.” And before him the Apostle said: “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us.” It would be but little to suffer all the

pains of this earth for the enjoyment of a single moment in heaven: how much more, then, ought we to embrace the crosses that God sends us when we know that the short sufferings of this life shall merit for us an eternal felicity. That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us… an eternal weight of glory. We should feel not sadness but consolation of spirit when God sends us sufferings here below. They who pass to eternity with the greatest merits shall receive the greatest reward. It is on this account that the Lord sends us tribulations. Virtues, which are the fountains of merits, are practiced only by acts. They who have the most frequent occasions of annoyance make the most frequent acts of patience; they who are most frequently insulted make most frequent acts of meekness. Hence St. James says, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been proved, he shall receive the crown of life…”

This thought made Job exclaim: “If we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?” He meant to say, if we have gladly received good things, why should we not also receive with greater joy temporal evils, by which we shall acquire the eternal goods of paradise? This thought also filled with jubilation the hermit whom a soldier found singing in a <forest>, though his body was covered with ulcers so that his flesh was falling to pieces. The soldier said to him: “Is it you that were singing?” “Yes, I sang, and I had reason to sing; for between me and God there is nothing but the filthy wall of my body. I now see it falling to pieces, and therefore I sing, because I see that the time is at hand when I shall go to enjoy my Lord.” This thought made St. Francis of Assisi say: “So great is the good which I expect, that to me every pain gives delight.” In a word, the saints feel consoled when they see themselves in tribulation, and are afflicted when they enjoy earthly consolations