Do we help him, unseen, towards that act of charity, humiliation, or self-renunciation? Have we courage not to spare the soul the trial that we know will purify?
Does it seem too hard for you?
Ah! then you do not know what real love is. Does not God love us? Yet God lets us suffer; even sends the suffering.
Love is given us to help us onwards, nearer to God. The most blessed is that which draws us nearest to Him; [pg 082] and in proportion as it leads to God we realize its blessedness.
The essence of true love is not its tenderness, but its strength, power of endurance, its purity, its self-renunciation.
The mistake we make is when we seek to be beloved, instead of loving. What makes us cowardly is the fear of losing that love.
Never forget this: A selfish heart desires love for itself; a Christian heart delights to love—without return.
XL.
To learn never to waste our time is perhaps one of the most difficult virtues to acquire.