His patience.
1.QUESTIONLESS the humble man is patient, because he knows he deserves far more than he suffers: And whoever will search into the true cause of his own impatience, will find it to be no other than pride. On the contrary, M. de Renty being most humble, was by consequence most patient.
2. Persons who had lived a very long time with him, and carefully studied all his actions, never heard him complain for any thing whatever; neither for sickness, or loss, or any other occasion; but they always observed in him a constancy immovable, continually lifting up his heart to God, and offering all to him, without otherwise dwelling on what was grievous; being glad that the work of God went on, and receiving all in the spirit of sacrifice.
3. In his second journey to Dijon, with his lady and the Countess of Chatres, he was seized with a violent rheumatism, which put him into pain all over his body: and when he was obliged to take his bed, he went thither quite stooping, supported by a staff, and by a person that led him. *But notwithstanding the extremity of the pain, he made no complaint, nor uttered one word. The ladies seeing him first quite pale and wan, and in a moment all on fire, told him, “Surely he was very ill;” He answered only by a discourse on the pain endured by Jesus Christ, and the favour it was for a soul to suffer for God’s will; but in terms so full of sweetness, and with so much of love and zeal, that the company were affected with great devotion in hearing him.”
*4. When he was again asked, whether he was not in much pain, he at length answered plainly, “My pains are great even to swooning; but though I feel their extremity, yet through the grace of God, I yield not up myself to them, but to him.” He said farther, that being led into his chapel of Citry, and set down upon a bench by reason of his illness, the bench broke without any visible cause, and that he believed the evil spirit had broken it, in order to provoke him to impatience, making him fall untowardly; “But by the mercy of God, said he, though the pain that surprised me was sharp, I was no more moved than you see me now.”
5. Nor was it only in sickness, but in all occurrences of life, he carefully practised this virtue; so that whatsoever befel him, though it shocked his whole nature, his body, spirit, judgment, will, inclination, desires, designs, and those of the best sort, he possessed his soul in patience and tranquillity, receiving all without any alteration, without being either exalted or dejected by it.
*6. “Praying to God, says he in one of his prayers, before the holy sacrament, a poor man came to me to beg an alms. In this instant it was given me to understand, that if we were well enlightened, we should never imagine ourselves to be hindred, by any person or thing: because we should in all things regard the order of God, conducting all to our advantage; we should see that both inward and outward distractions are to be received with this same spirit; and that the uneasiness these little accidents give us, springs purely from our want of mortification.
“We ought indeed, as far as we can, to shun the occasions. But when they come, we must look upon them as ordered by God, and receive and bear them with all sweetness, humility and reverence: and, though they interrupt us, the order of God is not interrupted in us. And this indeed is the great secret of the spiritual life; this is paradise upon earth.
“In truth, nothing troubles us but thro’ our own fault: all the vexation which we inwardly feel, or outwardly shew, when any one crosses or hinders us from doing any thing, flows from the disorder of our too much engaged spirit. For removing of which, and the keeping our hearts in peace we must mark this well: whoever hinders us from doing one good work, thereby gives us the means of practising another. *A man suppose, interrupts your reading and prayer. But he gives you an occasion of exercising patience, which at this time will please God, and perfect you, more than all those employments. In them there was something of your own will; but in this you wholly renounce yourself. And the fulness of God is not, but in the emptiness of the creature.”
7. One great source of M. de Renty’s patience, was the high esteem he had of sufferings, which sometimes made him ready to cry out with that holy woman, “Either to die or suffer”! “I see says he, that in a manner, every thing is unprofitable in this life but to suffer. Every pleasure is a too hasty seizure of that recompence, which is not due to criminals, who sojourn in this world only to be purged. Some pleasures indeed may be sometimes necessary, in regard of our weakness, but even they are apt to hinder the soul from attaining so high a degree of perfection.”