1. We are not Christians merely to be rich and to live at our ease. It was not necessary to institute Christianity for that purpose: the world might have been left as it was, under the empire of passion and opinion. The life of a Christian is a crucified life: unless the cross be embraced, faith must be renounced.
2. What doth the gospel say? "Blessed are those who weep: wo be to you, O rich, who have your consolation in this world!" Such is the language of the Holy Ghost. But it is now looked on as nonsense to believe that felicity consists in tears, and that the rich are unhappy.
3. The Son of God was to die on the cross, that he might take possession of his glory; the saints have arrived at heaven by the path of sufferings. Shall we then imagine that what the Son of God and the saints have so dearly purchased, shall be given to us for nothing? No; the cross is the distinctive mark and portion of the elect: a soul which suffers nothing, and is resolved to suffer nothing, bears the strongest character of a reprobate. We must of necessity suffer in this world or in the next.
Adore Christ crucified, and beg of him the grace to participate now in his suffering life, that you may be one day a partaker in his life of glory.
"Whoever doth not carry his cross is not worthy of me."
Luke, xiv.
"What a shame to be a delicate member of a head crowned with thorns."
St. Bernard.
Twenty-third Day.—On Conformity to the Will of God.
1. The greatest happiness of a rational creature is, to will that which his Creator willeth. It is in this, precisely, that real sanctity consists. The saints are saints only because their will corresponded with the will of God. Whatever virtue we may possess, if we have not that of conformity to the divine will, we are not truly virtuous.
2. A soul that is not satisfied with the will of God, seems to doubt, in some measure, of his authority. To desire that what he ordains and permits in this world should go on otherwise than it does, is to desire that God should not be master. Every thing that happens to us, happens by his order; and is it not just to acquiesce in whatever is ordained by infinite wisdom?