Patience - November 25

Patience
Thoughts on the Patient Endurance of Sorrows and Sufferings

PREDESTINATION TO AN EXALTED DEGREE OF GLORY IN HEAVEN [Continued]

­Now, may it not be that you who are reading these lines, may also be one of those whom the goodness of God has predestined to one of the highest places in heaven?

Should this be the case-and there is no reason why it may not be - then know that you can take possession of your appointed place only if at the moment of your death you have attained that degree of sanc­tity which is commensurate with the particular degree of glory intended for you. God is not willing to see you forego what He has so gener­ously set aside for you, even though you are so la­mentably blind to your best interests that you do not care whether you win it or not. And so He takes the sanctification of your soul in His own hands. By gentle pressure, yet without compulsion of your will, He makes you do what you have neither the courage nor the desire to under­take of your own accord. You can surmise what means He employs. It is the cross - pains, afflic­tions, tribulations, temptations; in a word, suffer­ings of all kinds which follow one upon the other in seemingly endless succession.

Viewed in this light, do you not discover a new and deep meaning in these words of Sacred Scrip­ture: "Whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth; and as a father in the son He pleaseth Himself"?

What a wonderful joy and happiness you will experience for all eternity if you succeed in mas­tering the truth about suffering here explained, in all your afflictions lovingly resigning yourself to the ever blessed will of Him Who has decreed such a marvelous glory for you in the life to come. Instead of looking upon sufferings as a curse and a punishment, and murmuring against Divine Providence, try rather to welcome your trials, rejoice in them, and fervently thank God for giving you so unmistakable a pledge of His most tender love for you.

If you master the truth about the real nature and uses of sufferings, you will soon think of them as the saints did, and, instead of praying to be delivered from them, you will, after their example, even pray for them.

-Rev. F. J. Remler, C.M.: Why Must I Suffer?
(Franciscan Herald Press)
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Compiled and Edited by Rev. F. X. Lasance
Author of "My Prayerbook," etc.

1937, Benziger Brothers
Printers to the Holy Apostolic See