The School of Love, March 20

TROUBLE

IT is easy to read what St. Teresa is said to have written:

"Let nothing trouble thee, let nothing annoy thee; all things pass away."

It is easy for those who are at peace them­selves to preach to others the importance of not suffering themselves to be troubled.

Even to ourselves, in our moments of consolation, or in our times of courage and resolution, it is easy to make up our minds that from this hour we will not let ourselves be troubled any more.

Trouble is so opposed, peace of mind is so inculcated by all spiritual writers, that
we almost come to think that there is something wrong in being troubled; and often enough, perhaps always, some of us actually measure our spiritual state by the degree of peace or of trouble that reigns within our souls.

This may be very well as a gauge to a cer­tain extent, and with a certain class of people; but for many, perhaps for the great majority, it contains a great fallacy.

Without any doubt it is a life time of trouble - I mean internal trouble, and not merely external difficulties­ that has been the salvation and perfection of many....

[continued tonorrow]
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From The School of Love and Other Essays
by The Most Reverend Alban Goodier, S.J.
Burns, Oates, & Washburn, Ltd. 1918