Untitled - Saints' Books

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INSTR. viii.] Interior Mortification. 353
great danger. The sick man entreated the Father to
obtain from God the restoration of his health; but Carafa
answered: No, my friend, God forbid that I should
violate the love that I bear you: your sickness is a grace
from the Lord, who wishes to save you by sending death
now that your soul is in a good state. Perhaps you
might not be in such a state hereafter should you enter
on the office that has been given you. The friend died,
and died full of consolation. We should have a special
fear of all offices to which the care of souls is annexed.
St. Augustine said that many envied his elevation to
the episcopacy, but he was afflicted at it on account of
the danger to which his salvation was exposed. St. John
Chrysostom when made bishop was so much terrified
that, as he afterwards said, he felt as if his soul were
separating from the body: he had great doubts about
the salvation of a pastor of souls. 2 But if the saints,
forced against their will to become prelates, tremble for
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the account that they must render to God, how r should
he tremble who intrudes himself into an office to which
is annexed the care of souls ? The measure of honor,
says St. Ambrose, be measured by the strength
of him that is to bear it, otherwise if the bearer is too
weak the burden will weigh him down and cause his
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ruin." A weak man who puts on his back a great
weight shall not be able to carry it, but shall be op
pressed by it.
St. Anselm says that he who wishes to obtain eccle
siastical honors through right
and wrong
does not re-
Invident nobis; ibi nos felices putant, ubi periclitamur."
Serm. 354, E. B.
2 "
Miror, an fieri possit, ut aliquis ex rectoribus salvus fiat." In
Heb. horn. 34.
Mensura oneris, pro mensura debet esse gestantis; alioquin
impositi oneris fit ruina, ubi vectoris infirmitas est." Lib. de Viduis.
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