Untitled - Saints' Books

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INSTR. x.] The Love of God. 399
a lighted torch in one hand and a vessel of water in the
other, why she carried these things; she answered: With
this torch I wish to burn heaven, and with this water I
desire to extinguish hell, that God may be loved solely
because he deserves all love. Oh, happy the priest who
labors only to please God! He who seeks only to please
God imitates the souls in heaven, who, as the angelic
Doctor says, wish that He rather than themselves
should be happy." They rejoice more in the felicity
of God than in their own happiness, because they love
him more than themselves.
3. PATIENCE IN PAINS AND HUMILIATIONS.
Thirdly, the priest who wishes to be holy must be
ready to suffer in peace for God all things poverty,
dishonor, infirmity, and death. The Apostle says: You
bear God in your body? In his comment on this text,
Gilbert says: "Jesus
Christ wishes to be carried by us
in peace and joy. He who carries him with tediousness
or complaint, carries not, but drags him by
force."
The love that a soul bears- to God is shown in em
bracing not delights, but insults and sufferings. This
we learn from the words of our Redeemer when he
went to meet the soldiers who came to capture him, in
order to put him to death: But that the world may know
that I love the Father. . . .
Arise, let us go hence. 1 Hence
the saints in imitation of Jesus Christ, have gone with
joy to embrace torments and death. St. Joseph of
Leonessa, a capuchin, was once obliged to undergo a
" 1
Anima potius vult ipsum esse beatum, quam seipsam
esse beatam."
De Bcatit. c. 7.
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3 "
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4
Glorificate et portate Deum in corpora
vestro." i Cor. vi. 20.
Portari vult a nobis Christum, sed gloriose, non cum taedio, non
cum murmure; portari, non trahi: trahenti enim onerosus est Christus."
In Cant. s. 17.
Ut cognoscat mundus quia diligo Patrem,
. . .
surgite, eamus
hinc." xiv.
John ^ 31.