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Special Practices of Uniformity
imagined looking into His eyes and seeing His sorrow
as He fought to raise His body up again to breathe.
This pushed against the nails in His feet and pulled
against those in His hands. The raw flesh on His back
rubbed against the Cross as He struggled to breathe.
Tears flowed from my eyes as I shared my deep sorrow
for my sin, which caused His pain and suffering. I expressed
sadness that He was suffering too. I can know
only a sliver of a sliver of an iota of His suffering, but I
can know what I can know, and I can exercise my will
to turn to Him, console Him, and thank God that I
am able to know Him in this way. Thank God for the
gift of this disease that helps me to know Him in ways
that I otherwise could not.
“But,” you say, “I do not want to be sick for then I am
useless, a burden to my Order, to my monastery.” But
if you are united to and resigned to God’s will, you will
realize that your superiors are likewise resigned to the
dispositions of divine providence and that they recognize
the fact that you are a burden not through indolence
but by the will of God. Ah, how often these desires and
these laments are born not of the love of God but of
the love of self! How many of them are so many pretexts
for fleeing the will of God! Do we want to please God?
When we find ourselves confined to our sickbed, let us
utter this one prayer: “Thy will be done.” Let us repeat
this prayer time and time again, and it will please God
more than all our mortifications and devotions. There
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