ments He was to suffer the day following, and accepting them with great love, wrestled against fears and sorrows with reasonings and prayers, as we shall see hereafter in its place. [1]
5. And if those who are very zealous will yet pass farther and excel more in virtue, they may take the counsel that a holy abbot (as Cassian [2] reports), gave to those who by living solitary have no occasions to exercise humility and patience, that they should imagine terrible sorrows, injuries, contempts, and torments to come upon them by the hands of their enemies, or of their companions, under the pretext of piety, such as were those which the martyrs and holy confessors have suffered, and to accept them all very heartily, and even to desire that they might be offered them, and to beg them of our celestial Father with those words of David, "Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart, for Thy great mercy is before my eyes," [3] and therein I trust thou wilt aid me; and with this confidence I may say to Him,
Colloquy. — Oh, if in this day somebody would strike me upon one cheek, how willingly for Thy love would I offer Him the other! Or if anyone would speak to me any injurious word, or bear false witness against me, how heartily would I be silent, and suffer it for Thy love! Oh that my superiors would command me some very hard and difficult thing, that in accomplishing it I might show the love that I bear Thee!
With such purposes as these virtues are much augmented, and the heart becomes strong to resist vices; but yet the imperfect and lukewarm must walk warily in such meditations, lest, perhaps, through their imbecility, that which should have been a means of their good turn into a snare of temptation.
