it! All is upset and in disorder; the little ones begin to cry and howl, and look with disgust on what they before liked so well. Why so? Is the rye bread more insipid to them or coarser than before? No; but the bit of white bread or meat given to one excites the jealousy of the others. Be still! children, says the mother; your brother is sick, and must perhaps soon take to his bed and die; and what more has he had than the rest of you, except a bit of meat? And as he has eaten it in a hurry, he has just as little as you now. Be satisfied with what you have. But it is all to no purpose; the brother may be sick or not; the others make no account of that, and they would rather be sick themselves, or pretend to be so, than get less than he.
Envy comes from considering the prosperity of sinners and the trials of the just. Such is the way, my dear brethren, in which children act; but old people are often not much better, as Seneca says: “We have the authority of age, the vices of youth.”[1] Our great Father in heaven distributes daily to us mortals His food and other goods, according to His own will; to one He gives more, to another less, and indeed, as we have seen already, those who seem to deserve it least receive the greater portion, that is, sinners and the wicked; and thereby arises much envy, grudging, and discontent. Why does he get so much, asks the dissatisfied man, and I so little? He has white bread, while I have hardly enough black bread to still my hunger. He can drink the best of wine, while I have to be content with water. Everything prospers with him, while nothing goes right with me, although I have hitherto tried to serve my God faithfully. But, my dear children, you should be satisfied with what you have received, says the heavenly Father by His Prophet David: “Envy not the man who prospereth in his way: the man who doth unjust things.”[2] Do not grudge him his good luck; he to whom I have given something on earth is weak and sick in his soul; he will soon die of his illness, and that too an eternal death: “For they shall shortly wither away as grass: and as the green herbs shall quickly fall.”[3]
We should remember that it all lasts but a short time. And what has he received more than you, after all? Only a trifle! Oh, how false and wretched the happiness that disappears so speedily! With reason does St. Augustine exclaim:
