they shall put forth their buds and leaves, and rival in their blossoms the most beautiful flowers; the bees fly round them and suck out their honey; the birds hop about on the branches and sing and frolic the live-long day; then we go with pleasure into the gardens, fields, and forests, to see the beautiful verdure, and to enjoy the song of the birds. So it is with us mortals; in this life many of us are very badly off; one is sick and in pain; another despised and abandoned; another poor and needy; many a one has to plague himself with hard work, and even then can hardly find enough to feed himself and his family; many a one lives in continual care and sorrow, and sighs and moans under the pressure of tribulation; one is in want of this, another of that, until life itself becomes a burden; no one is without the cross. But be not amazed at this; it is winter-time: we are living in the sorrowful vale of tears. Have courage; only serve the Lord zealously, and let each one bear his cross with patience and resignation to the divine will. It will not last long; the gloomy winter shall hold only for a few uncertain years, and then the joyful, pleasant spring shall come. Then shall we hear: “Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. For winter is now past, the rain is over and gone;” all tribulations have come to an end. “The flowers have appeared in our land,” flowers that shall never fade; “the time of pruning is come.”[1] “Come, ye blessed of My Father,” enter into the eternal joy of your Lord! Oh, how small shall then appear all former labor and trouble; how light and sweet it shall seem in comparison to the immense weight of joy and glory that shall be given to us in return!
When we possess this joy we shall look on all past sorrow as nothing. If we could now open heaven, and ask the elect about the trials, mortifications, and penitential works they endured during their lives for God’s sake, what answer would they make us? Even what Our Lord said to His two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They were talking with each other about the passion and death of their Master: “What are these discourses,” He said to them, " that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?” What! answered one of them, “art Thou only a stranger in Jerusalem?” Art Thou the only one that knowest not what has been done to Christ? “To whom He said: What
- ↑ Surge, propera amica mea, columba mea, formosa mea, et veni. Jam enim hyems transiit, imber abiit, et recessit. Flores apparuerunt in terra nostra, tempus putationis advenit.—Cant. ii. 10–12.
