Advantages of tribulations
“Now when John had heard of the wonderful works of Christ,…”—Matthew 11:2
In tribulation God enriches his beloved souls with his greatest graces. See how St. John, in his chains, comes to know the works of Jesus Christ: “When John had heard in prison the works of Christ.” Great indeed are the advantages of tribulation. The Lord sends it to us not because he wishes us harm, but because he desires our good.
When trials come upon us, then, we must embrace them with thanksgiving. We must not only resign ourselves to the divine will, but rejoice that God treats us as he treated his Son Jesus Christ, whose life on this earth was always full of tribulation. In the first point I will show the advantages we draw from tribulations; in the second, I will show how we ought to bear them.
First Point.—On the great advantages we draw from tribulations.
1. “What doth he know that hath not been tried? A man that hath much experience shall think of many things, and he that hath learned many things shall show forth understanding” (Ecclus. 34:9). Those who live in prosperity and have no experience of adversity know nothing of the state of their own souls. In the first place, tribulation opens the eyes that prosperity had kept shut. St. Paul was left blind after Jesus Christ appeared to him, and in his blindness he saw the errors in which he had been living. King Manasseh, during his imprisonment in Babylon, had recourse to God, recognized the malice of his sins, and did penance for them: “And after that he was in distress, he prayed to the Lord his God, and did penance exceedingly before the God of his fathers” (2 Chron. 33:12). The prodigal son, when he was reduced to feeding swine and tormented by hunger, exclaimed: “I will arise and go to my father” (Luke 15:18).
Secondly, tribulation takes from our hearts all affection for earthly things. When a mother wishes to wean her infant, she puts something bitter on the breast, so that the child will turn from it and take better food. God deals with us in the same way: to detach us from temporal goods, he mingles them with bitterness, so that, tasting how bitter they are, we may turn from them and set our affections on the things of Heaven. “God,” says St. Augustine, “mingles bitterness with earthly pleasures, that we may seek another happiness, whose sweetness does not deceive” (Sermon 29 on the Words of the Lord).
Thirdly, those who live in prosperity are assailed by many temptations—to pride, to vainglory, to the craving for greater wealth, higher honors, and more pleasures. Tribulations free us from these temptations and make us humble and content in the state in which the Lord has placed us. Hence the Apostle says: “We are chastised by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with this world” (1 Cor. 11:32).
2. Fourthly, by tribulation we make satisfaction for the sins we have committed far better than by penances we choose for ourselves. “Understand,” says St. Augustine, “that God is a physician, and that tribulation is a medicine for our salvation.” Oh, how great a remedy tribulation is for healing the wounds our sins have made! And so the same saint rebukes the sinner who complains that God sends him trials: “Why do you complain? What you suffer is a remedy, not a punishment” (In Ps. 55). Job called those happy whom God corrects by tribulation, since God heals them with the very hands by which he strikes and wounds them: “Blessed is the man whom God correcteth… For he woundeth and cureth; he striketh, and his hand shall heal” (Job 5:17–18). And so St. Paul gloried in his tribulations: Gloriamur in tribulationibus—“We glory in tribulations” (Rom. 5:3).
3. Fifthly, tribulations remind us of God and compel us to have recourse to his mercy, since they convince us that he alone can and will lift us out of our miseries. “In their affliction they will rise early to me” (Hos. 6:1). Hence the Lord, speaking to the afflicted, said: “Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you” (Matt. 11:28). Hence too he is called “a helper in troubles” (Ps. 46:1). “When he slew them,” says David, “then they sought him, and they returned” (Ps. 78:34). When the Jews were afflicted and saw their enemies cutting them down, they remembered the Lord and returned to him.
4. Sixthly, tribulations let us gain great merit before God, by giving us occasions to exercise the virtues dearest to him—humility, patience, and conformity to the divine will. The venerable John of Avila used to say that a single blessed be God in adversity is worth more than a thousand acts of thanksgiving in prosperity. “Take away the contests of the martyrs,” says St. Ambrose, “and you have taken away their crowns” (In Luc., c. 4). Oh, what a treasure of merit a person gains by patiently bearing contempt, poverty, and sickness! The contempt of men was the very thing the saints longed for, who yearned to be despised for the love of Jesus Christ and so made like him.
5. How great is the merit gained by bearing the hardships of poverty. “My God and my all,” said St. Francis of Assisi; and in saying it he found himself richer than all the great ones of the earth. How true is St. Teresa’s word, that “the less we have here, the more we shall enjoy hereafter.” Oh, how happy is the man who can say from his heart: My Jesus, you alone are enough for me! If you count yourself wretched because you are poor, says St. Chrysostom, then you are indeed wretched and deserving of tears—not because you are poor, but because, being poor, you do not embrace your poverty and count yourself happy. Sane dignus es lachrymis ob hoc, quod miserum te extimas, non ideo quod pauper es—“Truly you are worthy of tears for this: that you count yourself wretched, not because you are poor” (Sermon 2 on Philippians).
6. By patiently bearing the pains of sickness, we complete a great part—perhaps the greater part—of the crown prepared for us in Heaven. The sick sometimes complain that in their state they can do nothing; but they are mistaken, for in their state they can do everything, by accepting all they suffer with peace and resignation. “The Cross of Christ,” says St. Chrysostom, “is the key of Paradise” (Com. in Luc. de vir.).
7. St. Francis de Sales used to say: “This is the science of the saints—to suffer constantly for Jesus; and so we shall soon become saints.” It is by suffering that God tests his servants and finds them worthy of himself. Deus tentavit eos, et invenit eos dignos se—“God tested them, and found them worthy of himself” (Wis. 3:5). “Whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth,” says St. Paul, “and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Heb. 12:6). Hence Jesus Christ once said to St. Teresa: “Know that the souls dearest to my Father are those afflicted with the greatest sufferings.” And this made Job say: “If we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10). If we have gladly received from God the good things of this earth, why should we not receive with even greater joy the trials that are far more useful to us than prosperity? St. Gregory tells us that, as a flame grows when the wind beats against it, so the soul is perfected when it is pressed by tribulations. Ignis flatu premitur, ut crescat—“Fire pressed by wind grows” (Ep. 25).
8. For holy souls the most tormenting trials are the temptations by which the Devil drives them to offend God; but those who drive these temptations off and bear them patiently, turning to God for help, will gain great merit by them. “God is faithful,” says St. Paul, “who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13). God permits temptations to assail us so that, by driving them off, we may gain greater merit. “Blessed are they that mourn,” says the Lord, “for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4). They are blessed because, as the Apostle writes, our tribulations are momentary and very light compared with the greatness of the glory they will win for us forever in Heaven. “For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17).
9. We must, then, bear tribulations in peace, says St. Chrysostom; for if you accept them with resignation, you will gain great things, but if you take them up unwillingly, you will not lessen your misery but only increase it. Si vero aegre feras, neque calamitatum minorem facies, et majorem reddes procellam—“But if you bear them badly, you will not make your calamities less, and you will make the storm greater” (Hom. 64, ad Pop.). There is no other way, if we wish to be saved: “Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:21). A great servant of God used to say that Paradise is the place of the poor, the persecuted, the humbled, and the afflicted; and such were the martyrs and all the saints. Hence St. Paul concludes: “Patience is necessary for you, that, doing the will of God, you may receive the promise” (Heb. 10:36). And St. Cyprian, speaking of the trials of the saints, asks: “What are these to the servants of God, whom Paradise invites?” (Ep. ad Demetr.). Is it so great a thing, for those to whom the eternal goods of Paradise are promised, to embrace the short afflictions of this life?
10. In short, the scourges God sends us come not for our harm but for our good: “Let us believe that these scourges of the Lord, with which we are chastised like servants, have happened for our amendment, and not for our destruction” (Jdt. 8:27). “God is angry,” says St. Augustine, “when he does not scourge the sinner” (In Ps. 89). When we see a sinner afflicted in this life, it is a sign that God wishes to have mercy on him in the next, exchanging eternal punishment for temporal, which is infinitely less. But wretched is the sinner whom God does not punish in this life! It is a sign that the Lord is storing up his wrath against him, and reserving his punishment for eternity.
11. “Why doth the way of the wicked prosper?” asks the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 12:1). Lord, why do sinners prosper? The same prophet answers: “Gather them together as sheep for a sacrifice, and prepare them for the day of slaughter” (Jer. 12:3). As on the day of sacrifice the sheep marked for death are gathered together, so the wicked, as victims of the divine wrath, are destined to eternal death. “Mark them out,” writes Du Hamel in his commentary on this passage, “as victims of thy wrath on the day of sacrifice.”
12. When, then, God sends us tribulations, let us say with Job: “I have sinned, and indeed I have offended, and I have not received what I have deserved” (Job 33:27). O Lord, my sins deserve far greater punishment than what you lay upon me. Rather, let us pray to God with St. Augustine: “Here burn, here cut, here spare not, that you may spare for eternity.” How terrible is the punishment of the sinner of whom the Lord says: “Let us have pity on the wicked, but he will not learn justice” (Isa. 26:10). Let us cease to chastise the wicked man while he lives on this earth; he will go on living in sin, and so will be punished with eternal punishment. Hence St. Bernard writes, reflecting on this passage: Misericordiam hanc nolo, super omnem iram miseratio ista—“I do not want this mercy”; for it is a punishment above every punishment (Sermon 42 on the Canticles).
13. So then, whoever finds himself afflicted by God on this earth has a sure sign that he is dear to God. “Because thou wast acceptable to God,” said the angel to Tobias, “it was necessary that temptation should prove thee” (Tob. 12:13). Hence St. James calls the afflicted man blessed, since after he has been tried by his afflictions he will receive the crown of eternal life (Jas. 1:12).
14. Whoever wishes to be glorified together with the saints must suffer in this life as the saints have suffered. Not one of them was well regarded or well treated by the world; all were hated and persecuted. In them were verified the words of the Apostle: “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). Hence St. Augustine said that whoever is unwilling to suffer persecutions has not yet begun to be a Christian. Si putas non habere persecutiones, nondum caepisti esse Christianus—“If you think you will have no persecutions, you have not yet begun to be a Christian” (On Ps. 55). When we are afflicted, let it be enough for us to know, for our consolation, that the Lord is then near us and keeps us company. “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart” (Ps. 34:18). “I am with him in tribulation” (Ps. 91:15).
Second Point.—On the manner in which we should bear tribulations.
15. Whoever finds himself afflicted in this world must, before all else, leave off sin and seek to recover the grace of God; otherwise, so long as he remains in sin, all that he suffers is lost to him. “If I should deliver my body to be burned,” says St. Paul, “and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3). Though you suffered all the torments of the martyrs, even to being burned alive, yet if you were without the grace of God it would profit you nothing.
16. But to those who can suffer with God and for God, with resignation, all their suffering is turned into comfort and gladness. “Your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20). Thus, after being insulted and beaten by the Jews, the apostles left the council full of joy at having been ill-treated for the love of Jesus Christ. “And they indeed went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus” (Acts 5:41). So when God visits us with any tribulation, we must say with Jesus Christ: “The chalice which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11)—remembering that every tribulation, though it comes to us through men, always comes from God, and it is God who sends it.
17. Again, when we find ourselves beset by tribulations on every side and do not know what to do, we must turn to God, who alone can console us. So King Jehoshaphat said to the Lord in his distress: “As we know not what to do, this only is left us, that we turn our eyes to thee” (2 Chron. 20:12). So David did when he was afflicted: he had recourse to God, and God consoled him. “In my trouble I cried to the Lord, and he heard me” (Ps. 120:1). We must have recourse to God and pray to him, and not cease praying until he hears us. “As the eyes of the handmaid are on the hands of her mistress,” says the same prophet, “so are our eyes unto the Lord our God, until he have mercy on us” (Ps. 123:2). We must not take our eyes from God, but keep praying until he is moved to compassion for us. We must have great confidence in the heart of Jesus Christ, which is full of mercy, and not do as some do, who have scarcely begun to pray, and, not seeing themselves heard, at once lose heart. To them may be applied the words the Savior spoke to St. Peter: “O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?” (Matt. 14:31). When the graces we ask are spiritual, or can serve the good of our souls, we should be sure that God will always hear us, provided we are constant in prayer and do not lose confidence. “All things whatsoever you ask when you pray, believe that you shall receive, and they shall come unto you” (Mark 11:24). In tribulation, then, we must never cease to trust that the divine mercy will console us; and when the trial persists, we must say with Job: “Although he should kill me, I will trust in him” (Job 13:15).
18. Souls of little faith, when they find themselves afflicted, have recourse to human means instead of to God, and so they anger God and are left disappointed in their miseries. “Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it” (Ps. 127:1). On this passage St. Augustine writes: Ipse aedificat, ipse intellectum aperit, ipse ad finem applicat sensum vestrum: et tamen laboramus et nos tanquam operarii, sed nisi Dominus custodierit civitatem—“He himself builds, he himself opens the understanding, he himself directs your mind to its end; and yet we too labor as workers, but unless the Lord guards the city, etc.” All good, all help must come from God; without him, creatures can give us no help at all.
19. Of this the Lord complains through the mouth of his prophet: “Is not the Lord in Sion?… Why then have they provoked me to wrath with their idols…? Is there no balm in Gilead? or is there no physician there? Why then is not the wound of the daughter of my people closed?” (Jer. 8:19, 22). Am I not in Sion, says God, that men should provoke me to anger by having recourse to creatures, making idols of them by placing all their hope in them? Do they seek a remedy for their ills? Then why do they not seek it in Gilead, a mountain of Arabia full of balsam-bearing spices, by which is signified the divine mercy, where they may find the physician and the medicine for all their ills? Why, then, says God, do your wounds remain open and unhealed? Because you choose to have recourse to creatures and to trust in them, and not in me.
20. In another place the Lord says: “Am I become a wilderness to Israel, or a lateward springing land? Why then have my people said: We are revolted; we will come to thee no more?… But my people have forgotten me days without number” (Jer. 2:31–32). God complains, and says: Why, my children, do you say that you will have recourse to me no more? Have I become for you a barren land that gives no fruit, or gives it too late, that you have forgotten me for so long? By these words he shows us his desire that we have recourse to him, so that he may pour out his graces upon us; and at the same time he lets us know that, when we pray to him, he is not slow, but begins to help us at once.
21. The Lord is not asleep, says David, when we turn to his goodness and ask of him the graces that are useful to our souls: he hears us at once, for he has great care for our good. “Behold, he shall neither slumber nor sleep that keepeth Israel” (Ps. 121:4). And when it is temporal graces we ask, St. Bernard says that God “will give what we ask, or something more useful.” He will grant us the grace we long for, whenever it is profitable to our souls; or he will give us a more useful grace, such as the grace to resign ourselves to the divine will and to bear our tribulation with patience—which will win for us a great increase of glory in Heaven.
[Act of sorrow and amendment, prayer to Jesus and Mary.]
Points for Reflection
1. “If we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?” (§7)
2. “The chalice which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” (§16)
3. “Although he should kill me, I will trust in him” (§17)