[John Baptist Massillon was the son of a notary residing at Hyeres in Provence. Born on the 24th of June 1663, he entered the Congregation of the Oratory in the year 1681. His fame as a fine preacher having reached the ears of Louis XIV., he was summoned to Versailles to preach the Advent. It was, after the course of these discourses that he received the following encomium from the lips of the French king: — " My father, I have been well satisfied with many orators, but as for you, every time that I have heard you I have felt very discontented and vexed with myself."
In the year 1717, the Regent nominated him to be the Bishop of Clermont. He remained in the government of his diocese until the year 1742, when he died at the age of seventy-nine.]
Joseph, raised to the highest dignity in the court of Egypt, by his elevation became to be the terror and protector of his brothers. These (of whom he had so much reason to complain) did he not consider them as only executors of the will of God, notwithstanding the outrages they inflicted on him — that the treason and cruelty which they employed against him proved, by the decrees of Divine Providence, to be more beneficial than their jealousy could have imagined?
It is true that they had sold him to go into Egypt, but it was not on account of their perfidy, rather it was by the will of God that he should be sent to this foreign land. Non vestro consilio sed Dei voluntate hie missus sum.
Such were the feelings of so many Saints and martyrs with regard to those by whom they had been persecuted.
They reverenced even the scourges which God had sent to chasten them. The early Christians blessed the hands that struck them.
Give us, O Lord, the will to do what Thou commandest, and to do what Thou wiliest.
