mortal; and, seeing himself so near that fearful passage which he had not before thought of, he cannot but be much alarmed at finding that he is compelled to ponder on the danger he is in, and of the necessity of preparing for the salvation of his soul.
This, then, is the short road by which the Divine Mercy leads worldlings and draws them back to His service.
That libertine would have gone on carelessly for ten years more, had not God in His mercy sent him a malignant fever, which has frightened him and made him return to his duty.
Doctors are accustomed to wound one part of the body in order to cure another part; they open a vein in a sound arm to relieve a feverish brain; they make use of the cupping-glass to remove inflammation; they keep a wound open in order to be able to close another; and, as St Jerome says, the secret of their science consists in restoring health through pain. Ars medicorum est, per do lore, reddere sanitatem.
The Son of God, who is the Physician of souls, follows the same method to cure sinners. He smites the flesh to cure the mind, and from illnesses, which are the forerunners of the death of the body, He frames a good provision for the life of the soul.
All the holy Fathers teach us that illness is the school of Christian wisdom, the dawning of virtue whereby the mind is invigorated, and the grand means of grace, which redoubles its strength, through the weakness of the body. When I am weak, says St. Paul, it is then that I am strong. I am never more vigorous in mind than when my body is exhausted with illness and wearied with weakness. More than this, illness may be said to be victorious over vice, through the triumph of grace over the passions of the soul, and a triumph of the soul over the appetites of the flesh.
