every son whom he receiveth.[1] Hence, St. Augustine says: "Do you enjoy consolation? acknowledge a father who caresses you: are you in tribulation? recognize a parent who corrects you." On the other hand, the same holy Doctor says: "Unhappy you, if after you have sinned God exempts you from scourges in this life. It is a sign that he excludes you from the number of his children." Say not, then, for the future, when you find yourself in tribulation, that God has forgotten you; say rather that you have forgotten your sins. He who knows that he has offended God must pray with St. Bonaventure: "Run, O Lord, run, and wound Thy servants with sacred wounds, lest they be wounded with the wounds of death." Run, O Lord, and wound Thy servants with the wounds of love and salvation, that they may escape the wounds of Thy wrath and of eternal death.
Let us rest assured that God sends us crosses not for our perdition but for our salvation; if we know not how to turn them to our own profit it is entirely our own fault. Explaining the words, the house of Israel is become dross to me, all these are . . . iron and lead in the midst of the furnace? St. Gregory says: "As if God should say, "I wished to purify them by the fire of tribulation, and sought to make them gold, but in the furnace they have become to me iron and lead." I have endeavored by the fire of tribulation to change them into gold, but they have been converted into lead. These are the sinners
- ↑ "Quern enim diligit, Dominus castigat; flagellat autem omnem filium quern recipit." — Hebr. xii. 6.
