The paradise of the Christian soul/Chap. X. Exercises in time of Sickness.

by Jacob Merlo Horstius

CHAPTER X.

Exercises for the Sick.

PRAYER

FOR PATIENCE UNDER DISEASES AND BODILY SUFFERINGS.

I will speak to the Lord, whereas I am dust and ashes,4 a flying shadow, and a smoke that appears for a little while. Remember, Lord, what my substance is. Remember that thou hast formed me like the clay, and that thou wilt bring me back to dust again. Do not therefore contend with me with much strength; for what is my strength that I can hold out; or what is my end that I should keep patience? My strength is not the strength of stones, nor is my flesh of brass. Why, then, are the arrows of the Lord within me, the rage of which drinks up my spirit; and the terrors of the Lord war against me? But shall I, then, set my face against Heaven, or gainsay the words of the Holy One? Nay, rather will I say: The Lord has given me health and strength, &c.; the Lord has taken them away. As has pleased the Lord, so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord. So I say, O Lord, and so I feel. Thou art just, O Lord, and thy judgment is right; and assuredly I had deserved even worse. Were I compelled to be the judge of my own deserts, I could take away none of the pain which I suffer.

Therefore I acknowledge the hand of a Father who chastises in mercy, not the right hand of a Judge who punishes in wrath. But this one thing I beg of thee, most merciful Father, to remember what thy frail and feeble creature can bear without fainting: nothing indeed of itself, but all things by thee, if strengthened by thy grace.

Give me therefore strength, that I may suffer and endure: for I desire patience, of which I stand in the utmost need. Give me, then. O Lord, patience; and behold, my heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready, to receive whatsoever is laid upon me; so that it is even a consolation to me, that, in afflicting me with pain, thou dost not spare. Grant, O Lord, that in my patience I may possess my soul; ^[1] and to this end I will often look upon the face of Christ thy Son, that, as he has suffered in the flesh things so great and terrible, I too may endeavour to be armed with the same thought. 1 He became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. I have not yet resisted unto blood, — yet I feel the force of my suffering, when the pangs of disease and the sorrows of death rush in upon me.

Therefore will I keep my strength to thee: for thou art my Strength and my Refuge; thou art the Protector of my life. Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart; that I may be found in some measure worthy of thee, like gold that has been proved in the furnace. I know, indeed, that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us:3 but I know, too, that as Christ was to suffer, and so to enter into his glory, so also shall the Christian that does not conform himself to his Head, and pass through fire and water, not be brought out into refreshment. Behold, now, O Lord, I am in the fire: for how long, is at thy disposal. Meantime, keep me, thou who keptest unharmed the three children in the furnace of Babylon. Bring me, too, out safe, when it shall be thy will, that, with all thy creatures, I may bless thee for ever, saying: O all ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord, &c.

ASPIRATIONS

AND REFLECTIONS FOR A PIOUS SOUL,

Useful in Sickness and Adversity.

1. O Eternal Wisdom, who reachest from end to end mightily, and orderest all things sweetly! thiou strikest me mightily with this bodily disease and affliction; but order it sweetly to thy glory and my salvation, who orderest all things in weight, number, and measure.

2. O Father I from whom is every good gift and every perfect gift, is not this my infirmity or affliction thy gift also? Shall I attribute it to chance or accident, not acknowledging thy providence? God forbid, For I know that thou rulest all things, and that it is thou too, O Lord, who keepest all our bones; without thee shall not one of them be broken; with thee the very hairs of our head are all numbered. My lots are in thy hands. Thou woundest and healest, thou killest and niakest alive. Whether we live, O Lord, or whether we die, we are thine. Thy will be done in all things. If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, why should we not endure evil? which yet will not be evil, if we accept them according to the intention of the Lord, who chastises us for discipline as sons, since these very evils work together for good to them that love God.

3. O Lord! I am thy servant, and the son of thy Handmaid; do with me what is pleasing in thy sight: for who am I that I should withstand thee? For who ever resisted thee and had peace? Behold I am the clay, and thou the potter. Fashion me and purify me, if so it seem good to thee, in the furnace of tribulation, that I may become a vessel to honour.

4. O Physician! who, when thou knowest it to be for the sours benefit, curest with a word all diseases no less of the body than of the soul; heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed in my soul: save me, and I shall be saved also in my body. In thee do I trust, not in physicians, nor in any remedies of theirs. True, I do not reject them; but unless thou restore the crumbling house of my body, they all labour in vain that build it. Therefore if any remedies are offered me, give them strength, that they may take effect in me: if not, work patience in my soul, for that is the most certain and most present remedy against all diseases and ills.

But, behold, I acknowledge thee now to be a Physician indeed. It is the office of the physician, by a potion that is even bitter, or Dy any sharp remedy, to expel the noxious humour from the body of the patient. This is what thou art doing now, O heavenly Physician, by this affliction of my body. Thy remedy, I own, is sharp and unpleasant to my flesh; but an intemperate and disobedient patient makes his physician severe.

For it is true, and why should I deny it, that I have often pampered my flesh; I have fed it with delicacies; I have contracted a vast mass of noxious bile and of vicious humour; and so thou judgest perhaps that opposite complaints are to be cured by opposite remedies. Be it. so, O Lord; let the flesh be given to destruction, so the spirit be saved. "When merry, the flesh has drawn us into sin; now that it is afflicted, oh that it may restore us to pardon! Burn it, cut it, only spare it for eternity.

PRAYER

To Christ praying in the Garden at the beginning of his Passion.

For grace and comfort at the hour of death.

My soul is sorrowful even unto death; and going a little further, he fell upon his face, praying, and saying: My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. And being in an agony, he prayed the longer. And his sweat became as drops of Blood, trickling down upon the ground. O Jesus Christ, Ruler of Heaven and earth, the strength, the fortitude, and the victory of Martyrs, who through thee trample upon death, and in death rejoice like conquerors! Whence, then, that fear of thine? Whence thy so anxious supplication? Whence that so strange and unheard-of Sweat of Blood? Wert thou not offered, because it was thy own will? Was it not entirely of thy own accord that thou offeredst that sacrifice to God the Father?

Who is there but must be afraid, O Lord, if thou, whom all things fear, art afraid? Who but must fall down dead, if thou, before whom is bent every knee, fall on thy face? Who will not tremble at the sight of death, if thy fear, who wert to be Death’s Conqueror, is so great at its approach?

But be thou blessed for ever, my Jesus, because it was for the consolation of thy weak members that thou didst take upon thee those marks of weakness, that the weakness of the flesh may not cast us into despair, when the spirit is willing to suffer and to die.

Ah, Lord! remember that vehement sorrow, that fear, that dread, that terrible anguish, which, on the very eve of thy most bitter Passion, rushed in like floods of water upon thy soul, so that, falling prostrate on the ground, thou besoughtest of thy Father that this chalice might pass from thee!

Remember that most cruel agony, and that, alas! most bitter conflict, with which thou hadst to struggle with death, on that most woful night, which wrung, oh, how forcibly! from thy whole Body thy Bloody Sweat.

Remember, O Lord, what all this was for. Assuredly it was for us men, and for our salvation. Time indeed shall be when I too shall come to that hour; when I too shall enter into that garden, that field of battle, and have to combat with death. Alas! O Lord, what will become of me then? Without thy aid I shall not be able to hold out; unless thou, who invitest all who labour and are heavy burdened to come to thee for refreshment, be with me, and fight for me, I must fail and yield my ground.

I too, indeed, am ready to drink of thy chalice: for how shall I, that am a sinner, refuse it, when thou, the innocent Lamb, hast been the first to drink it? I dare not, then, pray to escape it: but I do earnestly pray thee, O Lord, to temper for me this cup, and so to assuage its bitterness from the fountain of thy grace and consolation, that I may neither dread it nor shrink from it: for by thy grace I can do all things, if thou strengthen me. But oh, how goodly is the inebriating chalice of thy glory! Oh, the plenty with which the Elect shall be inebriated with the House of God! Oh, the torrent of the pleasure of which thou shalt give thy friends to drink! What is there that this hope and expectation will not make easy, pleasant, and sweet? Surely all that is hard and heavy in our tribulation is made light by that eternal weight of glory!

But in this, O Lord, not my will, but thine be done. I ask not for a gentle and easy death; but for one which thou wiliest and knowest will be for thy greater glory and my own salvation. All this I commit to thy love and pleasure. If thy divine Providence has ordained for me a very hard struggle and sharp agonies of death, thy will be done. My heart is ready, O God; but preserve and increase within me the faith and hope of thy presence, goodness, and mercy; and forsake me not, O God, my Saviour, as thy Father forsook not thee! Send to me also,

I pray, thee, thy holy Angel, to support and strengthen me in that agony with his consolations, and to drive far from me all the power of the enemy; until, the conflict over, I rejoice with triumph, and merit to obtain of thee the crown of life which thou hast promised to them that love thee and persevere to the end. Amen.

1. Luke xxi. 10.