«Sapientia enim huius mundi stultitia est apud Deum» — "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (1 Cor. 3:19).
Point I
The Venerable John of Avila would have wished to divide the world into two prisons, one for those who do not believe, and the other for those who believe and live in sin far from God; to these, he said, belonged the prison of the mad. But the greatest misery and misfortune of these wretches is that they consider themselves wise and prudent, while they are the most foolish and senseless in the world. And the worst is that the number of such people is innumerable. «Et stultorum infinitus est numerus» — "The number of fools is infinite" (Eccles. 1:15). One goes mad for honors, another goes mad for pleasures, another for the carrion of this earth. And then these people dare to call mad the saints, who despise these goods of the world in order to gain eternal salvation and the true good that is God. They call it madness to embrace contempt and to forgive injuries, madness to deprive oneself of the pleasures of the senses and to embrace mortifications; madness to renounce honors and riches, to love solitude and a humble and hidden life. But they do not notice that their wisdom is called madness by the Lord: «Sapientia enim huius mundi stultitia est apud Deum» — "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (1 Cor. 3:19).
Ah, one day they will indeed confess this madness of theirs — but when? When there is no longer any remedy; and in despair they will say: «Nos insensati vitam illorum aestimabamus insaniam, et finem illorum sine honore» — "Ah, wretched men that we have been! We esteemed the life of the saints madness, but now we know that we were the mad ones" (Wis. 5:4). «Ecce quomodo inter filios Dei computati sunt, et inter sanctos sors illorum est» — "Behold how they are already placed among the happy number of the children of God, and have made their fortune among the saints — a fortune that will be eternal and will make them blessed forever" (Ibid. 5). And we have remained among the number of the slaves of the devil, condemned to burn in this pit of torments for all eternity. «Ergo erravimus (thus will they end their lament) a via veritatis, et iustitiae lumen non luxit nobis» — "Thus we went astray, because we chose to close our eyes to the divine light" (Ibid. 6). And what will make us most unhappy is that for our error there is no remedy, nor will there ever be, as long as God is God.
What madness, then, for a vile gain, for a wisp of smoke, for a brief pleasure, to lose the grace of God! What will a vassal not do to win the favor of his prince! O God! For a miserable satisfaction to lose the supreme good, which is God! To lose paradise! To lose even peace in this life, letting sin enter the soul, which with its remorse will torment it continually! And to condemn oneself willingly to an eternal misery! Would you take that illicit pleasure, if for it you had afterward to have a hand burned? Or to remain shut up for a year inside a tomb? Would you commit that sin, if after it you had to lose a hundred scudi? And yet you believe, and you know, that by sinning you lose paradise and God, and are condemned to the fire forever — and still you sin?
Affections and Prayers
O God of my soul, what would have become of me by now, if You had not shown me so many mercies? I would be in hell, in the place of madmen, as I myself have been. I thank You, Lord, and I beg You not to abandon me in my blindness. I deserved to remain abandoned by Your light, but I see that Your grace has not yet abandoned me. I feel that it calls me with tenderness, and invites me to seek Your forgiveness, and to hope for great things from You, despite the great offenses I have committed against You. Yes, my Savior, I hope to be accepted by You as a son. I am not worthy even to be so called, for I have insulted You so many times to Your face. «Pater, non sum dignus vocari filius tuus; peccavi in coelum, et coram te» — "Father, I am not worthy to be called Your son; I have sinned against heaven and before You." But I feel that You go seeking the lost sheep, and You delight in embracing lost children. My dear Father, I repent of having offended You; I cast myself down and cling to Your feet, and I will not depart unless You forgive me and bless me. «Non dimittam te, nisi benedixeris mihi» — "I will not let You go, unless You bless me." Bless me, my Father, and let Your blessing be to give me a great sorrow for my sins and a great love for You. I love You, my Father, I love You with all my heart. Do not allow me ever to depart from You again. Deprive me of everything, but do not deprive me of Your love.
O Mary, if God is my Father, You are my Mother. Bless me also. I do not deserve to be a son; accept me as Your servant; but make me a servant who always loves You tenderly, and always trusts in Your protection.
Point II
Poor sinners! They toil and struggle to acquire worldly sciences, or the art of gaining the goods of this life, which must soon end; and then they neglect the goods of that life which never ends! They so lose their reason that they become not only mad but brutes; for, living like brutes, they do not consider what is good and what is evil, but only follow the bestial instincts of the senses, embracing what presently pleases the flesh, without thinking of what they lose, nor of the eternal ruin they draw down upon themselves. But this is not acting as a man, but as a beast. St. John Chrysostom says: «Hominem illum dicimus, qui imaginem hominis salvam retinet; quae autem est imago hominis? rationalem esse» — "To be a man is to be rational; that is, to act according to reason, not according to the appetite of the senses." If God gave a beast the use of reason, and it acted according to reason, we would say that it acts as a man; so, on the contrary, when a man acts according to the senses against reason, it must be said that the man acts as a beast.
«Utinam saperent, et intelligerent, et novissima providerent» — "Would that they were wise, and understood, and provided for their last end" (Deut. 32:29). He who acts prudently according to reason foresees the future — that is, what must befall him at the end of life: death, judgment, and after these, hell or paradise. Oh, how much wiser is a peasant who saves himself than a monarch who damns himself! «Melior est puer pauper, et sapiens rege sene et stulto, nesciente praevidere in posterum» — "Better is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king, who knows not how to provide for the future" (Eccl. 4:13). O God! Would not everyone consider mad one who, to gain a penny now, put himself at risk of losing all his goods? And one who for a brief satisfaction loses his soul, or puts himself at risk of losing it forever — must he not be considered mad? This is the ruin of so many souls that are damned: they look only to present goods and evils, and do not look to eternal goods and evils.
God certainly did not place us on this earth to make us rich, to acquire honors, or to gratify our senses, but to gain eternal life for ourselves. «Finem vero vitam aeternam» — "and the end, life everlasting" (Rom. 6:22). And the attainment of this end should alone concern us. «Porro unum est necessarium» — "But one thing is necessary" (Luke 10:42). But this end is what sinners most despise; they think only of the present, they walk toward death, they draw near to enter eternity, and they do not know where they are going. What would you say, says St. Augustine, of a helmsman who, when asked where he is going, answered that he does not know? Everyone would say that this man is taking the ship to its ruin: «Fac hominem perdidisse quo tendit, et dicatur ei: Quo is et dicat, nescio. Nonne iste navem ad naufragium perducet? Talis est (the saint then concludes) qui currit praeter viam» — "Imagine a man who has lost sight of where he is going, and it is said to him: Where are you going? and he says: I do not know. Will not this man bring the ship to shipwreck? Such is (the saint then concludes) he who runs along outside the way." Such are those wise men of the world who know how to make money, to take their pleasures, to obtain posts, but do not know how to save their souls. The rich man was wise in making himself wealthy, but «mortuus est, et sepultus in inferno» — "he died and was buried in hell." Alexander the Great was wise in acquiring so many kingdoms, but a few years later he died and was damned for eternity. Henry VIII was wise in knowing how to keep himself on the throne by rebelling against the Church, but at the last he himself, seeing that he was already losing his soul, confessed: «Perdidimus omnia» — "We have lost all." How many wretches now weep and cry out in hell: «Quid profuit nobis superbia, aut divitiarum iactantia? transierunt omnia illa tanquam umbra» — "Behold, they say, all the goods of the world have passed for us like a shadow, and nothing remains to us but weeping and eternal pain" (Wis. 5:9).
«Ante hominem vita, et mors, quod placuerit ei, dabitur illi» — "Before man is life and death; whichever pleases him shall be given him" (Sir. 15:18). My Christian, in this life, life and death are set before you — that is, either to deprive yourself of forbidden pleasures and so gain eternal life, or to take them with eternal death. What do you say? What do you choose? Choose as a man, and not as a beast. Choose as a Christian, who has faith and says: «Quid prodest homini, si mundum universum lucretur, animae vero suae detrimentum patiatur?» — "What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his own soul?"
Affections and Prayers
Ah, my God, You gave me reason, You bestowed on me the light of faith, and in the past I acted like a brute, losing Your grace for the miserable pleasures of my senses, which have passed like a wind; and nothing of them remains to me but remorse of conscience and accounts to render to Your divine justice. «Non intres in iudicium cum servo tuo» — "Enter not into judgment with Your servant." Ah, Lord, do not set about judging me according to my merits, but deal with me according to Your mercy. Give me light. Give me sorrow for the offenses I have committed against You, and forgive me. «Erravi sicut ovis quae periit, quaere servum tuum» — "I am a lost sheep; if You do not seek me, I shall remain lost." Have pity on me, for the sake of that blood which You shed for love of me. I repent, O supreme good, of having left You, and of having willingly renounced Your grace. I could wish to die of sorrow; but give me, rather, still more sorrow. Grant that I may come to heaven to sing Your mercies.
O Mary, my Mother, You are my refuge; pray to Jesus Christ for me; pray Him to forgive me and to give me holy perseverance.
Point III
We understand that the truly wise are those who know how to acquire the grace of God and paradise. Let us therefore always pray the Lord to give us the science of the saints, which He gives to those who ask it of Him. «Dedit illis scientiam sanctorum» — "He gave them the science of the saints" (Wis. 6:10). Oh, what a beautiful science it is to know how to love God and to save one's soul — a science that consists in knowing how to take the way of eternal salvation and the means to attain it. The affair of saving one's soul is the most necessary affair of all. If we know everything, but do not know how to save ourselves, it will profit us nothing, and we shall be unhappy forever; but on the contrary, we shall be blessed forever if we know how to love God, even though we were ignorant of all other things. «Beatus qui te novit, etsi alia nescit» — "Blessed is he who knows You, even if he knows not other things," said St. Augustine. One day Brother Giles said to St. Bonaventure: "Happy are you, Father Bonaventure, who know so many things, while I, a poor ignorant man, know nothing; you can become holier than I." "Listen," the saint then answered him, "if an ignorant little old woman knows how to love God more than I, she will be holier than I." At this Brother Giles began to cry out: "O little old woman, little old woman, listen, listen! If you love God, you can become holier than Father Bonaventure."
«Surgunt indocti, et rapiunt coelum» — "The unlearned arise and carry off heaven," said St. Augustine. How many unlettered souls, who cannot read but know how to love God, are saved; and how many of the world's learned are damned! Yet it is the former, not the latter, who are the truly wise. Oh, what great wise men were a St. Paschal, a St. Felix the Capuchin, a St. John of God, though ignorant of the human sciences! What great wise men were so many who, leaving the world, went to shut themselves up in cloisters and to live in deserts, like a St. Benedict, a St. Francis of Assisi, a St. Louis of Toulouse, who renounced a kingdom. What great wise men were so many martyrs, so many young virgins, who renounced marriage with the great in order to go and die for Jesus Christ! And even worldlings know this truth, and they cannot help saying of someone who has given himself to God: Happy is he who understands this, and saves his soul. In short, those who leave the goods of the world to give themselves to God are called men undeceived. Then what must those be called who leave God for the goods of the world? Deluded men.
My brother, to which of these two companies do you wish to belong? To choose well, St. John Chrysostom advises you to visit the cemeteries. «Proficiscamur ad sepulchra» — "Let us go forth to the graves." What fine schools the burial places are for learning the vanity of the goods of this world and for acquiring the science of the saints! Tell me (says Chrysostom), can you discern there who was a prince, who a nobleman, and who a scholar? For my part, says the saint: «Nihil video, nisi putredinem, ossa et vermes. Omnia fabula, somnium, umbra» — "I see nothing but rottenness, bones, and worms. All is a fable, a dream, a shadow." All the things of this world will soon end and vanish like a play, a dream, a shadow. But, my Christian, if you wish to become wise, it is not enough to know the importance of your end; you must take the means to attain it. Everyone would like to be saved and to become a saint; but because they do not then take the means, they do not become saints and are damned. One must flee the occasions of sin, frequent the sacraments, pray, and above all one must fix in one's heart the maxims of the Gospel: «Quid prodest homini, si mundum universum lucretur? Qui amat animam suam, perdet eam» — "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world? He who loves his life shall lose it" (John 12:25).
Which is to say: one must lose even one's life in order to save one's soul. «Qui vult venire post me, abneget semetipsum» — "He who would come after Me, let him deny himself" (Matt. 16:24). To follow Jesus Christ, one must deny self-love the satisfactions it seeks: «Vita in voluntate eius» — "Life is in His will" (Ps. 39:6). Our eternal salvation lies in doing the divine will — these and other such maxims.
Affections and Prayers
O Father of mercies, look upon my miseries and have pity on me; give me light and make me know my past madness, so that I may bewail it, and make me know Your infinite goodness, so that I may love it. My Jesus, «ne tradas bestiis animas confitentes tibi» — "do not deliver to the beasts the souls that confess You." You have shed Your blood to save me; do not permit me ever to be again the slave of devils, as I was in the past. I repent, O sovereign Good, of having left You. I curse all those moments in which, by my own will, I gave consent to sin; and I embrace Your holy will, which desires nothing but my good. Eternal Father, through the merits of Jesus Christ give me the strength to carry out all that pleases You. Let me die rather than ever again contradict Your will. Help me by Your grace to place all my love in You alone, and to detach myself from every affection that does not tend toward You. I love You, O God of my soul; I love You above all things, and from You I hope for every good — pardon, holy perseverance in Your love, and paradise, to love You forever.
O Mary, obtain these graces for me. Your Son denies You nothing. My hope, in You I trust.