Volume I, Treatise I, Chapter III

That an Ardent Desire of Our Spiritual Advancement Is a Means and Disposition Most Proper for Obtaining Favours from God

Waat renders so very necessary this desire, and as I may say, this hunger and thirst for our spiritual advancement, is, that we cannot have a better disposition than this is for obtaining from God the perfection we aim at. St. Ambrose says, that the Lord is so well pleased with the man who feels this longing desire, that he fills his soul with graces and favours; and in support of this assertion, he quotes these words of the Blessed ‘Virgin in her canticle: “The Lord has filled the hungry with good things.” (Luke 1:35) The Royal Prophet has said the same before: “The Lord has filled the empty soul, and has satiated the hungry and thirsty soul with goodthings.” (Psalms 106:9)

Here then we see, as has been observed in a former chapter, that, in recompense of their good-will, the fervour whereof is most pleasing in his eyes, God has heaped his favours and riches on those, who have had so great a zeal for perfection as, in a manner, to have hungered and thirsted after it. An angel appeared to Daniel, and told him his prayers were heard, because “he was a man of desires.” (Daniel 9:23) The desire David had of building a temple was so pleasing to God, that though he did not permit him to carry his design into execution, yet, as if he had executed it, the Lord, to recompense him, confirmed the crown tohis posterity. In fine, so earnest was Zacheus’s desire of seeing the Redeemer, that Jesus first looked up to him in the sycamore tree, saying, “Zacheus, make haste and come down, for this day I must abide in thy house.” (Luke 19:5) But the truth of this maxim is still more clearly set forth by Solomon, who speaking of wisdom, which is nothing else than God himself, says: ‘ Wisdom is easily seen by those that love it, and is soon found by them that seek it.” (Wisdom 6:13) But do you know with what facility it is found? “It preventeth them that covet it, and it sheweth itself first to them.” (Ibid. 6:14) It is at hand the moment you wish for it. “He that rises early to seek it shall not go far before he meets it, he shall find it sitting at his door.” (Ibid. 6:15) How infinite is the goodness and mercy of God! He is not content with coming to seek us and to knock often at our door; ‘“Behold,” says he, in the Apocalypse, “how I stand at your door and knock r” (Ap. iii. 20);

and in the Canticles, “Open, my sister, the door to me.” (Canticle of Canticles 5:2) He is not content with all this, but as if he were tired of knocking, he sits down himself at our door, to let us know, that he would have entered before, had he not found it shut; and still, instead of going away and leaving us, he chooses rather to sit down and wait for us, that we may be sure of finding him as soon as we open the door. Though you have delayed to open your heart to God and to comply with his inspirations, yet he has not, on this account, gone away. He has too great a desire of entering, to be so easily repulsed; and therefore he sits at the door and waits till you open. ‘The Lord waits,” says Isaiah, ‘that he may shew mercy to you.” (Isaias 30:18) And certainly no friend is so eager to visit an intimate friend, as God is to visit our hearts; he longs much more to communicate himself, and grant his favours to us, than we long to receive them; the only thing he requires of us is, to hunger and thirst after them. “To him that thirsts I will give of the fountain of the water of life gratis.” (Ap. xxi.6.) ‘If any man, therefore, thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” (John 7:37) He would have us feel an earnest desire of acquiring virtue and perfection, that the object of our desires being granted, we may know how to esteem and preserve it asa most precious jewel. For in general, whatever is not earnestly wished for is, when obtained, not much esteemed. One of the principal reasons why we make so little progress in perfection is, because we do not desire and long for it so earnestly as we ought; we have some desires, it is true, but then they are so weak and languid that they vanish almost as soon as they are felt. St. Bonaventure (Process. iv. Rel. c. 3) says, that there are many who intend well, and who conceive the best projects imaginable, yet have not courage enough to offer violence to themselves, and to overcome themselves as far as to carry their good projects into execution. Hence we may say of them what the apostle said of himself: “To will is present with me, but to accomplish that which is good, I find not.” (Romans 7:18) These projects without effect are not the productions of a resolute will, and to speak properly they are but mere velleities; in a word, we will, but we do not will effectually. ‘The slothful,” says the Wise Man, “wills and does not will.” (Proverbs 13:4) «« His desires kill him, for his hands will not work at all. He spends himself all the day long in desires.” (Ibid. 21:25) “He is a compound of desires,” says St. Jerom; and Father Avila

very justly compares him to those who, in their dreams, imagine they do great feats, but when they awake have not courage to undertake anything, as is said by the Prophet Isaiah: “He that is hungry sometimes dreams that he eats, but when he awakes, his soul is empty as before.” (Isa. xxix. 8.) This description of persons fancy, while at prayer, that they burn with a desire of suffering, and of being despised, but on the first occasion that presents itself after prayer, they behave in a manner quite different from what they had fancied to themselves; for in fact, it was not a real desire, but a sort of dream they had at the time. By others they are compared to soldiers represented on the canvass, who always brandish their swords over the enemy’s head, but never strike; and this is one of the senses wherein may be taken the following words of the Psalmist: ‘‘Men are like images” (Psalms 38:7)—they hold the arm always raised, but they strike not. Comparing them likewise to women in labour, who cannot be delivered, we may apply. to them these words of Ezekias in Isaiah: ‘ The children are come even to the birth, and the mothers have not strength to bring them forth.” (Isa. xxxvii. 3.) St. Jerom, explaining these words of St. Matthew: ‘ Wo to such as are with child and give suck in those days” (Matthew 24:19),.says, Wo to those souls that have not brought up their buds to the maturity of a perfect man—wo to those, who have not brought forth the good desires they had conceived, but who extinguish them in their breasts: for when we do not carry them into effect, do we not extinguish them? And wo to those who pass all their life in wishes, and are surprised by death, before they perform any good work. For then they will derive not only no advantage from having had those good desires, but they shall be severely punished for not having carried them into execution. In fine, they will see their own children they had conceived rise up against them, when, had. they brought them forth, they might have derived great advan-- tage from them.

Holy Scripture (2 Kings 18:9) tells us, that Absalom had a most comely head of hair; but it only proved his ruin. For the bough of an oak having, in his flight, caught him by the hair, he hung between heaven and earth, and in that situation was killed by Joab. Death will surprise us in the same manner, while our good desires hold us, as it were, suspended; and these good desires will make, in part, the subject of our condemnation. St. John says in the Apocalypse (Apocalypse 12:4) that he saw a woman in labour, and that there lay near her a horrible dragon, watching till she should be delivered, that he might devour the child. It is this the devil, with all his power, endeavours to do to us, whenever the soul has conceived a good design. We ought, therefore, be very careful to proceed, as soon as we can, to the execution of any good resolution we have formed. St. Bernard says, that the prophet Isaiah meant the same thing, by the short and pithy sentence, “If you seek, seek” (Isa. xxi. 12); t.¢., be not weary of desiring, be not weary of seeking, for true desires require-fervour and perseverance: they must be fervent, they must be efficacious, they must, in fine, be such as, according to the prophet Micheas, may excite in us a continual ‘care always to please God more and more: “I will shew you, O man,” says he, “what it is which is good, and what our Lord requires of you. It is to do justice, to love mercy, and to be careful to walk always with your God.” (Mic. vi. 8.) Behold these are the desires he expects on our part, in order to bestow on us his graces and treasures. Happy are the souls that feel this hunger and thirst to be, of all things, the most urgent; for they shall be satiated and shall have all their desires most fully accomplished. We read in the Life of St. Gertrude, that our Saviour appearing one day to her, told her, that he had given to every good soul a golden tube, that through it they may imbibe from his sacred side as much grace as they could desire: and that golden tube, as he afterwards declared, was no other than a holy and upright will, whereby we draw down on ourselves all sorts of blessings from God.

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