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Hi Subscriber,
This week we are continuing Saint
Francis’ Treatise on the Love of God with book 9, chapter 8, “How We Are To Unite Our Will With God’s In
The Permission Of Sins.”
God sovereignly
hates sin, and yet he most wisely permits it, in order to let the
reasonable creature act according to the condition of its nature; and
to make the good more worthy of commendation, when having power to
transgress the law they do not transgress it.
Let us
therefore adore and bless this holy permission, but since the
Providence which permits sin infinitely hates it, let us also detest
and hate it, desiring with all our power that sin permitted may not be
committed, and according to this desire let us make use of all means
possible to hinder the birth, growth and reign of sin. Let us in this
imitate our Saviour, who never ceases to exhort, promise, threaten,
prohibit, command and inspire us, in order to turn our will from sin,
so far forth as is possible without depriving us of liberty: and when
the sin is once committed let us endeavour what we are able to have it
blotted out, like our Saviour, who assured Carpus, as was said above,
that, if it were requisite, he was ready to suffer death again to deliver
a single soul from sin.
But if the
sinner grow obstinate, let us weep, Theotimus, groan, pray for him,
before the Saviour of our souls, who having all his lifetime shed an
abundance of tears over sinners and over those who represented all
sinners, died in the end – his eyes full of tears, his body all steeped
in blood-lamenting the ruin of sinners. This affection touched David so
to the quick that he fell into a swoon over it: A fainting, said he,
hath seized me for sinners abandoning thy law. And the great Apostle
protests that he has a continual sorrow in his heart, for the obstinacy
of the Jews.
Meanwhile,
however obstinate sinners may be, let us never desist from aiding and
assisting them. How do we know but that they may do penance and be saved?
Happy is he that can say to his neighbour as did S. Paul: For three
years I ceased not with tears to admonish every one of you night and
day. Wherefore I take you to witness this day that I am clear from the
blood of all men. For I have not spared to declare unto you all the
counsel of God.(3)
So long as we
are within the limits of hope that the sinner will amend (which limits
are always of the same extent as those of his life), we must never
reject him, but pray for him and assist him as far as his misery will
permit.
But, at last,
after we have wept over the obstinate, and performed towards them the
good offices of charity in trying to reclaim them from perdition, we
must imitate our Saviour and the Apostles; that is, we must divert our
spirit from thence and place it upon other objects and employments
which are more to the advancement of God’s glory. To you it behoved us
first (said the Apostles to the Jews) to speak the word of God but
because you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life,
behold we turn to the Gentiles.(4) The kingdom of God (said our
Saviour) shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation
yielding the fruits thereof.(5) For we cannot spend too long time in
bewailing some, without losing time fit and necessary for procuring the
salvation of others.
The Apostle
indeed says that the loss of the Jews is a continual sorrow to him, but
this is said in the same sense that we say we praise God always; for we
mean no other thing thereby than that we praise him very frequently,
and on every occasion; and in the same manner the glorious St. Paul
felt a continual grief in his heart on account of the reprobation of
the Jews, in the sense that on every occasion he bemoaned their
misfortune.
For the rest
we must ever adore, love and praise God avenging and punishing justice
as we love his mercy, being both daughters of his goodness; for by his
grace he makes us good, being good, yea, sovereignly good, himself; by
his justice he punishes sin because he hates it, and he hates it
because, being sovereignly good, he hates the sovereign evil which is
iniquity: and, in conclusion, note, that God never withdraws his mercy
from us save by the just vengeance of his punishing justice, nor do we
ever escape the rigour of his justice but by his justifying mercy: and
always, whether punishing or favouring us, his good-pleasure is worthy
of adoration, love and everlasting praise.
So the just man who sings the praises of the mercy of
God over such as shall be saved, will also rejoice when he shall see
his vengeance. The blessed shall with joy approve the sentence of the
damnation of the reprobate, as well as that of the salvation of the
elect: and the angels, having exercised their charity towards those that
they had in keeping, shall remain in peace, when they see them
obstinate, yea even damned. We are therefore to submit ourselves to the
Divine will, and kiss the right hand of his mercy and the left hand of
his justice, with an equal love and reverence.
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