Privation
1. We must all experience privation, because everybody has to do
without something in this life. Some people are never in good health.
Besides their actual sufferings, they have to put up with their
inability to work or to enjoy themselves. Others have no means of
earning their livelihood. Their lives are a daily battle not merely
against poverty but against squalor and wretchedness.
They have not enough bread to eat, nor have they homes where they and
their families can live. In families where there is no such want, on the
other hand, there may be no peace in the home. Individuals, too, can
lack peace of soul, because they are ridden by false ambition or
jealousy. Other people have a plentiful supply of this world's comforts,
but are destitute of the most necessary thing in life, which is
goodness. They are depressed because they have become slaves to sin.
Is there any remedy for all these privations and sorrows? Yes; we must
embrace our cross. We must turn confidently to God and ask Him that we
may be resigned to doing without those temporal things of which we are
deprived. We must ask Him for the grace to rise from our sins and climb
towards Christian perfection. There is no use in revolting nor in
despairing. There is no real happiness in this world. If we are vexed
and rebellious, our cross grows heavier. If we accept privation from
God's hands, we are soon consoled.
2. Not only did the Saints
accept necessary privations with loving submission to God's will, but
they imposed voluntary mortifications on themselves. Some of them were
rich and gave everything they had to the poor. Some were in positions of
esteem and honour and went away to look for humiliation and obscurity.
Many scourged themselves, slept on hard boards or on the bare ground,
wore chains or hairshirts upon their bodies, and did without food in
order to give it to the poor. They imitated Jesus in these things. He
also chose to be poor and fasted for forty days in the desert. He was
mocked, scourged, crowned with thorns and burdened with a heavy cross.
When He was dying for us upon the cross, He asked for a drop of water to
slake His thirst and was given vinegar and gall. We have a great lesson
to learn from the privations and sufferings of Jesus and of the Saints.
If we are not heroic enough to go in search of voluntary want and
suffering, we should at least accept fully the necessary privations and
sorrows of this life.
3. Suffering and want can raise us to
great moral heights. A man who knows how to do without worldly things
shows his superiority over them. A man who knows how to deny himself for
the love of God and offers his sufferings to Him is raised to a higher
plane of unity and friendship with God. A man who strips himself of
vanity becomes humble. A man who denies himself sleep and food becomes
temperate. A man who refuses to give free play to pride and anger
becomes patient and gentle. A man who restrains his bodily appetites
when they threaten to dominate him purifies his soul and grows nearer to
God. When we cheerfully accept the sufferings and privations of this
life from a supernatural motive, we are preparing ourselves for the
everlasting happiness of Heaven.
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