My Prayer Book_LASANCE - the Catholic Kingdom!

heaven. Blessed are ye when they shall rewle you
and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you,
untruly, for My sake: be glad and rejoice, for your
reward is very great in heaven" (Mdtt. V. 5, 1~12).
By sufferings we become like to Christ and His
blessed Mother, Our Lady of Sorrows. Suffering was
the lot of all the saints. Suffering is wry meritorious.
Suffering intknsifies our love of God. Suffering has
a refining influence upon our character. Suffering
tends to free us from selfish motives and purifies our
aspirations. Suffering elevates the mind and chastens
the heart and its ayections. Suffering braces the will
and gives it tone. Suffering develops manliness and
tries earnestness of purpose. Suffering is a test of
virtue.
Suffering is conducive to sanctity, fot every sorrow,
every trial, can be turned into a blessing by the will of
the Christian sufferer. St. Ignatius Loyola says: "If'
the Lord send you great tribulations, it is an evidence
that He has great designs upon you, and that He wills
that you become a saint. There is no wood more
proper to enkindle and feed the fire of divine love than
the wood of the Cross."
Sufferings and dictions are a token of God's love;
"for," as St. Paul tells us, "whom the Lord loveth He
chastiseth. God deakth wi.tb you as with His sons;
forwhat son is there, whom the father doth not correct? "
(Web. xii. 6, 7.)
"Now all chastisement for the present indeed seemeth
not to bring with it joy, but sormw; but afterward it
will yield to them that are exercised by it the most
peaceable fmit of justice" (Hcb. xii. 11).
"Know ye not," writes the Apostle agaln to the
Romans, "that to them that1 love God all things work
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