Life of St John Vianney.pdf - the Catholic Kingdom!

"You"Mark"TakeSUFFERING. 279who have not the blessing of knowing God and His infinite loveliness, have the same crosses as we, but theyhave not the same consolations.sayit is hard :no, it is sweet, consoling, delightful ; it is happiness. Only we must love while wesuffer ; we must suffer and love.this, my children ; in the way of the Cross itisonly the first step that is hard. Our greatest cross isthe fear of crosses. We have not courage to bear our crosswe are very wrong ; for, do what we will, the cross holdsus in its arms, we cannot escapeit. What, then, have weto lose ?Why not love our cross, and make use of it totake us to Heaven ?But, on the contrary, most men turntheir back on the cross and fly from it. The more theyrun, the more the cross pursues them, the harder it strikes,and the more heavilyiiweighs upon them. If you wouldbe wise, go like St. Andrew to meet it, saying : Hail, goodcross ! admirable cross ! Ocross greatly to be desired !Receive me to thine arms, take me from among men, andrestore me to the Master, who redeemed me by thee.good heed to this, my children he who : goesto meet crosses finds them indeed, but is glad to find them ;he loves them ; he bears them courageously. They unitehim to our Lord ;they purify him ;they detach him fromthis world ; they remove all obstacles from his heart ; theyhelp him to pass through this world, as a bridge helps usto cross water. Look at the Saints ; when no one elsepersecuted them, they persecuted themselves. When Goddid not send them sufferings, they invented sufferings forthemselves. A good religious was complaining once to*our Lord that he was persecuted. He said, Lord, whathave I done to be treated in this way ? Our Lord replied,And what had 1 done to be led to Calvary? Then the