De non iudicando alium, sed de agendo gracias; et de octo affectibus amoris Dei, et de consorcio mulierum uitando

De non iudicando alium, sed de agendo gracias; et de octo affectibus amoris Dei, et de consorcio mulierum uitando

If anyone lives a holy or just life, they shouldn't look down on sinners and the worst of people. Those who are tempted fall because they do not have the grace to resist, although they turn from good to evil through their own malice. No one can truly do good and love God, and be self-controlled, unless God grants this to them. So, you who are puffed up because you've done well, because you've restrained yourself from carnal pleasures and endured harsh penance, from which you've received praise from human lips: remember that if the goodness of Christ hadn't protected you, you would have fallen into such great or even worse evils as this one has. You don't have the strength to resist on your own; it comes from Him who is called, "I will love you, Lord, my strength."^✦ So if you have nothing that you haven't received, why do you boast as if you hadn't received anything? But I give thanks to my God, who, without any merit of my own, has so chastised His servant for my good and for His own honor, and has so terrified my old age, that the fleeting pleasures of this world, which are few and quickly passing, seem sweet to me to flee from; so that I might merit to escape the many and never-ending penalties of hell. And again, he who taught me this way and imparted virtue through teaching, so that I might willingly bear present penance and tribulation, did so in order that I might lightly reach eternal delight and the fullest prosperity. Because if we want to, we can easily and without great difficulty repent perfectly in this life and purify ourselves, as long as we destroy all vices as much as we are able. In the future, if we haven't been purified here, we'll find that what the Apostle says is true: It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.^✦ Lord God, have mercy on me: my childhood was foolish, my youth was vain, and my adolescence was impure; but now, Lord Jesus, my heart is inflamed with holy love, and my inner being has been transformed, so that my soul no longer desires to touch the bitterness that once was my food for sweetness; and my affections have become such that I hate nothing but sin, I fear nothing but offending God, and I rejoice only in God. I don't grieve except for sin, I don't love except God, I don't hope except in Him, I’m not troubled except by guilt, and nothing delights me except Christ. However, I have recently received a deserved rebuke from three women. One woman criticized me because, wanting to correct their madness, I had looked too closely at their excess and the softness of their clothing, and the excessive adornment of those women; she said that I shouldn't have considered them so much as to know whether they were horned or not, and it seems to me she rightly rebuked me and made me blush. Another person criticized me because I was speaking about her heavy breasts as if they pleased me, and she said: "What does it matter to me if they are small or large?" And this was similarly said rightly. The third one, jokingly touching me, said that I was acting rather rudely, as if I wanted to touch her, or had touched her, and she seemed to imply, 'This doesn’t pertain to your hermit life; you shouldn’t play with women.' And she was not wrong to confuse me; I should have endured more than to have brought such things upon myself. As I returned to myself, I gave thanks to my God because through their words I learned what is good, and I was shown a more pleasant way than I had known before, so that I might work more deeply in the grace of Christ: I would not be found blameworthy before women in this matter. A certain woman, who was quite familiar to me, said to me without reproaching me but rather with a kind of contempt: "You have nothing but a beautiful appearance and a beautiful word; you have no work at all." And so I think it's better to be free from their special influence than to fall into their hands; they don't know how to maintain a balance, whether in love or in contempt. However, these things happened to me because I sought their salvation, not because I desired anything illicit from them, with whom I received some bodily support for a time.