De duplici ratione secundae visitationis, et quod de ista ad tertiam, quae caeteris excellentior est, transitur.
The Gift of True Compunction
Those who embrace the struggle for Christ receive a higher compunction that heals, strengthens, and lifts the despairing, serving as consolation, rest, protection, and provision.
Those who have shaken off lukewarmness and immediately taken up the sweat and struggle for Christ are received by that more excellent kind of compunction, which heals the weak, strengthens the feeble, and lifts up the despairing. This compunction itself is consolation for those who groan, rest for those who toil, protection for those who are tried, and provision for the journey for those who travel.
False Comforts and the Prophet's Refusal
Those who shrink from spiritual labor chase worthless comforts, but the holy Prophet refused such substitutes, declaring, 'My soul has refused to be consoled.'
And it is precisely this consolation that those people take away from themselves who, shrinking back at the first sign of sweat, either roll back into their former torpor, or go chasing after some worthless comforts — in endless chatter, or in visits from friends, or at any rate in the freedom of their own will. Despising these filthy substitutes for true consolation, the holy Prophet refused — 'My soul has refused to be consoled,' he says.✦ Psalm 76).
Remembering God in Delight
Though one may seem left without consolation, the Psalmist answers that remembering God brings delight, introducing the twofold character of the second visitation.
What then? Have you been left without any consolation at all? Far from it! I remembered God, and I was delighted (ibid.).✦ .
The Twofold Work of the Second Visitation
The second visitation comes to sustain those already being tested and to prepare those about to be tested, restoring the fallen and strengthening the vulnerable.
And the character of this second visitation is likewise twofold. For it comes at times to those already being tested, so that they do not fall; at other times to those about to be tested, so that they may bear it more easily. By the first, they are restored; by the second, they are strengthened.
Beyond the Second Visitation Toward Higher Grace
Neither the first nor the second visitation should be taken as the measure of holiness, for the second only prepares it; rather, through repeated compunction and divine sweetness one advances to a higher level that rewards the conqueror with abundant grace.
Therefore no one should measure their holiness by that first kind of visitation — since it is plain that even the wicked sometimes receive it — nor even by this second kind, which, though it is the more excellent, prepares holiness rather than reveals it. In the first, one is, as it were, being brought to birth; in the second, one is nourished. Indeed, in this second kind of visitation, one who has grown accustomed to frequent compunction and has been fed on repeated small tastes of divine sweetness is advanced to that higher level by a more excellent degree — a level that no longer strengthens and encourages one who is still weak, but, as it were, rewards one who is already a conqueror with a more abundant grace.
Read the original Latin
Qui excusso tepore statim ut sudores et agones pro Christo susceperint, ab illo excellentiori compunctionis genere excipiuntur, quae infirmos sanat, debiles roborat, allevat desperatos. Ipsa est consolatio gementibus, pausatio laborantibus, tentatis protectio, viaticum itinerantibus. Quam quidem consolationem illi sibi adimunt, qui statim ad primos sudores resilientes, vel in pristinum torporem devolvuntur, vel viles quasdam consolationes in crebra confabulatione, vel amicorum visitatione, vel certe propriae voluntatis libertate conquirunt. Quas consolationum sordes sanctus Propheta contemnens: Renuit, inquit, consolari anima mea (Psal. lxxvi.) Quid ergo? sine omni consolatione relictus es? Absit!
Memor fui Dei, et delectatus sum (ibid.) . Et hujus similiter visitationis ratio duplex. Provenit enim aliquando tentatis, ne corruant; aliquando tentandis, ut levius ferant. Prima reficiuntur, altera armantur. Nemo ergo secundum primum illud visitationis genus, suam metiatur sanctitatem, quod et reprobis nonnunquam accidere manifestum est, sed neque secundum istud, quod licet excellentius sit, sanctitatem tamen praeparat, non ostendit. In illo enim quasi parturitur; hic nutritur. Sane in hoc secundo genere crebra compunctione assuefactus, crebris sorbitiunculis divinae dulcedinis pastus, in illud sublimius gradu excellentiore provehitur, quod non jam debilem corroborat et confortat; sed quasi perfectum victorem gratia abundantiori remunerat.
Scripture echoes
Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity) companion
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