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Chapter 9Imit.2.9

De carentia omnis solatii.

The Weight of Consolation

When divine consolation is present, setting aside human comfort is easy; the true spiritual challenge is to endure its absence with equanimity, recognizing that grace—not merit—carries the soul.

It is no great thing for a person to set aside human consolation when divine consolation is present. It is a great thing — truly a great thing — to be able to go without human consolation as readily as divine, and for the love of God to willingly endure the heart's exile, to seek yourself in nothing, and not to look back toward your own merit. What more are you, if you are cheerful and devout when grace arrives? This hour is desirable to everyone. The one whom God's grace carries, it carries along smoothly enough. And what is so surprising if the one who is carried by the Almighty and led by the supreme Leader does not feel the burden?

Learning to Let Go

The soul clings stubbornly to human comfort; the example of Saint Lawrence shows that love for God must surpass even the dearest human bonds, and separation from friends must be accepted as part of our shared mortality.

We cling to something for comfort, and a person is stripped of himself only with great difficulty. Saint Lawrence conquered the world, along with the Supreme Priest, because he despised everything in the world that seemed delightful, and he bore gently even the loss of Sixtus, God's Supreme Priest, whom he loved most dearly, for the love of Christ.1 By love for the Creator, then, he overcame the love of man, and in place of human comfort he chose instead the good pleasure of God. So you too — learn to let go of someone you need, a beloved friend, for the love of God. Nor should you bear it heavily when you have been left by a friend, knowing that we must all at last be separated from one another.

The Struggle for Self-Mastery

True self-mastery requires prolonged inner struggle; the authentic lover of Christ does not seek pleasant consolations but embraces temptation, hardship, and labor for His sake.

A person must struggle with himself, at length and hard, before he can learn to master himself fully and draw his whole affection entirely toward God. When you stand above yourself, it is easy to slip into human consolations. But the true lover of Christ and the zealous follower of the virtues does not fall back on those consolations, nor does he chase after such felt sweetnesses. But instead, strong temptations to face, hard exercises to endure, and harsh labors to bear for Christ.2

Receiving and Losing Grace

When God gives spiritual consolation, receive it with humble gratitude, not pride; when it is withdrawn, wait patiently in humility, for this pattern of alternation is ancient and familiar to all the saints.

So when God gives you spiritual consolation, receive it with thanksgiving. Recognize that it is God's gift, not something you have earned, and do not let yourself be puffed up with pride.34 Do not rejoice excessively or presume on empty grounds, but let the gift make you more humble, and more cautious and more reverent in everything you do, because that hour will pass, and temptation will follow.56 When consolation has been taken away, do not immediately despair. Instead, with humility and patience wait for God's heavenly visitation, because God is powerful enough to give you back even greater grace and consolation.78 This is nothing new, and it is not foreign to the way of God as experienced by those who know him, because among the great saints and the ancient prophets this pattern of alternation was frequent.910

The Psalmist's Pattern of Prayer

Drawing on the Psalms and Job, the text traces the soul's movement from confidence in abundance, through anguish in abandonment, to persistent prayer and final restoration—a pattern every believer must expect to repeat.

This is why someone, while grace was still present, used to say: <quote>I said in my abundance, I will not be moved forever</quote>.✦ But when grace is absent, having experienced what it is to be left to himself, he adds, saying: <quote>You have turned your face away from me, and I am troubled</quote>.✦ Yet in all this he does not despair; rather, he pleads more urgently with the Lord, and says: <quote>To you, Lord, I will cry out, and to my God I will make my prayer</quote>.✦ And so he receives the fruit of his prayer, and testifies that he has been heard, saying: <quote>The Lord has heard, and has had mercy on me; the Lord has become my helper</quote>.✦ But how so? <quote>You have turned</quote>, he says, <quote>my mourning into joy for me, and you have surrounded me with gladness</quote>. And if this is how it went with the great saints, we who are unformed and poor must not despair — if at times we are cold and at times on fire. Because the spirit comes and goes, according to the good pleasure of his will. Hence blessed Job says: <quote>You visit him at dawn, and suddenly you test him</quote>.✦

The Poverty of External Helps

When grace withdraws, no external good—neither friends, nor books, nor sacred songs—can truly comfort; the only remedy is patient self-denial submitted to God's will, and trust in divine mercy alone.

So what can I hope for, or where should I place my trust, if not in the great mercy of the Lord alone and in the hope of heavenly grace alone?1112 For whether good people are present, or devout brothers and faithful friends, or holy books and beautiful treatises, or sweet songs and hymns — all these things help only a little and taste of almost nothing when I am stripped of grace and left in my own poverty.131415 At such times there is no better remedy than patience and denying myself in accordance with God's will.1617

No One Is Exempt from Trial

Every religious person experiences the withdrawal of grace; even the holiest saints were tempted before and after their deepest contemplations, and tribulation is the promised pathway to heavenly consolation.

I have never found a single religious person who did not sometimes experience a withdrawal of grace or feel a lessening of fervor. No saint was ever so highly rapt or illuminated that he was not tempted before or afterward. For no one is worthy of deep contemplation of God who has not first been tested by some tribulation for God's sake. For tribulation that comes before a coming consolation is usually a sign of it. For to those who have been tested by temptations, heavenly consolation is promised. "The one who conquers," he says, "I will grant to eat from the tree of life."✦18

The Unending Struggle

Divine consolation strengthens us for hardship, and temptation follows to prevent pride; since the devil never sleeps and the flesh remains alive, we must never cease preparing for battle.

Divine consolation is also given, so that a person may be stronger to endure hardships. Temptation follows as well, to keep you from becoming proud over the good you have received. The devil never sleeps, and the flesh is not yet dead. So do not stop preparing yourself for the struggle, because enemies are on every side who never rest.

Read the original Latin

Non est grave humanum contemnere solatium, cum adest divinum. Magnum est, et valde magnum, tam humano quam divino posse carere solatio et pro amore Dei libenter exilium cordis velle sustinere et in nullo se ipsum quærere, nec ad proprium meritum respicere. Quid magis es, si hilaris sis, et devotus adveniente gratia? Optabilis cunctis hæc hora. Satis suaviter equitat quem gratia Dei portat. Et quid mirum si onus non sentit, qui portatur ab Omnipotente, et ducitur a summo Ductore?

Libenter aliquid habemus pro solatio, et homo difficulter exuitur a se ipso. Vicit sanctus Laurentius sæculum, cum Summo Sacerdote, quia omne, quod in mundo delectabile videbatur despexit, et Dei Summum Sacerdotem Sixtum, quem maxime diligebat, pro amore Christi etiam a se tolli clementer ferebat. Amore igitur Creatoris amorem hominis superavit, et pro humano solatio divinum beneplacitum magis elegit. Ita et tu aliquem necessarium, et dilectum amicum pro amore Dei disce relinquere. Nec graviter feras cum ab amico fueris derelictus, sciens quoniam oportet nos omnes tandem ab invicem separari.

Multum et diu oportet hominem in se ipso certare, antequam discat se ipsum plene superare, et totum affectum suum plene in Deum trahere. Quando homo stat super se ipsum, facile labitur ad consolationes humanas. Sed verus Christi amator, et studiosus sectator virtutum non cadit super illas consolationes, nec quærit tales sensibiles dulcedines. Sed magis fortes tentationes et exercitationes, et pro Christo duros sustinere labores.

Cum igitur spiritualis consolatio a Deo datur, cum gratiarum actione accipe eam et Dei munus intellige esse, et non tuum meritum et noli extolli. Noli nimium gaudere nec inaniter præsumere, sed esto magis humilior ex dono, cautior quoque et timoratior in cunctis actibus tuis, quoniam transibit hora illa, et sequetur tentatio. Cum ablata fuerit consolatio, non statim desperes, sed cum humilitate, et patientia exspecta cælestem visitationem, quia potens est Deus ampliorem tibi redonare gratiam et consolationem. Istud non est novum, nec alienum viam Dei expertis, quia in magnis sanctis, et in antiquis prophetis fuit sæpe alternationis modus.

Unde quidam præsente jam gratia dicebat: Ego dixi in abundantia mea non movebor in æternum. Absente autem gratia quid in se fuerit expertus, adjungit dicens: Avertisti faciem tuam a me, et factus sum conturbatus. Inter hæc tamen nequaquam desperat, sed instantius Dominum rogat, et dicit: Ad te, Domine, clamabo, et ad Deum meum deprocabor. Denique orationis suæ fructum reportat, et se exauditum testatur dicens: Audivit Dominus et misertus est mei, Dominus factus est adjutor meus. Sed in quo? Convertisti, inquit, planctum meum in gaudium mihi, et circumdedisti me lætitia. Et si sic actum est cum magnis Sanctis, non est desperandum nobis informis et pauperibus, si interdum in frigiditate, et interdum in fervore sumus. Quoniam spiritus venit, et recedit, secundum suæ voluntatis beneplacitum. Unde beatus Job ait: Visitas eum diluculo, et subito probas illum.

Super quid igitur sperare possum, aut in quo confidere debeo, nisi in sola magna misericordia Domini, et in sola spe gratiæ cælestis? Sive enim adsint homines boni sive devoti fratres, et amici fideles, sive libri sancti, vel tractatus pulchri, sive dulces cantus et hymni, omnia hæc modicum juvant, et modicum sapiunt, quando sum defertus a gratia, et in propria paupertate relictus. Tunc non est melius remedium quam patientia, et abnegatio mei in voluntate Dei.

Nunquam inveni aliquem Religiosum, qui non habuerit interdum gratiæ subtractionem, aut non senserit fervoris diminutionem. Nullus Sanctus fuit tam alte raptus, vel illuminatus, qui prius vel postea non fuerit tentatus. Non enim alta Dei contemplatione dignus est, qui pro Deo non est exercitatus aliqua tribulatione. Solet enim sequentis consolationis tribulatio præcedens esse signum. Nam tentationibus probatis cælestis promittitur consolatio. Qui vicerit, inquit, dabo ei edere de ligno vitæ.

Datur etiam consolatio divina, ut homo fortior sit ad sustinendum adversa. Sequitur etiam tentatio, ne se elevet de bono. Non dormit diabolus, nec caro adhuc mortua est. Ideo non cesses te præparare ad certamen, quia a dextris et a sinistris sunt hostes qui nunquam quiescunt.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.29.7 — The voice of the LORD splits flames of fire.
  2. ↩Ps.29.8 — The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
  3. ↩Ps.29.9 — The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all say, "Glory."
  4. ↩Ps.29.11 — The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.
  5. ↩Job.7.18 — that You would visit him every morning, test him every moment;
  6. ↩Rev.2.7 — The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Thomas refers to the tradition that St. Lawrence, before his own martyrdom, witnessed the arrest of Pope St. Sixtus II and bore it with patience.
  2. 2 ↩The Latin is an elliptical continuation of the subject 'verus Christi amator' from s3 — the implied verb is something like 'amat' or 'quaerit' (he loves / he seeks). The English supplies 'to face / endure / bear' to make the three accusative phrases read naturally without adding a Latin verb that isn't there.
  3. 3 ↩Cum igitur rendered as 'So when' to capture both the causal and inferential force of the connective chain.
  4. 4 ↩gratiarum actione rendered as 'thanksgiving' (gratia in the sense of thanks/thanksgiving, not grace, in this context of grateful response).
  5. 5 ↩nec rendered as 'or' to capture the negative-additive force naturally in English.
  6. 6 ↩timoratior rendered as 'more reverent' to convey the devotional sense of God-fearing awareness.
  7. 7 ↩Cum with subjunctive (ablata fuerit) rendered as 'When' with perfect passive sense; quia rendered as 'because' to preserve causal force.
  8. 8 ↩redonare rendered as 'give back' to capture the sense of grace being restored or returned.
  9. 9 ↩nec rendered as 'and ... not' to preserve the negative-additive force; quia rendered as 'because' for causal clarity.
  10. 10 ↩alternationis modus rendered as 'pattern of alternation' to capture the recurring rhythm of consolation and desolation.
  11. 11 ↩igitur rendered as 'then' to capture the inferential force; aut rendered as 'or' in the disjunctive pair; et rendered as 'and' joining the two sole foundations.
  12. 12 ↩misericordia → 'mercy' (divine mercy in view); gratia → 'grace' (divine gift/effect).
  13. 13 ↩enim rendered as 'for' (explanatory); the series of sive…sive…vel…sive rendered as 'whether…or…or…or' to preserve the exhaustive alternatives; et rendered as 'and' throughout.
  14. 14 ↩defertus (token 31) is an uncertain form, possibly a compound of de- + fero; translated as 'stripped/carried away from' based on the most plausible intended sense.
  15. 15 ↩gratia → 'grace'; paupertas → 'poverty' (spiritual poverty/emptiness).
  16. 16 ↩et rendered as 'and' joining the two remedies.
  17. 17 ↩abnegatio → 'denying' (self-denial); voluntate Dei → 'God's will' (submission to divine will).
  18. 18 ↩Revelation 2:7 — Christ's promise to the one who conquers. Vulgate: Qui vicerit, dabo ei edere de ligno vitæ.