From "A Little Book of Eternal Wisdom"

Ch 10. The Third Thing.--Why God Permits His Friends To Suffer So Much Temporal Suffering

The Servant.--Another thing, Lord, I have at my heart: may I venture to tell it Thee? May I indeed venture to dispute with Thee like holy Jeremias? Gentle Lord, people say as follows: that how sweet soever Thy love may be, Thou dost yet allow it to prove very harsh to Thy friends in the many severe trials which Thou sendest them, such as worldly scorn and much adversity, both inwardly and outwardly. Scarcely is any one, say they, admitted to Thy friendship, but he has forthwith to gather up his courage for suffering. Lord, by Thy goodness! what sweetness can they have in all this? Or how canst Thou permit it in Thy friends? Or art Thou pleased not to know anything about it?

Eternal Wisdom.--Even as My Father loves Me, so do I love My friends. I do to My friends now as I have done from the beginning of the world.

The Servant.--This is what they complain of; and therefore, say they, Thou hast so few friends because Thou allowest them to prosper in this world so very sorrily. Lord, on this account there are also indeed many who, when they gain Thy friendship, and ought to prove constant in suffering, fall off from Thee; and (woe is me! that I must say it in sorrow of heart, and with bitter tears) relapse to that state which, through Thee, they had forsaken. O my Lord, what hast Thou to say to this?

Eternal Wisdom.--This is the complaint of persons of a sick faith and of small works, of a lukewarm life, and undisciplined spirit. But thou, beloved soul, up with thy mind out of the slime and deep slough of carnal delights! Unlock thy interior sense, open thy spiritual eyes and see. Mark well what thou art, where thou art, and whither thou dost belong; for then shalt thou understand that I do the very best for My friends.

According to thy natural essence thou art a mirror of the Divinity, thou art an image of the Trinity, and a copy of eternity; for as I, in My eternal uncreated entity, am the good which is infinite, so art thou according to thy desires, fathomless, and as little as a small drop can yield in the vast depth of the sea, just so little can all that this world is able to afford contribute to the fulfillment of thy desires. Thus, then, art thou in this wretched valley of tears, where joy and sorrow, laughing and weeping, mirth and sadness, are mingled together; where no heart ever obtained perfect happiness; for it is false and deceitful, more than I will tell thee. It promises much and performs little; it is short, uncertain, and changeable; today much joy, tomorrow a heart full of woe. Behold, such is the disport of this scene of time!

What is the Interior Life? (part vi)

SIXTH TRUTH. If I am not faithful in the use of certain means, my intelligence will become blind and my will too weak to co-operate with Jesus in the increase, or even the maintenance of His life in me. And the result will be a progressive diminution of that life: I shall find myself slipping into tepidity of the will. Through dissipation, cowardice, self-delusion, or blindness, I tend to compromise with venial sin. But therefore my whole salvation is in danger, since I am paving the way to mortal sin.

Were I to have the misfortune to fall into this tepidity (and a fortiori if I were to go lower still), I would have to make every effort to get out of it. 1. I would have to revive the fear of God in my soul by imagining myself, as vividly as possible, face to face with my last end, with death, with the judgment of God, with hell, eternity, sin, and so forth. 2. And to revive compunction by the sweet science of Thy wounds, O my merciful Redeemer. Going, in spirit, to Calvary, I would throw myself down at Thy holy feet and let Thy living Blood run down upon my head and heart to wash away my blindness, melt the ice in my soul, and drive away the torpor of my will.

What is the Interior Life? (part v)

FIFTH TRUTH. The triple concupiscence caused by original sin and increased by every one of my actual sins establishes elements of death that militate against the life of Jesus in me. Now in exact proportion as these elements develop in me, they diminish the exercise of that life. Alas! They may even go so far as to destroy it outright.

Nevertheless, inclinations and feelings contrary to that life, and temptations, even violent and prolonged can do it no harm whatever as long as my will resists them. And then (what a consoling truth!) like any other elements in the spiritual combat, they serve only to augment that life, in proportion to my own zeal.

What is the Interior Life? (part iv)

FOURTH TRUTH. In proportion to the intensity of my love for God, my supernatural life may increase at every moment by a new infusion of the grace of the active presence of Jesus in me; an infusion produced:

1. By each meritorious act (virtue, work, suffering under all its varying forms, such as privation of creatures, physical or moral pain, humiliation, self-denial; prayer, Mass, acts of devotion to Our Lady, etc.).

2. By the Sacraments especially the Eucharist. It is certain, then (and here is a consequence that overwhelms me with its sublimity and its depth, but above all, fills me with courage and with joy), it is certain that, by every event, person or thing, Thou, Jesus, Thou Thyself, dost present Thyself, objectively, to me, at every instant of the day. Thou dost hide Thy wisdom and Thy love beneath the appearances and dost request my co-operation to increase Thy life in myself.

O my soul, at every instant Jesus presents Himself to you by the GRACE OF THE PRESENT MOMENT --- every time there is a prayer to say, a Mass to celebrate or to hear, reading to be done, or acts of patience, of zeal, of renunciation, of struggle, confidence, or love to be produced. Would you dare look the other way, or try to avoid His gaze?