Privation
1. We must all experience privation, because everybody has to do without something in this life. Some people are never in good health. Besides their actual sufferings, they have to put up with their inability to work or to enjoy themselves. Others have no means of earning their livelihood. Their lives are a daily battle not merely against poverty but against squalor and wretchedness. They have not enough bread to eat, nor have they homes where they and their families can live. In families where there is no such want, on the other hand, there may be no peace in the home. Individuals, too, can lack peace of soul, because they are ridden by false ambition or jealousy. Other people have a plentiful supply of this world's comforts, but are destitute of the most necessary thing in life, which is goodness. They are depressed because they have become slaves to sin.
Is there any remedy for all these privations and sorrows? Yes; we must embrace our cross. We must turn confidently to God and ask Him that we may be resigned to doing without those temporal things of which we are deprived. We must ask Him for the grace to rise from our sins and climb towards Christian perfection. There is no use in revolting nor in despairing. There is no real happiness in this world. If we are vexed and rebellious, our cross grows heavier. If we accept privation from God's hands, we are soon consoled.
2. Not only did the Saints accept necessary privations with loving submission to God's will, but they imposed voluntary mortifications on themselves. Some of them were rich and gave everything they had to the poor. Some were in positions of esteem and honour and went away to look for humiliation and obscurity. Many scourged themselves, slept on hard boards or on the bare ground, wore chains or hairshirts upon their bodies, and did without food in order to give it to the poor. They imitated Jesus in these things. He also chose to be poor and fasted for forty days in the desert. He was mocked, scourged, crowned with thorns and burdened with a heavy cross. When He was dying for us upon the cross, He asked for a drop of water to slake His thirst and was given vinegar and gall. We have a great lesson to learn from the privations and sufferings of Jesus and of the Saints. If we are not heroic enough to go in search of voluntary want and suffering, we should at least accept fully the necessary privations and sorrows of this life.
3. Suffering and want can raise us to great moral heights. A man who knows how to do without worldly things shows his superiority over them. A man who knows how to deny himself for the love of God and offers his sufferings to Him is raised to a higher plane of unity and friendship with God. A man who strips himself of vanity becomes humble. A man who denies himself sleep and food becomes temperate. A man who refuses to give free play to pride and anger becomes patient and gentle. A man who restrains his bodily appetites when they threaten to dominate him purifies his soul and grows nearer to God. When we cheerfully accept the sufferings and privations of this life from a supernatural motive, we are preparing ourselves for the everlasting happiness of Heaven.
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