>>13725222O Lord my God, patience is very necessary for me, for many disturbing thing occur daily in this life. I see well that however I govern myself so as to have peace, my life cannot be without struggle and sorrow.
My son, what you say is true. And therefore I do not will you to have peace that is free from temptations, or does not feel some contradiction. But I will that you think and believe that you have found peace, when you have many troubles and are tried by many unpleasant things in this world. If you say that you cannot bear such things, how, then, will you suffer the fires of purgatory? Of two evils, the lesser is to be chosen; suffer patiently, therefore, the small pains of this world, so that you may hereafter escape the greater pains in the world to come.
Do you think that worldly men suffer little or nothing? You certainly will find no one without some trouble, though you seek out the most privileged of people. But perhaps you shall say to Me that they have so many delights and follow their own pleasures so much that they weigh all their adversities but little. I know well it is as you say, that they have all they can desire. But how long will it endure, do you think? Truly, it will suddenly vanish away, like smoke in the air, so that no remembrance of past joys will be left. Even when they lived, they were not without great bitterness and grief, for the very things in which they had greatest pleasure often gave them great trouble and pain afterwards. And it was most just that, inasmuch as they sought delight and pleasure inordinately, they should not get their full desire in such pleasure save with great bitterness and sorrow. Oh, how short, how false, how ill-ordered are all the pleasures of this world! Surely, worldly people do no perceive this because of excesses and blindness of heart, and they will not perceive it, for to gain a little pleasure in this corruptible life they run headlong, like dumb beasts, to everlasting death.
