Second Consideration. On the Excellence of the Virtues.
Consider that virtue and devotion alone can render our soul happy in this world. See how beautiful they are; compare the virtues with the vices contrary to them: what a difference between patience and revenge, gentleness and anger, humility and arrogance, generosity and avarice, charity and envy, temperance and debauchery! Is it not a wondrous thing how the virtues fill the soul with delights and incomparable sweetness after they have been practised, whereas the vices leave behind them naught but bitterness and distaste! Why, then, should we not set ourselves to acquire these sweet delights?
Of vices, he who has but a little is not content, and he who has much is discontented; but of virtues, he who has but a little is already satisfied, and the more he has thereafter, the more his happiness increases. O devout life! how beautiful, sweet, pleasing, and happy you are! you soften tribulations and give sweetness to consolations: without you, good is evil, pleasure is bitter, rest is troubled: ah! he who knew you could well say with the Samaritan woman: _Domine, da mihi hanc aquam_, Lord, give me this water. An aspiration very common to Mother Teresa and Saint Catherine of Genoa, though for different reasons.
Consider that virtue and devotion alone can render our soul happy in this world. See how beautiful they are; compare the virtues with the vices contrary to them: what a difference between patience and revenge, gentleness and anger, humility and arrogance, generosity and avarice, charity and envy, temperance and debauchery! Is it not a wondrous thing how the virtues fill the soul with delights and incomparable sweetness after they have been practised, whereas the vices leave behind them naught but bitterness and distaste! Why, then, should we not set ourselves to acquire these sweet delights?
Of vices, he who has but a little is not content, and he who has much is discontented; but of virtues, he who has but a little is already satisfied, and the more he has thereafter, the more his happiness increases. O devout life! how beautiful, sweet, pleasing, and happy you are! you soften tribulations and give sweetness to consolations: without you, good is evil, pleasure is bitter, rest is troubled: ah! he who knew you could well say with the Samaritan woman: _Domine, da mihi hanc aquam_, Lord, give me this water. An aspiration very common to Mother Teresa and Saint Catherine of Genoa, though for different reasons.