In his book, The Way of Interior Peace (1888), Fr. De LeHen recounted a message the Lord had for a discouraged soul:
“Never harbor the thought that I hate you when I send you sufferings, or that I crush you under their weight. Afflictions are proof of my love, of that love which gave you existence. They flow to you from a hand that was nailed to the cross for you. Do you think you can find a safer way than that of suffering when I, your Lord and your God, chose it as a path to my glory? Do you not know that men must labor in the sweat of their brow, and encounter a thousand dangers in order to acquire earthly goods? Do you not also see that earthly crowns are given only to him who fights courageously and gains the victory?
If you suffer with Me you shall also rejoice with Me; if you share my humiliations you shall have part in My glory, but not otherwise. If I knew a higher, more precious blessing upon earth than suffering, I should have given it to you and should have chosen it for My own portion in this world. But because I know that nothing leads more quickly and securely to the highest pinnacle of happiness than the cross, I present it to you with the same love with which I embraced it Myself.
It is I who placed those difficulties in your way; therefore, blame no one else, for I alone have so ordained it. Complain not of chance. By doing so, you would act against your conscience, as you well know that nothing happens by chance.
Accuse not the hostile elements of the earth, nor yet the stars of heaven, for they are but weak creatures, inanimate instruments which My hand wields according to My good pleasure. Neither complain of the world, nor of wicked spirits. Their malice can do you no harm, for their power is subject to Me; they can exercise it only in so far as I permit it.
To Me alone, therefore, should you ascribe whatever evil creatures do you. Your illness, your tribulations, your afflictions and contradictions are sent to you from Him who created you and who has you engraved in His Hands and in His Sacred Heart.
They are the love tokens of my heavenly Father, and He shares them only with His well-beloved children; and they are thorns from My crown, splinters from My holy cross, which He distributed to them as to His favorites; they are the chalice from which, in obedience to His will, I, because the first-born and dearest of His children, more than any other drank, yes, to the very dregs. -
Who would not eagerly respond to the call of Divine Love that leads him to the marriage of the cross?”
