The Virtuous are always restful and have all their needs met to a healthy degree
3 min • Digitized on November 24, 2021
From The Sinner’s Guide, page 221
By Venerable Louis of Granada
Moreover, they are bestowed with two extraordinary advantages unknown to the wicked.
The first of these is the wisdom with which God awards them. Like a skillful physician He gives His servants temporal blessings according to their necessities, and not in such measure as to inflate them with pride or endanger their salvation.
The wicked despise this moderation and madly heap up all the riches they can acquire, forgetting that excess in this respect is as dangerous to the soul as excess of nourishment is injurious to the body.
Though a man’s life lies in his blood, too copious a supply only tends to choke him.
The second of these advantages is that temporal blessings afford the just, with far less disturbance or display, that rest and contentment which all men seek in worldly goods.
Even with a little the just enjoy as much repose as if they possessed the universe. Hence St. Paul speaks of himself as having nothing, yet possessing all things. [2 Cor. vi. 10.]
Thus the just journey through life, poor but knowing no want, possessing abundance in the midst of poverty. The wicked, on the contrary, hunger in the midst of abundance, and though, like Tantalus, surrounded by water, they can never satisfy their thirst.
For like reasons Moses earnestly exhorted the people to the observance of God’s law.
Lay up these words in thy heart, teach them to thy children; meditate upon them sitting in thy house, walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising.
Bind them as a sign upon thy hand; keep them before thy eyes; write them over the entrance to thy house, on the doors of thy house.
Do that which is pleasing and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with thee all the days of thy life in the land which God shall give thee. [Deut. vi.]
Having been admitted to the counsels of the Most High, Moses knew the inestimable treasure contained in the observance of the law. His prophetic mind saw that all temporal and spiritual blessings, both present and future, were comprised in this.
It is a compact which God makes with the just, and which, we may feel assured, will never be broken on His part. Nay, rather, if we prove ourselves faithful servants we will find that God will be even more generous than His promises.
“Godliness,” says St. Paul, “is profitable to all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” [1 Tim. iv. 8.] Behold how clearly the Apostle promises to piety, which is the observance of God’s commandments, not only the blessings of eternity but those of this life also.