A TOUCHING INSTANCE ON THIS SUBJECT
God is innocent to the innocent (Ps 18:26),[1] good to the good, friendly to the friendly, tender towards the tender. Sometimes his love leads him to show the marks of delicate, dainty, fondness for some souls. Such are those who, out of loving purity and simplicity, become like little children before him
One day St Frances [of Rome] was saying the Office of Our Lady. As it usually happens, if there is only one thing during the whole day that needs our attention, it is during prayer that it becomes urgent. This saintly lady was called by her husband for a household service. She thought of taking up the threads of her Office again at four different times. She was called back again. She could not complete the same verse. This blessed business for which she was hurriedly called back from her prayer was eventually settled. Coming back to her Office, she found this whole verse so often left unfinished and so often begun again by devotion written in beautiful letters of gold. Her devoted companion, Madame Vannocia, declared on oath that she saw the guardian angel of the Saint writing it. Soon after St Paul revealed the same to St Frances.
What loving kindness, Theotimus, of this heavenly Spouse towards this gentle and faithful lover! See, however, that necessary tasks of each one’s state of life do not decrease divine love. Instead it increases, gilds, so to say, the work of devotion. The nightingale does not love its melody less when it pauses than when it sings. The devout heart does not love divine love less when it has to turn to external duties than when it prays. The silence of devout people and their speech, their activity and their rest, equally sing in them the hymn of divine love.
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[1] NRSV: With the pure you show yourself pure (Ps 18:26).