Blessed Francis objected strongly to the use of the word _fortune_,
considering it unworthy of utterance by christian lips. The expressions
"fortunate," "by good fortune," "children of fortune," all common enough,
were repugnant to him. "I am astonished," he said once, "that Fortune, the
most pagan of idols, should have been left standing, when christianity so
completely demolished all the rest! God forbid that any who ought to be the
children of God's providence alone become children of fortune! and that
those whose only hope should be in Him put their trust in the uncertainty
of riches!"
He spoke yet more strongly of such as professing to be nailed with Jesus
Christ to the Cross and to glory only in His reproaches and sufferings, yet
were eager in heaping up riches, and, when amassed, in clinging fondly to
them. "For," he said, "the Gospel makes christian blessedness to consist
in poverty, contempt, pain, weeping, and persecutions; and even philosophy
teaches us that prosperity is the stepmother of true virtue, adversity its
mother!"
I asked him once how it was that we are so ready to have recourse to
God when the thorn of affliction pierces us, and so eager in asking for
deliverance from sickness, calumny, famine, and such like misfortunes. "It
is," he said, "our weakness which thus cries out for help, and it is a
proof of the infirmity which encompasses us; for as the best and firmest
fish feed in the salt waters of the open sea, those which are caught in
fresh water being less pleasing to the taste, so the most generous natures
find their element in crosses and afflictions, while meaner spirits are
only happy in prosperity.
"Moreover," he continued, "it is much easier to love God perfectly in
adversity than in prosperity. For tribulation having nothing in itself
that is lovable, save that it is God's gift, it is much easier to go by it
straight to the will of God, and to unite ourselves to His good pleasure.
Easier, I say, than by prosperity, which has attractions of its own that
captivate our senses, and, like Dalila, lull them to sleep, working in us
a subtle change, so that we begin insensibly to love for its own sake the
prosperity which God sends us, instead of bestowing all our grateful love
on God Who sends it, and to Whom all thanks and praise are due!"