It is true that the devout life, which is nothing but an intense and
fervent love of God, is an angelic life and full of contentment and of
extraordinary consolation. It is, however, also true that those who submit
themselves to the discipline of God, even while experiencing the sweetness
of this divine love, must prepare their soul for temptation. The path
which leads to the Land of Promise is beset with difficulties--dryness,
sadness, desolation, and faint-hearted fears--and would end in bewildering
discouragement, did not Faith and Hope, like Joshua and Caleb, show us the
fair fruits of this much to be desired country, and thus animate us to
perseverance.
But He who brings light out of darkness, and roses out of thorns, who helps
us in all our tribulations, and performs wonders in heaven and earth, makes
the happy souls whom He leads through His will to His glory to find perfect
content in the loss of all content, both corporal and spiritual when once
they recognize that it is the will of God that they should go to Him by the
way of darkness, perplexity, crosses, and anguish.
In saying this I am putting into my own words the thoughts of our Blessed
Father as expressed in the eleventh chapter of the sixth book of his
_Treatise on the Love of God_.