Good digestions assimilate all kinds of food, and convert it into wholesome
nourishment, and so in like manner holy souls turn all that they meet with
into material for instruction and into help towards their eternal profit.
Thus, the great St. Anthony, saw the Creator on every page of the book
of nature and in all living creatures. The tiniest flower, growing and
blossoming at his feet, raised his thoughts to Him Who is the Flower of the
Field and the Lily of the Valley, the Blossom springing from the root of
Jesse.
Those who are smitten by some passionate human love are so absolutely
possessed by it that they think of nothing else, and since their tongue
speaks out of the abundance of their heart this is their one subject of
conversation, all others being distasteful to them. They write the name of
the beloved object on rocks and trees, and wherever they can they leave
behind them some carved token or emblem of their affection.
Just so was it with our Blessed Father. His delight was to make all
subjects of conversation, all incidents that might occur, further in one
way or another the glory of God, and kindle His divine love in the hearts
of others. On one occasion, when he was visiting that part of his diocese
which lies among the lofty and bleak mountains of Faucigny, where it is
always winter, he heard that a poor cowherd had lost his life by falling
over a steep precipice while trying to save one of his herd. From this
incident he drew a marvellous lesson upon the care which a Bishop ought to
take of the flock entrusted to his charge by God, showing that he ought to
be ready to sacrifice even life itself for its salvation. He thus relates
the incident, and gives his comments on it in one of his letters.
"During the past few days I have seen mountains, terrible in their
grandeur, covered with ice ten or twelve inches thick; and the inhabitants
of the neighbouring valleys told me that a herdsman going out to try and
recover a cow which had strayed away fell over a precipice from a height of
thirty feet, and was found frozen to death at the bottom. Oh, God! I cried,
and was the ardour of this poor herdsman in his search for the beast that
had strayed, so burning that even the cold of those frozen heights could
not chill it? Why, then, am I so slothful and lax in the quest after my
wandering sheep? This thought filled my heart with grief, yet in no wise
melted its frozen surface. I saw in this region many wonderful sights. The
valleys were full of happy homesteads, the mountains coated with ice and
snow. Like the fertile and smiling valleys, the village mothers play their
homely part, while a Bishop, raised to such a lofty eminence in the Church
of God, remains ice-bound as the mountains. Ah! will there never rise a sun
with rays powerful enough to melt this ice which freezes me!" What zeal for
souls, what humility, what holy fervour breathe in these words!