THE Lombards, a barbarous idolatrous nation which swarmed out of
Scandinavia and Pomerania, settled first in the counties now called
Austria and Bavaria; and a few years after, about the middle of the
sixth century, broke into the north of Italy. In their ravages about the
year 597, they attempted to compel forty husbandmen, whom they had made
captives, to eat meats which had been offered to idols. The faithful
servants of Christ constantly refusing to comply, were all massacred.
Such meats might, in some circumstances, have been eaten without sin,
but not when this was exacted out of a motive of superstition. The same
barbarians endeavored to oblige another company of captives to adore the
head of a goat, which was their favorite idol, and about which they
walked, singing, and bending their knees before it; but the Christians
chose rather to die than purchase their lives by offending God. They are
said to have been about four hundred in number. St. Gregory the Great
mentions, that these poor countrymen had prepared themselves for the
glorious crown of martyrdom, by lives employed in the exercises of
devotion and voluntary penance, and by patience in bearing afflictions;
also, that they had the heroic courage to suffer joyfully the most cruel
torments and death, rather than offend God by sin, because his love
reigned in their hearts. "True love," says St. Peter Chrysologus,[1]
"makes a soul courageous and undaunted; it even finds nothing hard,
nothing bitter, nothing grievous; it braves dangers, smiles at death,
conquers all things." If we ask our own hearts, if we examine our lives
by this test, whether we have yet begun to love God, we shall have
reason to be confounded, and to tremble at our remissness and sloth. We
suffer much for the world, and we count labor light, that we may attain
to the gratification of our avarice, ambition, or other passion in its
service, yet we have not fervor to undertake any thing to save our
souls, or to crucify our passions. Here penance, watchfulness over
ourselves, or the least restraint, seems intolerable. Let us begin
sincerely to study to die to ourselves, to disengage our hearts from all
inordinate love of creatures, to raise ourselves above the slavery of
the senses, above the appetites of the flesh and all temporal interest;
and in order to excite ourselves to love God with fervor, let us
seriously consider what God, infinite in goodness and in all
perfections, and whose love for us is eternal and immense, deserves at
our hands; what the joys of heaven are, how much we ought to do for such
a bliss, and what Christ has done to purchase it for us, and to testify
the excess of his love; also what the martyrs have suffered for his
sake, and to attain to the happiness of reigning eternally with him. Let
us animate ourselves with their fervor: "Let us love Christ as they
did," said St. Jerom to the virgin Eustochium, "and every thing that now
appears difficult, will become easy to us." To find this {497} hidden
treasure of divine love we must seek it earnestly; we must sell all
things, that is, renounce in spirit all earthly objects; we must dig a
deep foundation of sincere humility in the very centre of our
nothingness, and must without ceasing beg this most precious of all
gifts, crying out to God in the vehement desire of our hearts. Lord,
when shall I love thee!
Footnotes:
1. St. Peter Chrysol. Serm. 4.