Saturday after Septuagesima: Remedy for Envy

Meditation.

REMEDY FOR ENVY.

1ST POINT. Is it necessary for your eye to see evil, that you may seek out wickedness, because God is good, patient, and merciful? If you love God, your chief delight will consist in his being honored and loved by all creatures. " Oh that all the people might prophecy," said Moses, "and that the Lord would give them his Spirit." Behold a man who loved God, and sought only his glory! one who always rejoiced in the righteousness and prosperity of his neighbor, and carried before the Lord the distresses of others as if they had been his own! It is impossible that you should love God, unless you desire to see him loved, served, and honored by all his creatures, and rejoice therein.

The disciples of St. John the Baptist were dissatisfied because Jesus baptized and all men resorted to Him. St. John, on the contrary, was overjoyed, and declared to them these words: "This my joy is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease." When you love your neighbor you will derive more gratification from seeing him honored and sought after than yourself. Should you not love him? Is he not your brother, if not according to nature, at least according to grace? Are you not children of the same faith, members of the same mystical body? and who ever beheld so unnatural a spectacle as two members bearing malice and envy towards each other? On the contrary, when one is diseased or wounded, the rest sympathize; and when one is healed, the others rejoice; when one suffers, all suffer; when its health and strength returns, all are consoled.

2D POINT. Were your love actuated by high and true motives, you would find much happiness in the joy of others, for charity will render you a participant in whatever blessings your neighbor may receive. Spiritual possessions do not, like corporeal treasures, diminish according to the vast numbers who receive them. Your neighbor toils for you when he works for himself, if you are united to him by the bonds of Christian affection. Char ity makes no distinction of persons; she gives to all in common, and gives freely, without diminishing her store. Why, then, will you persevere in wickedness? What will it profit you to nourish this diabolical passion of envy? Alas! it will only remove you farther from God, and injure you irreparably!

3D POINT. Humility is the true antidote for envy. Envy is the offspring and sister of pride. One is afflicted at the prosperity of others, because his proud nature cannot brook the idea of an equal or a superior. At the moment Lucifer conceived the sin of pride, he became envious. Pride and envy are, therefore, the offspring of the devil, and if you indulge in one you cannot escape the detestable sin of both. If you wish to make.him your example in life, you shall be eternally miserable with him after death.

Peace will never fold her wings in your soul if you have not humility; and it is only when you are truly humble that you will rejoice in seeing others more beloved, more esteemed, more occu pied, more honored, more wealthy, more virtuous, more holy and perfect, than yourself. Content yourself with being more humble than they are, and you shall possess a treasure equal to their costliest goods.

4TH POINT. The early Christians were happy because they were governed by one heart, one soul, and were animated by the same spirit. All goods were in common among them, because they were animated by a pure and disinterested charity. From whence arise the malice, the enmities, the sighs, the defiances, the slanders, the calumnies, the lawsuits, and all the blackest crimes of humanity, if not from pride and envy? Emulate and nourish charity, love God as the primitive Christians did, and, like them, you will enjoy a happiness as enduring and profound as it is divine; a peace which the world can neither give nor take away.

The devil tempted our first parents through envy. It was envy that led Cain to murder Abel his brother. Esau hated and persecuted his brother Jacob through envy. The brethren of Joseph were urged by envy to sell him to strangers and idolators. Saul made war against David through envy. The Jews crucified Jesus Christ through envy. Through the diabolical sin of envy death entered into the world, and it has, in all ages, been the occasion of the damnation of the greater part of those who are lost. Do you wish to belong to the miserable congregation of the envious? Consider the malice and magnitude of the vice which governs them, behold their misery, reflect on their chastisements; think with horror of being their companion in hell, where all generous, friendly, and loving emotions will be forever banished from your soul; where you can never perform a virtuous act, or receive good from any source; where this vice will sharpen every pang and horror of your dark abode, and scourge you in all your senses through eternity.

WORDS OF SCRIPTURE.

" He that rejoiceth at another man's ruin shall not go unpunished." Proverbs, xvii.

" When thy enemy shall fall, be not glad: and in his ruin let not thy heart rejoice; lest the Lord see, and it displease Him, and He turn away his wrath from him." Proverbs, xxiv.

" Let us not become desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another." Galatians, v.

" I am a partaker with all them that fear Thee, and that keep thy commandments." Psalm cxviii.