Venerable Louis of Grenada

Chapter III

2. If to all these benefits we add the whole world, which is as a rich and plentiful table God has prepared and spread for your particular use, how infinitely will the obligation be increased? There is not any one thing under the face of heaven, but what is entirely for man, or for his service. And should any one object, that flies are of no use to man, he may observe, they are food for birds, which are created for him. Though a man does not eat the grass of the fields, it nourishes the cattle which are necessary for his subsistence. Cast your eye about the world, and you will see what rich lands, and what large possessions you have, and how great your inheritance is. All that moves on the earth, all that swims in the waters, that flies in the air, or that shines in the heavens, is made for you. These things are all of them the effects of God’s bounty, the witnesses of his mercy, the sparks of his charity, and the common publishers of his greatness. Consider these are so many preachers God sends to you, that you may not want the opportunity of knowing him. Everything, says St. Augustine, on earth and in heaven, perpetually exhorts me, O Lord I to love you. And that no man may pretend to a lawful excuse from so just a duty, they speak the same language to everybody else.

3.0! that you had but ears to hear the voices of the creatures, you would easily understand how they all agree in their inviting you to the love of God; for they silently declare they have been created to serve you: that you may, therefore, love and adore this common Lord, not only for yourself, but for them. The sky says, It is I, that by my stars continually furnish you with light, that you may not walk in the dark. It is I, that by my different influences occasion the production of all things necessary for life. The air, on the other side, tells you, It is I who give you breath; it is I who refresh you with my gentle blasts, and temper the heat of your vital spirits, that you may not be scorched up by it; it is I who maintain this almost infinite number of different kinds of birds, pleasing your eyes with the beauty of their feathers, charming your ears with the sweetness of their notes, and satisfying the niceness of your appetites with their delicious taste. The water says. It is for you that I pour out my seasonable and moderate rains; it is for you that my streams and fountains are always running; it is for your nourishment that I engender such variety of fish. I water your lands and your gardens, that they may bring you their fruits in due season. I make a short passage for you through the sea, that you may thereby have the opportunity of making use of the whole world, and of joining the riches of other countries with those of your own. What shall I say of the earth, the common mother of all things, and the universal shop, as it were, of nature; where all the different causes produce their several effects? She may, with a great deal of reason, speak to you, as the rest have done, and tell you, it is she that, like a mother, carries you in her arms: it is she supplies you with all the necessaries of life; it is she that maintains you with the variety of her products; that, to serve you, she holds a correspondence with all the other elements, and with the heavens themselves, for the procuring of their influence; and that she, in short, like a tender mother, neither forsakes you whilst you are alive, nor leaves you at your death; for she it is that nourishes and supports you during your life, and takes you into her bosom when you are dead, and there gives you a resting-place. To conclude, all the world cries out aloud to you. Behold, O mortal man, and consider, what a love your Creator has had for you; since it is for your sake that he has made me, commanding me, at the same time, for the love of him, to serve you ; that so you may love and serve him, who has created me for you, and you for himself.

4. This, O Christian, this is the general voice of all the creatures; and can you, after this, deny, that you are most strangely dull and stupid, if you have no ears to hear the same? How can you avoid confessing, that you are guilty of an unparalleled ingratitude, if you take no notice of so many favors? If you are not ashamed to receive an obligation, why do you refuse to make a simple acknowledgment of it to him from whom you have received it, that so you may escape the punishment your ingratitude otherwise deserves? For, according to a great writer, there is no creature in the world but what speaks these three words to man: ” Receive, give, take heed; that is to say, receive the benefit, give what is due, and take heed of the punishment which follows ingratitude, if you do not do so;” Rich, de S. Vict.

5. And, that you may have more cause to admire, consider how Epictetus, a heathen philosopher before mentioned, has been able to lift himself up to this sublime divinity. He advises us, in these words, to make the creatures serve us, as so many memorials of the Creator: “When the raven croaks,” says he, “and thereby gives you notice of some change of weather, it is God, not the raven, that gives you this notice. If men should, by their words and discourses, advise you to anything, is it not God that has given them power to advise you thus? thereby to let you understand, that he exercises his divine power several ways, in order to bring about his designs; for when God thinks fit to acquaint us with matters of greater moment, he makes choice of more excellent and more inspired men for this purpose.” Afterwards, he adds this: “In fine, when you shall have read my instructions, say to yourself. Is it not Epictetus, but God, that has given me this advice; for whence could he have had such precepts and rules as these are, if God had not suggested them to him?” Thus far the words of Epictetus. Now, is there any Christian in the world, that will not be ashamed, and blush to be excelled by a heathen? If there be, he may well be confounded to think, that his eyes, with the assistance of the light of faith, cannot see as far as those that were in the darkness of human reason.

§ I. From what has been said is inferred how unworthy it is not to serve God,

6. Since things are really just as we have represented them, is it not great ingratitude and neglect for man to be surrounded on all sides by so many benefits, and yet to forget him from whom he has received them all? St. Paul says, that he who does his enemy a good turn, heaps coals of fire upon his head (Rom. xii. 20.), by which he inflames his charity and love. Now, if all the creatures in the world are so many benefits God bestows on you, the whole world can be nothing else but one fire, and all the creatures so much fuel to feed and increase it. Is it possible any heart should be in the midst of such flames as these, and not be entirely inflamed, or so much as warmed by them? How comes it then, that after receiving so many benefits and graces, you should neglect even to cast your eyes towards heaven, to see from whence they all come? If you were to go a great journey, and in the way, being quite tired, and almost dead with hunger, should be forced to sit down at the bottom of a high tower, from the top of which some charitable person should take care to supply you with whatsoever you wanted, could you forbear looking up sometimes, if it were but to have a sight of one that was so kind and charitable to you? Does God do anything less for you, than continually shower down from above all sorts of blessings upon you? Find me out, if you can, but one thing in the world, that does not happen by his particular providence. And yet you never so much as look up to know, and by that means to love, so liberal and constant a Benefactor. What can be said of such hard-heartedness, but that man has divested himself of his own nature, and is grown more insensible than brutes? It is a shame to say whom we resemble in this particular, but it is fit that man should hear it. We are like a herd of swine feeding under an oak, which, all the time their keeper is shaking down the acorns from the top of the tree, do nothing else but grunt and fight with one another for their meat, without ever looking upon him that gives it them, or lifting up their eyes to see from whose hands they receive such a benefit. O! the brutal ingratitude of the children of Adam! who, having received not only a rational soul, which other creatures have not, but also an upright body, and eyes set to look up towards heaven, yet will not lift up the eyes of the soul to behold him that bestows such blessings on them.