“This earth is a bridge to cross the water; it serves only to support our steps. . . . We are in this world, but we are not of this world, since we say every day, ‘Our Father, who art in heaven.’ . . . We must wait, then, for our reward till we are at home, in our Father’s house.
This is the reason why good Christians suffer crosses, contradictions, adversities, contempt, calumnies — so much the better! . . . But people are astonished at this. They seem to think that because we love the good God a little, we ought to have nothing to contradict us, nothing to make us suffer. . . . We say, ‘There is a person who is not good, and yet every thing goes well with him ; but with me, it is of no use doing my best ; every thing goes wrong.’ It is because we do not understand the value and the happiness of crosses. We say sometimes, God chastises those whom He loves. That is not true. Trials are not chastisements; they are graces to those whom God loves. . . . We must not consider the labour, but the recompense. A merchant does not consider the trouble he undergoes in his commerce, but the profit he gains by it. . . . What are twenty years, thirty years, compared to eternity? What, then, have we to suffer? A few humiliations, a few annoyances, a few sharp words ; that will not kill us. ‘It is glorious to be able to please God, so little as we are!’ Our tongue should be employed only in praying, our heart in loving, our eyes in weeping.” (“The Spirit of the Cure of Ars” translated and edited by Fr. John Edward Bowden from the French of M. L'Abbé Monnin, pub. 1865.)