No Wonder!

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” Hebrews 12:5–6 (RSVCE)

There is a well known anecdote about St. Teresa de Ávila taken from the 1912 translation by Alice Lady Lovat of the French “A Carmelite Nun”. On page 548, we can read-

In January of the last year of her life, 1582, St. Teresa left Ávila to establish convents in Burgos and Grenada, and this befell her along the way:

Teresa describes the journey thus: “We had to run many dangers. At no part of the road were the risks greater than within a few leagues of Burgos, at a place called Los Pontes. The rivers were so high that the water in places covered everything, neither road nor the smallest footpath could be seen, only water everywhere, and two abysses on each side. It seemed foolhardiness to advance, especially in a carriage, for if one strayed ever so little off the road (then invisible), one must have perished.” The saint is silent on her share of the adventure, but her companions relate that, seeing their alarm, she turned to them and encouraged them, saying that “as they were engaged in doing God’s work, how could they die in a better cause?” She then led the way on foot. The current was so strong that she lost her footing, and was on the point of being carried away when our Lord sustained her. “Oh, my Lord!” she exclaimed, with her usual loving familiarity, “when wilt Thou cease from scattering obstacles in our path?” “Do not complain, daughter,” the Divine Master answered, “for it is ever thus that I treat My friends.” “Ah, Lord, it is also on that account that Thou hast so few!” was her reply.

Isn’t the saint’s exchange with the Lord most amusing? But I am certain she found it not at all funny at the time! So it is with our trials, tribulations, challenges and tears. When one day we will look back, and we will see God’s mighty hand writ large in our life, it will be revealed how God was most present when life treated us the harshest. For it is then that He was working the most to bring us to heaven.