497.-499.

497 – When I found that pain was the reverse side and the training of delight, I sought to heap blows onmyself and multiply suffering in all my members; for even God’s tortures seemed to me slow and slight and inefficient. Then my Lover had to stay my hand and cry, “Cease; for my stripes are enough for thee.”

498 – The self-torture of the oldmonks and penitents was perverse and stupid; yet was there a secret soul of knowledge behind their perversities.

499 – God is our wise and perfect Friend; because He knows when to smite as well as when to fondle, when to slay us no less than when to save and to succour.

There is only one true wisdom, the wisdom of the Supreme Lord. Thus, to surrender all personal will and to want only what the Divine wants, is the only way to be truly wise.

24 April 1970