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"Wake, priests," she cried in a loud voice, and they looked up astonished, rubbing their eyes, and asked what was the matter. "This," said Rachel. "I command you to lift the weight of your malediction off the head of these people who have suffered enough." "Thou commandest us!" exclaimed Eddo astonished. "And if we will not, Beautiful One, what then?"
One of the Fathers puts all in one lovely sentence: 'Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt. Think, too, of the difference which this conception of the giving rather than of the requiring God brings into what we have to do. We have not to begin with effort, we have to begin with faith.
"Lord, wash me with the water of baptism, so that I may call myself a real confessor of Christ, for I love Him with all the power of my soul. Wash me quickly, for I am ready in heart. And what thou commandest I will do, but tell me, so that I may do it in addition." "Love men as thy own brothers," answered the Apostle, "for only with love mayst thou serve Him." "Yes, I understand and feel that.
And the Lord thought to try Abraham and Isaac in this matter. And He said to Abraham, "Take now thy son." Abraham: "I have two sons, and I do not know which of them Thou commandest me to take." God: "Thine only son." Abraham: "The one is the only son of his mother, and the other is the only son of his mother." God: "Whom thou lovest." Abraham: "I love this one and I love that one."
But when Thou on a sudden commandest an unwonted and unthought of thing, yea, although Thou hast sometime forbidden it, and still for the time hidest the reason of Thy command, and it be against the ordinance of some society of men, who doubts but it is to be done, seeing that society of men is just which serves Thee? But blessed are they who know Thy commands!
And be sure of this, whensoever we attempt to do what we know to be the Master's will, because He has given Himself for us, our power will be equal to our desire, and enough for our duty. As St. Augustine says: 'Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt.
Sometimes, in my affliction, I used to say: O my Lord, how is it that Thou commandest me to do that which seems impossible? for, though I am a woman, yet, if I were free, it might be done; but when I am tied in so many ways, without money, or the means of procuring it, either for the purpose of the Brief or for any other, what, O Lord, can I do?
There is no strife within, no strained relations or hostile alienation to God, no gnawing unrest of unsatisfied desires, no pricks of accusing conscience; for the man who puts his hand into Christ's hand, and says, 'Order Thou my footsteps by Thy word'; 'Where Thou goest I will go, and what Thou commandest I will do.
For thou 'tis who commandest me." To this the Lady of Savern Replied in gentle tone: "To hear the holy mass I yearn, For sick now lies my son; So go, my child, and when thou'rt there, Utter for me a humble prayer, And of thy sins think ruefully, That grace may also fall on me."
Said Roger, and smiled a little: "If thou commandest me as my lord, I will come; yet I were better pleased to abide behind; for I am weary with night-waking and sorrow; and have a burden of thought, one which I must bear to the end of the road; and if I put it down I shall have to go back and take it up again."
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