How in Various Circumstances One Can Make Progress in One and the Same Virtue

Earlier in one chapter we said that exercising oneself for a time in one and the same virtue is far more fruitful and beneficial for progress than exercising oneself in many virtues at once, and that therefore all the circumstances that come our way, however varied they may be among themselves, should be turned to its advantage. Now listen, and I will show you how easily this can be put into practice.

If, for example, it happens that in one and the same day—or even hour—you are unjustly rebuked by someone for some matter that is in itself blameless, or your request to someone is refused, or something happens through which you are unjustly suspected of something bad, or some bodily illness overtakes you, or one of your superiors commands you to do something you find disagreeable, or some other unpleasant and trying thing occurs such as fill the poor life of man, then in response to the variety of such and similar circumstances you are called to perform various virtuous acts. But, keeping the rule you have set for yourself, you will do better if you turn all of them toward practice of the virtue to which you are primarily devoted at that time.

Thus, if at the time when such occasions come upon you, you are primarily exercising yourself in patience, take care to endure them willingly and with joy. If you are especially occupied with progress in humility, strive to recognize that you deserve every evil and merit the unpleasantnesses that have befallen you. If your labor is directed toward acquiring the virtue of obedience, compel yourself to bow your head meekly beneath the mighty hand of God and, for his sake, to submit willingly both to rational and to irrational and inanimate creatures of his, through whom he sends such burdens and afflictions upon you. If you are zealous for progress in poverty of spirit, raise up in yourself contentment, joy, and thanksgiving that you are deprived of every earthly and worldly comfort. If you are working to root and elevate love, try to stir up within yourself loving feelings—both toward your neighbor, since he serves at this moment as the instrument of the good you can draw from the present circumstances, and toward God, since he, as always so also now, is the first loving cause, sending or permitting such afflictions for your spiritual progress.

From what has been said you can already understand for yourself how one can turn to the exercise of one and the same virtue those circumstances that do not strike for a short time only, but are drawn out long—such as illness and similar things.