An Incitement to Divine Love

You are holding a Medieval Classic of Spiritual Literature, which has often been mistaken for the work of Walter Hilton and St. Bonaventure. After a lengthy and exhaustive investigation, scholars have rightly given it credit to its true writer. Within these pages, James addresses the afflictions which always prick us forward, making us to run both faster and farther, and causing us to ascend up to steep and high hills, and to contemplate heavenly things. He cites: These also certainly teach us how to be compassionate of others, and our fellow-members that suffer. How shall I be compassionate towards my neighbor’s sufferings, injuries, wrongs, and losses that I never felt the same myself? Thus the Apostle says: For we do not have a High Priest that cannot be compassionate of our infirmities, and the reason is because He experienced the same in His own body as the Apostle intimates in this place. Now if we do not, in this life have compassion for others, how do we think to reign with Him in the next?