If He Had Been a Good Man, He Would Have Died

When speaking of a bad person who has escaped some peril, you often say, “If he had been a good man he would have died.” Well then, in saying this you state a truth, because it just so happens that God often gives to a spirit who is still budding on the paths of progress a longer trial than to a good spirit who, as a reward for its merit, will receive the grace of its trial being as short as possible. Consequently,  whenever you use that axiom have no doubt that you commit a blasphemy.

If a good man dies, whose neighbor is a bad man, you rush to say, “I would rather it had been him instead.” You are greatly mistaken, because the one who has departed has completed his task, whereas the one who remains perhaps has not even begun. So why would you want the bad person not to have time to finish, and the other to remain imprisoned on terrestrial soil? What would you say about a prisoner who served his sentence but was kept in prison, while another, who had no such right, was set free? Understand, therefore, that true freedom consists in deliverance from the bonds of the body, and that as long as you are on the earth, you are in captivity.

Accustom yourselves not  to  criticize what  you  cannot understand, and believe that God is just in all things; many times, what appears to be an evil is really a blessing, but your faculties are so limited that the great whole escapes your obtuse senses. Through thought, strive to leave your limited sphere, and to the measure that you ascend, the importance of the material life will diminish before your eyes, for it will show itself to you only as one incident in the infinite duration of your existence as a spirit – the only true existence.

Fenelon (Sens, 1861)