examination of the heart 166 your hard heart and stubborn54 will; and so some dry up, and the infernal birds, that is, the evil spirits, carry some of them off. You become a rock whenever you resist the divine ordinance, whenever you show yourself to be like an inaccessible and barren cliff, whenever you display with a certain wicked obstinacy your hardened feelings and views, not allowing anyone else to change them for the better, nor yourself to think of improvement or greater perfection. Woe to you, the wretched one, if neither the hammer of God’s grace [f.26v] nor divine omnipotence will soften you, and if the Blood of Jesus Christ, whom you approach, will not shatter the harder-than-diamond rock of your heart! Naturally, a good farmer will not tolerate hard, useless stones in his field, but will throw them out. Watch out and beware of becoming hardened, lest you be thrown outside the Kingdom of God. After Holy Communion 1. “and the thorns grew with it and choked it” (Lk 8:7). Having received the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, think about how many seeds of virtue are planted in the soil of your heart, like the grains of the graces that God, the generous giver of graces, brought to you along with the gift of Himself. Therefore, take care lest the thorn bushes of fresh faults and offenses, the thistles of evil feelings and shameful desires grow upon the beautifully cleaned out, cultivated, and well-planted soil of your heart, and choke the excellent seedlings. But alas, what a problem is your negligence! Scarcely had you accepted the new seeds, and no sooner had the heavenly Farmer walked away from your field, when so many and such great thorn bushes already began to sprout there; for you immediately turned your thoughts to various preoccupations, and totally and will54 The word in Latin is caucasea, which comes from the Caucasus —mountains between the Black and Caspian Seas, and here it means rocky, very stubborn or hardened, as this word is used by Seneca (Med. v. 43). Cf. SLL, vol. 1, p. 127 (s.v. Caucasus): “Caucasummente induere ... est supra modum indurare animum, et ad scelerata quaeque obdurare.”
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