What I have noticed with doves is that they mourn in the same way that they rejoice, and that they sing always the same note, both in their songs of joy as in the songs in which they lament and express their complaints and sorrow. Whether they be joyous or sad, they never change their tune. Their cooing is ever the same.
It is this holy evenness of spirit which we ought to have.
I do not say evenness of humour or of inclination, but of spirit, for we ought to make no account of the fretting of the inferior part of the soul, It is the inferior part of the soul which causes disquietude and caprice when the superior part doesn’t do its duty by rendering itself supreme, and doesn’t keep a vigilant watch to discern its enemies and be aware of the tumults and assaults raised against it by the inferior part. These tumults spring from our senses and our inclinations and passions to make war upon the reason and to subject reason to their laws, I say, moreover, that we ought always to keep ourselves firm and resolute in the superior part of our soul, to follow virtue and to keep our- selves in a continual evenness amidst events favorable or adverse, in desolation as in consolation.
Holy Job provided us with an example on this subject, for he never sang except in the same key. When God mul- tiplied his property, gave him children, and sent to him at his will everything which he could desire in this life, what did Job say except, blessed be the name of the Lord> It was his canticle of love, which he sang on every occasion. For behold Job reduced to the extremity of affliction. What does he do? He sings his song of lamentation in the same notes which he chanted in his season of joy. “If we have received good things,”‘ said he, “at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil? The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” No other canticle, be the time what it may, but this, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Oh, how similar was that holy soul to the dove, which rejoices and laments always in the same note! Thus may we do; and on every occasion thus may we receive goods, evils, consolations, afflictions, from the hand of the Lord, ever singing that same sweetest canticle, “Blessed be the holy name of God,” and always in continual evenness, Never let us act like those who weep when consolation fails them, and only sing when it has returned, resembling apes and baboons which are sad and furious when the weather is gloomy and rainy, and never cease leaping and playing when the weather is fair and serene.
– Excerpt from Practical Piety, Part 3: Chapter 30
