“You ought not to feel worried, it seems to me, in regard to those diversions in which you cannot avoid taking part. I know there are those who think it necessary that one should lament about everything, and restrain himself continually by trying to excite disgust for the amusements in which he must participate. As for me, I acknowledge that I cannot reconcile myself to this severity. I prefer something more simple and I believe that God, too, likes it better. When amusements are innocent in themselves and we enter into them to conform to the customs of the state of life in which Providence has placed us, then I believe they are perfectly lawful. It is enough to keep within the bounds of moderation and to remember God’s presence. A dry, reserved manner, conduct not thoroughly ingenuous and obliging, only serve to give a false idea of piety to men of the world who are already too much prejudiced against it, believing that a spiritual life cannot be otherwise than gloomy and morose.”*
11. If all confessors agreed in instilling these maxims, which are as important as they are true, many persons who now keep themselves in absolute seclusion and live in a sadand dreary solitude would remain in society to the edification of their neighbor and the great advantage of religion. The world would thus be disabused of its unjust prejudices against a devout life and those who have embraced it.
12. Never remain idle except during the time you have allotted to rest or recreation. Idleness begets lassitude, disposes to evil speaking and gives occasion to the most dangerous temptations.
Women also in decent apparel, adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety. (St. Paul, I. Tim., c. II., v. 9.)
Women also in decent apparel, adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety. (St. Paul, I. Tim., c. II., v. 9.)
1. Clothing is worn for a threefold object: to observe the laws of propriety, to protect our bodies from the inclemency of the weather, and, finally, to adorn them, as Saint Paul says, withmodesty and sobriety. This third end is, as you see, not less legitimate than the other two, provided you are careful to make it accord with them by confining it within proper limits and not permitting it to be the only one to which you attach any importance, so that neither health nor propriety be sacrificed to personal appearance.
2. External ornamentation should correspond with each one’s condition in life. A just proportion in this matter, says Saint Thomas, is an offshoot of the virtues of uprightness and sincerity, for there is a sort of untruthfulness in appearing in garments thatare calculated to give a wrong impression as to the position in which God has placed us in this world.
3. Be equally careful, then, to avoid over-nicety and carelessness in respect to matters of toilet. Excessive nicety sins against moderation and christian simplicity; negligence, against the order that should govern certain externals in human society. This order requires that each one’s material life, and accordingly his attire which is a part of it, be suitable to his rank and condition; that Esther be clad as a queen, Judith as a woman of wealth and position, Agar as a bond-woman.
5. I shall not speak of immodest dress, for these instructions being intended for pious persons or for those who are endeavoring to become such, it would seem unnecessary. Nevertheless, as some false and pernicious ideas on this subject prevail in the world and lead into error souls desirous to do right, here are some fundamental principles that can serve you as a rule and save you from similar mistakes.
5. A generally admitted custom can and even should be followed in all indifferent matters; but no custom, however universal itmay be, can ever have the power to change the nature and essence of things or render allowable that which is in itself indecent and immodest. Were it otherwise, many sins could be justified by the sanction they receive in fashionable society. Remember, therefore, that the sin of others can never in the sight of God authorize yours, and that where it is the fashion to sin it is likewise the fashion to go to hell. Hence it rests with yourself whether you prefer to be saved with the few or to be damned with the many.
I will pay my vows to the Lord before all his people.... Lo, I will not restrain my lips.... I have not concealed thy mercy and thy truth from a great council. (PsalmsCXV.andXXXIX.)That which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops.... Whosoever shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. (St. Matthew, c. X., vv. 27-32.)
I will pay my vows to the Lord before all his people.... Lo, I will not restrain my lips.... I have not concealed thy mercy and thy truth from a great council. (PsalmsCXV.andXXXIX.)
That which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops.... Whosoever shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. (St. Matthew, c. X., vv. 27-32.)
1. Charity towards your neighbor, tolerance for his opinions, indulgence for his defects, compassion for his errors, yes; but no cowardly and guilty concessions to human respect. Never allow fear of the ridicule or contempt of men to make you blush for your faith.
2. We are not even forbidden to call one human weakness to the assistance of another that is contrary to it: men do not like to contradictthemselves, and they dread to be considered fickle. Well, then, in order that no person may be ignorant of the fact that you are a christian, once for all boldly confess your faith and your firm resolve to practise it, and let it be known that in all your actions your sole desire is to seek the glory of God and the good of your neighbor. Let this profession be made upon occasion in a gentle and modest manner, but firmly and positively; and you will find that subsequently it will be much easier for you to continue what you have thus courageously begun. (Read Chapters I. and II., IVth Part of theIntroduction to a Devout Life.)
Long-standing custom will make resistance, but by a better habit shall it be subdued. (Imitation, B. III., c. XII.)To him who shall overcome, I will grant to sit with me in my throne, as I also have overcome. (Apocalypse, c. III., v. 21.)
Long-standing custom will make resistance, but by a better habit shall it be subdued. (Imitation, B. III., c. XII.)
To him who shall overcome, I will grant to sit with me in my throne, as I also have overcome. (Apocalypse, c. III., v. 21.)
1. We should not undertake to perfect ourselves upon all points at once; resolutions as to details ought to be made and carried out one by one, directing them first against our predominant passion.
2. By a predominant passion we mean the source of that sin to which we oftenest yield and from which spring the greater number of our faults.
3. In order to attack it successfully it is essential to make use of strategy. It must be approached little by little, besieged with great caution as if it were the stronghold of anenemy, and the outposts taken one after another.
4. For example, if your ruling passion be anger, simply propose to yourself in the beginning never to speak when you feel irritated. Renew this resolution two or three times during the day and ask God’s pardon for every time you have failed against it.
5. When the results of this first resolution shall have become a habit, so that you no longer have any difficulty in keeping it, you can take a step forward. Propose, for instance, to repress promptly every thought capable of agitating you, or of arousing interior anger; afterwards you can adopt the practice of meeting without annoyance persons who are naturally repugnant to you; then of being able to treat with especial kindness those of whom you have reason to complain. Finally, you will learn to see in all things, even in those most painful to nature, the will of God offering you opportunities to acquire merit; and in those who cause you suffering, only the instruments of this same merciful providence. You will then no longer think of repulsing or bewailing them, but will bless and thank your divine Saviour for having chosenyou to bear with Him the burden of His cross, and for deigning to hold to your lips the precious chalice of His passion.
6. Some saints recommend us to make an act of hope or love or to perform some act of mortification when we discover that we have failed to keep our resolutions. This practice is good, but if you adopt it do not consider it of obligation nor bind yourself so strictly to it as to suppose you have committed a sin when you neglect it.
7. It is by this progressive method that you can at length succeed in entirely overcoming your passions, and will be able to acquire the virtues you lack. Always begin with what is easiest. Choose at first external acts over which the will has greater control, and in time you can advance from these, little by little, to the most interior and difficult details of the spiritual life.
8. Resolutions of too general a character, such as, for example, to be always moderate in speech, always patient, chaste, peaceable and the like, ordinarily do not amount to much and sometimes to nothing at all.
9. To undertake little at a time, and to pursue this little with perseverance until one hasby degrees brought it to perfection, is a common rule of human prudence. The saints particularly recommend us to apply it to the subject of our resolutions.
But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and which have been committed to thee; knowing of whom thou hast learned them. (St. Paul, II Tim., c. III., v. 14.)
But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and which have been committed to thee; knowing of whom thou hast learned them. (St. Paul, II Tim., c. III., v. 14.)
1. The writer of these instructions makes no pretension to have derived them from his own wisdom. The material was furnished him by the greatest saints and the most eminent doctors of the Church. You can therefore believe in them with great confidence, follow them without fear and adopt them as a safe and reliable guide in your spiritual life.
2. If you try to regulate your practice by making personal and indiscriminate application of everything you find in sermons and books you will never be at rest.One draws you to the right, the other to the left, says Saint Francis de Sales: doctrine is one, but its applications are many, and they varyaccording to time, place and person. Besides, those who speak to a hardened multitude, from whom they cannot get even a little without exacting a great deal, insist vehemently upon the subject with which they wish to impress their hearers and for the time being appear to forget everything else. If they preach on mortification of the senses, fasting, or any other penitential work, they fail to explain the proper manner of practising it, the limits that should not usually be exceeded and the circumstances under which we can and should refrain from it. This is due to the fact that the cowardly and the lukewarm, whom it is more necessary to excite than to restrain, will take from these instructions only just what is suitable for them. Now as these form the majority, it is for them above all that it is necessary to speak.
3. It would then be better for you individually, without lessening your respect and esteem for books of devotion and for preachers animated by the spirit of God, to confine yourself as far as practice is concerned to the advice of your director and to the teachings of the saints as presented in this little volume.
4. Recall what has been already said, thatSaint Francis de Sales counsels you to select your spiritual guide from among ten thousand, and to allow yourself subsequently to be entirely directed by him as though he were an angel come down from heaven to conduct you there.
5. Without this rule of firm and confident obedience, books and sermons and all that is said and written for the multitude, will become for you a source of fatiguing inquietude, and of doubts and fears, owing to the fact that you will try to assimilate things which were not intended for you.
6. Remember, moreover, the pleasant saying of Saint Philip de Neri,—namely, that he had a special predilection for those books the authors of which had a name beginning with the letter S.; that is to say, the works of the saints, because he supposed them to be more illumined by heavenly wisdom.
Now, in observing these instructions you will have for guide and director not the poor sinner who has compiled them for the glory of God and the good of souls, but Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas, Saint Philip de Neri and especially Saint Francis de Sales, in whom the Church recognizes and admiressuch exalted sanctity, profound wisdom, and rare experience in the direction of souls. These are the three eminent qualities requisite to constitute a great doctor in the Catholic Church, and to form the safest and the most enlightened guide for those who wish to be his disciples.
A cause of frequent error and trouble, particularly in regard to Holy Communion, is that feelings are confused with acts of the will. The faculty of willing is the only one we possess as our own, the only one we can use freely and at all times. Hence it follows that it is by the will alone that we can in reality acquire merit or commit sin. The natural virtues are gratuitous gifts of God. The world is right in esteeming them for they come from Him, but it errs when it esteems them exclusively for they do not of themselves give us any title to heaven. God has placed them at the disposal of our will as means to an end, and we can make a good or bad use of them just as we can of all God’s other gifts. We may be deprived of these natural virtues and live by the will alone, spiritually dry and devoid of sentiment, and yet in a state of intimate union with God.
This explanation is intended to reassure such persons as are disposed to feel anxious when they find nothing in their hearts to correspond with the effusions of sensible love with which books of devotion abound in the preparation for Holy Communion. These usually make the mistake of taking for granted the invariable existence of sentiment, and of addressing it exclusively. How many souls do we not see who in consequence grow alarmed about their condition, believing they are devoid of grace notwithstanding their firm will to shun sin and to please God! They should, however, not give way to anxiety, nor exhaust themselves by vain efforts to excite in their hearts a sensibility that God has not given them. When He has granted us this gift we owe Him homage for it as for all others; but God only requires that each of His creatures should render an account of what he has received, and free-will is the one thing that has been accorded indiscriminately to all men. Thus we find Saint Francis de Sales, who possessed in such a high degree sensible love of God and all the natural virtues, making this positive declaration: “The greatest proof we can have in this life that we are in thegrace of God, is not sensible love of Him, but the firm resolution never to consent to any sin great or small.”
Pious persons can make use of the following prayers with profit when they are habitually or accidentally in the condition described above. They will then see how the will alone, without the aid of feeling, can produce acts of all the christian virtues.
I will go unto the altar of God. (Ps. XLII.)
I will go unto the altar of God. (Ps. XLII.)
It is obedience, O my God! that leads me to Thy Holy Table: the tender words by which Thou hast invited us would not have sufficed to draw me, for in the troubled state of my soul I cannot be sure they are addressed to me. Misery and infirmity are claims for admission to Thy Feast, but nothing can dispense from the nuptial garment. Therefore when I turn my eyes on myself, after having raised them to Thee, I doubt, I hesitate, I tremble; for if I go from Thee I flee from life, and if I approach unworthily, to my other sins I add the crime of sacrilege.[27]But Thy mercifulwisdom, O my God, whilst foreseeing our every need, has foreseen all our weaknesses and has prepared helps for us against both presumption and distrust. For if Thou hast not willed that, certain of Thy grace, we should ever advance with the assurance of the Pharisee and say like him: I come to the altar of the Lord because I know I am just in His eyes: neither hast Thou permitted that a sacrament of love should become for us a torture and an unavoidable snare. I therefore obey, O my God, and in the darkness that envelops me I wish to follow implicitly the guidance of him whom Thou hast appointed to lead me to Thee. I shall approach the Holy Table without wishing for any other warrant than the words spoken by my confessor, or rather by Thee:You may receive Holy Communion. I accept, O my God!—be it a well merited punishment or a salutary trial,—this privation of light and sensible devotion, this coldness and distraction, which accompany me even into Thy presence when all the faculties of my soul should be absorbed and confounded in sentiments of adoration and of love. Faith, hope and charity seem to be extinct in my heart, but I know thatThou never withdrawest these virtues when we do not voluntarily renounce them.
Notwithstanding, then, the doubts that cross my mind,I wish to believe, O my God! andI do believeall that Thy holy Church has taught me. I have not forgotten that brilliant light of Faith which Thou didst cause to illumine my soul in the days of mercy in order that the precious remembrance of it should serve me as support in the days of trial and temptation.
In spite of these vague fears that seem to extinguish hope within my soul, I know that although Thou art the mighty and strong God before whom the cherubim veil themselves with their wings, the just and all-seeing God who discovers blemishes in the purest souls, still Thou wishest to be in the most Holy Sacrament only the Victim whose Blood effaces the sins of the world; the Good Shepherd who hastens after the strayed sheep and carries it tenderly and unreproachfully back to the fold; the divine Mediator who comesnot to judge but to save.[28]All this I know, O my God! and thereforeI hope.
Notwithstanding the coldness and insensibility that benumb my soul, I know thatI love Thee, O my God! since my will prefers Thy service to all the joys of this world, since Thy grace is the sole good to which I aspire, and because I suffer so much by reason of my lack of sensible love for Thee.
No, I am not indifferent, Thou knowest, O my God! that I am not indifferent to this Most Holy Sacrament which I approach unmoved by any sensible feeling: for Thou seest that although I find in Holy Communion neither relish nor consolation, I would yet make any sacrifice in order to receive it.
I feel neither hatred nor horror of sins to which the world does not attach shame and contempt; I experience no sensible sorrow for the sins I have committed, but I know, O myGod! that, with the assistance of Thy grace, my will denounces them, for I am resolved to commit them no more. I have taken this resolution because sin displeases Thee and because all that swerves from eternal order is abhorrent to Thy infinite sanctity.I believe, then, that I am contrite, O my God! because I believe in Thy promises, and if Thou dost not always grant us the consolation of realizing our contrition, Thou wilt never refuse its justifying virtue to those who humbly implore it; and this I do.
No, my God, I shall not pray Thee to grant me sensible enjoyment, not even that of Thy spiritual gifts: what I implore of Thy grace is to keep my will ever turned towards Thee and never to permit it to fall or wander anew on the earth.
Lord! into Thy hands I commend my spirit.
(ReadThe Imitation, Chapters IV., XIV., XV. of B. IV.; and Chapters XXV., XLVIII and LII of B. III.)
If you have an ardent desire for the sensible love of God, a desire that cannot but be pleasing to Him provided you are at the same timeresigned to be deprived of it, remember that according to Saint John Chrysostom it can be obtained only by fidelity to prayer. God wishes, says the Saint, to make us realize by experience that we cannot have His love but from Himself, and that this love, which is the true happiness of our souls, is not to be acquired by the reflections of our minds or the natural efforts of our hearts, but by the gratuitous infusion of the Holy Ghost. Yes, this love is so great a good that God wishes to be the sole dispenser of it: He bestows it only in proportion as we ask it of Him, and ordinarily makes us wait for some time before He grants it.
There are few prayers better calculated to dispose the soul to receive this great grace than the XVI. and XVII. chapters of the IVth. Book, and XXI. and XXXIV. of the IIId. Book ofThe Imitation.
For thanksgiving after Communion, read Chapters XXXIV., V., XXI., II. and X. of the III. Book ofThe Imitation.
[1]Saint Paul,I. Cor. x., 13, says: ... God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able: but will even make with temptation an issue, that you may be able to bear it.[2]The Chevalier du Chambon de Mésilliac, who translated this little work of P. Quadrupani’s into French, inserted much additional matter, quotations for the most part from the same authorities frequently cited by the Italian author. These selections he placed at the end of eachInstructionunder the title of “Additions.” The English translator has changed this arrangement into one which seems more convenient and better calculated to maintain the connection of ideas. Therefore the extracts chosen by the French translator are here inserted in the body of the text, immediately following the paragraphs which suggested them, and are marked by asterisks to distinguish them from the original matter.[3]St. Francis de Sales.[4]Proverbs, XXX, 21-23: “By three things is the earth disturbed ... by a bondwoman, when she is heir to her mistress....”[5]II. Cor., xii., 9.[6]John, vi, 57.[7]Matt. xi., 28.[8]Saint Luke, c. V. vv. 8-10.[9]Luke V., 32.Mark II., 17.Matthew IX., 13.[10]Epist. St. Paul to the Hebrews.[11]St. Paul to the Philippians, IV., 13.[12]Matt. X., 30.[13]Matt. X., 30:—Luke XII., 7.—“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”[14]III Kings, C. XIX.[15]Ecce in pace est amaritudo mea amarissima. (Isaias.)[16]Saint Francis de Sales.[17]See P. Rodriguez, S. J., Christian Perfection, C. I.[18]Gen. I., 11.[19]Psalm CL., 5.Let every spirit praise the Lord.[20]Luke, IX., 54.[21]Ecclesiastes III., 7.[22]Ps. CL., 5.[23]St. Paul, I Cor. I., 13.[24]S. James, Cath. Ep. III., 14-15.[25]S. Paul, I Cor. XIII., 4-5.[26]Proverbs, XXVI., 5.[27]Imitation, B. IV., c. VI.: “For if I do not appeal to Thee, I fly from life; and if I intrude myself unworthily I incur Thy displeasure.”[28]S. John, c. XII., v. 47: “For I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”
[1]Saint Paul,I. Cor. x., 13, says: ... God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able: but will even make with temptation an issue, that you may be able to bear it.
[2]The Chevalier du Chambon de Mésilliac, who translated this little work of P. Quadrupani’s into French, inserted much additional matter, quotations for the most part from the same authorities frequently cited by the Italian author. These selections he placed at the end of eachInstructionunder the title of “Additions.” The English translator has changed this arrangement into one which seems more convenient and better calculated to maintain the connection of ideas. Therefore the extracts chosen by the French translator are here inserted in the body of the text, immediately following the paragraphs which suggested them, and are marked by asterisks to distinguish them from the original matter.
[3]St. Francis de Sales.
[4]Proverbs, XXX, 21-23: “By three things is the earth disturbed ... by a bondwoman, when she is heir to her mistress....”
[5]II. Cor., xii., 9.
[6]John, vi, 57.
[7]Matt. xi., 28.
[8]Saint Luke, c. V. vv. 8-10.
[9]Luke V., 32.Mark II., 17.Matthew IX., 13.
[10]Epist. St. Paul to the Hebrews.
[11]St. Paul to the Philippians, IV., 13.
[12]Matt. X., 30.
[13]Matt. X., 30:—Luke XII., 7.—“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
[14]III Kings, C. XIX.
[15]Ecce in pace est amaritudo mea amarissima. (Isaias.)
[16]Saint Francis de Sales.
[17]See P. Rodriguez, S. J., Christian Perfection, C. I.
[18]Gen. I., 11.
[19]Psalm CL., 5.Let every spirit praise the Lord.
[20]Luke, IX., 54.
[21]Ecclesiastes III., 7.
[22]Ps. CL., 5.
[23]St. Paul, I Cor. I., 13.
[24]S. James, Cath. Ep. III., 14-15.
[25]S. Paul, I Cor. XIII., 4-5.
[26]Proverbs, XXVI., 5.
[27]Imitation, B. IV., c. VI.: “For if I do not appeal to Thee, I fly from life; and if I intrude myself unworthily I incur Thy displeasure.”
[28]S. John, c. XII., v. 47: “For I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”