Showing How Not to Advance Is to Go Back

[' is the common opinion of the saints that in the way of God not to advance is to go back: in via Dei non progredi regredi est. This we will explain here, and it will serve us for a good motive for advancing in perfection; for who would wish to go back upon what he has begun, especially seeing that that would be going against the sentence of our Savior in the Gospel: He that putteth his hand to the plough, entering on the way of perfection, and turneth back, is not fit for the kingdom of God (Luke ix. 62). Words that should make us tremble! The blessed St. Augustine says: “We don’t go back so far as we make efforts to go forward; once we begin to stop, back we roll. Thus, if we wish not to go back, we must ever push on and endeavor to go forward”—Ubi coepimus stare, descendimus: si volumus non redire, currendum est. The same is said, almost in the same words, by St. Gregory, St. Chrysostom, Pope St. Leo, and many other saints, and they repeat it many times. St. Bernard pursues this theme at considerable length in two of his letters (254 and 341). He there addresses a lax and lazy religious who is satisfied with a common life and does not care to go further in his improvement, and argues with him in this manner: “You do not want to go forward? No. Then you want to turn back? Not that either. What, then, do you want? I want to stay as I am, neither better nor worse. Then you want what is impossible. For in this world there is nothing that can stay as it is; that is the attribute of God alone, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of vicissitude” (James i. 17). O monache, non vis proficere? Non. Vis ergo deficere? Nihil minus. Hoc ergo vis quod esse non potest; quid enim stat in hoc saeculo? All things in this world are in continual change. The heavens and all things grow old, as a garment grows old; and as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed: but thou art ever the self-same, and thy years shall not fail (Psalm ci. 27-28). And particularly is it true of man, as Job says, that he never remains in one frame of being nor in one state. He fleeth like a shadow, and never remaineth in the same state (Job xiv. 2).

“Eiven Christ,” says St. Bernard, “while he let Himself be seen on earth and conversed with men, was He at a standstill? No. St. Luke says of Him that as He went on growing in age, so He went on also growing in wisdom and grace before God and men (Luke ii. 52)”; that is, He showed in effect greater signs of wisdom and holiness. The prophet says that He prepared Himself to run this way: He exulted as a giant to run his way (Psalm xviii. 6). If, then, we wish to abide with Christ, we must go at the pace that He took, says St. John. Whoever professeth to abide in him, must walk as he walked (I John ii. 6). “But if, when Christ runs, you run not, but stand still, it is clear that you will get farther and farther away from Him, and remain far behind”—Si illo currente tu gradum sistis, non Christo appropias, sed te magis elongas (St. Bernard).

Jacob saw a ladder that reached from earth to heaven; and he saw on it angels, but none of them did he see sitting or standing still, but they either mounted up or went down: God alone was seated at the top of the ladder (Gen. xxviii. 12). This is to give us to understand, says St. Bernard, that in this life there is no intermediate way of virtue between mounting up and going down, between going forward and going backward, but by the very fact of a man’s not going forward he goes backward. As when we work at the winch, the wheel flies back as soon as we stop it; so from the same moment you desist from going forward in virtue, you must of necessity go backward. Abbot Theodore puts the same thought in these terms, recounted by Cassian: “We must apply ourselves to the study of virtue without remissness, and seriously exercise ourselves in the practice of it, lest coming once to cease from growing better, we immediately begin to grow less perfect; for our souls cannot rest long in the same state, so as to grow neither better nor worse in virtue; for we lose what we do not gain, and whosoever flags in the desire of growing better will not be out of danger of falling away.”

Still someone will say: “That is well said, and must be true, and so it will turn out, since saints say so; but all this has the appearance of talking in parables, figures, and enigmas; explain to us this parable” (Matt. xv. 15). That I will. The saints explain it at length. Cassian does so by an excellent comparison, which is also used by St. Gregory. As aman in midstream of a rushing river, if he tries to stop and does not labor to mount upstream, will run great risk of going with the current downstream, so they say it is with a man in the way of spiritual life. This way is so upstream and so difficult to our nature corrupted by sin, that if a man does not labor and force himself to go on, he will be carried away downstream by the current of his passions. Anyone steering his bark with tide and current against him, if he ceases to use his arms and row to make his way, finds himself thrown a long way back. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away (Matt. xi. 12). We need to go on continually using our arms and forcing our way against the current of our passions, otherwise we shall find ourselves decidedly deteriorated and thrown back.

St. Jerome and St. Chrysostom further declare this, along with another common doctrine of saints and theologians; and St. Thomas deals with it in speaking of the religious state (2a—2ae, q. 184, art. 5). St. Thomas says there that religious are in a state of perfection; not that they are perfect as soon as they are religious, but that they are bound to aspire and yearn after perfection; and whoever concerns himself not at all about being perfect, he says that he is a religious in pretence only, since he does not that for which he came into religion. I do not here go into the question whether a religious would sin mortally who should say: “I am satisfied with keeping the commandments of God and my essential vows; but as for those rules that do not bind under sin, I have no mind to observe them.” On this point doctors speak differently. Some say that he would sin mortally; others say that it would not be a mortal sin unless there entered into it some sort of contempt. But what is certain and what all agree in is this, that a religious with that will and purpose would be a bad religious, a scandal, and an ill example, and that, morally speaking, he would be in great danger of falling into mortal sins; for he that despiseth and maketh small account of small things, little by little will come to fall into great sins (Ecclus. xix. 1). This is quite enough for our purpose, since it is a clear case of going back.

For the better understanding of this point, St. Chrysostom alleges some homely examples. If you had a slave, he says, who was neither thief, nor gamester, nor drunkard, but faithful and temperate and clear of all vice, who sat all day in the house doing none of the things that belonged to his duty, who doubts but that he would deserve to be severely chastised, though there were nothing else bad about him, because it is bad enough not to do one’s duty. Again, if a laborer were a good man in all other respects, but simply folded his arms, and had no mind to sow or plough, or dress vines, that would be clear matter of rebuke, though he did no other harm, since we judge it bad enough for a man not to do what his duty demands. Further, in your own body, if you had a hand that did you no harm, but was idle and useless and served not the other members of the body, would you not reckon that evil enough?

In the same way in spiritual things the religious who here in religion stands idle with his arms folded, without going forward or troubling himself about perfection or making any advance in virtue, deserves a severe reprimand for not doing what is proper to his office and condition. His very not doing good is doing evil. His very not advancing is going back, since he fails in the duty of his profession. What worse thing could you look for in a piece of land than its being barren and bearing no fruit, especially if it has been well worked and cultivated! But a land like yours, cultivated with so much care, watered by so many showers of heavenly graces, warmed by such rays of the sun of justice, with all this bearing no fruit, but become an arid and sterile waste—what greater evil could you look for than such sterility! This is rendering evil for good to Him to Whom you owe so much and from Whom so many blessings have come to you.

There is another comparison often employed to the same purpose, which seems to put the matter well. As at sea there is a sort of heavy weather called “a calm,” very dangerous for navigators, since they consume the provisions they had for the voyage and then find themselves without victuals in the midst of the sea, so it happens to those who are navigating the stormy sea of this world. They are becalmed in virtue, not caring to go on any farther therein; they consume and waste what they had acquired, run through what virtue they had, and then find themselves with nothing in the midst of the many waves and tempests of temptations that arise and the occasions that offer, for which they need more provision and more store of virtue. Woe to him that gets becalmed in virtue! You were running well; who has hindered you from obeying the truth? (Gal. v. 7). You began to run well when you entered religion, and now you are stranded and becalmed in virtue. You are now full and in need of nothing (I Cor. iv. 8). You play the senior and the man worn out with toil. You are rich, and have secured a competence. Consider that you have still a long way to go (III Kings xix. 7); that many occasions will arise requiring greater humility, greater patience, greater mortification and detachment; and you may find yourself unprovided and very behindhand in the hour of your greatest need.