That It Is a Great Aid to the Attainment of Perfection to Forget Any Good Done in the Past, and Fix Our Eye on What Remains Still to be Done

LET him that is just aim at becoming more just, and him that is holy at becoming more holy (Apoc. xxii. 11). St. Jerome and St. Bede upon these words: Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill (Matt. v. 6), say that Christ our Redeemer “clearly teaches us in these words never to think that what we have attained is sufficient, but every day to aim at becoming better’—nunquam nos satis iustos aestimare debere, sed quotidianum iustitiae semper amare profectum. That is what the glorious Evangelist St. John says in the words above quoted. The Apostle St. Paul, writing to the Philippians, gives a very suitable means thereto, which he says he made use of himself. Brethren, I do not take myself to be perfect. Who shall take himself to be perfect, if the Apostle says that he does not hold himself for such? But I try to make haste to gain perfection. And what do you do for that? Do you know what? I forget the past, and put before me what has still to be done; and to this I animate myself and aim at securing it (Phil. iii. 13). All the saints greatly commend this means, and no wonder, since it was given and practised by the Apostle. St. Jerome says: “Whoever wishes to be a saint, let him forget all the past good that he has done in the past, and rouse himself to secure what is still undone. Blessed is he who every day advances in virtue and perfection. And who is he? Do you know who? He who regards not what he did yesterday, but what it will be well to do today in order to make progress.” Felix ergo est qui quotidie proficit, qui non considerat quid heri fecerit, sed quid hodie faciat ut proficiat.

St. Gregory and St. Bernard declare this more in detail. This practice has two principal parts. The first is to forget the good we have done hitherto and never set our eyes on it. It is necessary to give this warning in particular, because it is natural to turn our eyes readily on what pleases us and withdraw them from what may give us trouble. And because the sight of the progress we have made and the good that we think we have done pleases us, and the sight of our spiritual poverty and the amount that is still wanting to us saddens us, therefore our eyes rather turn to look at the good that we have done than at what remains undone. St. Gregory says: As the sick man seeks the softest part of his bed, and the freshest and most agreeable, to rest there, such is the infirmity of man and our frailty and imperfection that we find more joy and delight in looking at and thinking of the good that we have done than of that which remains for us still tomake up. And St. Bernard further says: Understand that there are dangers here, for if you set yourself to look at the good you have done, what will come of that is that you will get proud, thinking that you are something; thence you will come at once to compare yourself with others and prefer yourself to them and even make light of them and much of yourself. Otherwise look at that Pharisee in the Gospel, what end came to him in this way. He set his eyes on the good that there was in him and applied his mind to reckoning up his virtues. I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not as other men, robbers, unjust, adulterers, nor as that publican there: I fast twice a week, I pay punctually my tithes and firstfruits. Amen, I say unto you, says Christ our Redeemer, that that publican, to whom he preferred himself, went away just, and he who took himself for just went out condemned as wicked and unjust (Luke xviii. 11-14). This is what the devil aims at in setting before you the good that you fancy you have done. His aim is that you should take yourself for somebody and become proud, and should despise others and make light of them, that so you may come to be condemned for a proud and bad man.

There is yet another danger, as St. Bernard says, in fixing your eyes on the good you have done and the labors you have undergone; it is that it will serve to make you careless of further progress, lukewarm and slack when there is question of going on, thinking that you have done enough work in religion and that you may now take your ease. Travelers, when they begin to grow weary of the road, turn their eyes back to see how much of it they have already gone; so when we are weary and lukewarmness is stealing over us, we begin to look at the work we have left behind; this makes us content with that, and apt more readily to settle down in our sloth.

To avoid these disadvantages and dangers it is highly expedient never to look at the good that we have done, but on the good we have still left undone: the sight of the former is an invitation to repose; the sight of the latter, an incitement to work. This is the second part of this prescription which the Apostle gives us, always to keep our eyes on what is wanting to our performances, thereby to animate and compel ourselves to make it up; this the saints declare by sundry examples and homely comparisons. St. Gregory says: As the debtor who is a thousand ducats in another man’s debt does not rest or fold his arms upon having paid two hundred or four hundred, but keeps his eye ever fixed upon what still remains to pay—that it is that troubles him, and he is always in some solicitude until he has paid the whole debt—so we should not look at the good we have done hitherto, whereby we have paid part of the debt that we owe to God, but at the amount which remains to us to pay: this it is that should give us anxiety; this is the thorn that we should ever keep fixed in our heart. St. Gregory further says: As pilgrims and good travelers do not consider how far they have gone but how far they have yet got to go, and keep that before their eyes until they have finished their journey, so we, since we are travelers and wayfarers on the road to our heavenly country, should not look at the road we have gone over, but at the road that remains for us to go. Mark, he says, how for men on a journey, bound for a certain place, it avails little to have gone far if they do not complete the bit still to be gone. Mark again how the prize in a race, which is destined for the best runner, is not taken by him who runs a great part of the way nimbly and flags at the end. So run that ye may attain, says the Apostle (I Cor. ix. 24). Take care to run in such a way as to attain and compass what you are aiming at. Take no account of the run you have made up to this, but keep your eyes steadily on the goal of your journey, which is perfection, and see how much you come short of it, and so you will get along well. ‘He never ceases running,’ says St. Chrysostom, “who reflects that he has not reached the goal.”

St. Bernard says that we should be like the merchants and traders of the world. You will see a merchant, a business man, taking such care and pains daily to increase his property as to reckon nothing of what he has gained and acquired hitherto nor of the labors that it has cost him; all his care and solicitude is for fresh gains and a daily increase more and more, as though hitherto he had done nothing and gained nothing; in this manner, he says, we should behave. All our care should be how daily to increase our store, how daily to make profit in humility, charity, mortification, and all other virtues, taking no account of how we have labored and what we have acquired hitherto. So says Christ our Redeemer that the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant, and He bids us do business: Traffic till I come (Luke xix. 13).

And to carry on further this comparison of a merchant, since the holy Gospel puts it before us, see how merchants and men of business in the world are so careful and solicitous as never to lose a point or miss an opportunity of increasing their store; and do you the like. Never lose a point nor let pass an opportunity of making progress without seizing it: “Let us all constantly endeavor to let slip no point of perfection that by God’s grace we can attain,” is the direction of our Father. Let slip no occasion of contriving to make some spiritual gain—from the biting little word that someone has said to you, from the command of obedience given against your will, from the occasion of humility that offers. All these are your gains, and you should go to seek and gather in these occasions; and on the day that the greatest number come in your way you should go to bed happier than usual, with the greatest satisfaction and cheerfulness, as does the merchant on the day that most occasions of gain present themselves, seeing that on that day his business has gone well. So also on that day your business as a religious has gone well if you have known how to profit by your opportunities. And as the merchant does not consider whether another man loses, nor is concerned about that, but the one thing he takes account of is his own profit, and in that he rejoices, so you should not look whether your neighbor does well or ill in giving you this occasion, nor whether he is right or not, nor be indignant against him, but rejoice in your own gain. How far should we be from worrying ourselves and losing our peace of mind when the like occasions offer if we proceeded in this way! If what might sadden us and disturb our peace is the very thing that we desire and go in search of, what will be able to trouble or upset us?

Consider again how the merchant is so absorbed in his profits that he seems never to think of anything else. In all cases and happenings that occur, his eyes and his heart at once turn to see how he can make some profit therefrom. When he is eating, he is thinking of this; and with this thought and care he goes to bed; with this he awakes at night, and rises in the morning, and goes thinking of it all day long. Now in this way we ought to proceed in the business of our souls; in all cases and happenings that occur, our eyes and heart should at once turn. to see how we can make some spiritual profit thereof. This should be our thought when we sit at table; with this thought and care we should rise in the morning and go about all day long, and all our life long. For this is our business and our treasure, and there is nothing else for us to seek. St. Bonaventure adds that, as the merchant does not find all that he desires and needs in one market or fair, but in several, so the religious must seek to draw spiritual profit not only from prayer and spiritual consolation, but also from temptations, mean and lowly occupations, and from every occasion that offers.

Oh, if we sought and strove after virtue in this fashion, how soon should we find ourselves rich! If thou seekest, says the Wise Man, after virtue and perfection, which is true wisdom, with the care and diligence wherewith men of the world seek after money and dig for mines and treasures, without doubt thou wilt light upon it (Prov. ii. 4). And the Lord does not ask much of us in this, says St. Bernard, since to gain true wisdom and the true treasure, which is God Himself, He does not ask of us more care and diligence than men of the world employ in gaining perishable riches, which are liable to maggots and robbers, and tomorrow must come to an end; whereas the craving and desire of spiritual goods, and solicitude to attain them, ought to be greater in proportion as those goods are greater and more precious than the temporal. Hence St. Bernard’s lamentation: “It is a great confusion and shame to us to see how much more diligent and careful worldly people are about worldly things, and even about their vices and sins, than we are about virtue; and with how much more promptitude and alacrity they run to their death than we to our life.”

It is set down in ecclesiastical history that the Abbot Pambo, going one day to Alexandria and meeting with a worldly woman who was very finely dressed, began to weep bitterly, crying out several times: ‘Alas! What a miserable man am I!” And his disciples having asked him why he sighed and wept so bitterly, he answered: ‘‘Would you not have me weep to see this miserable woman taking more care and diligence to please men than I do to please God; and to see her at greater pains to lay snares for men, to drag them into hell, than I use endeavors to gain them for heaven?” Also, that apostolic man, Father Francis Xavier, was ashamed and extremely troubled to see that merchants had got before him into Japan, and that they had been more diligent to sail thither to sell their merchandise than he had been to carry thither the treasure of the Gospel, propagate the faith, and increase the kingdom of God. Let us conceive the same thoughts and be filled with a holy confusion to see that the children of this world are wiser and more careful in the concerns of this life than we are in our concerns for heaven (Luke xvi. 8). Let this be enough to draw us out of our tepidity and sloth.