That lt Is a Great Aid to Perfection to Fix Our Eyes on Lofty and Exalted Things

OUR advancement in perfection will be greatly helped on by our fixing our eyes on lofty ideals that require great perfection to realize. So St. Paul advises, writing to the Corinthians: Be ye emulous of the better gifts (I Cor. xii. 31). Get yourselves ready for great things; meet and undertake things great and excellent. This is a determination of much importance, for our designs and desires must needs reach out very far if our performances are at least to come up to what is our strict duty. Where a bow or catapult is slack, then to hit the mark it is necessary to aim from three to six inches higher; otherwise, the string being loose, the missle will not go where you want, but by aiming it higher it comes to hit the mark. We are like a slack bow or catapult. We are so poorly strung that, to hit the mark, it is necessary to aim very high. Man was left by sin so miserable that to come to attain mediocrity in virtue it is necessary for his purposes and desires to travel far beyond. Someone says: “My only aim is to avoid mortal sin: I seek no further perfection.” I greatly fear that you are not likely to attain even that, for the catapult is slack. If you aimed higher, you might reach that; but not aiming higher, I fear you must come short and are in great danger of falling into mortal sin. The religious who makes it his endeavor to observe not God’s commandments alone, but His counsels also, and to keep not from mortal sins alone, but from venial sins and imperfections, takes a good way to keep clear of mortal sin, since he aims much higher than that. And when through frailty he does not reach the height he proposed, but falls somewhat short, he will fail in a matter of counsel, in some small rule, and it will be an imperfection or at most a venial sin. But the other, whose only aim is not to commit mortal sin, when he falls short of that through the looseness of his bow and catapult, will fall into some mortal sin. And that is why among people of the world we see so many fall into mortal sins, while good religious, by the goodness of God, are so free and far removed from them. This is one of the greatest blessings that we have in religion, a blessing for which we owe many thanks to God, who has brought us thereto; though there were no other blessing in religion than this, that would be enough to make us live in great consolation and contentment, and to hold it for a great mercy and benefit of the Lord that He has drawn us to such a life, since here I trust in the Lord that you will pass your whole life without falling into mortal sin; whereas, were you in the world, I dare say you would not pass a year, or even a month, or perhaps even one week, without it.

Hence also will be understood the danger of the tepid and lax religious who thinks nothing of breaking the rules and will have no thought for things of perfection, since such a one is very near a fall in some grave matter. So, then, if you wish to advance, set your eyes on acquiring a most perfect humility, going so far as to receive with cheerfulness slights and affronts; and God grant that, after all that, you may come to endure them with patience. Set your eyes on acquiring a most perfect obedience of will and understanding; and you may be thankful if you do not fail sometimes in the execution of the thing commanded and in punctuality in fulfilling the same. Try to store up resignation and indifference as if to undergo great difficulties and trials that might occur; and, please God, you may be so afterwards in the ordinary and common accidents of daily life.

This, says St. Augustine, was the counsel of God, to put at the head of His commandments the highest and most perfect of them all: Thou shalt love God with thy whole heart, with thy whole will, with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength: this is the greatest of all the commandments and the end of them all (Deut. vi. 5; Matt. xxii. 37). So great is the excellence of this commandment that theologians and saints say that its final perfection is not a thing of this life but of the next. Not to be occupied with anything else but God, and always to keep all our heart, all our will and understanding, and all our powers intent on loving Him, is the state of heavenly bliss; we cannot in this life attain so far as that, because we are forced to attend to the requirements of the body. And though this commandment is so high and involves so great perfection, nevertheless the Lord puts it in the front first of all, that we may know up to what point we are to extend our efforts and whither we should endeavor to arrive. Therefore, says St. Augustine, did God from the very beginning put before our eyes this so great and high commandment, that, having our eyes fixed on an end so high and requiring such great perfection, we should try to bare our arm and put the weight as far as ever we can. The higher we aim, the less shall we fall short.

On those words of the prophet: Blessed is the man whom thou aidest, for he shall plan in his heart increases and ascensions in virtue (Psalm lxxxiii. 6), St. Jerome says: The just and holy man ever has before his eyes the thought of ascending and going further in perfection; that is what he carries riveted in his mind, according to the saying of the Wise Man: The thoughts and purposes of the robust man shall ever be in abundance (Prov. xxi. 5). But the sinner and the imperfect man has no such thought; he contents himself with an ordinary life; at most he sets before his eyes a standard of mediocrity, and thence he comes to fall away and go down. Gerson says: This is the language of many people: “An ordinary life is enough for me; IL want only to save my soul; as for those high and excellent heights of perfection, let them be for apostles and great saints: I don’t pretend to fly so high, but to walk along a flat cart-road”—Vox multorum est: sufficit mihi vita communis; si cum illis salvari potero satis est. Nolo merita apostolorum, nolo volare per summa, incedere per planiora contentus sum. This is the language of the imperfect, who are many, since the perfect are few. Christ our Redeemer says in the Gospel: The gate and way that leadeth to perfection and life is narrow and strait, and there are few that enter thereby, but the common way of sloth is very wide, and many there are that go therein (Matt. vii. 13-14). St. Augustine says that these are they whom the prophet calls beasts of the fields (Psalm viii. 8) because they seek always to walk in the field, a wide, spacious place, and will never be confined to any rule or restraint. And Gerson says that by such language as this: “Enough for me an ordinary life; so I be but saved, it is sufficient; I aspire not to any higher perfection,” a man plainly discovers his imperfection, since he makes no effort to enter in by the narrow gate. He adds further that these people who through their sloth and tepidity fancy that it is enough for them to gain the lowest seat in heaven, have great reason to fear lest they may come to be condemned with the foolish virgins who slumbered and slept, or with the slothful servant who buried the talent he had received and was therefore deprived of the one talent he had and cast into outer darkness; and we find not in the Gospel that he was condemned for anything else but for having neglected to improve the talent his master had endowed him withal (Matt. xxv.). But to make it appear more clearly how shameful and deplorable a condition those men are in, the same Gerson uses this example. “Imagine,” he says, ‘‘a father of a family, rich and highborn, who has many children, all of them quite capable of advancing the family and winning by their industry and abilities great honor to themselves and their lineage. All apply themselves with care to do their duty except one, who, while all the rest are doing what sons of such a sire should do, alone, out of sloth and laziness, chooses to sit idle at home enjoying himself, and cares not to do anything worthy of his ability and the rank of his father to increase the fortune of the family, though, if he would, he could do as well as any of the rest.” Enough for him, he says, is a moderate competence; he has no mind for further honor or further augmentation, nor will he work for that end. The father calls upon him; begs and coaxes him to entertain higher thoughts; puts before him his ability, talents, and good parts, the nobility of his lineage, the example of his ancestors and of his brothers still living; but for all that he has no mind to leave his fireside or endeavor to be more of a man. Such a son clearly would give great annoyance to his father. In like manner, says Gerson, as we are sons of God and brothers of Jesus Christ, our heavenly Father is exhorting us and animating us to perfection: “My sons, be not content with an ordinary life.” Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. v. 48). Look at the generosity and perfection of your Father and behave as His sons whose sons you are, to show that you are sons of your Father who is in heaven (Matt. v. 45) ; look at the example of your brethren. If you will but fix your eyes on the example of your elder Brother, Jesus Christ! He it is that has honored all our race; and though it cost Him His blood and His life, He gave it as a good bargain for that exchange.

And if such an example is too dazzling for your eyes, fix them on your other brothers, men as weak as you are, born in sin as you were, full of passions and temptations and evil inclinations as you. It is for this that Mother Church puts before us the examples of the saints and celebrates their feasts. And if you wish to take examples that come nearer home, look at those of your brethren, born of the same mother, of the same religious order and Society. Fix your eyes on a Father Ignatius, on a Francis Xavier and Francis Borgia, on an Edmund Campion, and on others like them that you know. Try to imitate them; be not you a disgrace to your lineage and your order. And if with all this there is anyone not animated to do deeds of valor, but content with an ordinary and common life, is it not clear that, as far as in him lies, he will give displeasure and annoyance to God Himself, Who is our Father, and bad example to his brothers, and deserves that the heavenly Father should not own him for a son, nor his brothers know him for their brother?

Now this is what we are saying, that we should cherish high and generous thoughts and ever fix our eyes and heart on great and noble deeds, to the end that, supposing in our ‘weakness we do not attain so high, at least we may not fall so far short nor be so much behind. Let us do in this matter as men who offer wares for sale; to start with, they usually ask more than the just price, to the end that buyers may come to give them what is just; and they who make bargains are wont at the beginning to demand more than is reasonable to bring the other party to reason, according to the proverb: “Ask what is unjust, or more than is just, that they may come to give you what is just.” So it is here. I do not tell you to ask for what is uhjust, but for what is most just. Fix your eyes on what is more just, that you may come at least to what is just. Ask and desire what is more precious, that so you may attain to mediocrity; for if you fix your eyes merely on mediocrity and do not reach out to more, even that you will not attain, but will fall far below.

By this it may be seen how important it is that in our spiritual conferences and exhortations we should treat of things of great perfection, exhorting to a profound humility, even to the furthest degree thereof; to a perfect mortification of all our passions and appetites; to an entire conformity with the will of God, so that it should not remain with us to will or not will aught else but what God wills or wills not, His will being our whole content and delight. And so in other virtues someone may say: “What is the use of talking and preaching such high doctrine to weak folk; aye, sometimes to mere beginners? If you proposed to us things proportionate to our weakness, plain and easy things, possibly we might embrace them; but in speaking of these points of perfection that reach to the third heaven you seem to be not speaking to us, but to an Apostle St. Paul and the like of him.” You are mistaken; they are meant for you; it is to you we speak when we speak of these points of perfection; and the very reason that you allege for not speaking of them is our reason for speaking. You say you are weak and that I ought not to propose to you such high things. I say that it is just because you are weak that I must put these points of perfection before you, that setting your eyes on them you may come to mount reasonably high and not remain so low and limited in virtue.

For this end it is a great help to read much and hear read the lives of saints, and consider their excellent and heroic virtues; it being the intention of holy Church in proposing to us their heroic deeds, to invite us at least to get out of our sloth. And there is this other advantage in such reading, that it confounds and humbles us to consider the purity of life of these saints, and how far we come short of it. St. Gregory, on those words of Job: He will look upon men, and say: I have sinned (Job Xxxiii. 27), says that, as a poor man is much more sensible of his own poverty when he considers the vast wealth and treasures of rich men, so the soul humbles herself more deeply and better knows her indigence, when she reflects upon those great examples the saints have left us and the glorious actions they have done. St. Anthony having been to visit St. Paul, the first hermit, and seen his great sanctity, his disciples went out to meet him on his return, saying, “Where have you been, Father?” “Alas,” replied the holy man, “miserable sinner that I am, I have no right to bear the name of a religious. I have seen Elias, I have seen John the Baptist in the desert, when I beheld Paul in paradise.” We read also of the great St. Macarius that, having seen the sublime perfection of some monks whom he had visited, the blessed man wept, saying to his disciples: “I have seen monks; these are monks; I am no monk. Woe is me! I falsely bear the name of monk.” What the saints said out of their deep humility, we may say with greater truth considering their examples. Thus by humility and shame we should make up what is wanting to us, and so on all sides aid ourselves much by this means.