That the Business of Our Spiritual Advancement Is Not To Be Taken in General, but in Particular; and of How Great Importance It Is to Put Into Execution Those Good Purposes Wherewith God Inspires Us

IT will also be a great help towards our improvement—and it is a means commonly given by the masters of spiritual life—that we should not take this business of our improvement in general and in common, but in particular and little by little. Cassian says that the Abbot Moses one day in a spiritual conference asked his monks what it was that they aimed at by all their labors, abstinences, vigils, prayers, and mortification. They answered: ‘The kingdom of heaven.” He said: That is the last end, but I ask now, what is the immediate and particular end you are aiming at whereby to arrive at your last end? Take the case of the laborer: his end is to gather much food and have wherewithal to spend his life in abundance; but all his care and diligence he expends in working at and cultivating the earth and clearing it of weeds, for that is the necessary means to the other end. And the merchant, though his end is to grow rich, applies all his thoughts to consider what businesses and what method of doing business will be most to the purpose for gaining this end, and there he applies all his industry and diligence. So the religious should act. It is not enough to say in general: “I intend to save my soul;” “I will be a good religious;” “I desire to be perfect;” but he must fix his eyes in particular on the passion or vice that stands most in his way and the virtue that is most wanting to him; and he must labor to gain that. In this way, advancing little by little and proceeding with care and diligence, now upon one thing, now upon another, he will come better to attain to what he aims at.

This is the means that another Father of the Desert proposed to that monk who, after being long very diligent and fervent, grew to be negligent in his spiritual exercises and generally very tepid. Desiring to recover his former state and finding the road closed and apparently very difficult, he did not know where to begin. The other consoled and animated him by this parable or example of a man who sent his son to clear the estate, which was full of thorns and weeds. The son, seeing the amount there was to do, lost heart and fell asleep and did nothing that day and the next. The father said to him: “You should not, boy, look at or take all the labor before you in a lump, but every day do a little, just enough to take in the body of a man.” He did so, and in a short time cleared the whole estate.

Here it should be observed that one of the chief reasons why we get on slowly, and the Lord does not do us more favors, is that we do not put in execution the good purposes and desires which He gives us; and so because we do not give a good account of what He gives us, He does not bestow on us further gifts. A schoolmaster will not let a child go on to a higher style of letters or better copy until he has formed and copied well what has been given him; so the Lord is wont to deal with us in raising us to perfection. He is slower to give us greater things, the slower we are to put to good use what He has given us. And the more a man sets to work to realize and put in execution the desires that the Lord gives him in prayer, the more is God moved to grant him greater things.

Father Master Avila well says: “Whoever makes a good use of what he knows, will gain light to see what he does not know.” Any other man cannot have the face to ask for that, since it may be well replied to him: ‘Why do you seek to know My will and good pleasure when what you know you do not carry out?” If you do not put into act the desires which the Lord gives you, how can you wish that He should give you greater things? With what face can you ask God in prayer to grant you this or that which you desire and find needful if you have no mind to amend or mortify yourself in point of a fault where you have great need of amendment, and God has given you many desires and inspirations about it? I do not know how you can raise up your eyes to beg of God other greater things, you who have no purpose of amendment even in the matter of an exterior fault that you have, but let yourself deliberately fall into it again and again. If, then, we wish to make progress in spirit, and that the Lord should do us great favors, let us be diligent in putting into execution the inspirations and desires which the Lord gives us.

It is the common doctrine of the saints that he who makes a good use of the benefits he has received renders himself worthy of fresh benefits; and, contrariwise, he who makes a bad use of them does not deserve to receive more. The Wise Man in Wisdom (xvi.) propounds this question: What is the reason why the manna melted away at the first ray of the sun and was of no further use; while if they put it in the fire it did not liquify, nor did the fire do it any harm, the heat of the fire being stronger than that of the sun? The same Wise Man answers at the end of the same chapter: That it might be known to all that we must be beforehand with the sun to bless thee (Wisdom xvi. 28)— that all might understand that it behooves us to be diligent in making our profit of the benefits that the Lord gives us and the blessings that we receive at His hand; and in punishment of the ingratitude and laziness that would not get up in the morning before sunrise to profit by the boon that the Lord had vouchsafed, God permitted the sun to spoil the provisions for the day. This is also what Christ our Redeemer marvelously declares in the holy Gospel (Luke xix.) in that parable of the nobleman who divided his substance among his servants that they might traffic therewith. When, after having taken possession of his kingdom, he asked them for an account, he made them governors or commandants of so many cities in proportion to the number of talents which each one had gained; him who had gained ten talents, he made governor of ten cities, and him who had gained five, of five—giving us to understand that as this king rewarded the industry and fidelity of his servants with such a step upwards as there is from ten talents to ten cities, so also if we put into execution the inspirations of God and are loyal and faithful in corresponding with them, very great also will be the abundant liberality wherewith the Lord will augment His divine gifts; and, contrariwise, if we do not correspond as we ought, not only will He deprive us of what He has given us, but we shall be further chastised, as was that servant who had not profited nor gained anything with the talent that he had received.

It is related of that most famous painter, Apelles, that, however numerous his occupations, he never passed a day on which he did not practise his art and paint something; and, stealing the time from other occupations that offered, he would say: “Today I have not drawn a line”—Hodie lineam nullam dust. From that it became a proverb for any office when the day was let slip without practising or doing anything at it. That is how he came to be such a perfect and consummate painter. If, then, you desire to be a perfect and consummate religious, let no day pass on which you do not draw some line and make some mark in virtue. Go on overcoming and mortifying yourself every day in something; go on banishing every day some fault from the actions that you do, for in this way they will become daily better and more perfect. And when you come to the midday examen, see whether you have passed that half day without having drawn any line or marked any point in virtue, and say: “Today I have not drawn a line; oh, dear, today I have made no step forward in virtue, nor mortified myself in anything, nor made so much as one act of humility when I found occasions for it. I have spent this day to no purpose. It must not be so this evening; it must not be so tomorrow morning.” In this way, little by little, we shall come to advance much.