Of How Great Importance It Is for a Religious Not to Slow Down in the Way of Virtue

B* all that we have said it is easy to comprehend of how great consequence it is for a religious to keep up his devotion and always to go on with fervor in the exercises of religion and never let himself fall into tepidity and weakness, for afterwards it will be very hard for him to get out of it. God certainly can make you return afterwards to a life of fervor and perfection, but it will be a miracle and a prodigy. St. Bernard perfectly well treats this point, writing to Richard, Abbot of Fountains, and his religious, in whom God had wrought this wonder, that, whereas hitherto they had led a tepid and loose kind of life, God had now changed and brought them to great fervor and perfection; whereat the saint marvels much and sends his congratulations: “The finger of God is here. Who will grant me to come over and see this marvel? For a marvel it is, no less than that which Moses (Exod. iii. 2) beheld of the bush that burned and was not consumed. It is a most rare and very extraordinary thing for anyone to advance and raise himself afterwards beyond the level to which he has once settled down in religion. It will be easier to find many seculars converted from a bad to a good life than to meet even one religious passing from a tepid and lax life to a fervent and perfect one.” Rarissima avis in terra est qui de gradu quem forte in religione semel attigerit vel parum ascendat. And the reason of this is that persons in the world have not the remedies that their souls need so constantly at hand as religious have; and so, when they hear a good sermon or see a neighbor and friend carried off by a sudden and unhappy death, the novelty of the thing causes in them alarm and astonishment and moves them to amend and change their lives. But the religious who has these remedies so constantly at hand, such frequentation of sacraments, so many spiritual exhortations, such exercise in meditating the things of God and dealing with death, judgment, hell, and heaven, and for all that is tepid and slack—what hope can there be of his changing his life? His ears are inured to it, and so these considerations cannot aid or move him; and what moves others does not move him nor make any impression on him.

This is also the reason of that celebrated pronouncement of St. Augustine: ‘Since I have begun to serve God, as I have not known any better men than those who had done well in religion, so I have not known worse than those who have fallen from it”’—Hx quo Deo servire coepi, quomodo difficile sum expertus meliores quam qui in monasterio profecerunt, ita non sum expertus peiores quam qui in monastertis ceciderunt. St. Bernard says that very few of those who have fallen and failed in religion return to the state and degree that they held before, but rather go on getting worse. Over such, he says, the Prophet Jeremy weeps: How has the purest gold lost its luster, how has that color so brilliant faded, how has that former beauty changed? They who were reared in purple and laid on costly couches, they who were regaled with divine delights in prayer, and all their discourse and conversation was in heaven, have come to embrace dung and revel in mud and filth (Lam. iv. 1-5).

Thus, ordinarily speaking, there is little hope of those who begin to go backward and take a turn for the worse in religion—a thing that ought to strike great fear into us. And the reason is that which we have mentioned, since they fall sick under the very medicines and remedies under which they ought to improve and get well. But if that which improves and cures others only makes them sick and worse than they were, what hope can there be of doing them any good? When you find a sick man on whom medicines have no effect, but rather he feels worse for them, you may well take him for one undone. That is why we take so much account of sin and a fall in religious and fear it so much, while we do not give so much thought to it in people of the world. When a physician sees a fainting-fit or a great feebleness of pulse in a sickly and weak subject, he is not much concerned; but when he sees it in a robust and very healthy man, he takes it for a very bad symptom, because such a mischance cannot happen in that case without the predominance of some malignant humor, prognosticating death or serious illness. So it is here: if a secular falls into sins, they are not mischances very inconsistent with the careless life of one who goes to confession once or twice a year and lives in midst of so many occasions of sin; but in a religious, sustained by such frequentation of sacraments, so much prayer, so many pious exercises, when he comes to fall, it is a symptom of a great decay of virtue and a deep-seated infirmity, and there is reason to fear.

But I do not say this, says St. Bernard, to drive you into discouragement, especially if you seek to rise immediately; for the more you put it off, the harder it will become. I say this that ye may not sin, nor fall nor grow weak, but if anyone hath fallen, we have a good advocate in Jesus Christ (I John ii. 1), Who can do what we cannot do. Therefore let none be discouraged, since if he heartily returns to God, without doubt he will obtain mercy. If the Apostle St. Peter, having attended the school of Christ for so long a time, and been so much favored by Him, fell so grievously, and after so grievous a fall as that of having denied his Master and Lord returned to so lofty and eminent estate, who will be discouraged? ‘You have sinned in the world,” says St. Bernard; “was it more than St. Paul? You have sinned here in religion; was it more than St. Peter?” But they, since they repented and did penance, not only gained pardon, but very high sanctity and perfection. Do you the like, and you will be able to return not only to your former state, but to much greater perfection.