How Important It Is for Novices to Make Progress during the Time of Their Novitiate, and Accustom Themselves to Do the Exercises of Religion Well

THIS instruction for novices may also serve all those who are entering on the way of virtue. The first rule of the master of novices in our Society says the thing well in a few words, which are addressed not to us only, but to all religious. “Let the master of novices understand well that he has given over to his charge a thing of the highest importance.” And the rule gives two very solid reasons to make the master of novices open his eyes and understand the weightiness and importance of his charge. The first is that on this first training and formation of the novices there usually depends all their future progress. The second is that all the hope of the Society pivots on this, and on this depends the well-being of the order. Coming down to explain these things more in particular, I say first that on this first training given and the attitude taken up by each novice in his novitiate, depends all growth or decay for the time to come. Commonly speaking, as we said in the last chapter, if in the time of his novitiate an individual is tepid and careless of his spiritual progress, tepid and careless he will remain. It is not to be supposed that afterwards he will act with greater care and fervor; there is no reason to believe that he will effect this change and improvement afterwards, but very much reason to believe that he will not.

To make this better appear, let us address our discourse to the novice himself, weighing the reasons and convincing him therewith. Now you are in your noviceship, you have a great deal of time to apply to your spiritual advancement and different means that may contribute thereto, your superiors thinking of nothing else but this and making it their chief endeavor. Now you have many examples before your eyes of others who are bent on no other purpose than this. It is a thing that animates and encourages one much, to live with companions who have in view this object alone and nothing else; and the sight of others going ahead obliges one, however heavy and lumpish he be, to get out of his sloth. Now you have a heart disengaged and free and seemingly desirous of virtue, with nothing to withdraw you from it, but much to aid you. But if now that you are here for this purpose alone, and have nothing else to think of, you do not improve nor gain any virtue, how will it be when your heart is taken up and divided in a thousand different ways? If now with so much freedom from business, such advantages and aids at hand, so much leisure, such conveniences, and so many helps, you make not your meditation and examen well, nor take pains to observe your additions and do your other spiritual duties properly, what will become of you when the care of your studies shall take up your thoughts, and, in later life, business, confessions, and sermons? If with so many conferences, so many exhortations, so many examples, and so many solicitations, you do not profit, what will become of you when you shall meet with impediments and obstacles on all sides? If in the beginning of your conversion, when novelty should increase your fervor and zeal, you are, notwithstanding, slack and listless, what will become of you when your ears shall be inured and hardened to all things that may touch or do you any good? And further, if now while passion is but beginning to stir and the evil inclination is not strong, being only at its commencements, still you have not the courage to resist it, how will you resist and overcome it afterwards, when it shall have taken deep root and gathered strength by habit, so that it will be like a very death struggle for you to change it?

St. Dorotheus illustrated this very well by an example which he recounts of one of the Fathers of the Desert, who, being one day in a place full of cypresses of all sorts, great and small and of medium size, bade one of his disciples pluck up a little one he pointed at, which his disciple presently did without any difficulty. Then he pointed to another, somewhat bigger, which he in like manner plucked up by the roots, but with greater difficulty than the former, being forced to take both hands to it. To pluck up another, which was yet stronger, he had to call in the help of one of his companions. And, lastly, all of them together labored in vain to pull up another which was much bigger still. “Behold,” said the ancient Father, “how it is with our passions. In the beginning, when they are not yet rooted, it is easy to master them if you take but ever so little pains. But afterwards, when by long habit they have taken deeper root, it will be very hard; much force will have to be used, and I do not know if you will succeed.”

By what I have said, we may perceive that it is a very grave abuse and a very dangerous temptation to defer from day to day our amendment, thinking we shall be better able to mortify and overcome ourselves another time, because at present we have not the courage to do it by reason of the great difficulty. If, whilst this difficulty is yet small, you cannot bring yourself to surmount it, what will you be able to do when it shall become greater? And if at present, whilst your passion is but like a lion’s whelp, you have not the courage to attack it, how will you be able to do it when it shall be grown a great and furious beast? Hold it, therefore, for a certain truth that if now you are tepid and remiss, tepid and remiss you will be in the time to come. If you now are not a good novice and a good apprentice, you will never hereafter be a good senior nor a good workman. If at present you are neglectful of obedience and the observance of rules, you will be more so afterwards. If now you are careless over your spiritual duties and botch them, a botcher you will remain all your life. The whole point lies in the established attitude which you take up now. They say that the business of kneading dough lies in the first putting in of the yeast.

St. Bonaventure says: In the attitude which one takes up at the beginning, in that he remains. It is very difficult for an old man to bend himself to that to which he was not accustomed in his youth. It is a proverb of the Holy Ghost: A proverb it is, says Solomon: train the youth to go his way, and when he is old he will not depart from tt (Prov. xxii. 6). Hence St. John Climacus came to say that it is a very dangerous thing and matter of much apprehension, when one enters on his course with tepidity and faintheartedness, because, he says, it is a clear indication of a fall to come. For this reason it is of supreme importance to accustom oneself to virtue from the outset and do one’s spiritual duties well. The Holy Ghost warns us of this by the Prophet Jeremy: It is a good thing for a man to accustom himself to bear the yoke from his youth (Lam, iii. 27), because he will hold to it afterwards, and thereby render to himself the way of virtue and goodness easy; otherwise he will find it very difficult. What thou hast not gathered in the time of youth, how thinkest thou that thou shalt find it afterwards in the time of old age? (Ecclus. xxv. 5).

From this first reason follows the second, because if all the progress of a religious in future depends on his first formation, then all the good of the order depends likewise thereon; for an order does not consist of the walls of its houses and churches, but of the assembly of the religious, and they who are in the noviceship are they who have to be afterwards the whole order. For this reason the Society was not. satisfied with establishing seminaries and colleges where Ours are reared in letters and virtue together, but established seminaries of virtue alone, where attention is paid to abnegation and mortification of self and to the practice of true and solid virtues, as being more of a main foundation than letters. For this the houses of probation exist, being, as our Father Francis Borgia says, for the novices a Bethlehem, that is to say, “the House of Bread,” because there are made the biscuit and provisions for the voyage, against the great risks that await us. This is harvest time, this the season of abundance; these are the years of fertility, in which your business is to take in supplies, as Joseph did, against coming years of hunger and sterility. Oh, if the people of Egypt had understood, and cast up their account, and carefully considered what they were doing, they would not have been in such a hurry to empty their houses of the wheat which Joseph was gathering and locking up in his barns! Oh, if you would take account how important it is for you to come out well provisioned from the house of probation! In that case, certainly, you would not be eager to get out of it quickly, considering how ill you are off for virtue and mortification. And therefore Father Francis Borgia says that such as aim or are glad at shortly going out of the novitiate show signs of want of judgment and Jack of understanding of their need of good preparation; they make light of the day’s work that is before them, since they so lightly take the risk of rushing into it unprovided.

Oh, how rich and laden with virtues does our Father take us to be, when we are to leave the house of probation! He appoints two years of probation and experiment, wishing the novice during that time to think of nothing else but his spiritual advancement, seeing no other books and studying nothing else but what may forward him in self-denial and growth in virtue and perfection. He is supposed to go out at the end of that time so spiritual and fervent, such a lover of mortification and recollection, so devoted to prayer and spiritual exercises as to need even to be restrained therein. He therefore advises such persons, when they go to the colleges, to abate somewhat of their fits of fervor during the time of their studies; not to make such long prayers nor do so many mortifications. Our Father supposes one to leave the noviceship with so much light, so much knowledge of God and contempt of the world, so fervent and devout and inwardly lifted up to spiritual things as to need these cautions. Do you, then, endeavor to go out such. Make the most of this time, so precious that perchance never in your life will you have such a time again for gathering spiritual riches. Let not so good time pass in vain, nor lose any part of it (Ecclus. xiv. 16).

One of the great favors that the Lord does to those whom He draws to religion in their tender age, and for which they owe Him infinite thanks, is that it is then very easy for them to apply themselves to virtue and religious discipline. A tree, while it is tender at the beginning, may be easily shaped so as to grow into a very beautiful tree. But afterwards, when you have let it grow in its own way and become crooked and awkwardly spreading, you will break sooner than guide it into the shape you want; and such it will remain as long as there is life left in it. So it is easy to shape and direct one of tender age and turn him to what is good; and by accustoming him to it from the time that he is small, it will be rendered very easy for him afterwards and so he will go on and ever persevere in it. It is a great thing for stuff to be dyed in the wool, because then it never loses its color. Who can restore to its whiteness, says St. Jerome, the wool that has drunk in a purple dye? And another says: “An earthern jar long retains the odor of the first liquor poured into it.” The Scripture praises King Josias for that, when yet a boy, he began to seek the God of his father David (II Chron. xxxiv. 4).

Humbertus, a person of note and Master General of the Order Preachers, relates that a certain religious after his death appeared some nights to another religious, his companion, all in glory; and, leading him out of his cell, he showed him a great number of men, clad in white and encompassed with light, who carried very fair crosses upon their shoulders as they went in procession towards heaven. A little after, he beheld another procession, fairer and more resplendent than the former, each member of which carried a far richer and a more beautiful cross in his hands, and not on his shoulders as the former did. After that, a third procession passed, still more glorious and admirable than the two former, for all their crosses were of a surprising beauty, and they carried them neither on their shoulders nor in their hands, but an angel going before, each carried his cross for him, so that they followed with much alacrity and joy. The religious, astonished at this vision, asked an explanation. His companion answered that the first, who carried their crosses upon their shoulders, were those who had entered religion at a mature age; the second, who held their crosses in their hand, were those that entered in early youth; and the last, who marched with so much freedom and cheerfulness, were those who when they were small children had renounced the world and embraced a religious life.