That the Reason Why We Find Ourselves Sometimes Distracted and Thrown Back in Our Spirituality by

Exterior Occupations Is Because We Do Them Not as We Should ROM what has been said it will be understood that the reason why we find ourselves at times distracted and spiritually enfeebled by exterior occupations does not lie in the occupations, but in our own selves, inasmuch as we know not how to profit by them and do them as we ought. And so let no one throw the blame on his occupations, but on himself, in that he does not know how to profit by them. Crack the nut; since it is not what is on the outside that is eaten, but what is in the inside. If you stop on the exterior of the work and this outer shell, that will harass and break your body and dry up your spirit. The inside, the kernel, which is the will of God, ought to be your food. So crack with the teeth of consideration this shell, and leave this bark outside and pass on to the marrow, like Ezechial’s great eagle (Ezech. xvii. 3), that made its way inside and drew out the marrow of the cedar, not stopping at the bark. I will offer thee holocausts of marrow (Psalm Ixv. 15). That it is on which we ought to rest, and offer it to God, and in this manner your soul will thrive and grow. Martha and Mary are sisters; they do not disturb nor hinder one another, but aid one another. Prayer helps to do action well, and action, done as it ought to be done, helps prayer, like good sisters. If you feel yourself troubled and disturbed in action, it is because Mary, that is, prayer, does not help you. Martha, Martha, thou art solicitous, and troubled over many things (Luke x. 41). Martha is troubled because her sister Mary does not help her. Tell her, Lord, to help me (Luke x. 40). Endeavor to procure the aid of Mary, that is, of prayer, and you will see how the trouble will cease. Ezechiel (viii. 1) says of those holy living creatures that each held its hand under its wing, to give us to understand that spiritual men keep the hand of action under the wing of contemplation without removing the one from the other, since in action they contemplate and in contemplation they act. Cassian also says of those monks of Egypt that while working with their hands they ceased not on that account to contemplate God, doing with their hands the office of Martha and with their heart that of Mary.

St. Bernard puts this very well. “Those engaged in spiritual life and prayer take much care so to occupy themselves in exterior works and occupations that the spirit is not stifled nor devotion quenched. Thus exterior occupations are no hindrance to recollection and interior devotion, for they do not occupy the understanding, but leave it free to be able to think of God’”—Hoc maxime curant spiritualibus exercitiis dediti, taliter se circa exteriora occupare ut devotionis spiritum non exstinguant: unde licet extrinsecus bonorum operum exercitiis fatigentur in corpore, intrinsecus tamen reficiuntur in mente. Thus a very ancient and very spiritual father, Father Master Nadal, used to say that there were two sorts of person that he greatly envied in religion—novices, because they did not mind nor spend their time on anything else than their spiritual progress; and lay brothers, because, having their understanding unpreoccupied and disengaged, they are able to pass the whole day in prayer.

St. John Climacus relates that there was in a monastery a cook, a very busy man, owing to the great number of religious—he says there were two hundred and thirty, besides guests; and in the midst of all his occupations he kept up a very great interior recollection, and had further attained to the gift of tears. St. John Climacus wondered, and asked him how he had attained it in the midst of so great and continual occupation. After much importunity he answered at last: “I never think that I am serving men, but God, and always hold myself unworthy of quiet and repose; and the sight of this material fire makes me always weep, and think of the bitterness of the everlasting fire.”

It is told of St. Catherine of Siena in her Life that she suffered much persecution from her parents, who heaped ill treatment upon her to compel her to marry. The persecution went so far that they ordered that no private room or cell should be allowed her in which to collect her thoughts, but occupied her in housework. Further, they took out of the kitchen a slave they had and put her in the place, so that she should have no time to pray nor do her other spiritual exercises. But, taught by the Holy Ghost, the history says, she built there within her heart a very retired spiritual cell and purposed never to go out of it, and succeeded in so doing. Thus as for the first cell, which she occupied before, sometimes she was within, sometimes outside; but out of this other holy spiritual cell, which she had built within herself, she never stirred. They turned her out of her former cell, but they could never turn her out of this. She pictured to herself that her father represented Jesus Christ; her mother, our Lady, her brothers and the rest of the family, the apostles and disciples of the Lord. Thus she went about her work with great alacrity and diligence, for though she was in the kitchen and busy serving, she was ever thinking of her Spouse, Jesus Christ, Whom she made account that she was serving; she ever enjoyed the presence of God and was with Him in the Holy of Holies. And she often told her confessor, when he had any exterior occupations and was forced to go on a journey: “Father, make within yourself a cell and never go out of it.” Let us do the like, and exterior duties and occupations will not distract us, but rather aid us to be always in prayer.