Of the Indifference and Conformity to the Will of God Which a Religious Should Have for Any Office and Occupation in Which Obedience May Place Him

THE indifference and resignation of which we have been speaking ought to be shown also in point of any office or occupation in which obedience shall choose to place us. We see well how many and how various are the offices and occupations that there are in religion; let everyone, then, run his mind through them until he finds that he is equally ready to face any of them. Our Father says in his Constitutions, and we have it in the Rules: “In the exercise of lowly and humble offices, each one should take up those more willingly which are more repugnant to sense, if he be ordered to make that his occupation.” Indifference and resignation are more necessary toward lowly and humble offices, because of the repugnance that nature has for them; and so one does more and shows more virtue and perfection in offering himself to God for these offices than in offering himself for others more elevated and honorable. If one so much desired to serve a great lord as to offer himself to serve him all his life long as a running footman and dustman, if needful, it is clear that such a one does more and shows more good will to serve than if he said: “My lord, I will serve you as butler or major-domo;” that would rather be a bid for a salary than an offer of service. And this offer would be all the more considerable, the better parts he had for high offices who offers himself for lowly ones. In the same way, then, if you offer yourself to God, saying: “Lord, I will serve Thee in the office of preacher, or lecturer in theology,” you do not do much in that, because high and honorable offices are in themselves desirable; you have little scope for showing in them the desire that you have of serving God. But when you offer yourself to serve in the house of God all the days of your life in lowly and humble offices, offices repugnant to your natural feelings and sensuality, then do you much more show the desire you have of serving God. This is a far more appreciable and valuable service, and all the more so, the better parts you have for higher offices. This should be enough to make us desire lowly and humble offices and to be always more inclined to them, especially since in the house of God no office is low. They even say this on earth of the house of a king, because to serve the king in any office whatsoever is made great account of; how much more will it be to serve God, to serve Whom is to reign.

St. Basil, to give us an affection for lowly and humble offices, quotes the example of Christ, of Whom we read in the holy Gospel that He occupied Himself in such offices, washing the feet of His disciples; and not only that, but serving for a long time His most holy Mother and St. Joseph and being subject and obedient to them in all that they commanded. And he was subject to them (Luke ii. 51). From the age of twelve to thirty the holy Gospel tells us nothing of Him but this; whereon the saints well reflect that He must have served and helped them in many lowly offices, especially seeing that they were such poor people as they were. “Let not, then, the Christian’”—and much less the religious—‘“disdain to do what Christ did,” says St. Augustine. Since the Son of God did not disdain to busy Himself in these lowly offices for love of us, let us not disdain either to busy ourselves in them either for His love, although it be for all the days of our life.

But, coming more to our point, one of the chief reasons and motives there are to make us take up with hearty good will any office and occupation that obedience may put upon us, should be our being convinced that such is the will of God; for, as we said above, this should be always our consolation and satisfaction in all our occupations, that we are therein doing the will of God. It is this that sates and satisfies the soul: “God wills that I should be doing this now;” “This is the will of God;” “There is nothing more to desire, since there is nothing better or higher than the will of God.” Such as live in this way do not care whether they are ordered this or that, or put in a high or low Office, since it is all one to them.

The blessed St. Jerome relates an example very pat to this purpose. He says that, in visiting those holy monks of the desert, he saw one of whom the superior, desirous of his spiritual advancement and also to give an example of obedience to the rest of the youthful community, had ordered to drag up hill twice a day a very large stone for the space of three miles, that is, a league, there being no other necessity for it, nor utility either, except for him to obey and mortify his judgment, and he had been at it for eight years. And as this, says St. Jerome, to those who do not understand this virtue of obedience, nor have attained to the purity and simplicity thereof in their spirit of haughtiness and pride, might possibly appear a childish game or an idle act, they asked him how he bore that obedience. And I myself, says St. Jerome, asked the same question, being desirous to know what movements passed in his soul while he was doing this. The monk replied: “I am as full of content and joy when I have done this as if I had done the highest and most important thing that they could have commanded me.” St. Jerome says that this reply made such an impression on him that from that date he began to live like a monk. This it is to be a monk and to live like a true religious, not to stop at the exterior work, but to consider that we are fulfilling the will and good pleasure of God. These are they who advance and grow great in virtue and perfection, since the doing of the will of God is their continual nourishment, a nourishment like that of the finest wheaten flour. Ht adipe frumenti satiat te (Psalm exlvii. 14).

But someone will say: “I see well that it is great perfection to do the will of God in all things and that in any exercise they command me I can be doing the will of God; but I could wish them to occupy me in some bigger thing and let me do the will of God there.’”’ This is an error in first principles; it is, in plain English, wanting God to do your will. I have no mind to draw plans for God; I have no mind to ask that He should fall in with my views and with my likings; I am minded to follow the plans of God and fall in with what He wants of me. St. Augustine says very well: “He is Thy good servant, Lord, who makes no account of Thy command falling in with his will, but of his willing that which Thou commandest”—Optimus minister tuus est, qui non magis intuetur hoc a te audire quod ipse voluerit, sed potius hoc velle quod a te audierit. And the holy Abbot Nilus says: “Do not ask of God to do what you want done, but what Christ teaches us to ask for, that His will may be done in me.”

Let note be taken of this point, which is very profitable and has a general application to all the hardships and contingencies that can befall us. It is not for us to choose in what and how we are to suffer, but for God. It is not for you to choose the temptations that you are to undergo, or to say: “If it were any other temptation, I should not mind; but this I can’t stand.” Our pains would not be pains if they were such as we ourselves chose. If you are in earnest in your wish to please God, you should ask Him to take you on the side that He knows best and wishes to take you on, not on the side that you wish. And when the Lord sends you what is most disagreeable to you and what you have the greatest reluctance to suffer, and you fall in with and adapt yourself to that, then you will be a better imitator of Christ our Redeemer, Who said: Not my will, but thine be done (Luke xxii. 42). This it is to have an entire conformity to the will of God, offering ourselves in all things to Him that He may do with us what He wills, and after what manner He wills, without exception or contradiction and without reserve of anything to ourselves, Louis of Blois relates that the holy virgin Gertrude, moved by pity and compassion, prayed to God on behalf of a certain person, who she had heard was complaining impatiently that God was sending her sundry afilictions, infirmities, or temptations which seemed to her not suitable for her. But the Lord replied to the holy virgin: “Tell that person for whom you ask, that since the kingdom of heaven cannot be gained without some affliction and annoyance, she should choose what she thinks will be profitable to her and, when it comes, be patient.” From these words and the tone in which the Lord said them, the holy virgin understood that it is a very dangerous kind of impatience, when a man wishes to choose what he has to suffer, saying that such and such things are not proper for his salvation and that he cannot bear what God sends him. Everyone should persuade himself and trust that what God our Lord sends him is what is proper for him, and so take it in patience, conforming therein his will to that of God. Now, as you are not to choose the afflictions and temptations that you are to suffer, but take as from the hand of God what He sends you and understand that that is what befits you best; so neither are you to choose the office and function which you are to discharge, but take as from the hand of God that in which obedience shall place you and understand that that is what suits you best.

They add here another point of high spirituality, and say that a man should be so resigned to the will of God and rest so securely in it as not to desire to know what God intends to do with him and how He will dispose of him. As here on earth, when a nobleman has such confidence in his steward as to know nothing of his property or of what he has in his house—which is a mark of great confidence, as holy Joseph says that his master behaved to him: Lo, my lord hath handed over to me all things, and knoweth not what he hath in his house (Gen. xxxix. 8)—so does a man show great confidence in God when he does not seek to know what God means to do with him. “I am in good hands, that is enough for me! My destinies, O Lord, are in thy hands (Psalm xxx. 16). With this I live content and secure, and have no need to know more.

For those who desire posts and offices and ecclesiastical functions of the higher sort, thinking that in them they will gain greater fruit of souls and render greater service to God, I say that they are much mistaken in thinking that this is zeal for the greater service of God and the greater good of souls. No, it is not that; it is jealousy and desire of honor and reputation and of your own comforts. It is because this office and function is more honorable or more in accordance with their own taste and inclination that men desire it. That is clearly seen by this consideration. If you were out there in the world, or by yourself, with some show of reason you might have said: “This is better than that and productive of fruit in souls; I mean to leave this to do that, because one cannot do everything.” But here in religion you cannot leave this for that without someone or other having to take up and do what you leave. The only difficulty is that, if you take the alto part, the other man must take the bass. If I were humble, I should rather wish the other man to take the high office because I am apt to believe that he would do it better than I and with greater fruit and with less danger of vanity.

For this and for other like reasons, that is an excellent doctrine of our blessed Father Ignatius which he lays down as a foundation for the election of a state of life. He marks three degrees or modes of humility; and the third and most perfect is, in a choice of two alternatives, each equally making for the glory and service of God, to choose that in which there is most disparagement and abasement of myself, the better therein to resemble and imitate Christ our Redeemer and Lord, Who chose to be disparaged and abased for our sake. And there is therein this other great advantage, that in these things there is less of self-interest; the man has no opportunity for seeking himself therein and escapes the danger of growing vain over them which there is in high and honorable offices. In lowly offices, humility and charity are exercised together, and in them humility is well preserved, doing the acts that are proper to herself; but in those high offices charity is exercised to the risk of humility, and that should be enough to make us not only not desire such preferments, but even to dread them.