Of the Conformity That We Should Have to the Will of God in the Distribution of Natural Gifts and Talents

VERY individual should be quite content with what God has imparted to him in point of talent, intellect, and genius, and the ability and parts that God has given him, and not be pained or saddened at not having as much ability or talent as his neighbor, nor going for so much as he does. This is a thing that we all have need of; for although men may shine and stand in a more advantageous light in certain things, yet there are always other counterpoises to humble them, wherein they stand in need of this conformity. So it is necessary to be forearmed, since it is the way of the devil to assail many on this side. You are in your studies and, seeing that a fellow-student of yours shows remarkable ability, arguing and answering right well in disputations, there may perhaps come over you some shadow of envy. It does not go so far as to make you sad at the good of your brother, which is properly the sin of envy; but, after all, seeing your companions strong in capacity and going ahead with their talents, while you hang back and cannot get on nor make head at all, you experience some sadness and melancholy and feel abashed and out of countenance in company, and thence there comes over you a feeling of drooping and discouragement and a temptation to abandon your studies and sometimes even religious life. This temptation against vocation has taken hold of some because they were not well grounded in humility. There was one who thought to be a star, conspicuous among all, and that his fame would go out all over the province, of which he was the best student in the course; and, when his dream turned out quite the other way, he became quite abashed and crestfallen: whereupon the devil, seeing such an excellent opportunity, represented to him that he could never recover from this disgrace and disappointment otherwise than by leaving his order. And this is no new temptation, but a very old one.

In the chronicles of the order of St. Dominic there is related an example to this purpose of Albertus Magnus, who was master of St. Thomas Aquinas. Albertus Magnus, when a child, was very devout to our lady, reciting daily certain devotions in her honor, and by her means and intercession entered the order of St. Dominic at the age of sixteen. They say in the chronicles that as a youth he had not much understanding, but was untrained and of little capacity for study; and, seeing his fellow students to be of great and very subtle intellects, he quite lost heart. Thereupon temptation came to press him hard and throw him into danger, so much so that he was on the point of quitting the habit. In this hard press of conflicting thoughts he was succored by a marvelous vision. Sleeping one night, he fancied that he was setting a ladder to the wall of the monastery to get out and leave the place; and, as he was mounting it, he saw on the top four venerable matrons, one of whom seemed to be mistress of the others. When he came near them, one of them laid hold of him and threw him from the ladder, forbidding his going out from the monastery. He persisted in trying to mount a second time, and the second matron behaved to him as the first had done. He wanted to mount a third time, and the third matron asked him the reason why he wanted to leave the monastery. With a blush on his face he replied: “I am going, my lady, because I see others of my class improving in the study of philosophy, while I labor in vain. The shame I suffer on that account is making me leave the order.”’ The matron said to him: “This lady whom you see’”—pointing to the fourth—“‘is the Mother of God and Queen of Heaven whose servants we three are; commend yourself to her; and we will help you and we will entreat her to be your intercessor with her most blessed Son to give you a docile mind that you may make progress in that study.” Hearing this, Fra Albert rejoiced much, and the matron taking him to our Lady, he was well received by her, and she asked him what it was that he desired and asked. He answered: “To know philosophy, which I am studying, and do not understand.”’ The Queen of Heaven answered: “Be of good heart and go on studying, for thou shalt be a great man in this faculty. But that thou mayest know,” she went on to say, “that this comest to thee from me and not from thy own genius and ability, some days before thy death, while lecturing publicly, thou shalt forget all that thou knowest.” With this vision he remained comforted. And from that time he improved much in the study, not only of philosophy, but also of theology and Holy Scripture, as the works that he has left behind him in writing testify. But three years before his death, while he was lecturing at Cologne, he lost his memory entirely for all that concerned the sciences, as though for all his life he had never learned anything at study; and perhaps this was in penance for the little confidence he had had in the talent and ability that God had given him. And, remembering the vision that he had had when he tried to leave his vocation, he recounted publicly to his hearers all that had passed; and so took leave of them, shut himself up in his convent, and spent all his time in prayer and contemplation.

Now, that we may not come into the like dangers, we must needs be fortified beforehand. And the needful fortification for this purpose is great humility; for all this difficulty arises for want of that, because you cannot bear being reckoned the poorest scholar in the class. If they come to tell you that you are not fit to go on further in your studies, and you see your classmates turning into theologians and afterward graduates and preachers, there is need of much humility and much conformity to stand that. And the same will be necessary for the time after your studies, for temptation will occur to you at the thought: “I am not rated so high as the rest; I have not the talent to preach, shine, and speak in public like my neighbor, nor to have business entrusted to me and account taken of me.” And I say the same of those who are not students. There will come to you thoughts and temptations: “Oh, that I were a student!” “Oh, that I were a priest!” “Oh, that I were a learned man to be able to gather fruit of souls!” And sometimes the temptation may press you so hard as to endanger your vocation, and even your salvation.

This is a general doctrine that each one may apply to himself according to his state. It is necessary that all be quite conformable to the will of God, each one content with the talent that God has given him and the state in which God has placed him, and that none should want to be more than God wants him to be. The blessed St. Augustine on those words of the psalmist: Incline my heart to keep thy commandments, and not to avarice (Psalm cxvili. 36), says that this was the beginning and root of all our evil, that our first parents sought to be more than God had made them; for this they fell from the state that they enjoyed and lost what God had given them. The devil set for them this bait: Ye shall be as Gods (Gen. iii. 5); by that he deceived and ruined them. We inherit this inheritance from them, that we have a craving after Godhead and a madness and frenzy for seeking to be more than we are. And, as the devil succeeded so well herein with our first parents, he endeavors to make war on us also by this means, inciting us to desire to be more than God wishes us to be and not be content with the talent that He has given us nor with the state in which He has placed us. And on this account, St. Augustine says, the prophet asks of God: “Lord, give me a heart disinterested and inclined faithfully to follow Thy good pleasure and will, and not my own interests and conveniences.” By “avarice” he says is to be there understood all manner of self-interest, and not the mere covetousness of money; and this is what St. Paul says is the root of all evils: The root of all evils is covetousness (E-Tim. vi-10).

But, that we may all have this disposition of indifference, conforming ourselves and contenting ourselves with the talent which the Lord has given us and with the state or degree in which He has placed us, it is enough to know that such is the will of God. All these gifts are the working of one and the same Holy Spirit, distributing to each in particular according to his good pleasure, says the Apostle St. Paul (I Cor. xii. 11). The Apostle puts here the metaphor, which we have applied above to another purpose, of the human body; and says that, as God has placed the members of the body, giving to each one as He chose, and the feet do not complain that they do not act as the head, nor the hands that they do not act as the eyes, so also in the Church—and the same in the body of a religious order— God has given each one the post and office that it has pleased Him, and that not by chance, but by a particular resolution and providence of His own. If, then, God wishes you to be feet, it is not reasonable that you should wish to be head; and if God wishes you to be hands, it is not reasonable that you should wish to be eyes. Oh, how right high and right deep are the judgments of God! Who shall be able to comprehend them? Who of men shall be able to know the counsels of God? (Wisdom ix. 13). All things, Lord, proceed from Thee, and for that in all things be Thou praised. Thou knowest what it is fit to give to each; and why one has more, and others less, it is not for us to discern. Who knows what would have become of you if you had had great genius and ability? Who knows, if you had had a great talent for preaching and had been much listened to and thought a great deal of, but that that would have been your ruin, as it has been the ruin of others by their running into pride and vanity? ‘The learned,” says that holy man A Kempis, “love to be seen and made account of as such.” If with two penn’orth of genius that you have and three ha’porth of letters that you know, and with mediocrity and perhaps less than mediocrity of brains, you are so vain and arrogant that you value yourself, and compare and perhaps prefer yourself to others, and make it a grievance that they do not lay hands on you for this and that post, where would you be if you were really a first-rate man, a man of rare and extraordinary parts? Wings grow on the ant to its evil, and perhaps they would so grow on you.

Truly, if we had not goggles, but eyes, we should rather render infinite thanks to God for having put us in a lowly and humble position and for having given us but poor parts and abilities, and say with that holy man: “T take it for a great blessing, O Lord, not to have many things for which there could follow me in the world outside praise and honor before men.” The saints knew very well the great danger there is in these advantages and excellences, and they did not only not desire them, but dreaded them—Ab altitudine diei timebo—“I will dread the noonday light” (Psalm lv. 4) —for the great danger there is in them of vanity and perdition; and therefore they pleased God the more, Who would have His servants humble rather than great.

Oh, if we could once for all make up our minds that all is a mockery and a farce but doing the will of God! Oh, if we could finally place all our contentment in the contentment and satisfaction of God! If without learning, or with the smattering of learning and poor abilities that you have, you please God the more, why do you aspire after learning? Why want more learning, more ability, more talents? If you had any reason for wanting them, it would be to please and serve God the better therewith. But if God is more pleased with your having no learning or not getting any more learning, more talent, more ability—as He certainly is pleased, since it is He that has made this distribution—what have you to complain of? What reason have you to wish to be what God does not wish you to be and what it is not fitting that you should be? The great sacrifices that Saul wished to offer were not pleasing to God because they were not according to His will (I Kings xiii. 10; xv. 21); neither will those high and lofty desires of yours be pleasing to God. Our good and our advancement in perfection do not lie in our being learned, nor being preachers, nor in having great parts and talents, nor in understanding high and subtle things, but in doing the will of God and in giving a good account of what He has committed to us and employing well the talent that He has given us. On this we should fix our eyes and on nothing else, because it is this that God requires of us.

A very good comparison to explain this is that of the actors who represent comedies. Their credit and reward does not go by the personage that they represent, but by the good rendering that each one gives of his part. If he who represents the clown does it better than he who represents the emperor, he comes out more appreciated and praised by the audience and better rewarded by the judges. In like manner, what God regards and sets store by in us in this life—which is all like a theatrical representation and a comedy, and God grant that it may not be a tragedy that is soon over!—is not the personage that we represent, one of superior, one of preacher, one of sacristan, one of porter—but the good rendering that each one gives of his part. Thus, if the lay brother does his office well and represents his character better than the preacher or superior does his, he will be held in greater credit with God and be better rewarded and honored. One perhaps that would not have succeeded in the character of the king, gains honor and carries the palm in the character of the page or the shepherd boy. So you also might possibly not have succeeded in playing the preacher or superior, and you may play well the part of the spiritual father or of the lay brother. God knows how to distribute the parts well and assign to each one the character that suits him, to each one according to his capacity (Matt. xxv. 15). According to the capability and strength of each, so did the master distribute his talents. Let none, then, desire to play another part or have another talent, but let each one make it his endeavor to play well the part assigned him, to lay out well the talent he has received and give a good account thereof; for in that way he will please God better and receive a greater reward.