Of Two Sorts of Mortification and Penance, and How the Society Embraces and Practises Both

4 bas glorious Augustine on those words of St. Matthew: From the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away (Matt. xi. 12), says there are two sorts of penance and mortification. The one is corporal, which ehastises and afflicts the body and is what we call exterior penance, as disciplines, fastings, haircloth, a hard bed, poor clothes, rough diet, and the like, which afflict and chastise the flesh and withdraw from it its comfort and delight. The other sort of mortification, St. Augustine says, is loftier and more precious. It consists in ruling and governing the motions of appetite, struggling daily against its vicious and evil inclinations, setting aside our own judgment, overcoming our anger, repressing our impatience, restraining our craving for delicate food, our eyes, our tongue, and all our senses and motions. Whoever does this, breaking through the wall of his flesh, his passions and appetites, mounts up and enters with violence and forces his way into the kingdom of heaven. These are the men of might, the valiant men, who take heaven by storm. Then interior and spiritual mortification is more excellent than the former, inasmuch as the taming of the spirit and trampling underfoot of honor and reputation comes to much more than afflicting of the flesh, taking disciplines, and wearing hairshirts. And as this penance is more excellent and precious, so also is it more difficult and likely to cost more, because the greater a thing is, the more costly. This is also the doctrine of St. Gregory in many places, and of St. Dorotheus and other saints.

The Society embraces and practises both these sorts of penance. As to the first, although our Father did not see fit to leave directions for ordinary penances appointed and determined by rule and to be taken as of obligation, but on just consideration the manner of life in the Society is common as to the exterior, yet he left in another way very good provision for this, as we will say presently. Many just considerations moved our Father to establish and enact that the manner of living in the Society should be common as to the exterior. For the means must be proportionate to the end; and the end of the Society being to labor, not only for its own advancement, but also for the advancement and salvation of our neighbor, it was very fit that we should wear a habit common to all clerics of good standing, the better thereby to gain access to all sorts and conditions of men. Thus with religious we are religious; with clerics, clerics; and with lay people we wear a habit not different from that of the secular clergy. Add to this that the Society was instituted in Luther’s time, when heretics hated religious and their habits; wherefore, to have a more free access to them and to be the better able to dispute with them and convince them (which is a function proper to our institute), it was convenient that we should have nothing extraordinary in our habit that might distinguish us from other respectable ecclesiastics; for that would have caused us to be held in abhorrence by the heretics ere ever we began to deal with them, and so one of the chief ends for which God instituted the Society would have been frustrated.

Besides, if we wore a rough habit, possibly that sinful neighbor of yours would not dare to come to you, thinking that you and your behavior must be as rough as your habit. Be it rather a common habit, received and recognized by all, that thus we may have more easy access to all sorts of people, and none may have a horror of dealing with us. Our Father would have us even by our habit make ourselves all things to all men, the better to gain all, imitating herein the example of Christ our Redeemer, of Whom St. Augustine says, and St. Thomas quotes him, that the better to accommodate Himself for mixing and dealing with men, and for their greater spiritual advantage, He chose to take up an every-day exterior rather than the austerity and severity of the Baptist.

As for other and exterior penances, although he did not leave them appointed and determined by rule, yet there is a living rule, the superior, who gives and assigns to each according to his need. Our Father says that these penances may be taken in two ways, either what each one shall choose for himself for his better advancement in spirit (with permission, however, of the superior), or when the superior shall oblige him to them for the same end. He judged this more suitable in the Society than to determine them by rule, because a dead rule could not be equal for all, since not all have equal strength for these penances; and if there was one prescription for all, he who could not do so much would be distressed at not being able to march in line with the rest. Thus as one medicine or one diet and regimen does not suit all sick persons, neither does it suit all to do the same penances. Some penances are better suited for youth, others for old age; some for cases of sickness, others for health; some for one who joins innocent, others for him who joins, as they say, as full of wounds of sin as a sieve of holes.

And so St. Augustine says, and St. Basil, that no one should be surprised at the same methods’ not being observed with all in religion, some doing more penance than others, because equality here would be a very great inequality. And not only is this diversity and difference proper for different persons, but even for the same person in difference of needs and seasons; one penance is good for time of temptation and dryness, another in time of peace and devotion; one to preserve devotion, another to recover it after it has been lost. For this reason our Father would not lay down in the Society a certain fixed scale of penances for all, but left it to the discretion of the superior, who is our spiritual physician, according to the strength and need of each one to appoint and allow to some more, to others less; which is according to the rule which the angel gave to St. Pacomius on the part of God, where it was ordered that the superior was in this way to appoint the penances which each religious was to do.

Thus if there are not in the Society any ordinary penances appointed by rule, as there are commonly in other religious orders, this is not because there are no corporal penances in the Society or because in it there is no great esteem and veneration of those which other orders according to their institute laudably observe, the variety of which institutes is the beauty of the Church; but because our founder considered it more suitable to our institute and more in accordance with its ends and purposes and better in agreement with the ancient doctrine of the saints to leave the measure and manner of them to the prudence and charity of the superior. This arrangement has not led to there being fewer penances in the Society, but rather to there being more, and to their being taken with more good will and devotion. And thus we see, by the bounty and mercy of the Lord, that there are used and practised more penances of this sort in the Society than could have been enacted by rule. May it please the Lord that this fervor and spirit, so good and so holy and so well borne out by the practice of the Church of God, may ever go on increasing; and that it may be more necessary to keep us at a walking pace and draw the bridle than to use the spur, as up to this day by the grace of the Lord we have always experienced.

The second sort of penance, which is the mortification of the passions and disorderly self-love, is embraced most particularly in the Society. And this was another of the just considerations which moved our founder not to leave ordinary penances appointed and determined by rule; for he wished us to set our eyes on the interior mortification of our passions and appetites, and that this should be our principal penance, for its being, as we have said, more precious and excellent. Our Father puts in his Constitutions and Rules things of great perfection, things for which great mortification and self-denial are necessary, and wishes our chief study to be in what regards this self-denial and continual mortification and the growing more and more in true and solid virtues and in all perfection. He might have feared, and with reason: If I leave them special ordinary penances marked out, maybe they will stop there and be content with that, saying: “I keep by rule so many fasts, so many hairshirts and disciplines, and that is enough for me;” and leave out the main thing and what is more to the point, which is the mortification of their passions and the practice of true and solid virtues. Thus he would not leave us anything to rest upon but virtue and interior mortification. He wished our life to be common as to the exterior, that in the interior it might be singular and excellent, accompanied with solid virtues and much mortification, and that in such manner and in such a degree as to redound on to the exterior and mark us for religious. Of this interior mortification we have more need than other religious, since in their case their habit marks them off from the rest of the world, and their sackcloth dress and the asperity of their life gives them credit with the people. But there is nothing of that in the Society, since it is not proper to our institute; hence it needs must be made up from within, and there must be in us so much humility and modesty, so much charity and zeal for souls, and such a union with God, that whoever sees and converses with us may say: “Truly this is a religious of the Society of Jesus; these are the seed that the Lord hath blessed (Isaias 1xi. 9).” Thus what we should chiefly set our eyes on and excite ourselves to is this interior mortification; and the day that we shall have ceased to practise that, we must understand that we have ceased to live as religious of the Society. That other exterior penance which we use, we must take as a means to gain this, as was said and taught by that apostolic man, our Father Francis Xavier, and is also the doctrine of St. Bonaventure.

Hence wiil be understood the explanation of a thing that we so often hear talked of, and by the goodness of the Lord experience too—how the Society is very gentle in its ways of proceeding. The gentleness of the Society does not come from there being in it no hard things to do, nor from superiors’ having to give way to all our requests, for that would not be religious life at all, There are hard things, and very hard things, to do in the Society, as we shall presently say. But the explanation is that in the Society all must study mortification and true denial of themselves; all must be very indifferent and resigned to anything that superiors think fit to do with them. This good disposition, this indifference and resignation that we have, is the explanation of the great gentleness that obtains in the Society, as well in the government and commands of superiors as in the obedience of subjects; for all are given over and placed in the hands of their superior as a little clay in the hands of the potter, to do therewith what he will. This was the marvelous artifice and contrivance of our blessed founder, inspired by the Holy Ghost, in insisting so much on this mortification and self-denial, as though he would say: “In the Society there are difficult and arduous things; now that all may be prepared and ready for them, and that superiors may not be afraid and reluctant to order them, let us lay this foundation of mortification and resignation of ourselves; let all understand that they must be as indifferent and resigned in the hands of their superior to do whatever he wishes as is the clay in the hands of the potter, and as a piece of cloth is in the hands of the tailor, who cuts from it as he chooses and where he chooses, this portion for sleeves and that other for skirts; this for the neck, and that for the border of the garment; and one is as good cloth as the other, since it is all of one piece; and what is put to serve in the kitchen is as good as the other that is put for the table, since it was of the same lump, as St. Paul says, ex eadem massa (Rom. ix. 20). Thus all were classmates and of the same standing in the Society; and perhaps he who was put to teach the elements of grammar was as able a man as he who was set to teach arts or theology; still the clay does not complain, nor the cloth, Why hast thou made me so? (Rom. ix. 20).

Thus the cause and root of the gentleness there is in the Society must be in yourself, in your being very mortified, very resigned and indifferent to everything, and there being in you no resistance or contradiction, either exterior or interior, to all that superiors choose to do with you. Thus, when you do not feel such facility and cheerfulness in orders of obedience and in other things that befall, do not throw the blame on your superior, nor complain of him, but on yourself, that you are not as ready or mortified as you ought to be. The superior does his duty and presupposes that you are a religious and, as such, mortified and indifferent to everything; and that it is not necessary to consult your will nor inquire into your disposition, since you always ought to be disposed and ready for any work which obedience shall command you. Rather the superior does you great honor in taking you for such and in treating and commanding you as such. When a stone is well tooled, with what ease does the mason set it in its place!— he only has to let it drop. But when it is not so, how many blows, how much hammering, how much labor is necessary to lay it!

Hence follows another thing worthy of consideration, and noted by St. Bonaventure, that, though this interior mortification is much more difficult than exterior penances, as we have said, nevertheless one may more easily find a just excuse from exterior penances than from interior mortification. As regards the former, one may say with truth: “I have not strength to fast so much, nor to wear so many hairshirts, nor to take so many disciplines, nor to go barefoot, nor to rise at midnight;” but none can say: “I have not the health and strength to be humble or to be patient or to be obedient and submissive.” You might say that you have not virtue sufficient for all the humility and all the obedience and resignation that is found in the Society and is necessary there; but you cannot say: “I have not health enough for that,” for what is necessary for it is not bodily but spiritual strength; strong and weak, healthy and sick, great and small, all can do it with the grace of God if they will.

This is a very great consolation for sundry persons who are often tempted to pusillanimity and discouragement, thinking that they have not the abilities or the stock of natural gifts to gain the end of an institute so high as is ours in the Society. In the First Book of Kings Holy Scripture tells us that Saul sent a message to David, to whom he wished to marry his daughter. David replied: Who am I to be son-in-law toa king? Iama poor man, I have not shoulders broad enough for that (I Kings xviii. 23). But the king returned the answer: The king needeth no dowry, no gifts nor jewels: he wanteth only a hundred foreskins of Philistines, to have vengeance on his enemies. We may give the same answer here. God needs none of those parts, those abilities and talents that you think—Thou art my God, since thou hast no need of my goods (Psalm xv. 2). What He wants is that you should circumcise those Philistines of your appetites and evil inclinations. This is what the Society asks and requires of us; and thus, if you wish, you will be good enough for it. Contrive to be very humble, very indifferent and resigned to all that they ask you to do, and that will be enough. God deliver you from vanity and pride; God deliver you from being a lover of your own ideas and conveniences, from going about in search of silly amusements, and not being clear and straight with your superior; for if that be the sort of person that you are, no other religious order can be a greater difficulty to you than the Society. But to the humble, to the mortified, to the truly poor of spirit, to the indifferent and resigned, to him who has no will of his own, all that is done in the Society becomes easy and very sweet.

We have here reason of thankfulness to God, recognizing the great bounty and benefit that He has done us in this, that, though there are things in the Society of themselves difficult and irksome, nevertheless He has made them to us so sweet and agreeable and so easy to bear. As for exterior penances, as we have said, by the bounty of God there are more done than could have been prescribed by rule. And for interior penance and mortification, which St. Augustine says is the greater and more precious of the two, we have in our Rules and Constitutions things of such high perfection and in themselves so difficult as greatly to exceed all exterior penances and mortifications.

Thus, for instance, this having to give an account to the superior and to the prefect of spiritual things of all that passes in our soul, of all our motions, temptations and evil inclinations, and of all our faults and imperfections—nothing less than that is demanded and done in the Society, and it is one of the most substantial ordinances in it—it is plain to see that this is a thing of itself more difficult than fasting and discipline and haircloth. That which he still commands us: “For their greater advancement in spirit and especially for the greater abasement and humiliation of self, all must be content to have all their errors and faults and whatever things are observed and known in them, manifested to superiors by any person whatsoever that shall come to know them out of confession,” is a thing requiring great humility and mortification, not to complain that warning was not given you first and that your fault was made out greater than it was. And, further, you must be prepared to be publicly rebuked, and this not only with cause but even without it. And even when false witnesses are brought against us, our Father requires that we should be not only ready but even glad, without giving occasion for them; and that, as people in the world rejoice in honor and reputation, so we should rejoice in dishonor, injuries, and insults; for the which it is clear how much virtue is necessary. And, further, we must be indifferent to any office, function, and occupation that obedience may choose to lay on us, and for whatever grade in the Society in which it may wish to incorporate us. Now there being in the Society such different offices and grades, some higher than others, for a man to be indifferent to the lower and as content in it as if they had set him in a higher position, is a thing of great perfection, for which great mortification is necessary.

You must be ever ready and quite prepared and indifferent to go to any part of the world to exercise these ministries, not only to another college, but to another province and to any foreign kingdom, to the East and West Indies, to Rome, Germany, England [A.D. 1610], Transylvania, where you may never be able to see kindred and friends, and they lose hope of seeing you. As for poverty, the Society professes a poverty so strict and rigorous that no one may receive or keep any nice thing in his room, not to say eatables, but not so much as a book in which he may underline a passage, or take the volume away with him to another college. And we are to be so denuded and detached from all things that we cannot lock a trunk or a drawer to keep anything, but all must be open and exposed to view, as though to say: “Take it if you will, for it is not mine.”

These things and others like them that there are in the Society, it may plainly be seen, are superior both in perfection and in difficulty to all exterior penances and austerities. Thus anyone who has a spirit of severity against himself and a desire to mortify himself much and do great penance, which is a very good spirit to have, will have his hands full in the Society. And though there have been some who, tempted against their vocation, have tried to cover over and palliate their temptation under pretense of finding greater perfection and doing more penance in another order; the truth is that that was not the motive or end that moved them, but their inability to bear the weight of the mortification and perfection that is professed in the Society. Of this we have experience in the confession of the men themselves, and the thing is further declared by the apostolic see. His Holiness Pius V, who was a religious of the holy Order of St. Dominic, declared so expressly in the bull which he granted to the Society against apostates who went out of it into the world or into any other order except the Carthusians; when, after having referred to the perfection and difficulty and great labor there are involved in the institute of the Society, he exposes the root of the temptation that some have of leaving it or passing to other orders. These are his words: “There are some who from levity of mind and desire to escape the labor which the religious of the Society continually undergo for the salvation of souls, indiscreetly preferring their own private ends to the common good of the Society and of the Christian commonwealth, under false pretenses of being animated by a desire of gaining more perfection and doing more penance, asserted that they could pass to another order, even of mendicants, and so forth.” Thus in reality it was no desire of greater perfection or greater penance, but of escaping labor and difficulty, since they did not feel in themselves stock of virtue enough for so much perfection and mortification, such indifference and resignation, as are necessary in the Society. Therefore did our Father insist so much on this mortification, and wishes us to practise it and dwell much upon it, and that it be the continual study and aim of all.