Of the Harm and Mischief That Comes of Neglecting Mortification in Small Things

| cae what has been said it may readily be understood what harm and mischief may ensue from the neglect of mortification in little matters and taking no care about them. We should not look so much at the smallness and minuteness of the thing in which we omit to mortify ourselves as at the fact that we have no mind to deny or curb our will for the love of God, not even in this small matter. And there is another very great and considerable mischief; it is that hereby a man goes on giving license to his will to have his own way in other things also, and thus he becomes wilful and headstrong, fomenting and feeding his own will. The man does not understand the evil and mischief that he is doing herein. This self-will is at first a little lion cub, but at this rate it will grow and become a fierce and masterful lion that cannot be brought to reason. We well know that self-will is the cause and root of all evils and sins and of hell itself. Cesset propria voluntas, et infernus non erit, says St. Bernard—‘“Let there be no self-love and there will be no hell.”” Now by these mortifications a man systematically curbs his own will, refusing it permission to come out with its own in everything that it desires, which license is apt to be the root and cause of all sins.

Richard of St. Victor says that, since the devil labors to Overcome us in small things, thereby to weaken us and so overcome us in matters of grave fault, it is but right and proper that we should labor also to overcome ourselves and mortify ourselves frequently in little things, thereby to shut the door in the devil’s face, that he may not overcome us in greater things. He advises us to begin with these small things, that thus we may gather strength by practice and from victory in smaller things mount up little by little to victory in greater. Cassian also is of the same advice, and gives an example, how, when a motion of anger comes upon you at your pen’s not being good or your knife’s not cutting well or other like things, the thing to do, he says, is to mortify and repress these disorderly motions though they be in small things, since by this victory, when grave occasions occur afterwards of impatience and injurious language from one’s neighbors, the servant of God finds himself possessed of sufficient strength to mortify himself and preserve charity and peace of heart.

Besides, there is another advantage in these small mortifications voluntarily taken up, that thereby another great loss and danger is escaped, as we are taught by the holy man Eusebius, as Theodoret relates in his ‘Historia Religiosa.” This holy man practised himself much in them; and when asked why, he answered: “I am training myself against the arts and wiles of the devil and contriving hereby that the great temptations with which he might assail me, of pride, lust, envy, and the like may be turned on to these little things, in which, if I am beaten, I shall not lose much, and if I win, the devil will be greatly put out and affronted, seeing that he could not beat me even in these small things.” Let this be well observed, because it is a truth of which God’s servants have abundant experience. Understand that, while you progress in this practice of mortification in little things, the devil’s temptations will be turned upon that, and your temptations will usually turn on these little things—‘“Shall I do that mortification? Shall I overcome that repugnance or let it have its way?” Supposing once in awhile you are beaten on this point, you will not lose much. But if you drop this practice, and make it no longer your object to fight with the devil and against the flesh in these small matters, devil and flesh will make war on you with greater temptations, in which if you are beaten, you are undone.

St. Augustine has a story how a Catholic, being provoked by flies that continually tormented him, was visited by a Manichean, to whom he recounted his annoyance. The Manichean thought he had found a fit occasion to insinuate his error, which was, that there were two origins or causes of things: the one of invisible things, which was God; the other, of visible things, which was the devil. (It is against this error that these words are inserted in the Creed: “Of all things visible and invisible.”) The Manichean therefore asked him: “Who do you believe was the creator of flies?” The Catholic, who found himself so tormented by these creatures and saw them in such an evil light, durst not say it was God. “But if it was not God,” replied the Manichean, “who was it that made them?” The other replied that he thought it was the devil. The Manichean still pressed the argument more home. “But if the devil,’ he said, “made the flies, what about the bee, who is a bit bigger than the fly; who made her?” The Catholic durst not say that God had created the bee and not the fly, there being very little between them; so he answered that if God had not created the flies, probably He had not created the bees either. The Manichean, perceiving this, by little and little drew him on further, passing from the bee to the grasshopper, a little bigger than the bee; from the grasshopper to the lizard, from the lizard to a bird, from a bird to a sheep, thence to an ox, then to an elephant, and last of all to man himself. “And hereby he persuaded this poor man,” says St. Augustine, “that God had not created man.” See into what an abyss of misery he fell because he could not patiently suffer one small mortification caused by the biting of the flies! So, says St. Augustine, do you beware lest the devil deceive you when you are tempted and annoyed by flies. Birdcatchers, he says, are wont to put flies on their spring-traps to catch certain birds; so did the devil with this unhappy man. See, then, that he does not catch you also when you are annoyed and tempted, sad and melancholy over little things, for with these flies the devil is apt to catch and lead men little by little to greater things.