That Even though It Be under Plea of Preaching, a Religious Should Shun Intercourse with His Relations and Visits to His Native Place

ppas temptation of going to one’s native place and visiting and conversing with one’s relations comes to some under pretense of preaching to them and doing good to their souls. When temptations come in this way, disguised under color and appearance of good, they are apt to be more dangerous, since they are not taken for temptations, but for good motives. On the words: Catch for us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards (Cant. ii. 15), St. Bernard says that this is one of those little foxes that are apt to get in under a deceitful appearance of good, and destroy and ruin many. And the saint says that he knew some who had come to ruin by this. They thought to gain others, and lost themselves; especially since kinsmen are not ordinarily fit persons to do spiritual good to kinsmen, since, as they knew them yesterday, when they went playing with them, they do not treat them with the esteem and respect that a Gospel preacher requires. So said Christ our Lord: No man is a prophet in his own country (Luke iv. 24). And when God wished to make Abraham a great preacher and father of the faithful, He bade him go out from his country and the society of his relations, friends, and acquaintances and betake himself to Mesopotamia, where no one knew him. And here is a thing worthy of consideration. When St. Paul was at Jerusalem praying in the Temple, God bade him depart from thence and go preaching to the Gentiles, “for here in Jerusalem you will do no good”—xnon recipient testimonium tuum de me (Acts xxii. 18). “O Lord, but here they know me, a disciple at the feet of Gamaliel, and know that I persecuted them that believed in Thee; and when they were stoning St. Stephen, I kept their clothes.” ‘Go to, you understand not; go out of this country where you are well known, and I will make you a preacher to the Gentiles. Go where you are not known, and there you will do much good.” And think you that you will do good in your native town? What fruit can you gather there among your relations? How shall you be able to preach and persuade them to despise the world and its comforts when they see you enjoying and amusing yourself in the world in the midst of flesh and blood?

Peter de Ribadaneira in one of his manuscript dialogues relates an amusing example of what befell one of the Society, who, overcome by his mother’s loving entreaties, was visiting her at her house in Messina. He says that one day a priest in the church was engaged in exorcizing an evi! spirit, who was in possession of a poor woman, in a crowd of spectators. In an evil moment this religious came in and wanted to help the priest, so he began threatening the wicked spirit and bidding him in the name of God to go out of that body. The spirit gave no answer but “Mummy, Mummy.” All quite entered into the fun of the answer, since they knew and were quite aware of the reason of his visit, and he remained very much abashed and put out of countenance. Now the same answer they will be able to make to you when in your native place you preach to others that they should mortify themselves and renounce the comforts and amusements of the world.

Sulpicius Severus relates another example to this purpose, not amusing but terrifying. He says that a young man of Asia, very rich in temporal goods and of illustrious lineage, married and had a son. He was at the same time tribune of Egypt; and on the journeys that he used to take at times on the business of his Office, he had occasion on one of them to pass through the desert in which the Fathers lived, where he saw many monasteries and cells of monks. He entered into conversation with the Abbot John, who spoke to him of the affairs of his soul and salvation. Such an impression did the conversation make on him that he returned no more to his own house, but renounced the world and began in the desert a life so admirable, and took so much to heart the practice of virtue, that in a short time he was ahead of many of the old men. While the wind was blowing astern so favorably, there came upon him a strong temptation that it would be better to return to the world and see to the salvation of his wife and child, since he was now so disenchanted from its vanities that the benefit should not be for himself alone. Under this appearance of charity the devil deceived him. So after he had been four years in the desert, he took the road leading to his birthplace. Passing by a monastery, he called upon the monks and acquainted them with his intention. They all told him that it was a temptation of the devil and that many had been befooled in that way. He did not believe them, but stood fast to his own view, took leave of the monks, and sought to go on with his journey. Hardly had he gone out of the monastery, when our Lord permitted a devil to enter into his body and torment him mightily, making him gnash his teeth and foam at the mouth. He was dragged in men’s arms into the monastery, and there it was necessary for the violence of his raving to cast him into prison and tie his hands and feet. And though the monks besought God for him, and exorcized the devil, the Lord permitted that it should not leave him till two years were over. Then he was delivered and returned “a sadder and a wiser man” to his former place and monastic life—a great lesson to the others to persevere in the way they had begun and not let themselves be deceived under those false appearances of piety. Hence it will be seen how far a religious ought to be from those journeys to his native place and visits to his relations; since if, even when it is done under plea of preaching to them and producing fruit in their souls, saints say it is a temptation, having in it many inconveniences and dangers. What must it be when it is done solely for their comfort and consolation or one’s own!