That Not Only Ought We Not to Neglect Our Own Advancement to Help Our Neighbor, but We Need to Be More Careful of It and More Diligent about It on His Account

RECOVER thy neighbor according to thy strength, and look to thyself that thou fall not in, says the Wise Man (Ecclus. xxix. 26). This is the end and institute of the Society, and the royal road for us to travel by. From this royal road we may diverge in two ways: one to the right, by withdrawing entirely from all intercourse with our neighbor to attend to our own improvement; the other to the left, by giving so much attention to our neighbor as to forget ourselves. Both these extremes are vicious and dangerous. We will speak shortly of both of them, that we may hit the mean, in which virtue and perfection lie. To begin with the more dangerous extreme, which is that of giving ourselves over so entirely to our neighbor as to forget ourselves, Christ our Redeemer warns us of this, saying: What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man make for his soul? (Matt. xvi. 26). There is no compensation that can compensate for the loss of that. Thus reason and charity alike require that for no occupations should we drop the care of our own souls, nor go slack over our own improvement, since well-ordered charity begins at home. This is the first thing that the prophet begs God to teach him. Teach me, O Lord, goodness, discipline, and knowledge (Psalm ecxviii. 26). He puts goodness in the first place. No one should forget or neglect himself under pretense of helping and advancing his neighbor; that would be a great error. Even the heathen Seneca said that such as neglect themselves for the sake of others are like wells that give to others their clear water, and keep the dregs and the mud for themselves. Pope Nicholas in a decree has another comparison, which further illustrates this point. Arguing that bad priests can administer the sacraments, inasmuch as thereby they harm only themselves, he says they are like a lighted torch, which benefits others and gives them light, while it wastes away and consumes itself. St. Bernard on those words of the Canticles: Thy name is as oil poured out (Cant. i. 2), expatiates very well on this point. He lays down two works that the Holy Ghost does in us; the one is giving us our first start in virtue for our own profit, and that he calls infusion; the other is imparting to us gifts and graces for the benefit and profit of our neighbor, which he calls effusion, because it is given to us to pour out and impart to others. Infusion, he says, must come first, and then effusion. The first thing is to receive into ourselves and become quite full of virtue, then to pour out and impart the same to others. He draws a comparison which illustrates the matter well. If you have judgment and understanding, you must contrive to be a bowl, and not a pipe. There is this difference between the pipe and the bowl or basin of the fountain, that the pipe passes the water at once upon receiving it, without keeping it, while the bowl or basin of the fountain, which is closed all round, first gets filled itself and then, when it is filled, what there is over, it shares and imparts without losing or diminishing aught of its own. Thus, then, you must contrive to be, not a pipe, but like the basin of the fountain.

And, says St. Bernard, that you may not think that what I say is my own invention and make light of it accordingly, you must know that it is not mine, but of the Holy Ghost, Who tells us by the Wise Man: The fool brings out his whole mind, but the wise man keeps back and reserves some for the future (Prov. xxix. 11). The fool pours it all out like a pipe, but the wise man delays and keeps something to himself for afterwards; he seeks to be himself first well replenished and full as a bowl. But, alas, facts go the other way about! At this day there are very few bowls in the Church, but a great many pipes, ready to pass on the water of the word of God to others, and water the earth of their hearts, making it green and fresh and fruitful, while they themselves remain dry and barren. Canales multos hodie habemus in Ecclesia, conchas vero perpaucas. These folk are so charitable, he says ironically, that they would fain give out before gathering; having nothing for themselves, they want to give to others. They are prompter and more disposed to speak than to listen, and would willingly teach what they have not learned; they would like to govern and rule others, while they cannot govern themselves. This is not charity, for no degree of charity can take priority over what the Wise Man says: Have pity on thine own soul, pleasing God (Ecclus. xxx. 24). This is the first step, to have pity on our own soul, our very own, by endeavoring to serve and greatly please God; after that must come our efforts to help and cure others. “If I have only a little oil for myself, do you think I am going to give it to you and have nothing left for myself? I am keeping it for myself,” as that widow answered (III Kings xvii. 12), and except at the bidding of the prophet I will not give it away. And if any importune me, taking me for more than I am worth and thinking I have enough to share, I have my answer for them: Lest perchance there be not enough for you and for me, go rather to them that sell (Matt. xxv. 9) and have abundance, for it is not reasonable that I be left poor and empty-handed to give to you.

It is not meant that others should have relief and you affliction, but that there should be equality (II Cor. viii. 13), says St. Paul. That other is not good charity; it is enough that you love your neighbor as you love yourself; that is the commandment of God (Matt. xxii. 39). And so St. Paul says: There should be equality. Do not love your neighbor more than yourself; do not lose yourself and your own spiritual advancement to attend to the advancement of your neighbor; do not be careless of yourself to take care of others. That would not be good charity. Let my soul be full of thy grace, as of rich and nourishing food, and my mouth and my lips shall praise thee for joy, says the Prophet David (Psalm Ixii. 6). You yourself must first be filled to the full and made rich, that out of the abundance of your heart your mouth may speak. Therefore it is needful, says the Apostle, that we should attend very diligently to the things that we have heard, that we should not be emptied out of all and lose them (Heb. ii. 1). We must look to it carefully that all the liquor of heaven does not leak away from us, but keep it first for ourselves—overflow certainly, but not leak.

Not only must we not neglect our own improvement to help our neighbor, but for that very end we need to be more careful and diligent about it. Great is the stock of virtue and mortification that is required to deal with people of the world, that they may not infect us with their bad tastes and make us take up their manners rather than they ours. He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled, says the Wise Man (Ecclus. xiii. 1). He that has to do with pitch must be very careful not to get any on his hands; he must keep his hands well bathed in oil. So for us to deal with worldly folk, we must always be full of God and bathed in prayer, otherwise we may reasonably fear that the pitch will stick to our hands, and those folk will carry us over to their side and infect us with their bad tastes and ill habits.

One of the chief admonitions that our blessed Father Ignatius, as we read in his Life, used to give to those who had business with their neighbor, was to be fully convinced that they were not living nor dealing with perfect men, but going among a race not holy, and often unjust and deceitful, in the midst of a depraved and perverse nation, as St. Paul says (Phil. ii. 15). And this admonition is of great importance, to make us keep well on our guard, armed and cautious, that the evils and scandals that we witness may not infect and take hold of us. Medical men and those who tend the sick, especially in cases of a contagious malady, are wont to carry with them many perfumes and preservatives, that the disease may not catch them, nor that exhaltation and bad odor that comes from their patients infect them. Now our business is with the sick, and with the sick of a contagious disease that may infect and lay hold of us if we are not well fortified with prophylactics and preservatives of high virtue, prayer, and mortification. It readily appears what a good and healthy stomach the confessor and missioner must have, whose hands are in continual contact with putrid and stinking sores, not to have his stomach turned by the stench of sins heard in confession, and a pool stirred within him of evil thoughts and movements.

They say very well that we must be like certain rivers there are, that enter into the midst of the sea and keep their water fresh without any intermixture of the salt sea water. St. Chrysostom, speaking of what priests ought to be who have to live in the world and mix with their neighbor, says that their souls should be as the bodies of those three children of Babylon, unburned in the midst of the furnace. We walk among flames, not of straw or tow, but fiercer than those of the Babylonian furnace. Here darts out a flash of envy, there one of ambition, and there another of sensuality; here one caused by those who form rash judgments and tell tales about me. Now you must be such as not to burn in the midst of these flames. And since fire makes its way in at every opening given to it, and leaves what it finds blackened and disfigured, beautiful though it were before, the priest of God, says the saint, must be so much on his guard that not even the smoke may touch him. Very much on his guard must one be, not to burn in the midst of so many devouring fires, and not so much as to be tarnished and speckled by the smoke. Still better does Christ our Redeemer warn us of this, saying: Ye are the light of the world (Matt. v.14). Light, says St. Augustine, passes through unclean places and by dunghills without contamination or infection; rather it cleanses, purifies, and disinfects them without receiving any taint itself. So we should pass by these dunghills and cesspools of sinners and sins, noisome and filthy as they are, without their affecting us, but rather cleansing and drying them up and taking away their bad odor, as does the light of the sun.

We must, therefore, always have a great care of our spiritual duties, meditation, examens, spiritual reading, penance, and mortification. We should never leave out the ordinary meditation that we have in the Society for our spiritual profit. We must make great account of this, since the devil, seeing that he cannot hinder us from helping our neighbor, that being our end and institute, endeavors to get us to devote ourselves to it and be absorbed in it to such an extent as to forget ourselves and neglect the means necessary for our own profit and preservation. When a river goes out of its bed, it fertilizes the lands by which it passes, and gathers into itself all their filth; that is the devil’s object in getting us to give ourselves without moderation to looking after our neighbor. This is apt to be a very common temptation, and so it is necessary to be very well fortified against it, all the more seeing that, as we shall say presently, the chief means that we can take to that very end of benefiting our neighbors and doing them much good, is to take care of our own spiritual advancement. The more numerous our occupations, the greater need we have of prayer and recourse to God, to do them well as the saints did.

We read of the blessed St. Dominic that he made such a division of his time as to spend the day on his neighbor and the night with God. That is how his teaching was productive of so great fruit, because at nighttime he arranged with God what he was to do during the day; he first concluded his business with God, and then concluded it with men. And Christ our Lord gave us the example of this, so many times spending whole nights in prayer in lonely places, persevering in prayer, as the evangelists write. He spent the days in going up and down, preaching and teaching and curing the sick and possessed persons, and during the nights He kept watch and persevered in prayer: erat pernoctans in oratione Dei (Luke vi. 12) ; not that He had need of this precaution as St. Ambrose notes, but to give us an example.

We must be particularly careful on this point when we are out of our own houses. The rules of those who go on missions take special notice of this: ‘Let them who go out be on their guard not to omit the spiritual duties usual at home” (Rule 26). With good reason is it said, “be on their guard,” because certainly it is very necessary to take particular care not to fail on this point when we are out of our houses. At home, on the one hand our occupations are more moderate; and on the other there is the bell to call me to meditation and examen, and the sight of all the others doing that goes to make me do the same. But when you go out of the house, on the one hand there come extraordinary occupations wearying and overwhelming you; and on the other, as you hear no bell, nor have the sight of the example of others to help you, but rather many hindrances and distractions, if you do not use great care and diligence, your spiritual duties will often be left out. That is why well-trained men are needed to go on the missions. Our Father Francis Borgia used to say that he was never satisfied with any mission that he sent out except when it gave him a great deal of pain; and the pain was the parting with the men of the stamp of those that were needed, and whom he usually selected for such undertakings. Much more is needed to go abroad than to stay at home; that is why missions are the proper work of the professed of four vows, who are supposed to be men well proved and advanced in virtue. And withal it is necessary that they should not stay too long on the missions, but at stated periods return to the house to recollect themselves and refit, that the spirit may not be overwhelmed and exhausted by so much occupation.

Hence we may learn that, if this is to be said of spiritual ministrations in aid of souls—that we are not for them to leave out our meditation, or examens, or other ordinary duties regarding our own spiritual good, since it is no good charity to neglect and forget oneself to attend to others— it is plain what is to be thought of material and exterior occupations, temporal duties and affairs, whether carried on by seculars or religious; for this doctrine concerns all, and everyone may apply it to himself according to his state. Aman should never become so entangled and absorbed in exterior occupations, however good they be and proper to his state, as on that account to forget his salvation or, if he is a religious, to forget his meditation, his examen, and the rest of what bears on his spiritual progress and mortification; the greater in all reason should not be abandoned for the less. We should always put in the first place what touches our own spiritual advancement; such is the will of God and of our superiors. A student should not drop or curtail his spiritual duties for his studies. Little will it profit him to turn out a great doctor if he does not turn out a good religious. The more so, as ordinary observance of spiritual duties will not hinder studies, but rather further them much, the Lord giving light and understanding to improve in studies.

We read of Albertus Magnus that he used often to say to his scholars, and he has left it written at the beginning of his “Summa,” that the divine sciences are learned better by prayer and devotion than by study; and he used to quote to this effect the words of Solomon: J desired, and there was given me understanding; I invoked, and there came on me the spirit of wisdom (Wisdom vii. 7). And St. Thomas Aquinas, who was his pupil, came by this means to know and understand so much. He used to say that what he knew, he had gained more by prayer than by human industry and study. And of St. Bonaventure it is related that, while he was lecturing in the chair of theology at Paris with great competence and satisfaction, and composing at the same time some books with the applause of all the world, one day he received a visit from St. Thomas Aquinas, who was his intimate friend and contemporary. St. Thomas asked him to show him the books that he studied. St. Bonaventure took him to his cell, where he showed him some few books in which he studied, that he kept on his table. St. Thomas desired to see those special books whence he drew such wonderful ideas, and begged him to show him them. Then the saint pointed out to him a praying place, where he kept a very devout crucifix, and said to him: “These, father, are my books, and pardon me, and know for sure that that is the chief book from whence I draw all that I read and write; and I get incomparably more profit and greater light of true science at the foot of this crucifix, having recourse to it in my doubts to be instructed, and by hearing and serving Mass, than by all other books and literary exercises.” This answer left St. Thomas in greater admiration and devotion to the saint.