Sundry Remedies against the Pusillanimity of Those Who Withdraw from Helping Their Neighbor for Fear of Losing Their Own Souls

THOROUGHLY to root out of our heart the temptation of pusillanimity with which the devil is wont to assail some timorous and scrupulous persons, who think they are putting themselves in danger of the loss of their own souls by trying to save others, we must in the first place understand and persuade ourselves of an important truth that will be a great help to this purpose. It is that we shall be safer and better protected where God places us than in any other position that we were thinking we should be in. Going by obedience about the streets and squares, hearing filthy and impure things from penitents in confession, we shall be better shielded and safeguarded than in our own cell, there by ourselves, retired of our own will, stealing away from those ministries for fear of a fall. In that seclusion possibly you may find yourself burning in a flame of evil thoughts, whereas there in the ministry you would have been very secure and quiet, because God had put you there and would guard and defend you. Lord, thou hast encompassed and guarded us with the buckler of thy good will (Psalm v. 13), the good will of God, commanding and placing us there.

St. Basil takes good note of this. Think not, he says, that all you have to do to be chaste and free from fleshly temptations is to live in retirement and see nobody. Not so. St. Jerome in the solitude of the desert, dining on herbs, his limbs crushed with severe penance, tells us that many a time he fancied himself taking part in the dances and balls of Roman ladies. Though his face was wan and sallow with much fasting, his body cold, and his flesh dry and almost dead, still his will did not cease to take fire with evil thoughts and to feel great motions of impure desire. On the contrary, Palladius relates of the Abbot Elias that God had given him such a great gift of chastity that he presided over a convent of three hundred nuns for forty years in as much peace and quiet as if they had been men, without feeling any temptation or motion or danger in point of chastity.

Those three children were thrown with their clothes and shoes in the midst of the Babylonian furnace, and the fire did them no harm, not even to a hair of their garments; whereas the servants of the king, who kept at a distance and were on their guard against the fire, were burned to ashes by it. God was powerful enough to prevent their burning in the midst of the flames, who entered them for His love; nay, the flaming mass was changed into a garden of flowers and a paradise of delights, where they stood praising and blessing God. So it befalls those who for love of that same God and zeal for His honor and glory, walk in the midst of the fire of the Babylonian furnace of the world. Where others take fire and are consumed, they are praising and blessing God, giving Him hearty thanks for the favor He has done them in calling them to religion; and where they see others drawing down perdition and damnation upon their souls, they gather greater knowledge and abhorrence of the vanities of this world and greater esteem of what they have in religion. To them that love God, all things work together unto good (Rom. viii. 28). To them who for love of God and obedience busy themselves in these ministries, everything turns to good. They gather honey from hard rock, and the sweetest oil from rugged crags. Where there are faithful hearts anxious to please God, where a man is never intruded or put into such offices as ours without being lawfully called, there is no cause for alarm, but rather of great confidence in the Lord, that since He puts us in such offices, He will draw us well out of them.

That we may be thoroughly penetrated with this truth, and more confident and encouraged in our ministries, leaving aside many other motives, I will speak now particularly of one that we have for this in the Society, that is, the particular grace of religious vocation. This is quite a main point and a source of great consolation, as well for our present purpose as for many others. Every religious order has a particular grace and help from the Lord to gain the state of perfection to which its members are called; for God never calls anyone to any state or end, but He gives him also suitable means and strength and grace, as needful to gain the perfection to which he is called. St. Thomas founds this doctrine well on Holy Scripture and natural reason, for the works of God are perfect (Deut. xxxii. 4). So, if God institutes a religious order for an end, He also must give it the natural means and aids to gain that end, otherwise the work of God would be imperfect. So we see His Majesty acts in the order of nature. When He gives a power to any purpose, He also gives the means suitable for that power to come to act; otherwise, philosophers say, it would be an idle and vain power. The same holds good in supernatural things and the order of grace; such an order must be not less perfect, but rather more perfect, than the order of nature. So, when God institutes a religious order for any end, He gives it all the means and aids necessary for that order to be able to gain its end; and this we call “the grace of religious vocation.”

Now, as religious orders are different, each having its own mode of procedure and particular end and holy purpose for which it was instituted, so also God gives them a particular grace and blessing to gain that end for which He instituted and designed them. To the Carthusian monks God gives a particular grace to observe enclosure and abstinence; to the Hieronymites, to keep their choir well; and so we may run through the other religious orders. Now the Society is a special religious order, instituted by apostolic authority in the Church of God, having for its special end the helping of souls; and to gain that end the Lord has given us peculiar and special means, which the sovereign pontiff sets down in the bull of institution, which are to preach, to hear confessions, to lecture, to teach Christian doctrine, to give the Spiritual Exercises, to effect reconciliations, to visit prisons and hospitals. Thus, as the Society is an order called by God to this end of helping souls, so also is it called to the exercise of these ministries as the means to gain that end.

This is to be carefully taken notice of as a very consoling fact, that not only the end, but also these means and ministries which we use with our neighbor are proper to our institute and belong to us by the rule approved and confirmed by the vicar of Christ, as appears by the bull of our institution issued by Julius III. Thus, then, it is by this rule that men of the Society are preachers, confessors, and lecturers. And not only spiritual ministrations, but also the corporal works of mercy which the Society does for the benefit of its neighbor, as visiting prisons and hospitals, are done by virtue of our rule and institute, as the same bull shows.

Coming now to the point, it follows that the Society has a special aid and grace from God our Lord to gain this end of saving souls for which it was instituted and for taking the means proper to our vocation and institute, given us by God for that end, and this is the grace of vocation proper to this religious order of the Society of Jesus. Thus our Lord will co-operate with us in a special manner and put special force and efficacy into the means we take to gain this end, for such is the special grace of this order; and so we find it by experience every day by the bounty and mercy of the Lord. What, think you, is the reason why a preacher of the Society goes on a mission—sometimes a young man who has just finished his studies—and sets a whole town in commotion? Everybody comes to confession; it looks like Holy Week; reconciliations are effected that many others had tried in vain to effect; public scandals are put an end to, that neither civil nor ecclesiastical authorities had been able to check. Think you that this is done by your virtues and learning or by your talent and gift of preaching? Not a bit of it; this is the special grace of the order to which you belong, that being its institute, and these the means proportionate thereto; wherefore God co-operates with them in a particular manner and gives them particular force and efficacy to attain their end. On the other hand—and this is a good confirmation of what I say—we see cases of persons who have left the Society, men who in it seemed to have wings and soar on high, and were listened to and produced fruit; they thought that out of the Society they should also be able to fly aloft and do the like; but the wings being the grace of their religious vocation, when they went out of the Society, they left them here behind them and found themselves birds without feathers.

In the First Book of Maccabees we have an example much to this point. Holy Scripture tells us that the Maccabees had done wonders in their battles, fighting most valiantly and gaining great victories without suffering any defeats themselves, and so they had a great name and reputation all the world over. When some of the people of Israel saw this, there grew in them, along with rivalry, ambition; and they desired and said: “Let us, too, make a name for ourselves as these have done.” They put their saying into execution; they gathered an army, and went out to fight the enemy. But the affair succeeded not according to their expectation; they returned covering their faces for shame. The enemy went out to meet them, routed them, and put them to flight, and there died two thousand of them. Holy Writ thereupon notes the reason thereof. They fell and were routed, and where they thought to win were beaten, because they were not of the lineage of the men whom God had chosen to deliver the people of Israel (I Mac. v. 62). Thus we have nothing to pride ourselves on, no ground to attribute anything to ourselves; to God and to our religious vocation we owe all that we are. The Lord hath made us fit ministers of the New Testament, not by the learning and talents that we possess, but by the spirit that he imparts to us (II Cor. iii. 6). Because such is our institute and you are a member of this religious order, God co-operates with you and gives you a particular grace and aid to produce much fruit in your neighbor, and so by your helping them on, not only do you lose no ground yourself, but rather you too get on thereby and grow in virtue and perfection. This is the special grace of this our religious vocation, and a particular effect thereof. This consideration is a great help to keep us from being disheartened.

St. Bernard well observes that, when the Bridegroom bids the bride to rise from the sleep of contemplation, He does not say go, but come (Cant. ii. 10); a word of no small encouragement to us, whereby we are given to understand that He does not leave you by your going, but carries you and draws you to Himself thereby. He does not send us on these ministries to remove us from Himself, but to unite us more closely to Himself; and He carries us and goes along with us. Thus we need not fear losing thereby, but should rather gather great courage and great confidence and strength, believing that thus we shall gain and thrive more.

We are told in Holy Scripture of a king’s son who, to encourage his servants to do a certain deed, said to them: It is I who command you, be strong and fear not (II Kings xiii. 28). Since it is Thou, O Lord, Who commandest me to occupy myself in these ministries and deal with my neighbor, what can I have to fear? I shall be safer and better protected in the midst of bad women, hearing their confessions and preaching to them, if Thou hast put me there, than I should be, shut in between four walls of my own will; since it is Thou, O Lord, Who commandest it, Thou Who settest me at it. Though I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because thou art with me (Psalm xxii. 4).

Hence also it will be seen how great is the delusion of those persons in religion who, following their own judgment and opinion, say: “If I were in such a place, or in such an office or ministry, I think I should find consolation and serve God there better; in this house or ministry where I am, I am quite out of sorts and seem not to get on at all.” Oh, what a delusion and huge deceit! How can you think that things will go better with you there where you wish to station yourself, and not go well where God stations you? We have known persons who, not settling down in the ministries and posts where God and obedience placed them, looked out for other posts and managed to bring their superior’s will over to their own, thinking so to serve God better and with more fruit; but they did so badly in the change of situation which they desired and contrived, that they came to see that this had been a punishment of God. Truly we should tremble at the thought of desiring anything of our own will, any office or place or post whatsoever, but let ourselves be carried and governed simply by God by means of obedience; for where God put us, there we shall be better and safer and more secure.