In Which What Has Been Said Is Confirmed by Some Examples

IT is told of the Abbot Nesteron that, the day he entered religion, he reckoned within himself: “I and the ass of the monastery are all one.” From today onwards you have to be like the ass. All that they put on its back, it carries without saying a word of the why and wherefore. Be it much or little, it never in any way resists, nor has any opinion to the contrary. They give it blows; it shows no sense of wrong, nor ceases to work. A lowly animal he is, anda despised; on all hands he is held to be of no account, and with a little straw they reckon his services paid. The poor beast does not go where he likes, nor rest when he likes, nor do what he likes. In all and for all he obeys the man in charge; so also should the religious do. And as the animal does not eat for himself, nor rest for himself, but all is done for the better service of his master, so also the religious must not eat for himself, nor sleep, nor enjoy himself, nor take recreation on his own account, but all that is done to be better able to serve God and his order. Make me, O Lord, as a beast of burden before Thee, that I may be ever with Thee (Psalm lxxii. 23). So, then, make yourself as a beast of burden in religion, and in that way you will advance greatly therein.

Simon Metaphrastes relates, and Surius quotes it in the Life of St. Melania of Rome, an example which, he says, she used to repeat to her nuns. There came a youth to one of the great monks of old, saying that he wished to be his disciple. The old man, wishing to show what he should be if he wished to be a religious and a disciple of his, told him to flog a statue that was in the grounds, and give it blows and kicks. The youth did so. That done, the old man asked him if the statue had made any complaint or resistance. The youth said not. ‘Go back again, then,” he said, “and beat it as before; and besides, give it much injurious language and insults.” The youth having done this a second and a third time, the old man asked him again if the statue had resented it and shown itself offended. He answered No, because, after all, it was a statue without sense or speech. Then the old man said to him: “Now, if you can let me do to you as you have done to this statue, without resisting or contradicting or complaining, by all means come in to be my disciple; but if not, return home, since you are not made for a religious.”

We read of St. Gertrude that she had an abbess of great holiness, but very unpleasant in her manner and apt to give sharp answers. The saint prayed to God to deliver her from this bad temper. The Lord answered: “Why would you have her freed from it, since thereby she takes occasion to keep herself in humility, that seeing that she falls into some impatience, she may humble herself and recognize her weakness? And, besides, what merit would you have in obeying if she were sweet-tempered? So I leave her this fault for your exercise, and that you may learn to obey.”

Blosius relates something like this of the same saint, that one day, as she was praying for a defect of a certain person who was superior of a congregation, the Lord appeared to her and said to her: “I, for the abundance of My lovingkindness, gentleness, and divine love wherewith I have cherished this congregation, permit the existence of some defects even in those who govern it, that in that way the merit of the congregation may be increased; for there is much more virtue in subjecting oneself to another whose faults are known than to one whose actions seem perfect. I permit superiors to have some defects, and sometimes to forget themselves for the numerous occupations and variety of cares that they have, that they may humble themselves more. The merit of subjects grows and is augmented as well by the defects as by the virtues of those who govern them; and on the same principle the merit of those who govern and direct them grows, as is reasonable, as well by the progress and virtues as by the defects of their subjects.” By these words of the Lord, St. Gertrude understood the exuberant loving-kindness of the Divine Wisdom, which so secretly arranges the salvation and cure of His servants, permitting faults in them to make them more perfect.

In the life of St. Anthony, St. Athanasius writes of those monks of old who gave themselves over to obedience, that they sought out severe and ill-tempered superiors who would never thank them for anything they did, but scold them, as Pacomius did his disciple Theodore to purify him if there were any dust of vainglory about him. And the harder and more peevish the superior was, the more obedient were they. One of the modes of religious life which those holy Fathers practised of old was for two disciples to be under the discipline and correction of one old Father, whom they served in all things as a slave serves his master. And as a master takes occasion at every step to scold and chastise his slave for not doing things to his liking, so also did those masters behave on the like occasion. And sometimes, through peevishness of temper, sometimes to exercise the young in virtue, they dealt out rough treatment to their disciples for as many as thirty years, as St. John Climacus says, proving them with various kinds of hard labor and harsh language.

Cassian tells of a wealthy lady of rank that lived in the city of Alexandria a very pious life. She had such a taste for suffering that, not content with bearing generously the pains and troubles of ordinary occurrence, she went out of her way to seek and provide for herself new occasions of trial, for her better exercise in virtue and mortification. With this desire she called upon the holy bishop Athanasius, and begged him to give her a widow, one of those supported by the Church, to keep and make comfortable in her house. The holy bishop praised her good desire, and bade them give her one, the best servant of God, and the kindliest and most peaceful-tempered that they had. She took her to her house, waited on her, and made her very comfortable. But when she saw the gentleness and gracious manners of this woman, who was full of thankfulness and praises for the services and kindnesses rendered her, she went back to the bishop with loud complaints that, whereas she had asked for a woman to serve for her own exercise and spiritual advancement, they had not given her one. The saint, not quite understanding what she wanted, thought that by oversight they had not given her any woman at all. He inquired into the matter, and found that they had given her the best.of the lot; whereupon he understood the end and motive of her petitioning, and answered that he would see to it. So he bade them give her the most ill-natured and least virtuous of all they had—which character, the story says, was easier to find than the good one. Their choice fell on a woman, dour, ungracious, thankless, moody, passionate, wordy, and quarrelsome. She took her home, and began to serve her with great charity and humility as she had done the former, and even more. All that she got for this by way of return and gratitude was complaints, insults, curses, utter scorn; the woman declaring that she had brought her there not to entertain her, but to torment her; nay, sometimes she got so angry as not to keep her hands off her. The holy woman bore this in silence and endured it all, doubling and redoubling her attentions and efforts to make her comfortable. The more insults she received, the more services and kindnesses she rendered; and by these exercises she experienced great aid and profit to her soul. She went to thank the bishop for having gratified her desire by giving her such a teacher of patience, by whose teaching she profited continually. Occupied in these and other holy exercises she died in the Lord.

The Abbot Poemen used to relate what befell him when he was a novice in his dealings with the Abbot Joseph. Abbot Joseph had in his monastery a very fine fig tree, and used to send Poemen every morning to eat the fruit—an extraordinary thing to do, considering the abstinence the monks professed. One day that he gave him the order it was Friday, and he had not the heart to eat then, not to break the fast of that day, so universally received among all monks. Afterwards he was seized with remorse of conscience for not having obeyed, and went to tell the abbot. “Forgive me, father, the question I am about to ask: What is the reason why, professing such abstinence as we do, you have bidden me every day to eat those figs, especially on a day like this? I must tell you that I was much upset today, and so could not bring myself to eat; at the same time I am full of shame and remorse for not having obeyed you in this matter, seeing that you would never have ordered me such a thing without cause.” To this the old man answered: ‘Son, the Fathers of the Desert of old did not in the beginning order their monks things so very rational and obvious, but things that on the face of them sometimes seemed absurd and mad, to test them and try whether they had submission of judgment and true resignation to the will of the superior; and when they saw that they did them without reply or hesitation, thenceforth they only ordered them things necessary and suitable.”

In the Lives of the holy Fathers it is related that one of them saw one day four orders of the just in heaven. The first was of invalids, who in their weak health had practised patience and given thanks to God. The second, superior to the former, was of those who welcomed and gave hospitality to poor pilgrims, and served the sick, and, in short, practised works of charity. The third was of those who had left all things, and lived in the desert in great poverty and abstinence, occupied in prayer. The fourth order, superior to all the rest, was of those who, for love of Jesus Christ, lived in obedience, subject to the will of another in all things; and these he saw wearing chains and collars of gold, and in greater glory than the others. Surprised at this, he asked how it was that these had more glory than the rest, including the solitaries. It was answered him that it was because the monks in their solitude, and the others who were occupied in works of charity, fulfilled their own will in what they did, but the obedient not so; they sacrificed their own will to God, and as the will was the most valuable thing in man, so the sacrifice of it was of such merit in the sight of God; and the honor given them of those collars of gold was because they bowed their necks under the yoke of obedience.

This well agrees with what is related of the Abbot Pambo, that there came to visit him four monks of the Desert, all men of signal virtues. The first distinguished himself chiefly in fasts and great austerities that he practised; the second, in poverty; the third, in charity to his neighbor; the fourth had lived twenty years under obedience. The holy abbot preferred this last to all the other three, because such virtue as they had, they had kept of their own will; but this last one, entirely abandoning his will, had made himself the servant of another’s. And saying this he added that those who did so, and persevered to the end in doing so, might truly be called martyrs.