Of the Great Favor and Benefit God Has Done Us in Encompassing Us with Rules

AMONG other favors that the Lord has done us in religion, it has been a great thing to encompass us with rules and holy admonitions, that so we might be better guarded and defended from our enemies. The saints very well compare the evangelical counsels to the outer wall or barbican of a city. Asa city is better fortified when it has not only a wall, but an outer wall, so that, if the enemy break through and batter down this, the townsmen have still the wall itself left to defend and guard them, so God has done this favor to religious orders in spiritual things. He has encompassed and guarded us in the first place with the strong wall of His law and commandments, and also with another wall or barbican, the rules and constitutions of the order, so that upon the assault of our enemy, who keeps up a continual war against us, at most he may batter down and break through some part of the outer wall, but the main wall of the law and commandments of God still remains intact, and we are safe. A great mercy of God is this, that the temptation that assails you, at most makes you fail in a rule, which is not binding even under venial sin, and that now you make more account of breaking a rule than there in the world perhaps you would have made of grievous sins.

Hence it will be seen how great is the mistake that some weak religious make, who, when they see that they commit faults against the rules and fall into sundry imperfections, fancy that, for their being thus backward and careless, they would do better there outside in the world than being so imperfect here in religion. This is a very grave temptation of the devil, since it touches us on so vital a spot as our vocation. He wishes nothing more than to keep us exposed in the world, outside of the outworks and barbican of the rules and evangelical counsels, because then he will play his artillery against the unprotected wall of the law of God, and perchance he will soon cause you to fall into some mortal sin, which now he cannot so easily accomplish, since you are guarded and defended by the barbican, which receives all the blows, and where all the lances of the enemy are shattered, you meanwhile remaining far from falling into mortal sin.

One fault of the kind you would commit in the world weighs more than the many faults and imperfections which at present you have in religion. Hence, though it seems to you that you live a lukewarm and unprofitable life, bring it home to yourself that you are in a much better state than if you were living in the world. This is one of the reasons why we have to esteem greatly the religious state, and to give daily endless thanks to God for a mercy and benefit so great as that of His having called us to it. And should there be no other good in the religious state but this, it would yet be an exceedingly great blessing, and on this account alone much to be desired and esteemed. Think you it a small thing that, while others walk in the open among the bulls and wild beasts, you are on the parapet looking on from your position of safety? That, while others are sailing amid the tempests and waves of the sea, you are safe in harbor? While others are in the midst of the river of Babylon in danger of drowning, you repose in peace and tranquillity on the bank? But the rules and evangelical counsels are a still greater benefit in this, that they greatly help us to keep the commandments of the law of God; for he who vows to keep the perfection of the counsels very easily secures his observance of the commandments; while, on the contrary, he who has no mind to keep the counsels or to strive after perfection will with very great difficulty keep the commandments of God. It is in this way that St. Thomas explains those words of Christ our Redeemer, which are recorded in the Gospel: Of a truth I say to you, that the rich with difficulty shall enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. xix. 23). Do you know why? asks St. Thomas. “Because it is difficult to keep the commandments, by which we have to enter the kingdom of heaven, if we do not try to keep the counsels and aim at perfection.” But for him who strives to keep the coun-. Sels, the keeping of the commandments will be very easy; because it is clear that to give up riches and to possess nothing as your own, nor even to use anything as your own, is a very sure way of being far from coveting your neighbor’s goods. And to pray to God for those that persecute you, and to return good to those that do you evil, serves to keep us very far from hating our enemies; and he that never swears, even though what he says be true, is not likely to swear to a falsehood. Hence the saints agree that the rules and counsels which we strive to keep in religion are far from being a burden, but rather help and assist us in the bearing of the burden of the commandments of God.

St. Augustine explains this very well by two comparisons. Speaking of the sweetness of the law of grace, he compares its burden to the burden wings are to a dove. The wings are really no burden to it, nor do they in any way embarrass the dove, rather it is the Wings that make it nimble and able to fly. In like manner the wheels of a cart are extra weight, nevertheless this weight is not only not a burden but rather a help to the oxen, and greatly lightens the load, whereas, had it not been for the wheels, they would have been unable to move one half the weight. In like manner the evangelical counsels which we have in our rules, not only do not weigh us down or embarrass us, but rather act as wheels, by which means we bear the weight and the yoke of the law of God with great ease and sweetness, which those in the world bear with sighs and groans, falling a thousand times under its weight because they have not these wheels or wings. For these reasons, then, we ought to be very thankful to God, to esteem greatly our rules, and to be fervent in their observance.