That although the Matter about Which a Rule Deals Is Trifling, This Is No Excuse, but Tells Rather against Him Who Does Not Keep It

PAS OUIEE very common temptation which the devil is apt to put in our way, so that we may fail in the observance of some of the rules, is to say that the things enjoined are trivial and of small importance, and that it is not in, them that sanctity and perfection consists. By this means, aided by our laziness and tepidity, he brings it about that we often fail in their observance; so it is necessary that we should prepare ourselves against this temptation. In the first place I say that he who excuses himself, saying that the matter is of small importance, really does not excuse himself or lessen the gravity of the fault, but rather in a certain way makes it all the graver. This is the teaching of St. Augustine, who, treating of the disobedience of Adam, says that, as the obedience of Abraham, as shown in his readiness to sacrifice Isaac, his son, is enhanced in proportion to the difficulty of the thing commanded, “so the disobedience of Adam in Paradise was so much the more grievous in proportion to the facility and lightness of the precept which God imposed”—there was no excuse for him.

What excuse could our first parents have for not obeying so easy a command as not to eat of but one sole tree, when they had so many others to choose from, and perchance these bore even better fruit? What would Adam have done if he had been commanded to do something hard? What, if God had commanded him to sacrifice his wife, as He had commanded Abraham to do with his son? How could he have sacrificed her, he who, rather than displease her, would not refrain from eating an apple which God had forbidden? Just the same way is the fault and disobedience of anyone more grave when he breaks rules that are easily kept. St. Bonaventure observes: “Faults in little things are more blameworthy and reprehensible the easier it was to avoid them and not fall into them.” If what was commanded was onerous and difficult, you might then have had some apparent excuse, but in a thing so easy, what excuse can you have?

Further, I ask you, how shall I believe that you will obey in hard and difficult things, if you do not obey in things light and easy? Is it to be thought that he will be up to the greater, who is not up to the less? St. Bernard says: “He who cannot make up his mind to restrain his tongue and his appetite is not a monk.” This was a common principle among those old ascetics, for which reason they always began their exercises with abstinence, for they said that if in this, which was exterior, people will not conquer themselves, how shall they conquer themselves in the interior, which is more difficult? How should they hold out against spiritual and invisible enemies, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places (Eph. vi. 12), if in those exterior things, and things which could be seen, they were at a loss how to conquer?

Hereby we shall be able to understand whether those desires are true or false, which we sometimes conceive to undertake great things, as for example, to suffer great hardships and mortifications, or even martyrdom in the land of the infidels; for if here you are unable to put up with some slight mortification, if here you break one rule or another solely because you will not accept the mortification of going to ask for leave, how am I to believe that you will undertake arduous and difficult things? St. Bonaventure aptly says: “Many say that they desire to die for Christ, who do not wish to suffer for Christ things very trivial, and words very light. How indeed shall one whom a falling leaf frightens not flinch under the stroke of the uplifted axe? If some small word which another says to you, which, after all, is only an ‘airy nothing,’ upsets and throws you out, how will you manage when real persecutions arise against you? What a state you will be in when false testimonies of the most slanderous kind are brought against you, and, more than this, when the world even believes them?” It is for this reason that St. Bonaventure advises that we should train ourselves to conquer and mortify ourselves in small things, for he who does not know how to mortify and curb his will in these things, will still less be able to do so in matters of greater moment. To quote the saint’s own words: ‘We should accustom ourselves to bear patiently small trials, because he who does not learn to bear the lesser will never succeed in overcoming the greater.”

Denis the Carthusian relates that a certain novice, who started with much fervor the first days, as sometimes happens, came afterwards to relax his efforts and grow tepid. At first everything seemed easy, but after a while humble duties and practices of mortification became unbearable. Among other things, the patched and threadbare habit which novices usually wear was a sore trial to him. Now, while taking a nap a little after midday, he saw in a vision Christ our Redeemer, tired and exhausted, bearing a huge and heavy cross, which He was trying to carry up a flight of steps; but the cross was so large that He could not manage it for the stairs. The novice, seeing this, was moved to compassion at seeing Him in such trouble, and wanted to help Him, saying: “I beseech Thee, O Lord, that Thou wouldst be pleased to allow me to assist Thee in the carrying of this cross.” Our Lord turned His eyes on him, and with an indignant and severe countenance said: ‘““How do you presume to take up this so heavy cross of Mine when you cannot endure to wear for My sake that habit that weighs so light?” Having said this, our Lord disappeared, and the novice awoke so ashamed and confounded by this reprehension, and so moved by the vision, that from thenceforward, much as he had been disgusted before, so much the greater was the joy and contentment which the patched and humble habit gave him.