What Has Been Said Is Confirmed by Some Examples

IN the Fourth Book of Kings, Holy Scripture gives the history of Naaman, a very rich and powerful man, in high favor with the King of Syria and general of his army, but covered with leprosy. He had heard tell that there was a prophet in Samaria named Eliseus, who tended and cured all diseases and raised the dead. He procured the favor of letters from the King of Syria to the King of Israel, to have him cured immediately upon his arrival. So he came with a great cavalcade of horses and chariots. On reaching the door of the Prophet Eliseus, his servants went in with the message. The prophet did not come out, but sent to say: “Tell him to go to the Jordan, and bathe there seven times, and he will be healed.” Naaman was greatly angered at this answer. “J thought,” he said, “that the prophet must have come out, and with great ceremonies must have invoked over me the name of his God, and must have touched with his hands the place of the leprosy and so healed me; and now he comes out with this, that I am to go and bathe in the Jordan, as if we had not in our country better waters to bathe in. Let us be off, for it was not for this that we came here.” And as he turned round to go back home, thinking that this was a matter of small importance, and that he should take no account of it, his servants, who seem to have been very sensible people, said to him: “Sir, even though the prophet had prescribed a very great and difficult thing, you should have done it for your health; how much more now that he prescribes a thing so easy as going to that river, which is hard by, and bathing in it?” He fell in with this reasoning, and went there and bathed seven times in the Jordan, and came out healed of his leprosy, his flesh becoming as clean and fresh as that of a little child (IV Kings v.14). Itis to be observed how what seemed to him a trifle and a thing of little importance was the saving of him. The same happens in spiritual things. In these little and minute things that our rules tell us to do, lie our salvation, advancement, and perfection, as we see also that the perfection of a picture lies in very small touches and lines. Now, if to gain this spiritual health, this progress and perfection, we told you it was necessary to do very arduous and difficult things, you certainly should have done them, and thought it well worth your while; how much more when they tell you that you will gain it by doing such easy things as these? Thus the fact of the rules’ being slight and minute things, far from being to us an occasion of neglecting them, should rather be taken as a ground of encouragement to keep them, seeing that on such small and easy things our progress and perfection depend.

It is related in the “Book of the Illustrious Men of the Cistercian Order” that those monks had a rule, at the end of a meal to gather the bread crumbs, and eat them or put them on a plate. It happened one day that one of those monks, a highly conscientious man and a great observer of the rules, had gathered the crumbs in his hand, and, being absorbed and taken up with the reading at table, kept them in his hand; meanwhile the prior gave the signal to stop the reading and rise from table. Then the monk bethought himself and was in a perplexity, for now there was no time to eat them nor to throw them on a plate. Much ashamed of the negligence that he had fallen into in not keeping the rule, he found no way out of it but to go to the superior, tell his fault, and ask a penance for it. He kept the crumbs in his closed fist, and, when grace was over, he went and prostrated himself at the superior’s feet, declared the fault that he had committed, and begged a penance for it with great humility. The prior gave him a rebuke proportionate to the fault, and asked him what he had done with the crumbs. He answered: “Father, I have them here in my hand.” “Show them.” He stretched out his arm, opened his fist, and instead of the crumbs they found most precious pearls. The author here observes that our Lord wished us to understand by this miracle how pleasing to Him are those fervent religious who make much account not only of important but of small and minute rules. Surius also relates this miracle in the Life of the holy Abbot Odo; and says that the thing happened to the abbot himself while he was still a subject, though out of humility he used to tell the story as a thing that happened to another religious.

Caesarius relates that in the time of the Emperor Frederick one of the imperial abbeys fell vacant, to which the emperor was accustomed to provide an abbot. Two of the monks had been elected to that dignity, and, as they could not come to an agreement, one of them offered the Emperor Frederick a large sum of money, which he had got together in the monastery, to choose him. The emperor took the money and gave his word to do so. But afterwards, being informed that the other competitor was a very worthy religious, discreet and virtuous and very observant of his rules, he took counsel with his advisers how he might contrive to choose the deserving candidate and leave the other in the lurch. One of his courtiers said to him: “Sire, I have heard tell that these monks have a rule for every one of them to carry a sewing-needle about with him; when, then, your highness is in their chapter room, ask that less observant one to lend you his needle, as though you wanted to clean your fingernails; and if he has not got one, you will then have a good pretext for not giving him the abbey, as being a man who does not keep his rule.” The emperor did so; and, as he had not got one, he asked his competitor: “Father, lend me your needle.” He drew it out at once and presented it to him. Then the emperor said to him: “Father, you are a good monk and, as such, worthy of this high honor. I had resolved to choose your competitor, but he has shown himself unworthy of the post, since he does not keep his rule; and we may well understand that one who is neglectful and takes no account of small things will be still more neglectful of great.” And on that score he deprived him of the abbey, and gave it to the monk who kept his rule.

The same Caesarius relates that a lady of high rank, wishing to leave the world and take the habit of religion in a monastery where the vicar was a monk named Florinus, on the day of her departure gave a banquet to her kinsmen and acquaintance, and with them invited the said vicar. To the seculars meat was served; but to the religious, fish, because according to his rule and the obedience that he owed to his abbot he could not eat meat. But he, seeing the meat, fixed his eyes on it, and under that craving of appetite gaily took a piece of roast meat from his neighbor’s plate and put it in his mouth. But by a just judgment of God, the morsel stuck in his throat in such a way that he could neither swallow it down nor bring it up. When he was choking, and already his eyes were rolling in his head in the effort to get his breath, another religious, who was there as his companion, gave him a good slap on the back with such effect as to make him bring up the morsel. All took it that this had happened in punishment of his disobedience.

In the General History of St. Dominic, the Father Friar Hernando del Castello relates that, while St. Dominic was living in Bologna, suddenly one night the devil began to torment a lay brother with such cruelty that the noise of the blows awoke the other monks, who by the command of the saint took the afflicted brother to the church, but indeed scarcely were ten brothers able to carry him; and no sooner had he been carried through the doors, than with one puff he extinguished all the lamps, so that they were all left in darkness, The devil then continued in a thousand ways to molest the unfortunate brother. The saint then commanded the devil in the name of Jesus Christ to tell him why he was tormenting the brother and how he had taken possession of him. To which the demon replied that the evening before the monk had taken a drink without leave, or without making the sign of the cross over it, as was customary among the religious. While thus speaking, the bell began to ring for matins, and the demon said to them: “T can stay here no longer, now that these cowled gentry are rising to sing the praises of God;” and, so saying, he left the brother half dead, so beaten and bruised that it was two days before he could stand on his feet and use his limbs. St. Gregory tells a like story of a nun who ate a lettuce without making the sign of the cross over it, and the devil at once entered into her.