Part one (4): Self-detachment

Viii. Self-detachment

It is no small accomplishment to renounce the world in the manner just described. Yet even this i s not enough to give you that perfect detachment which is one of the primary foundations of Christian life. Our Lord cries out to us in a loud voice: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matt. 16, 24). So, then, if you want to be among the followers of Christ and belong to Him, you have to renounce yourself, that is, your own mind, your own ideas, your own will , desires, inclinations and your self- love, because it is your self-love that leads you to hate and avoid anything that might cause pain or mortification to your spirit or your flesh and makes you love and seek out everything that may give them pleasure and contentment.

Two reasons oblige you to practise self-abnegation.

First, everything in you is so disordered and depraved, as a result of the corruption of sin, that there is nothing in you that is not

contrary to God, and that does not put some obstacle in the way of His plans, or oppose itself to the love and glory you owe Him. Therefore, if you desire to belong to God, you must necessarily renounce yourself and forget and hate and persecute and destroy and annihilate your own self.

Secondly, Jesus Christ, your head and your model, in whom there is nothing that is not all holy and divine, nevertheless lived in so great detachment from Himself and kept His human spirit, His own will and love of Himself so subordinated that He never did anything according to His own human light or spirit, but all according to His Father's spirit. He behaved like a person having no love for Himself of infinite glory and felicity in this world, and of all human pleasures and satisfactions, and sought out and welcomed everything that might cause Him to suffer in His body or in His soul. Now if you are truly His members, you ought, therefore, to share. His sentiments and dispositions, and make a firm resolution to live in future in complete detachment, forgetfulness, and hatred of your own selves.

To do this, make sure that you often adore Jesus in this detachment from Himself and give yourself to Him, begging Him to detach you entirely from yourself, from your Own spirit, your own will and your self-love so that He may unite you perfectly to Himself, and govern you in all things according to His spirit, His love and His pure will.

Lift up your heart to Him, at the beginning of every action, somewhat like this: "0 Jesus, with all my power I renounce myself, my own mind, my own will and my self-love and I give myself all to Thee and to Thy holy spirit and Thy divine love. Draw me out of myself and direct me in this action according to Thy holy will." Whenever an occasion of disagreement arises because of natural differences of opinion, no matter how sure you may be that you are right, be glad to give up your own opinion and yield to that of someone else, provided the glory of God be not concerned in the matter.

When you feel some desire or inclination for one thing or another, lay it at once at the feet of Jesus, assuring Him that you do not wish to have any other will or inclination but His.

The moment you perceive yourself to have some sensible weakness or affection for any earthly object, immediately turn your heart and affections to Christ, in this way: "0 dear Jesus, I give Thee all m y heart and my affections. 0 Thou only object of my love, make me never love anything except in Thee and for Thee." When someone gives you a word of praise, refer it to Him who is alone worthy of all honor saying: "0 my glory, I desire no other glory but Thine forever. To Thee alone is due all praise, honor and glory, and to me all abjection, shame and humiliation." When something occurs that mortifies your body or spirit, or when you see an occasion to deprive yourself of some satisfaction (such occasions present themselves hourly), accept it with a ready welcome, for the love of Our Lord, and bless Him for giving you an opportunity to mortify your self-love, in honor of His mortifications and privations on earth.

Whenever you feel any joy or consolation, refer it to the sublime Source of all consolation, and say to Him: "0 Jesus, I desire never to have any contentment but Thine. Ah, my Lord, it is joy enough for me to know that Thou art God, and that Thou art my God! 0 Jesus, be always Jesus, that is, always full of glory, greatness and joy, and I shall always be satisfied. 0 my Jesus, never permit me to find my contentment i n anything in the world, but in Thee alone. But rather grant that I may say like Queen Esther of old: "Thou knowest, 0 Lord, that thy handmaid bath never rejoiced, but in thee" (Esth. 14, 18).

Ix. Perfection of Christian Detachment

The perfection of Christian detachment does not consist only in being detached from the world and from oneself. It obliges the soul to be, in a certain sense, detached even from God. Do you not know that when Our Lord was still on earth, He assured His apostles that it was expedient for Him to depart from them to go to the Father and send them His Holy Spirit? Why was this, if not because they were attached to the sensible consolation of the visible presence of His sacred humanity? Now this was an obstacle to the coming of the Holy Spirit, so necessary is it to be detached from all

things, no matter how holy and divine they may be, if you would be animated by the spirit of Jesus, which is the spirit of Christianity.

That is why I say you must be detached, in a certain sense, even from God, that is, from the delights and consolation that ordinarily accompany God's grace and His love. You must be detached from the pious plans you have made for God's glory, from the desires you have for greater perfection and love for God, and even from the desire to be delivered from the prison of this body, to see God and to be united with Him perfectly, and to love Him purely, without interruption. When God allows you to feel the sweetness of His kindness in your devotions, you must be careful not to become attached to this consolation. You must humble yourself at once, considering yourself Most unworthy of any consolation, and ready to be stripped of it, to assure Him that you desire to serve and love Him, not for the consolation that He gives, either in this world or in the next, but for love of Himself and merely to please Him.

When you have undertaken a holy task or are doing some good work for the glory of God, you must exert every effort to ensure its accomplishment. Nevertheless, you must take care not to become attached to it, so that if, by accident, you are obliged to interrupt this good work, or even leave it altogether, you will not lose your peace and repose of spirit, but remain content in view of the will and permission Of God, who directs all things and is to be equally loved in all.

Similarly, although you must exert all your energy in trying to conquer your passions, vices and imperfections, and to became master of every kind of virtue, you must, nevertheless, work at this without being carried away by your zeal. So that when you do not perceive in yourself as many virtues, or as much love of God as you would like to see, you may remain at peace and undisturbed, humiliating 'yourself because of the obstacles you yourself have placed in the path Of virtue. You must try to love your own abjection, remaining satisfied with what it pleases God to give you, ever persevering in your desire to make progress, having confidence that Our Lord, in His goodness, will give you the graces you need to serve Him with the perfection He requires of you.

So, also, however much you ought to be always eager for the happy hour which will entirely take you away from the earth, from sin and from imperfection, and unite you perfectly with God and His pure love, and however much you ought to exert all your power to accomplish God's work in you so that, His work being finished, He may quickly call you back to Him. you must, nevertheless, desire this without attachment and without anxiety. If it be Our Lord's good pleasure for you to remain several more years separated from the most sweet vision of His divine face, you must remain satisfied with His most adorable will, even if He were to make you bear this bitter privation until the Day of Judgment.

This is what is called detachment from God. In this consists the perfect detachment from the world, from themselves, and from all things which all Christians should possess. Oh, how sweet it is to be thus free and detached from all things!

Some may think that it is very difficult to arrive at such perfection. But it would be easy for you i f you gave yourself entirely and unreservedly to the Son of God, and if you placed your reliance and confidence, not in your own powers and resolutions, but in the greatness of His goodness and in the power of His grace and of His love. For wherever this divine love is to be found, all is done with extreme sweetness. True, you must do violence to yourself in certain things, and go through many trials and sufferings, much darkness and mortification; nevertheless, in the ways of holy love, there is more honey than gall, and more sweetness than rigor.

Ah, my Saviour, what glory Thou hast, what joy Thou takest and what great things dost Thou accomplish in one who walks bravely in these ways, abandoning everything, becoming detached from everything, even in a way from Thee, to give himself more perfectly to Thee! How strongly dost Thou then unite the soul with Thee! With what power dost Thou gain possession of it! How divinely dost Thou plunge i t into the abyss of Thy love! How admirably dost Thou transform it into Thyself, clothing it with Thy qualities, Thy spirit, and Thy love!

What eminent satisfaction, what delightful sweetness it is for a soul to be able to say with truth : "My God, here I am free and

detached from everything! Who will stop me now from loving Thee perfectly? Now I no longer cling to anything. Draw me after Thee, 0 Jesus. Trahe me post te, curremus in odorem unguentorum tuorum (Cant. 1, 3). What a consolation it is for a soul to be able to say with the holy Spouse: "My beloved to me, and I to him" (Cant. 2, 16), and with Jesus, Omnia mea tua sunt, et tua mea sunt, "All my things are thine, and thine are mine" (John 17, 10).

Cultivate an earnest desire for this holy detachment. Give yourself entirely and unreservedly to Jesus. Beg Him to break your bonds with the strength of His all-powerful arm, to detach you completely from the world, from yourself, and from all things, so that He may work in you, without any obstacle, all that He desires to accomplish for His glory.

X. Fourth Foundation of Christian Life and Sanctity: Prayer

The holy exercise of prayer must be considered one of the chief foundations of Christian life and sanctity, since the whole life of Jesus Christ was nothing but a perpetual prayer, which you must continue and express in your life. This is so necessary that the earth on which you live, the air you breathe, the bread that sustains you, the heart that beats in your breast, are none Of them so necessary to man for his bodily life as prayer is to a Christian if he is to live as a Christian. This is because:

(1) The Christian life, called by the Son of God eternal life, consists in knowing and loving God. This divine knowledge is acquired by praying.

(2) Of yourself you are nothing, can do nothing and possess nothing but poverty and nothingness. Hence, you have a very great need of going to God for help, at all hours, by means of prayer, so that you may obtain and receive from Him all that you lack.

Prayer is a respectful and loving elevation of your mind and heart to God. It is a joyous meeting, a holy communication, a divine conversation between God and the Christian. In it the soul considers and contemplates its Creator in His divine perfections, in His mysteries and in His works; it adores and blesses Him, loves and glorifies Him, gives itself to Him, is abased before Him at the sight of its sins

and ingratitude. It implores Him to be merciful, and learns to become like Him by imitating His divine virtues and perfections, and finally asks for all the things necessary to serve and love Him.

Prayer is a participation in the life of the angels and saints, in the life of Jesus Christ and of His most holy Mother, even of the life of God and of the Three Divine Persons. For the life of the angels and saints, of Christ, and of His most holy Mother is nothing else but a continual practice of prayer and contemplation, in which their uninterrupted occupation is to look upon God, to praise and love Him, to ask Him, on your behalf, for the things you need. And the existence of the Three Divine Persons is a perpetual contemplation. praise and love of one another, which is accomplished first and foremost by prayer.

Prayer is perfect delight, supreme happiness, a true earthly paradise. It is by this divine exercise of prayer that the Christian soul is united to God, who is the centre of its being, its goal and its supreme good. It is in prayer that God belongs to the soul and the soul to God. It is by praying that the soul pays Him rightful service, homage, adoration and love, and receives from Him His lights, His blessings and a thousand tokens of His exceeding great love. It is during your .prayers that God takes His delight in you, according to this word of His: "My delights are to be with the children of men" (Prov. 8, 31), and gives us an experimental knowledge of the fact that our true joy and perfect satisfaction are to be*found in God, and that a hundred, or even a thousand years of the false pleasures of this world are not worth one moment of the true delights which God allows those souls to taste, who seek all their contentment only in conversing with Him in holy prayer.

Finally, prayer is the most worthy, the noblest, the loftiest, greatest and most important act i n which you can engage your efforts, for it is the ceaseless occupation of the angels and saints, of the Blessed Virgin, of Jesus and of the Most Holy Trinity throughout all the vastness of eternity. It is also destined to be our own unending activity in heaven. Indeed, this is the one true and proper function of a man and of a Christian, since man is created for God and to be with

God, and the Christian is on earth only for the purpose of continuing what Jesus Christ did during His life.

Therefore, with all my power, I urge every one of you who read these words, and in God's name I adjure you, since our Dear Jesus condescends to take His delight in being with you and speaking to you through prayer, do not deprive Him of His satisfaction, but learn by your own experience that like holy wisdom His conversation has no bitterness, nor His company any tediousness, but joy and gladness (Wis. 8 , 16). Look upon prayer as the first, the principal, most necessary, most urgent and most important business of your life, and as far as possible, free yourself from all less necessary duties, to give as much time as you can to prayer, especially in the morning and evening, and a little before dinner, and in one o r another of the ways I shall set forth.

Xl. VARIOUS KINDS OF PRAYER

There are several ways of praying and I shall here set down the five most important methods of prayer.

1 . Mental Prayer: The first is called mental or interior prayer, in which the soul communes with God, taking as the subject of conversation one of His divine perfections, or some mystery, virtue or word of His Divine Son, whether something He accomplished in the past, or is doing now, in the order of glory, grace or nature, in His Mother, His saints, His Church or in the world.

You begin the conversation of prayer by applying your understanding to consider with a determined, yet unstrained, attention and effort the truths to be found in the subjects chosen, truths which can arouse the soul to love God and hate sin. Then make your heart and will produce a few fervent acts of adoration, praise, love, humility, contrition and oblation, with the resolution to avoid evil and do good, according to the prompting of the Spirit of God.

This kind of prayer is more holy, more useful and more filled with blessings than words can convey. For this reason, if God draws you to mental prayer and gives you the grace to practise it, you should indeed thank Him for this very great gift. If He has not yet given you this grace, pray that He may do so, and for your own part exert all

your efforts to correspond with His grace and cultivate this holy practice. God Himself will instruct you i n the ways of this prayer better than all the books and all the teachers in the world, if you cast yourself down at His feet with humility, confidence and purity of heart, in the way I am about to explain.

2. Vocal Prayer: The second method of prayer is called vocal prayer. It consists in speaking to God, either by the recitation of the Divine Office, or the rosary or any other vocal prayer. This is almost as valuable as mental prayer, provided that when you speak to God with your lips you also speak to Him with your heart and with an attentive mind. In this way your prayer will be both vocal and mental. If, however, you get into the habit of reciting many vocal prayers mechanically and inattentively, you will leave God's presence more distracted, colder and less generous in His love than you were when you entered. For this reason I advise you to confine yourself to relatively few vocal prayers, apart from those you are obliged to say. and to develop the habit of saying them devoutly, with great attention and application of the mind to God. During vocal prayers you should occupy your mind and heart with holy thoughts while your tongue i s uttering the words, remembering constantly that you are supposed to continue the prayers which Christ said on earth. Give yourself to, Him for this purpose. Unite yourself with the love, humility, purity , holiness and most perfect attention characteristic of His prayers, and beg Him to impress upon your soul the holy and divine dispositions and intentions with which He used to pray.

You may also offer your prayers in union with all the holy prayers and divine supplications that have ever been, in heaven and on earth, by the most Holy Virgin, the angels and the saints, uniting yourself with the love and devotion and attention with which they perform this holy function.

3. Spirit of Prayer: The third method of prayer is to perform all your acts, even the smallest, in a Christian and holy spirit, offering them to Our Lord as you begin, and then, from time to time, lifting up your heart to Him while you perform them, in the way that will be once more set forth in more detail i n "Part Three" of this book. To do your actions thus is to perform them with a spirit of prayer and to

practise prayer continually, in accordance with the commandment of Our Lord, who desires that you should always pray without ceasing. This prayer by action is a most excellent, as well as a very easy way to remain always in the presence of God.

4. Spiritual Reading: The fourth method of prayer is to read good books, reading them, however, not in haste, but taking your time, and applying your mind to what you are reading, stopping to consider and turning over in your thoughts the truths that strike you most forcefully, in order to impress them on your mind so as to derive specific acts of virtue and profitable resolutions. Therefore, one thing I recommend to you with singular insistence is that you never let a day go by without reading some spiritual book for half an hour.

The books best suited for spiritual reading are the New Testament, the Imitation of Christ, the Lives of the Saints, the works Of Luis de Granada, especially his great Guide for Sinners and the Memorial of the Christian Life, the writings of St. Francis de Sales and of Cardinal de Bérulle, founder of the Oratory of France, and Father Quarre's Spiritual Treasure.(1) But remember, at the beginning of your reading, to give your mind and heart to Our Lord and to beg Him to give you the grace to derive the fruit He chooses for you, and that by this He may work His holy will in your soul for His glory.

5. Conversing About God: It is also a most useful and devout practice, which usually enflames hearts with divine love, to speak and converse with one another about God and holy things. Christians should indeed spend part of their time this way. God should be the principal subject of their conversation, and it is in this that they ought to seek their recreation and their delight.

You are encouraged to do this by the Apostle St. Peter saying, If any man speak, let him speak as the words of Go& (I Pet. 4, 11) .

After all, you are God's children, so you ought to enjoy speaking the language of your Father, a language that is all holy, celestial and divine. And since you are made for Heaven, you ought to begin, even on earth, to speak a heavenly language. Oh, how sweet it is, to a soul who loves God above all things, to speak of what is most (1). Father John Hugh Quarré entered the Oratory of France in 1618 and later became provincial of the Belgium Oratory.

lovable in the world and to hear sweet words about Him! How pleasing are these holy conversations to the One who has said: "Where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18, 20)! Oh, how different are such precious words from the ordinary chatter of this world! What a holy and profitable way to spend your time, provided you do it in the proper dispositions!

For this end you should follow the rule laid down by St. Paul on this subject: Sicut ex Deo, coram Deo, in Christo loquimur. "From God, before God, in Christ we speak" (11 Cor. 2, 17). These words indicate the three things you must observe, if you are to speak of God devoutly and inspiringly.

First, you must speak from God, that is, you must draw upon God for your topics and your words, offering yourself to the Son of God at the beginning of your spiritual conversation, in order that He may inspire your mind and place on your lips the words and things you are to say, and that you may thus say what He said to His Father: "The words which Thou gavest me, I have given to them" (John 17, 8).

Secondly, you must speak in the presence of God, in a spirit of prayer and recollection, remembering attentively that God is everywhere present, and giving yourself to God, so, that He may cause to fructify in you the things that you may say or hear said, and that you may make use Of them according to His holy will.

Thirdly, you must speak in Jesus Christ, that is, with the intentions and dispositions of Christ, even as He spoke so nobly and beautifully on earth, or else as He would speak if He were in your place. To do this, you should give yourself to Him, uniting yourself with His intentions as He discoursed in the world, having no other aim but the glory of His Father alone. You should also share his dispositions of humility, of gentleness and charity towards those to whom He spoke, and of love and attention towards His Father. If you do this, your conversations will be most pleasing to Him. He will be in the midst of you, to take His delight among you and the time spent in these spiritual conversations will be time spent in prayer.