Chapter II. Sympathy with Jesus

When Jacob in his exile dwelt with Laban, he fell in love with Rachel, Laban's daughter, and he said to her father, " I will serve thee seven years for Rachel, thy youngest daughter:" and the Holy Scripture adds, " So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed but a few days, for the greatness of his love." Now, do we not often find life long, and our days to pass heavily? Is not perseverance a weary thing, and does not duty many a time turn out irksome and uninteresting? There is such a thing as wishing life over because of a holy impatience whereby we desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Sin, and the power of sinning, and the chance of sinning, become intolerable to us, and we pine to be with God, as one pines for his absent love. But this is not what I mean. Life, and especially our spiritual life, often drags on heavily for very different reasons. It is weary work to be always fighting with our evil passions, and disheartening work to make so little way. Temptations tease us, and scruples worry us; and to be dead, buried, and safe in purgatory, seems the limit to our peevish ambition. And why is this? Because we do not serve Jesus for love. If we did, it would be with us as it was with Jacob. Years would seem but days, the greatness of our love. Now let us see if it is,

'v after all, so impossible for us to serve our dear Lord out of love.

We have laid it down as a rule, that the business of our Confraternity is to further the interests of Jesus, and that the especial way to further them is by prayer. Now, the very fact that we have chosen prayer as our especial way shows us something more. It is possible to serve God, and so to do something for the interests of Jesus, in a stiff, dry, awkward way; just as we can do another a favor ungracefully, and as if it was an annoyance, only we cannot very well help ourselves. But it is not possible to serve God by prayer, or to advance the interests of Jesus by prayer, in this dry and unaffectionate way. Prayer with no heart in it is not prayer at all; it is either irreverence or distraction. Thus, you see, the Confraternity binds us in a sort of way to serve Jesus out of love; and as we are very fond of our Confraternity, and wish it to prosper, this is another reason why we should see whether we cannot serve Jesus out of love. Oh, if only one of you could be persuaded to do this, what joy would there be in heaven, what delight to Mary, what consolation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus! One more soul in the world that is serving Him for love! Dear Lord! it is worth a thousand years of penance to obtain for Him this consolation! The colored sunsets and the starry heavens, the beautiful mountains and the shining seas, the fragrant woods and the painted flowers, they are not half so beautiful as a soul that is serving Jesus out of love, in the wear and tear of common, unpoetic life.

Every one would wish to be a Saint. This surely is true. They would wish to love God as much as the Saints did, and to have always that abounding and overflowing joy which the Saints always had, and to go straight to heaven without any delay in purgatory, and to be high up in heaven because of their exceeding love. We may know that we are very far indeed from being Saints, and we may fear there is very little chance of our ever becoming Saints. We may have no heart for their great austerities and bodily mortifications, no courage for their valiant detachment from the world, no supernatural appetite for crosses and sufferings such as they had. Still, for all this, who would not wish to be a Saint, if he could?

Now I am not going to bring before you any very hard duties, much less any severe austerities. I do not want to drive you beyond your grace; but I wish you to observe this. Look at all the Saints in all ages, no matter what their history may be, or their lot in life. You will find, when you compare them one with another, that it was not their austerities that made them Saints. They differ very much from one another; yet after all they are very like. Some have worked miracles all their lives long, like St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Franciscan; and some hardly worked any at all, as was the case with St. Vincent of Paul; and as to St. John the Baptist, of whom our Lord said such marvellous things, he never worked a single miracle. Some Saints have practised dreadful austerities, like St. Rose of Lima; others have contented themselves with taking God's will as it came in their way, and mortified their wills; this was the case with St. Francis of Sales. But whether they did miracles or not, whether they practised bodily penances in ex. cess or not, still they have a peculiar character of their own. They have certain tastes and inclinations, by which we could always know them if we met them. And the delightful thing is, that their chief peculiarities as Saints lie close to our own doors; and we can make them our own without wonderful miracles or frightening penances.

I do not mean to say we can easily be equal to the Saints. No! no! but what I say is, that the ways in which they loved God and served the interests of Jesus, and the tastes which made them so dear to th& Sacred Heart, are quite easily in our power, if we choose to adopt them. Nay, they will be ours at once, if we are only fervent members of the Confraternity. In a word, while the Saints differ in almost every thing else, there are three things in which they all agree; and these are, 1. Eagerness for the glory of God; 2. Touchiness about the interests of Jesus; and 3. Anxiety for the salvation of souls.

But, before I say something about each of these three things, I must prevent your misunderstanding me. I should not wish any thing I have said to make any one of you despair of being Saints before you die. However little the chance may be, I should not like to have hindered a Saint; it would be any thing but advancing the dear interests of Jesus, which is the sole object of this little treatise. So you must let me tell you something of one of the Saints, St. Giacinta Mariscotti, who was canonized by Pius VII. in 1807. She was an Italian lady, and her distinguishing characteristic as a girl was a great love of fine clothes and gay ornaments. Her father and mother sent her to a convent to be educated; but all the time she was there she would occupy herself with nothing but the foolish frivolities of the world. All her girlhood passed away in dissipation. Then she wanted to get married, and because her sister made a good match, and she none, she was rilled with spite and envy. Her temper was completely soured, and she became so disagreeable that people could not bear to go near her.

Her father foolishly, or worse than foolishly, wished her to become a nun: and although she felt no vocation at all, she thought she might as well do that as any thing else; and so she entered a convent of the third order of St. Francis in Viterbo. Neither her taste nor her character changed; the convent seems to have been as lax as lax could be, and she did just what she pleased. Good St. Alphonso used to say that it was easier for a soul to be saved in the gayeties of the world, that in a relaxed religious order; and few men have had such experience of those matters as he.

The first thing our Saint did was, out of her own money, to build a grand room for herself. She furnished it in first-rate style, and decorated it, her biographer says, quite sumptuously. She neglected the rule; and such parts of it as she chose to keep, she kept, as may be supposed, in a very lukewarm and unsatisfactory way. She became more and more eaten up with vanity, and thought of nothing but herself all the day long. Queer training for a saint! In this way she lived nearly ten years. God then sent her a severe illness. She called for the Franciscan monk, who was the confessor of the convent; but when he beheld the magnificent furniture of her room he refused to hear her confession, and told her paradise was never meant for such as she was. " What," she cried, " and shall I not be saved? " He told her the only chance was to beg pardon of God, to repair the scandal she had given, and to begin a new life. She burst into tears, and descending to the refectory, where all the nuns were assembled at the time, she prostrated herself before them, and begged forgiveness for the scandal she had given.

Yet for all this, no great change, or at least, no heroic change, took place. She did not give up her fine things to the superioress; but she gradually, quite gradually, improved in her way of life. Again and again it was necessary for God to send her illnesses, that she might at length give herself wholly up to grace; and at last, remorse of conscience succeeded in its work by gentle pertinacity, sank deeper and deeper, till it lost itself in love, and she became a Saint.

Now this is a consoling history. We are too apt to think that Saints are people who have been extraordinary from their cradle upward, who, by special grace, have never lost their baptismal innocence, and have hardly felt the rebellion of evil passions, and certainly have not known the worst of all struggles, the fight with old sinful habits. Or if this be not the case, then we think of them as persons in whose behalf God has interfered in an extraordinary way, as in the conversion of St. Paul, and of St. Ignatius. And so we think it is out of all question our becoming Saints. But this story of St. Giacinta gives us quite a different view;

years of lukewarmness, venial sin, and unworthy vanity are succeeded by a half-and-half conversion, followed up by some other little conversions afterward, just as it may have been with so many of us.

See how this history illustrates an excellent and consoling remark of Father Baker's. (Sancta Sophia, i. 175.) " However, as for souls that for external respects have embraced a religious life, let them not, therefore, in a desperate humor, conclude that no good can come to them by it so unworthily under-taken; but rather hope that, by a special providence of God, they were even against their own intentions and wills brought into a course of life, to which if, however, afterward they will duly correspond, it will prove an infinite blessing unto them. For such ofttimes have proved great saints, after that God gave them light to see their perverse intentions, and grace to rectify them: by which means they, beginning in the flesh, have ended in the spirit.'1'' In religious houses, or in the ecclesiastical state, or even in a devout life in the world, how many of us may take heart from these words, and this example, to make a fresh beginning, even though we may have begun and begun a score of times already! All we want now is the likeness of St. Giacinta's later years.

And how shall we reach to Giacinta's later years quietl}' and easily? Why, by cultivating the three characteristics of the saints mentioned before, eagerness for the glory of God, touchiness about the interests of Jesus, and anxiety for the salvation of souls; for in these three things sympathy with Jesus consists, and sympathy is at once the fruit and food of love, and love is sanctity, and a saint is simply one who loves Jesus above the common run of pious men, and has had unusual gifts given him in return.

1. Eagerness for the glory of God. It is the first and fundamental truth of religion, that we are here in the world for no other end than to glorify God by the salvation of our souls. This is our single purpose, our one work: all else is beside the mark. All other creatures either help us or hinder us in this one work, and must be dealt with accordingly. From this first principle, and by the two precepts of love of God and love of our neighbor, we reach the duty of seeking the glory of God in the salvation of our neighbor's soul as well as of our own. Now, it is plain that if we love God we shall be eager for His glory, and the more we love Him the more eager we shall be. What we have set our hearts upon we are sure to follow out hotly and perseveringly. When, then, a man comes to love God devoutly, he becomes what we call a man of one idea. He looks at every thing in one point of view. He considers trades and professions as so many necessary evils, as distracting him from his one work. He is seeking everywhere and in every thing the glory of God. It is his last thought at night, his first on waking. If he obtains any power, authority, or influence, his first impulse is, How shall I use this to the glory of God? If a calamity befalls him, this is the first question he asks of himself. If a sum of money is left him, this is the first idea it suggests to his mind. He interests himself about the Church and the poor, about education and crime, because these matters are full to overflowing of God's glory. For instance, a man of the world looks at the immense system of railways and steam navigation, which now covers the earth as with a net. t He calculates its probable effect on governments, popular rights, science, literature, commerce, civilization. The problem fascinates him. The man of God looks on the same thing, and thinks how it will forward missionary enterprise, how it will bring Catholics together, how it will facilitate communication with the Holy See, which is the freedom of the Church, and how in these, and many like ways, God will have glory out of it all. When a man's mind is engrossed in politics, whether in the government or in the opposition, every thing that happens comes before him simply with reference to his one absorbing interest. The state of the crops, the chance of a bad harvest, our foreign relations, internal discontent, strikes of workmen, papal bulls — his view of them is, how will they affect the political party with which I am acting? So it is with the man who loves God. His one view of eveiy thing, however unlikely, has to do with the glory of God. I do not mean to say that he is always thinking of it with an actual and present intention. That would be almost impossible, almost beyond the condition of man. But I mean that it is his most frequent thought, and that he recurs to it ever and again, as a man does to something-he loves affectionately, and desires intensely.

Now this is not very hard. There is no austerity in it. We can begin it quietly, take it easily at first, and then let it grow upon us, just as habits will grow. We might make a little prayer to God every morning for love to seek His glory, and for light to find it all day long. We might renew our intention twice a day to seek His glory. We might ask it in communion, and at the end of our rosaries, and in our examen of conscience. If we often forget it, never mind; it will come by use; and God Himself will begin to help us wonderfully, when we have persevered for a few months in the practice. But not before, remember; for this is His way, to wait awhile, and see if we persevere, though He is really helping us all the time, or else we never could persevere; only He will help us in another way later on. This is not hard; yet it would bring us up many miles nearer the saints, and oh what interests of Jesus would it not advance, by the time a year was gone round!

2. Touchiness about the interests of Jesus. I use this word purposely, because it so exactly expresses my meaning, and I do not know any other word which expresses it so well. We know perfectly what it is to be touchy about our own interests, or the interests of those who are near and dear to us. We fire up at the hint or suspicion of an attack. We are always on the look out with a watchful jealousy, as if everybody we met had a design upon us. We are quick to complain, and quick to discern. Sometimes, if we do not take care, we judge others censoriously, or we lose our temper and speak rudely. Now apply all this to the interests of Jesus, and you will get a very fair idea of what it is to be a saint. Yet even good people do not understand it, and condemn it as extravagance and indiscretion; simply because they do not know what it is to serve God 4 with a service of love. A man who is thus touchy about the interests of Jesus, hears of some scandal, and it makes him perfectly miserable. He broods over it, day and night; he talks querulously about it; it takes the sunshine out of his life for the time being. His friends cannot conceive why he should make so much of it, or take it so to heart. It is no affair of his, and there is no blame attaching to him in the matter. They are ready to accuse him of affectation; but they do not see that all his love is for Jesus, and that it is positive pain to him that his dear Lord's interests should be injured. They could fret for a month over being vexatiously entangled in a spiteful and unjust lawsuit; but what is that to the least hinderance thrown- in the way of the interests of Jesus? Surely a man who does not see this can hardly be a Christian.

Another way in which this touchiness about the interests of Jesus is shown, is in the delicate perception and keen abomination of heresy and false doctrine. The purity of the true faith is one of the very dearest interests of Jesus; and, consequently, one who truly loves his Lord and Master is pained beyond the power of words by the expression of false doctrine, especially among Catholics. Opinions about our Lord's ignorance, or in depreciation of His grace, or in derogation of His Mother's honor, or lowering the sacraments, or dishonoring ever so little the prerogatives of His Vicar upon earth — these things, merely in passing conversation, sting him so that he feels even bodily suffering from them. Unreflecting people are almost scandalized at this; yet if they heard the honor or chastity of their mother or sister called in question with coarse or wanton rudeness, there is hardly any violence short of bloodshed which would not be thought warrantable and creditable. Yet what is my mother's honor to the dignity of Jesus, or my sister's good name to the least tittle of our Blessed Lady's majesty? and is there not to me more of the mother's love, and of the sister's affection, in the See of Peter, than in all my flesh-and-blood relations put together? I should not be bound to die, to seal with my blood my conviction of my mother's honor; but I should be a wretch if I shrank from dying for the lawful honor of the Holy See. Thus you will not find a single saint who has not cherished this pain of love in his heart of hearts, this inability to endure the sound of heresy or false doctrine; and where this is not, then, as sure as the sun is in the heavens, the love of Jesus is but poor and weak in the heart of man.

The same touchiness may be shown, as occasion requires, about all the interests of Jesus mentioned in the last chapter. One remark, however, must be made. It will often happen when a man's love of our Lord is beyond the formed habits of virtue he may have at the moment, that he is indiscreet, or impatient, or rude, or bitter. He suspects where there is no ground for suspicion, and he does not bear with the slowness or coldness of others, as he would do if the habit of charity were more perfectly formed in him. This often brings discredit on devotion; for there are no persons judged with more unfeeling rigor than those who make profession of a devout life. But they must have their faults and imperfections; they must have the less lovely stages of the spiritual life to pass through; and it must be their consolation that many a time when men blame them, Jesus does not; and the very imperfections of their young love are dear to Him, while the sage criticism and pompous moderation of their censors are hateful in His eyes.

Now, it would not be hard to cultivate this touchiness about the interests of Jesus; and yet it is one of the chief instincts of the saints. »Is it not worth while trying? Can there be a pleasure in life so great as loving Jesus and serving Him for love? We may begin to-day: there is no hardship in it; no sudden or violent change which we need to make in our lives; we have only got to think a little more about love, and to ask for more love, and then we are fairly on the road. Without any tie or obligation, the Confraternity enables us to start at once.

3. Anxiety for the salvation of souls. This is the third and last instinct of the saints which puts us in sympathy with Jesus. The world and the material interests of the world are all against us. They carry us away. What we see is so much more impressive than what we believe. Yet Jesus came into the world for the saving of souls; He died for them; He shed His Precious Blood for them. In proportion as souls are saved His interests prosper; in proportion as they are lost, His interests as the Saviour of souls are injured. The soul is the only thing worth caring for. Only think what it is to be lost, lost eternally! Who can fathom the honor of it? Who can rightly picture to himself the utterness of the ruin, the breadth of the wretchedness, the unendurableness of the torture, the helpless wildness of the despair? Yet St. Theresa saw the souls of men flocking daily through the doors of hell, like the showers of dry leaves which the wind drives about in autumn. And Jesus hung His three hours upon the Cross for every one of those lost souls! And they might all have been now gleaming bright and beautiful in the courts of heaven! And they loved us, perhaps, and we loved them, and there was much to love in them! Generous, kind, unselfish, they once were; but they loved the world, and were ruled by their own passions, and, though they hardly thought of it, they crucified our Lord afresh. And now they are lost— lost eternally!

What wonder His servants should yearn for those over whom Jesus yearned himself! Thus it is they are always alert about missions, schools, religious orders, retreats, indulgences, and jubilees. They are full of plans, or, if not of plans, at least of prayers. They care for little else but souls. They sacrifice all for souls. No matter what rebuffs they meet with, what disappointments they find, or into what mistakes they fall at first. They are all for souls. They begin afresh every day to plan and plot for souls. Tliey are not cast down because they do not see clearly there will be money or men to go on with all the good works they plan; but their consolation is, that all work for souls is complete work by itself, and for as long as it lasts; because all dispensing of grace and of the Precious Blood is a desirable and blessed thing in itself. Hence, the Church, the mother of souls, encourages the temporary stimulants of retreats, missions, and jubilees; because all these things are complete by themselves and for the time. While some talk and take views, and criticise, and despond, and weaken the hands and hearts of others, those who love Jesus work on in simplicity, not thinking of the morrow.

Volumes might be written about this passion for souls. It must come where there is a true love of Jesus. It is not the rule for Peter only, but for all who love. When thou art converted, confirm thy brethren, and, Lovest thou Me more than these? Feed my sheep. And have not we, each of us, many little ways by which we can help in the saving of souls? And in intercession, at least, is not the whole Church open to the genial and immense influence of our prayers, as much as it is to the Pope himself?

The saints, then, are made up chiefly of these three things: — Eagerness for the glory of God, — touchiness about the interests of Jesus, — and anxiety for the salvation of souls. These three things make a most beautiful and angelic character, and go further than anything else to assure us of our predestination. They are the three things which the Confraternity helps to form in us. Yet we have seen how easy they are, if only we will learn to love Jesus, and to serve Him for love. There is neither sex, nor age, nor station which is not equally convenient for the practice of these three things. And what a difference it would make in the world if a few people would take them up seriously and carry them out quietly in daily life and in daily prayer.

When a man dies in England, his friends often say of him, in praise of his diligence, energy, and concentration: Well, he lived simply to carry through that important line of railway; or — his only object was to extort from the government a more scientific education for the people; or — he devoted himself to the cause of Free-trade; or — he was a martyr to his exertions in behalf of Protection. It was his one idea; it grew with his growth; he could think of nothing else; he spared neither time nor expense to advance ever so little his favorite cause, and the interest which he had wedded; it was his monomania. He did his work in his day, and he did it well, because he was heart and soul in it, and the world is in debt to him for it. Now, why should it not be said of us: — Well, he is gone; he was a man of one idea; he cared for nothing but that God's kingdom should come, and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He was eaten up with this; waking or sleeping, it was always upon him; nothing daunted him; he spared neither time nor expense for his hobby; and when neither time nor money were at his disposal, he besieged heaven with prayers. He took no interest in anything else; it was meat and drink to him, and it quite mastered him; and now he is gone. Yes! he is gone; but whereas the other man left behind him his railway and his cheap bread, our friend has taken all his love, and pains, and prayers, away with him to the judgment-seat of Jesus; and what they have done for him there eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor man's heart conceived.

Now, do think of these three things, these easy instincts of the saints, this serving Jesus out of love. Would you like to see how they work in a good man's heart, even in very little matters? There was an old Spanish Jesuit, who could not for the life of him make up his mind whether it was better to gain an indulgence for the soul in purgatory that was most neglected and forgotten, or for the soul that was nearest to its release and entrance into glory. There was a puzzle; both were sweet acts of charity, but which was the sweetest? Which would Jesus most approve? He was such a kind-hearted man, that good father, that he inclined very much to the poor, neglected soul, just because it was so neglected; it went to his heart to pass over that forgotten soul. But at last he decided in favor of the other; and now see the reasons. Although it seems the greater mercy to offer it for the other soul, because it is most in want, seeing that it is in greater misery; notwithstanding, charity is a greater virtue than mercy, and it is a greater act of charity to offer the indulgence for the soul that was most just and loved God most, looking simply to the greater glory of the Divine Majesty as the Creator of that soul; for it is nearest to its entry into heaven, where it will at once begin to glorify God immensely by its praises and its bliss. Here was eagerness for the glory of God. Again, the soul is not properly the full conquest of Jesus till it is safely landed in heaven, and our dear Redeemer presents it to the Eternal Father as a trophy of His Sacred Passion; and was it not better to keep the poor, neglected soul waiting in purgatory than to keep Jesus waiting in heaven? and besides, all this sadness about passing over the forgotten soul, would it not make Jesus smile and something would be done for that poor soul? Here was touchiness about the interests of Jesus. And furthermore, thought our good old Jesuit, the sooner this soul, that is so near heaven, gets into heaven, the sooner will it begin to gain all manner of graces from God for my soul, and for the souls of sinners upon earth. Here was anxiety for the salvation of souls. And so away went the indulgence to the soul that was nearest its release, not without a very fervent sigh, and a very wistful look to Mary, and a comfortable suspicion that Jesus would do something extra for the poor forgotten soul.

The decision of the good father seems to have high authority; for among the revelations made to Sister Francesca of the Blessed Sacrament, a Spanish Theresian nun, it was told her that immense numbers of souls issued from purgatory on the evening of All Souls' Day; and that they were mostly those who were near to glory, among whom God distributed the suffrages of the Universal Church on that day.¹ Yet, on the other hand, we know that St. Vincent of Paul's special devotion was to the most destitute soul.f But then destitute souls were his line; he was their property and possession.

The Jesuit had been carefully taught that he was to have a reason for every thing he did. I do not say you are bound to be so particular; but anyhow, it shows how our three things can insinuate themselves into a pious mind, and influence its minutest actions and most secret devotions. And this is the simple object of this treatise. I want to collect for you from the lives of the saints and the works of spiritual writers a number of easy and interesting practices, which will help you to form these three things in your souls, so as to be advancing the interests of our dear Lord every hour of your lives, and yet all the while, in the pleasantest manner possible, becoming something like saints yourselves.

You can take your choice of these practices. None of them are of any obligation. All is free. You are not even bound to choose, if you choose at all, the highest, best, and most perfect: for it is quite possible such would not be best for you. Take what is most to your taste; there is no need to turn your devotions into mortifications. This is one of the uncatholic notions converts should take pains to drive out of their heads. It sounds fine, but it works ill, and it ends in carelessness and lax ways. I want to beguile you into serving Jesus out of love, and so I want you to enjoy yourselves and follow your bent in your devotions.

Before concluding this chapter, I am so anxious to get your minds full of the principles I have been laying down, that I will finish by illustrating them in a question familiar to you all. Some people, you know, give all their indulgences to the souls in purgatory; others keep them all to themselves; and one party has no right to interfere with the other. What business has any one to say we are not free to do what the Church says we are free to do? Nevertheless, I am going to take a side in this matter for the moment; it will throw great light on the three things I am advocating; and I shall keep strictly to what theologians and spiritual writers have said.

Grace is such a great thing that we ought to try to increase it in all possible ways; and there are few ways in which we can increase it more rapidly than by turning satisfaction into merit. This is done by gaining indulgences for the souls in purgatory. By this devotion we acquire great spiritual treasures, and it is acceptable to God while it is profitable to ourselves. Let us run through some of the fruits of this devotion, so as to animate ourselves to be more liberal toward these daughters of God and spouses of the Holy Ghost, to assist them with prayers, and with the satisfaction of our good works, offering it all for them without fearing that we shall thereby lose any of it. In truth he will gain immensely who shall not reserve to himself any part of his satisfaction, or any of his indulgences, but shall offer them all for the holy spouses of our dear Redeemer who are detained in those terrible pains.

The first fruit is the great increase of our merits by this; for, of the three things which the good works of the just include, merit, impetration, and satisfaction, the greatest of all is merit; for by it we become more acceptable to God, and more His friends, receiving greater grace, and so acquiring a new title to greater glory. Doubtless, then, if a man could turn all the satisfaction of his good works into so much fresh merit, over and above the merit there was there before, he would be a gainer by it, and for this reason: — the glory of the blessed is without comparison a greater good than the pains of purgatory are an evil; and so the right to greater glory is a better thing than the right to less pain. He, then, who offers the satisfaction of his good works and his indulgences for the soul in purgatory, does just this: — he converts his satisfaction into merit. In this charity is an heroic act of great virtue, by which he will acquire eternal life by means of that satisfaction turned into merits which is no help at all as simple satisfaction toward eternal life. As satisfaction, it would not have helped him one iota to that, but he makes it do so by turning it into merit, and at the same time helping others. Now this deserves reflection; for, besides the fact that glory is a greater good than purgatory is an evil, we must remember that the increase of glory is a thing which is eternal, whereas the lightening of purgatory is only temporal, for purgatory itself is merely temporal; so that the distance between the increase of glory and the lightening of purgatory is as good as infinite. And yet to enjoy eternal goods, even in the very lowest degree, would be cheaply purchased by the endurance of the greatest temporal evils. We must add to this, that we ought in all things to do that which is most pleasing in the sight of God, not seeking our own interest or convenience, but His greater good pleasure. To please God is a better thing than to avoid suffering; yet a man who keeps his satisfaction and indulgences to himself, does so from a desire of avoiding suffering; whereas, he who offers them all for the souls in purgatory thereby makes himself dearer to God, by a refinement of love in this heroic exercise of mercy and charity, which he was not bound to, but does out of the sweet freedom of his own will.

The suffering of the holy souls is without any gain or profit to themselves, whereby they can increase their merits, and so long as they are detained in purgatory, so long is the heavenly Jerusalem deprived of her citizens, and the Church upon earth of new protectors and advocates with God. Hence comes another fruit of this devotion. The soul that we release from purgatory is laid under a particular obligation to us, both because of the singular benefit it receives from entering all the sooner into glory, and also because of the tremendous sufferings from which it is delivered. Thus it is bound to obtain for its benefactors perpetual graces and blessings from God. The blessed know that the good they have received is infinite, and being most grateful, they strive to show gratitude proportionate to the greatness of their enjoyment. Thus he who gives his indulgences to the holy souls will have so many agents in the court of heaven to look after his eternal interests; and it is a greater good for a man to secure his salvation in this life through the graces obtained for him by this multitude of heavenly protectors, than to avoid the risk of being somewhat longer in purgatory, because he has given away his satisfaction and indulgences. But we gain more than the friendship of the souls we deliver; we gain the love of their guardian angels, and of the saints to whom those souls were specially devoted; and we became also more dear to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, because of His pleasure at the release of His dear spouse and her entry into His celestial joy.

But there is a third fruit of this devotion which is very much to our purpose. It is a great thing to have some one in heaven who shall love, praise, and glorify God on our behalf. He who loves God fervently and tenderly can never rest without doing all he can that the infinite Majesty of God sjiould be exalted and glorified. Yet with all the miseries and sins of this life, we cannot magnify and adore that most dear Majesty, as the blessed can in heaven. Oh, then, the joy and consolation to think that others, whom we have released from purgatory, are doing this great work for us in heaven, arid that, while we are still here, they have begun their praise alread}r! Surely there can be no soul that has been fortunate enough to reach purgatory, which is not holier than ours, and more fitted to glorify God. And if so, then have we ourselves already put one in heaven who shall give God greater glory than we should do if we were there ourselves. While we are eating, drinking, sleeping, toiling, here on earth, — there in heaven, — refreshing thought! most solid consolation! — is the unsleeping soul, or, please God, the many unsleeping souls, whom we have hastened thither, worshipping and exalting the beautiful Majesty of the Most High, unspeakably, incessantly.

This is not all: there is a fourth trait of this generous devotion. We not already gain invaluable treasures for ourselves, but for others also; for we cause great joy in the Church, both militant and triumphant. Great is the feast in heaven as the number of its citizens is increased; for if their is joy there over one sinner who does penance, and yet he can return to his sin again, what must the joy be over that new citizen who can sin no more? Its guardian angel, too, rejoices, and receives a thousand congratulations from the celestial spirits at the successful issue of his guardianship. There is joy also among the Saints to whom the soul was specially devoted, and among his relatives and friends, and in the choir to which he is aggregated. Our Lady, too, rejoices at the success of her multiplied intercessions; while Jesus reaps the harvest of His Precious Blood with love and with rejoicing. The Holy Ghost vouchsafes to joy over the triumph of His gifts and countless inspirations; and the Eternal Father, in the perfection of His chosen creature, whom he has borne with so long and so compassionately. Neither is the Church Militant less interested in this joy. She has gained a new advocate. The relatives, friends, family, community, country, of that soul have especial reason to rejoice. Nay, all the predestinated, and, indeed, all nature, have cause of joy that another creature has entered into the joy of its Creator.

But there is a fifth fruit of this devotion. Love brooks on delay. Shall a treasure that can do wonders for the glory of God and the interests of Jesus stand idle, it may be, for years? At present we may be in no want of our satisfactions and our indulgences. And if they go into the treasury of the Church, who knows how many years may elapse before they are used, even if De Lugo's theory be true, that all the satisfactions of the Saints will certainly be used before the day of judgment?² Shall not this talent then be used for God at once, by at once releasing souls from purgatory, who may begin, perhaps this very night, their sweet sacrifice of everlasting praise?

Nay, last of all, what we are giving away comes back to us most abundantly, and this is the sixth fruit of this devotion. First of all, in this very act of such great charity and generosity, there is satisfaction for our sins; for if alms given to relieve bodily wants satisfy above most other good works, what will not spiritual alms do? Secondly, he who loses any thing for the glory of God receives at last a hundred-fold; and He will either give us such grace as that we shall need little purgatory, or He will inspire others to pray for us when we are there, so that, if we had kept our indulgences to ourselves, we might have been long in those fires; whereas if God sets many to gain indulgences for us, we shall enter much sooner into glory. It is an axiom that no one loses who loses for God. And when we are in purgatory, the blessed, who by our means went sooner into heaven, will look upon us as their benefactors, and on our release as a debt of justice. Nay, it is not they only who will acknowledge the debt, but our dear Lord also.

Thus to give all our satisfactions and indulgences to the souls in purgatory is so far from being contrary to the right order of charity, that it is our best interest to do so. It is a devotion quite teeming with God's glory, and the manifold interests of Jesus, and the love of souls; and it embraces at once the Church on a doubtful passage of Nieremberg, "Avarizia Santa," cap. 27. It has now been corrected by the doctrine of De Lugo, De Sac. Poenit. Disp. 26, sec. 2, n. 24.

Militant, the Church Suffering, and the Church Triumphant. Let us bless God that He has in His mysterious liberality allowed us this inestimable favor of doing what we will with our satisfactions and indulgences; so that, being our own, and at our free disposal, we may rejoice our hearts in thus employing them to His greater glory and sweeter praise.

See how far some have gone, whose praise is in all the Churches. Father Ferdinand de Monroy, a most apostolic man, at the hour of death, made in writing a donation and transfer to the souls in purgatory of all the masses that should be said for him after he was dead, of all the penances offered up for him, and all the indulgences gained for him. He might well make the donation, for little need of such things had one who loved God so tenderly, and had wedded the interests of Jesus so utterly, as this very action shows he must have done. " Love is strong as death; many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it; if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing."*

Now you see exactly what it is I want of you. You must serve Jesus in some way or other; else you would not save your soul. You are absolutely dependent upon Him. You cannot do without His faith, His life, His death, His Blood, His Church, His Sacraments. You cannot take a step toward heaven, but by Him. Nothing that you think, or do, or say, is worth any thing until His worth has touched it. Dependence cannot be conceived more utter and absolute, nor more incessant and indispensable, than is your

6 • Cant. vlil. 6, 7.

dependence upon Him. Thus in some way or other you must serve Jesus. The question is whether it is not best to serve Him out of love. But has your religion been a service of love hitherto? Or have you doled out your duties to Him, as a poor man pays a debt to a rich creditor, looking him in the face between each shilling to see if he really intends to forget his poverty, and take the full amount of his debt? Has not the problem been to find out the least which you must do to gain heaven? Weighing commandments, clipping precepts, interpreting rules, begging dispensations— is not this the kind of thing you have called your religion, your worship of an Incarnate God, beside Himself with love, and hanging bleeding on a Cross?

Now, I maintain to serve Jesus out of love is so much easier than all this. Nothing is easy, which we are not happy while we are doing. Have you been happy in your religion ■? Far from it! It has been a simple burden to you. If it had not been for heaven and hell, you would have made short work of it long since. But heaven and hell are facts: there they are; and there is no help for us. As, then, we must be religious, I am for a happy religion. I see no use in an unhappy one, if God gives me my choice. But He has done more than that. He wishes me to be happy in my religion. Nay, He wishes my religion to be the happiness and sunshine of my life. Now a happy religion means a religion of love. Every thing comes easy to love. Thus, I am dependent for my happiness on no one but Jesus. My religion makes me happy all the day long. If serving Jesus out of love were some prodigiously difficult thing, like the contemplation of the saints, or their austerities, then it would be another matter. But the fact is, it is nothing of the kind. To serve God because you are afraid of going to hell, and wish to go to heaven, is a great blessing, and a supernatural work; but it is very difficult. Whereas, to serve God because you love Him is so easy that it is hard to account for so many men in the world neglecting to do it. Stupid souls, so iniraculousl}T blind!

And what is a further blessing is, that what makes you happy makes our dearest Lord happy also: and the thought of this again makes us so happy, that we can hardly contain ourselves, and then that again makes Him happier still. And thus religion gets sweeter and sweeter. Life is one long joy, because the Will of God is always being done in it, and the glory of God always being got from it. You become identified with the interests of Jesus; you wed them as if they were your own, as indeed they are. His spirit steals into you, and sets up a little throne in your heart, and crowns itself, and then most sweetly proclaims itself king. It gained the crown by a dear conspiracy: 30U never suspected what divine love was about all the while. But so it is. God's glory becomes dear to you; you get quite touchy about our Lord, for He is become the apple of your eye; and you are drawn to save souls, because it is what He is always doing, and so you get an instinct and a taste for it yourself. And so it all goes on; and so you live; yet not you, but Christ lives in you; and so you die. You never suspect you are a saint, or any thing approaching one.

Your life is hid with Christ in God, and hid from no one more than from yourself. You a saint indeed! Your humility would either laugh, or be frightened at the bare thought. But, oh the depth of the mercies of Jesus! What will be your surprise at His judgment-seat, to hear the sweet sentence, to see the bright crown! Why, you will almost argue against your own salvation! Our Lord makes the elect do so in the Gospel: Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, and fed Thee? When saw we Thee thirsty, and gave Thee drink? They cannot make it out. In all their love for Jesus, they never dreamed it was so great a thing as this. Ah! only serve Jesus out of love! You cannot beat God in the strife of love! Only serve Jesus out of love,— and while your eyes are yet unclosed, before the whiteness of death is yet settled ou your face, or those around you sure that that last gentle breathing was indeed }'our last. Oh what an unspeakable surprise will you have had at the judgment-seat of your dearest Love, while the songs of heaven are breaking on your ears, and the glory of God is dawning on your eyes, to fade away no more for ever!

Footnotes

1. Vit. 171. t Peint par ses Ecrits, p. 258. ↩

2. The doctrine of this passage, as it stood in the first edition, was based ↩