Chapter I. True Signs of Progress in the Spiritual Life

The spiritual life is made up of contradictions. Thii Is only another way of saying that human nature is fallen One of the greatest contradictions, and practically one of the most difficult to be managed, is that in spirituality it is very important we should know a great deal about ourselves, and at the same time equally important that we should think very little about ourselves; and it is not easy to reconcile these things. I mention i-his difficulty at the outset, inasmuch as we shall have in the course of this treatise to look very much into ourselves, and consequently we run the risk at the same time of thinking very much of ourselves; and this last might do us more harm than the first would do us good.

No knowledge in the world can be more interesting to us than to know how we stand with God. Every thing depends upon it. It is the science of sciences to us, more than the knowledge of good and evil which tempted Adam and Eve so violently. If we are well with God, all is well 2* b (17)

with us, though the thickest darkness of adversity bo round about. If we are not well with Him, nothing is well with us, though the best and brightest of earth be at our feet. It is natural that we should desire to know if we are making progress in the spiritual life; neither is there anything wrong, or even imperfect, in the desire, provided it be not inordinate. It would be an immense consolation to us, if we should have reason to suppose we were advancing; and if, on the contrary, we had grounds for suspecting something was amiss, there would at least be a sense of safety and security in the feeling that at all events we were not going on in the dark about the matter which concerns us more nearly and dearly than anything else. Love likes to know that it is accepted and reciprocated; and in the case of God especially, that it i3 not rejected as it deserves to be; and fear is equally anxious for the same knowledge because of the eternal interests which are concerned in it.

But however much we may desire it, we cannot have anything like an accurate knowledge of our progress in the spiritual life; and that for reasons on God's side as well as on our own. On His side, because it is His way to conceal His work; and on ours, because self-love exaggerates the little good we do. We do not even know for certain whether we are in a state of grace, or as Scripture expresses it, whether we deserve love or hatred. For we have each of us a cavern of secret sins about us; and as the Inspired Writer warns us, we must not be without fear even of forgiven sin.

There are wrong ways of trying to gain this knowledge which the impatient heart seeks so anxiously. All desires become inordinate in the long run, if they are not sharply

Bebooled and tightly kept under; and it is when they become inordinate that they hit with such fatal ingenuity upon wrong ways of satisfying themselves. One of these wrong ways is pressing our directors to tell us their judgment about us, which they are naturally very reluctant to do, both because they shrink from apparent pretension to supernatural gifts, such as the discernment of spirits, and because they are aware that such knowledge is hardly ever good for us to have. Then, when this artifice proves unsuccessful, we take arbitrary and artificial marks of our own, as children run sticks into the sand to time the tide by; and, as might be expected, we select wrongly where we had no right to select at all; and having made a mistake, we are obstinate in it, and as is usual with men, the more obstinate in proportion as we are more mistaken; and so the end of it all is delusion. And even when we do not seek to know our own interior state by one of these wrong methods, we do what is equally wrong, by disquieting ourselves constantly upon the subject, which is nothing less than a forfeiting of blessings and graces nearly every jour in the day.

But in truth as it is with the hour of our death, so it is with our growth in grace. It is in every way not good for us that we should have any certain or exact knowledge about it. It is as much as ever we can do to keep ourselves humble, even when our faults are open and glaring, and any good there may be in us so little as to be almost invisible. What then would it be if we were truly growing in grace, and making rapid strides in the love of God? Surely the less we know, the easier it will be to keep humble. Moreover, the absence of such exacu knowledge renders us more supple and obedient, both to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost within us, and to the suggestions of our spiritual directors without us. Just aa it is ignorance of their maladies which makes the sick so amenable to their physicians, so it is with our ignorance of our proficiency in the spiritual life. And how much of this proficiency depends on this twofold obedience to inspirations and direction! Furthermore, the very uncertainty is itself a perpetual stimulus to greater generosity towards God. For the worst of all excessive self-inspection is, that the good grows and swells as we look at it, and because we look at it; and hence, a man whose eye is always turned inward on his own heart, has, for the most part, a strangely exaggerated notion of the amount of what he is doing for God. Whereas it is the very disproportion between the greatness of what God has done for us, and the spirit of Fatherly love in which He has done it, and the littleness of what we do for God, and the spirit of niggardliness in which we do it, that makes us crave to love Him more, and to work for Him more self-denyingly. Hence I conclude that it would not be for our own best interests to know exactly, and for certain, how far we had got on the road to perfection

Nevertheless a certain amount of knowledge of our state is possible, desirable, and even necessary, so long as it be desired moderately, and sought for rightly. We need consolation in so difficult and doubtful a battle; and we are not yet sufficiently detached not to find an especial consolation in the knowledge of the operations of grace within our souls. We cannot be much given to prayer without obtaining more or less insight into God's dealings with us; and indeed if we do not know the graces which 3od is giving us, we shall not know how to correspond to them. So that some amount of such knowledge is absolutely necessary to our carrying on the Christian warfare at all; and the lawful ways of acquiring it are prayer, examination of conscience, and the spontaneous admonitions of our spiritual director.

This is enough to say about the knowledge of our own spiritual state. It is a very difficult and dangerous subject. The less of such knowledge we can do with the better; because it is so hard to seek it rightly, or to use it moderately. Still it cannot be dispensed with altogether, though its importance varies with the spiritual condition of the individual.

Thus it is important for us to put before ourselves clearly the particular condition of the spiritual life which we are now concerned with. Persons are what is called converted; that is, they are turned to God and commence a new life. They do penance for their sins: they abjure certain false maxims which they held: they feel differently towards God and Jesus Christ: they commit themselves to certain practices of mortification: they pledge themselves to certain devotional observances; and they put themselves under the obedience of spiritual direction. Then they have their first fervours. They are helped by a supernatural promptitude in all that concerns the service of God, by sensible sweetness in prayer, by joy in the sacraments, by a new taste for penance and humiliation, and a facility in meditation, and often a cessation, partial or entire, of temptation. These first fervours may last weeks, or months, or a year or two even; and then their work is done. We have corresponded to them more or less faithfully. They have had their own experiences, peculiarities, symptoms, difficulties. They have a particular genius of their own, and need a direction which is suitable for them, and is not suitable for anything else. Now they have passed away, and are out of our reach. We shall meet them again at the judgment-seat, and not before.

But where have they left us? At the commencement of a new stage in the spiritual life, a very trying and a very critical time. The mere passing away of fervours, which were never meant for anything more than a temporary dispensation, leaves us immersed in an uncomfortable feeling of lukewarmness. The characteristics of our present state are that we seem to be left more to ourselves than we were. Grace appears to do less for us. Old natural character comes up, when the fervours that overlaid it are gone out, and begins to tell again with amazing vivacity. We felt as if we were more thrown upon the manliness and honesty of our own purposes and wills, and were, at least less sensibly, buoyed up by the various apparatus of the supernatural life. Our prayers become drier. The ground we are digging is stiffer and stonier. The work seems less attractive in proportion as it grows more solid. Perfection does not feel so easy, and penance unbearable. Now is the time for courage, now is the trial of our real worth. We are beginning to travel the central regions of the spiritual life? and they are, on the whole, tracts of wilderness. Here it is that so many turn back, and are thrown aside by God as frustrate saints and broken vocations. The soul I am addressing has come to this point, and is toiling on, burnt by the sun and wind, ankle deep in the sand, filled with despair from the infrequency of the water-springs, querulous for the want of tool quiet shade, and greatly inclined to sit down and give the matter up as hopeless.

For the love of God do not sit down! It is all over with you if you do. If I only knew, you say, that I waa getting on, if I could really believe I was making any way at all, I would force my weary limbs to advance! Two are better than one, saith Scripture; so let us toil on together for awhile, and talk of our helps and hindrances. We are not saints, you know. Perhaps we are not aiming at saints' heights; and if we are not, then we must not take saints' liberties. The lessons we want must be sober, and safe, and low. Anyhow we must neither turn back nor sit down.

Are we getting on? There is not a well or a palm to measure by; there is only sand and an horizon. Courage! here are five signs. If we have one of them, it is well; if two, better; if three, better still; if four, capital; if all the five, glorious.

1. If we are discontented with our present state, whatever it may be, and want to be something better and higher, we have great reason to be thankful to God. For such discontent is one of His best gifts, and a great sign that we are really making progress in the spiritual life But we must remember that our dissatisfaction with ourselves must be of such a nature as to increase our humility, and not such as to cause disquietude of mind or uneasiness in our devotional exercises. It must be made up of a rather impatient desire to advance in holiness, combined with gratitude for past graces, confidence for future ones, and a keen, indignant feeling of how much more grace we have received than we have corresponded to.

2. Again, strange as it may sound, it is a sign of our growth if we are always making new beginnings and fresh starts. The great St. Antony made perfection consist in it. Yet this is often ignorantly made a motive of discouragement, from persons confounding fresh starts in the ievout life with the incessant risings and relapsings of habitual sinners. Neither must we confound these continual fresh beginnings with the fickleness which so often leads to dissipation, and keeps us back in our heavenward path. For these new starts seen something higher, and therefore for the most part something arduous; whereas fickleness is tired of the yoke, and seeks ease and change. Neither again do these beginnings consist -in changing our spiritual books, or our penances, or our methods of prayer, much less our directors. But they consist in two things chiefly: first, a renewal of our intention for the glory of God; and secondly, a revival of our fervour.

3. It is also a sign of progress in the spiritual life, when we have some definite thing in view: for instance, if we are trying to acquire the habit of some particular virtue, or to conquer some besetting infirmity, or to accustom ourselves to a certain penance. All this is a test of earnestness, and also a token of the vigour of divine grace within us. Whereas if we are attacking no particular part of the enemy's line, it is hardly a battle; and if we are shooting without an aim, what can come of it but smoke and noise? It is not likely we are advancing, if, as people speak, we are going on in a general way, without distinctly selecting an end to reach, and actively forcing our way to the end we have thus consciously selected.

4. But it is a still greater sign that we are making progress, if we have a strong feeling on our minds that God wants something particular from us. We are some' times aware that the Holy Spirit is drawing us in one direction rather than in another, that He desires some fault to be removed, or some pious work to be undertaken. This is called by spiritual writers an attraction. Some have one persevering attraction all their lives long. With others it is constantly changing. With many it is so indistinct that they only realize it now and then; and not a few seem to be without any such special drawing at all.¹ It implies of course an active self-knowledge, as well as a quiet inward eye of prayer; and it is a great gift, because of the immense facilities which it gives for the practice of perfection; for it almost resembles a special revelation. To feel then, with all sober reverence, this drawing of the Holy Ghost, is a sign that we are making progress. Yet it must be carefully remembered that no one should be disquieted because of the absence of such a feeling. It is neither universal nor indispensable.

5. I will venture also to add that an increased general desire of being more perfect is not altogether without its value as a sign of progress: and that, in spite of what I have said of the importance of having a definite object in view. I do not think we esteem this general desire of perfection sufficiently. Of course we must not stop at it nor be satisfied with it. It is only given us to go on with. Still, when we consider how worldly most good Christians are, and their amazing blindness to the interests of Jesus, and their almost incredible impenetrability by super, natural principles, we must see that this desire of holiness is from God, and a great gift, and that much which is of surpassing consequence is implied in it. God be praised for every soul in the world which is so fortunate as to possess it! It is almost inconsistent with lukewarmness; and this is no slight recommendation in itself: and although there is much beyond it and much above it, yet it is indispensable both to what is beyond and what is above. Nevertheless we must not be blind to its dangers. All supernatural desires, which we simply enjoy without practically corresponding to them, leave us in a worse state than they found us. In order to be safe we must proceed without delay to embody the desire in some act or other, prayer, penance, or zealous deed: yet not precipitately, or without counsel.

Here then are five fairly probable signs of progress, and none of them so far above our heads as to be un practical to the lowest of us. I do not mean to say that the existence of these signs implies that all is as it ought to be in our spiritual life; but that it shows we are alive, advancing, and in the way of grace: and the possession of any one of these signs is something unspeakably more precious than the best and highest gift earth can give. I repeat, if we have one of these signs it is well; if two, better; if three, better still; if four, capital; if all five, glorious. Now see! we have made a little way. We are further into the wilderness; and if as footsore «v ever, at least a trifle less fainthearted.

Footnotes

1. It was remarked by Mother de Blonay, that those who are destined by God to spend great part of their lives in religious superior- • ships, are, for the most part, without any peculiar attraction. Because it is a " universal spirit" which the Holy Ghost desires to form in luch souls. ↩