Chapter XXV. Lukewarmness

Bellecio in his treatise on Solid Virtue puts.uko» warmness almost at the very commencement. This has always seemed to me an inconvenient arrangement Lukewarmness is in no sense a beginning. We may begin by being cold, but not by being lukewarm. For lukewarmness implies that a great deal has gone before, that a height has been climbed, and that from cowardice, human respect, or weariness, we have come down from it. Like certain phenomena in geology, it is at once an evidence of a former state of things, and of the catastrophe which overthrew it. He who was never fervent can never be lukewarm. Cold he may be, and low, and mean, and ungenerous, and a poltroon, but not lukewarm.

I prefer therefore to consider lukewarmness in this place, because the knowledge we have now gained of the various appliances of the spiritual life will enable us the better to understand its true nature; and also because all the component parts of the spiritual life being also, when spoiled, the component parts of lukewarmness, this is the natural place it occupies. In fact, all that has gone before of struggle, fatigue, and rest, with their helps, hindrances, phenomena, and developments, issues simply in one of two states, lukewarmness or fervor. Either we 40 are lukewarm, or we are fervent. These are the ends of our whole voyage as proficients: either we run on the sandbanks and go to pieces at the very base of the lighthouse, or we hit the mouth of the harbor, and lie suugly in its deep water with the mountains of God embracing us on either side. The rudder of the spiritual life, the little-seeming power which governs the whole ship, is discretion. This turns us off from the treacherous shoal, keeps us in the deep midway channel, and steers us fairly into port. Hence my last three chapters will naturally be occupied with the consideration of lukewarmnesSj fervor, and discretion.

There is nothing in the spiritual life which arrests our attention so forcibly as lukewarm ness, because of the unusual language in which it has pleased God to express His ineffable disgust with it, and the startling doctrine which accompanies the declaration of His loathing, that coldness is less offensive to Him than tepidity. Who is it then with whom God is so exceedingly displeased, that He is sick of His own redeemed creature? We tremble at the answer. It is the man, who is patient when he has nothing to suffer, who is gentle while he is uncontradicted, who is humble when men leave his honor untouched, who wishes to be a saint without the trouble of it, who seeks to acquire virtues without mortification, who is willing to do many things, but not to take the kingdom of heaven by violence. Alas! here are verified the dread words of the Prince of the Apostles. The time is that judgment should begin at the house of God. And if first at us, what shall be the end of those who believe not the gospel of God? And if the just maa shall scarcely be saved, where shall the wicked and the sinnei appear?¹

The diseases and evils of the body are, as might be expected, seeing they are the immediate outflowings of siu, in a great degree typical of the miseries and misfortunes of the soul. If we seek the correlative of hike-warmness, we shall find it in blindness. It is a blindness which does not know even its own self, and does not suspect that it is blind, or that other men see better than itself. It is a judicial blindness, because it once saw better itself, and now does not remember either what it saw, or that it ever saw at all. It is usual to consider that this blindness is owing principally to three causes, the frequency of venial sins, habitual dissipation of mind, and the ruling passion. The frequency of venial sins is like travelling in the wilderness, where the bright air is imperceptibly filled with fine sand. Habitual dissipation of mind is like reading in the sunshine, and living in a light too strong for our eyes. The ruling passion is an external violence which menaces us, and makes us shut our eyes, and have them always shut, that we may not see what it would fain hide, and so when we open them after long being used to darkness, it is the very light itself which blinds us.

The immediate results of this blindness are three also. In the first place conscience becomes untrue. The bodv does not move firmly and in a straight line in the dark So the conscience also must see in order to keep its balance. But if we falsify the oracle, and still believe it, what is the consequence but error and corruption everjwhere? If the light that is in us be darkness,

6ays our Lord, how great is that darkness! So first there comes a false conscience. But in proportion as conscience becomes dark, and so cold, and finally numb, in the same proportion the bad instincts of the human spirit, like owls at night, get more far-sighted, animated, and vivacious. These instincts lead us with uncommon tact to avoid anything which will restore animation to the conscience. For their purpose it had best remain under chloroform for life. Thus they make us shrink from anything like vigorous spiritual direction. We suspect we shall be awakened, and driven, and made too good. Discretion, that is, the discretion of the blind conscience, tells us this shrinking is wisdom and sagacity. We must, it says, be moderate in everything, but of all things amazingly moderate in the love of God. So in hearing sermons, reading books, cultivating acquaintances, patronizing works of mercy, it draws back from everything that is likely to come too near or hit too hard. It is the old story of the earthen jug and the brazen jar, as they went down the stream together. Here is the second result of this blindness, which renders the cure still less likely. Indeed it is a characteristic of tepidity, that everything we do while we are in that state, has a tendency to confirm us as incurable. Out of the two preceding results flows a third, which is a profane use of the sacraments. To go to Holy Communion when we are physically drowsy, yawning, and half asleep, or to make our general confession half stupefied with laudanum, would be fair types of the way in which we morally use the sacraments. Thus frequent or even daily Communion seems to have only a negative effect upon us. We do not knew how bad we might be without it; and that is all. Weekly confession gives us no additional powef over our commonest imperfections. Matters look as if they had come to a stand-still, if there were any such phase of the spiritual life. But no! we are blind men whose faces have been turned unwittingly. We are retracing our steps; and the only wonder is, that the easier task of going down hill, does not by its contrast make us suspicious of some mistake. Alas! we are asleep as well as blind. The finest things we do now are no better than feats of somnambulism.

It is plain from this description that what is of the greatest practical utility in this matter of lukewarmness, is a thorough acquaintance with the symptoms by which the insidious disease allows itself to be detected. These are seven in number; and according as we perceive that we unite them in ourselves, either in number or degree, so we have reason painfully to doubt whether our spiritual eyesight is not failing. The first mark is a great facility in omitting our exercises of piety, which is the exact contradictory of fervor. Every one has his routine of pious exercises; and there are few days in which they do not entail upon us some little inconveniences. Perhaps it is one of their special uses to do this, especially if habitual distractions are going to make the exercise itself of small value. Now these little inconveniences suggest dispensations, or at least delays, which we see confusedly will turn out dispensations at the last. Clearly there are cases in which conflicting duties or the needs of charity will interfere, and it will be more perfect to give way to them than to read or meditate. But most often the inconveniences concern only ourselves. We have the power to dispense ourselves; and we grant these dispensations 40* either rarely and with reluctance, or often and with facility If the latter be the case, behold the first mark of tepidity! I do not say that by itself it proves everything; but it proves much. At all events, wherever there is lukewarmness, there also is this symptom. But we are not only easy in omitting exercises of piety, we are negligent in those which we do perform. We care more about the fact of going through them, than the manner or the spirit of it. Thus our prayers rise to heaven with an equipage of venial sins in attendance upon them, and the angels are reluctant witnesses of our confessions and communions. This is a second symptom. Here is a third. The soul feels not altogether right with God. It does not exactly know what is wrong; but it is sure all is not right. It casts about to see. It quarrels with everything it does, and questions each of them, and yet the mischief eludes it. It is angry with its confessions; yet it is not easy to settle how to amend them. Something always seems unexpressed, something left behind which ought to have come out and does not. What is it? Then the communions are overhauled in a similar way, the examens of conscience tortured, meditations reprimanded, spiritual books cashiered, together with a determination to reform everything. General orders are issued from self's head-quarters, in which strong things are said ambiguously. Every one feels he is aimed at. Blame lies everywhere. Yet all to no purpose. At last when we have given the matter up, we suddenly come upon the offending thing, just as we look for a lost article till we are hot and tired, and then all at once see it lying in open day in a spot we have searched four or five times before. Now when we have this feeling of not being altogether right with God, and yet will not vigorously face the inquiry, and make the disturbance I have described, and buckle to the triple task of discovery, punishment, and reformation, it is a symptom of our being lukewarm.

A fourth symptom of lukewarmness is an habitual acting without any intention at all, good, bad, or indifferent, of which I spoke in the preceding chapter. A fifth is a carelessness about forming habits of virtue. This is the opposite of the inordinate appetite for self-improvement already considered; the truth lying here, as it mostly does in spiritual matters, in a mean. A sixth symptom is a contempt of little things and of daily opportunities. This is a necessary part of our blindness. We can only despise little things because we do not discern ihe capabilities of glorifying God, and advancing our own spiritual interests, which they contain. The seventh and last symptom is a thinking rather of the good we have done than of the good we have left undone, resting on the past rather than striving for the future, loving to look at people below us rather than people above us. Our own ease and self-complacency find their account in this attitude of the soul. This is the way in which tepidity attacks the inmates of convents. When religious become lukewarm, they like to measure themselves with the poor citizens of the world, rather than with the grand saints of their own order. They are ever calculating the sacrifices they have made, and fondly realizing to themselves the glory of their self-devotion. When these signs are observed, superiors recognize in them the alarming symptoms of tepidity. It all lies in one word. Such religious do, what St. Paul said he did not do. They count themselves tc have apprehended.* Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended. But one thing I do; forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching forth myself to those that are before, I pursue towards the mark, for the prize of the supernal vocation of God in Christ Jesus. Let us, therefcre, as many as are perfect, be thus minded.

From these fatal marks let us pass to consider the extraordinary hatred which God has of this state. These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, who is the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth. ")• This passage is without any parallel in Scripture. God not only prefers coldness; but he rejects tepidity. It turns him sick who is eternal love. The charity of the Heart of Jesus, our only home, cannot retain us. If is disgust is too strong for Him to resist it; and He rejects us with an unconquerable nausea which even redeeming love cannot temper or allay. It is a most awful figure, and one which, but for His own word, we should not dare to have mentioned in the same breath with His adorable majesty. How much He must have meant to teach us by the singularity of that terrific language! Now God is infinitely just, therefore His hatred of this state cannot be too great. It is not in his majesty to exaggerate. But He is also infinitely forbearing, so that His punishment must be if anything short of its horrible deserts. What then must its real horror be?

But why does He hate it so? Let us venture to search • Philippious iii. 13. f Apoo. iii. 14, 15, 16.

for reasons. Because it is a quiet intentional appreciation of other things over God. It cheapens God, and parts with Him second-hand. Meanwhile, as it is not open wickedness, but is even an open profession and exterioi practice of His service, it pretends friendship, and takes rank in the world as one of God's friends; and hence it involves the twofold guilt of treachery and hypocrisy. It thus has a peculiar ability to wound God's glory by the scandal it gives. It has God's honor in its power, and treats it shamefully and cruelly. It profanes grace by the indifference with which it misuses it. It takes it as a right, and misapplies it, as a dishonest man spends money on purposes for which it was not trusted to him. It is taking a liberty with the majesty of God's exceeding goodness, which is a terrible thing to do. It were better to play with His thunderbolts, than to make sport with His compassions. And all this is done with knowledge, the double knowledge of God and of evil. What wonder that it turns God's whole being, and sours even the sweetness of the Sacred Heart!

A few words on its remedies, and the hateful subject may be dismissed. Its cure is immensely difficult; St. Bernard would make us almost despair of its being curable at all. Only, we made up our minds at the beginning to hold this all through, that nothing is incurable, though many things in the spiritual life are nearly so; and neither doctor, nor father, nor saint, but only the Pope, shall drive us from this doctrine. St. Bernard therefore will be satisfied if we say that its cure is immensely difficult, because all the saints have said so, because the evil is unsuspected, because even the good is mixed with evil, because men do not realize the possible forfeiture of grace to keep precepts when they have been playing fast and loose with counsels, and because, as St. Theresa teaches, for some souls perfection is accidentally necessary even for their salvation!

How absurd it seems to mention the feeble remedies t The first is to quicken faith by meditation on eternal truths, so as to possess our minds -habitually with their overwhelming importance and their exacting purity. The second is, not having so many things to do. It is no use. The times are busy. But we cannot save our souls if we have so many things to do. But the remedy? Good soul! there are some knots in life which cannot be untied; the thing is to cut them, and leave the consequences to help themselves. If you have more duties to do than you can do well, you must boldly neglect some of them. Only have faith, and God will spirit the consequences away, so that you will see nothing more of them. The third remedy is the practice of silence, not in any offensive or singular way, but proportionably to our state of life. The fourth is to persevere in our spiritual exercises in spite of dryness and distractions; and the fifth, which is nearer a specific than any of the others, is a habit of mortification, not interior, but exterior. The interior will look out for itself when its time comes. Just now I want the flesh to suffer. If you turn away from this I give you up. It is the quinine for your ague. Alas! alas! what does all this come to but the admission that the only sure remedy for lukewarmness is never to be lukewarm, an Dracle worthy of the pompous physician of the old comedy? Set does it not in reality say a great deal?

1 fear this evil of lukewarmness is very common, and that at this moment, it is gnawing the life out of many souls who suspect not its presence there It is a great grace, a prophecy of a miraculous cure, to find out that we are lukewarm; but we are lost if wt do not act with vigor, the momeni we make this triguteuing discovery. It is like going to sleep in tb-» snow, almost a plea?«rl tingling feeling at the first, antf khen, — l<j*« r'jr tv*

Footnotes

1. 1 S. Peter iv. 17. ↩