16 — GUARDING THE SENSES

Presence of God. — In Your presence, my God, I gather my senses and my faculties, withdrawing them from every exterior occupation in order to fix them on You.

Meditation

1 — To live a serious interior life, concentrated on the search for God, we must prevent the external world from entering the soul and filling it with distractions and noise; we must therefore carefully watch its doors. The senses are precisely doors open to earthly things; sight lets in images, hearing noises, etc., so that, without a wise mortification of the senses, the soul, living temple of the Most Holy Trinity, becomes like a market open to any traffic and coming and going, to every report and noise. Jesus could then address to us the words once addressed to the profaners of the temple: “Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace” (Jn. 2, 16). Temple of the Trinity by Baptism, the consecrated soul is so doubly by virtue of its vows or promises, and is therefore doubly bound to guard the recollection of its spirit in order to make of it truly “a house of prayer.” “It is enough to keep the outer doors [that is, the senses] closed,” said St. Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus, “so that the soul and heart cannot go elsewhere than to their center, which is God.” And her program was: “I will fix my eyes in my heart, and my heart I will raise to God” (Sp. pp. 273 and 275). Mortification of the senses is not a practice for narrow or fearful people, nor is it reserved to Carthusians or cloistered nuns, but is an indispensable exercise for all to allow the soul to recollect itself, to concentrate in God.

2 — St. John of the Cross teaches how to use the exterior senses so that they do not disturb the soul’s recollection. “The faculties and senses should not be employed entirely in things, but only as much as is necessary and cannot be avoided: let the rest remain free for the Creator” (LF III, 38). What is necessary is indicated by what duty requires, and by using the senses only in that measure—which is precisely the one fixed by the will of God—the soul cannot receive any harm from them. But when, says the Saint, “it should be offered the pleasure of hearing things that matter nothing for the service and glory of the Lord, let it renounce such delight and not care to hear them. If it should be offered the delight of seeing things that do not further raise hearts to God, let it repress the rising desire and abstain from seeing them” (Ascent I, 13, 4). This means refraining from using the senses in everything not required by duty or that cannot serve to raise the spirit to the Lord. It will not always be possible, however, especially for one who has broad contact with the world, to adhere strictly to this rule, both so as not to become burdensome to others and to avoid useless oddities; and therefore the Saint adds: “If for reasons of necessity or propriety one cannot do without seeing and hearing, etc., let one strive—and this will suffice—not to savor the delight of those sensible perceptions...” (ibid.). That is, one must learn to pass over these things—images, reports, etc.—without stopping to relish them, avoiding that the senses become wholly sluggish in them and always maintaining that interior freedom which allows the soul to rise to God through all things. Use the senses only as much as is necessary, and “let the rest remain free for the Creator.”

* St. Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus, a very young Carmelite who died in the Carmel of Florence on March 7, 1770, had a profoundly deep and singular interior life that can be summarized in the motto: “Abscondita cum Christo in Deo.” A true contemplative, she knew how to unite perfectly Mary’s office with Martha’s, carrying out a remarkable activity in caring for the sick sisters, a task with which she was almost always entrusted. See Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene: The Spirituality of St. Teresa Margaret Redi of the Heart of Jesus, Libreria Fiorentina, 1950.

Colloquy

O Lord, guard my senses so that they may never draw me away from You. With Your help I will carefully watch the doors of my soul, applying myself with greater commitment to the rules of modesty proper to my state. I will set at the guard of my senses the spirit of mortification, exercising myself not to want to see, hear, or deal with anything except what is necessary for the fulfillment of my duties. “But if You Yourself, O Lord, do not guard my house, in vain shall I watch it” (cf. Ps. 126), and therefore I pray You with all my heart: “Restrain and govern my tongue, guard my sight that it may not feed on vanity. Deign, Lord God, King of heaven and earth, to direct, sanctify, rule, and govern my heart and my body, my senses, my words and my acts in Your law and in the fulfillment of Your commandments, so that now and forever I may merit, with Your help, to be saved and free from every evil” (BR.).

Set, my God, a sentinel over my eyes, my ears, my mouth, over all my senses, and let this sentinel be Your love. Let Your love not allow me deliberately to linger with my senses on things useless, superfluous, curious; let Your love not allow the noise, images, and vain reports of earthly things to enter the sanctuary of my soul.

Let Your love be the weight that continually draws me to You; thus may my eyes always seek Your face, my ears Your word, and all my senses run continually to You, to seek, enjoy, and possess You alone. Let Your love be the magnet that always draws my senses and my faculties to You; fill them all with Your beauty, Your word, the tidings of Your mysteries, so that when they must necessarily turn to creatures, they may feel discomfort and be eager to return quickly to recollect themselves so as to fix themselves on You.

But when, through my weakness and misery, I should fail in guarding my senses, letting them wander far from You among the things of the world, then, Lord, I pray You, come quickly to my help. “Do not allow my senses to go astray, and do Thou Thyself deign to call them back, as the good shepherd calls back, with his whistle, the little sheep scattered in the valley. You, more than any other shepherd, give a whistle so gentle and so strong that the senses, as soon as they hear it, can no longer resist and, abandoning the exterior things among which they had scattered, immediately re-enter the sanctuary of the soul where You await them, and from where You call them back. O sweet Shepherd of my soul, never deny me this mercy so necessary to my weakness” (cf. T.G. M. IV, 3, 2).