Chapter III. The exercise of the virtues that are most necessary to perfection

Article I

Offwdh, Faith being, next to the clear vision of God, the most excellent participation of the uncreated wisdom, it must not be based upon natural reasons nor our own human inventions. Nevertheless such reasons may serve to subdue the repugnance and opposition of our mind, to rid us of our dulness, and to dispose us to believe, though they cannot be employed as a support to that which we believe by faith ; for faith implies the whole authority of God, and is founded on His sovereign and infinite wisdom, which makes it impossible for Him to be deceived, and on His infinite fidelity, which makes it impossible for Him to deceive us.

Some tremble at the sight of the truths of faith, and are unwilling to reflect upon them ; not that they doubt them, but they avoid the thought of them, because they have not used themselves to it. This is a great error, and at death the devil will be able to assault them on their weak side.

§ in. As it is faith which makes perfect that knowledge which prompts the will to act, and as, according to St. Thomas, it resides partly in the will, it facilitates the exercise of all virtues. For a knowledge of the faith touching temperance, for example, will make me perform an act of temperance more easily than the simple propriety of this virtue, and at the same time it will render my act supernatural.

We must endeavour, therefore, to ground ourselves more and more firmly in faith, walking always in its light, putting it in the place of those reasonings in which the human mind is always prone to indulge upon all kinds of subjects, and making it serve as the guiding torch and principle of all our actions. An act of the will grounded on faith is worth more than ten sentiments that have their source in the spiritual taste.

When God desires to make Himself perfectly master of a soul, He begins by gaining the understanding, communicating to it a high degree of faith. Thence He descends into the will, then into the memory, the imagination, and the concupiscible and irascible appetites, possessing Himself little by little of all these faculties. Next He passes to the senses, and the bodily movements, and in this manner He succeeds in completely occupying the interior and the exterior ; and all this by means of faith, which comprises in an eminent degree all virtues, as theologians say, and is the first spring of their action. This is why we must render the exercise of faith familiar to us, and guide ourselves by it in all our actions.

§v. It is truly sad to see how, in religion, some, and often even the majority, guide themselves only by human reason and natural prudence, scarcely using faith, except so far as not to go against it. They apply themselves to the perfecting of reason and good sense, without taking the trouble to increase in faith. It is exactly as if a man were to take great pains with the education of his slave, and neglect that of his son.

Nothing better proves how bhnd and feeble, in the matter of moral perfection, human reason is by itself and without faith, than the little progress it made among all nations before the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. The Komans seem to have been the wisest and the greatest of all pagan people. Holy Scripture ascribes the ascendency and power they acquired to their wisdom and patience ; and St. Augustine considers that God gave them the empire of the world as the reward of their virtue. Yet what was their wisdom, and to what did it tend ? How much vanity and how much corruption was mixed with their purest and most solid virtues !

How much our want of confidence displeases God a/nd injures ourselves, One of the things in which we most dishonour God is our want of confidence in Him ; and this fault arises from our not sufficiently considering what has been bestowed upon us in the incarnation, and what a God made man has done for men. " For God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son ; and seeing that He spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up to death for us all, what will He not give us after having given us Him ?"

That the son of a king should be willing to die to expiate the crime of a subject whom he loved, or that a king should be willing to give the life of his son for a favourite — this would be an instance of admirable mercy and goodness. But that this son should be willing to die, and this father be willing to give the life of his son for their special mortal enemy, is an excess of mercy and goodness inconceivable. Yet this it is that God has done, giving His Son to human nature, His enemy, not only to save it, but also to raise it to the throne of the Divinity. This it is that the Son of God has done, who, when He might have saved men by a word, by a single tear or a single sigh, willed to merit for them the grace of salvation by a life of so much labour and poverty, and by a death of so much agony and shame.

And after this shall we have no confidence in so much mercy 1 Shall we refuse to hope that a Redeemer so full of goodness, who has ransomed us at the price of His own Blood, will deliver us from our sins and imperfections 1 Distrust is extremely displeasing to God, above all in souls which He has prevented with extraordinary graces. It was in punishment for a slight distrust that Moses entered not the land of promise. He died in sight of that land so often promised, and so ardently desired ; but he entered not, and God would not let Himself be turned by any prayers.

We wrong God when we say, " When shall I attain to indifference 1 when shall I gain the gift of prayer ?" As if God were needy or grudging of His gifts, as if He had not Himself undertaken the work of our perfection. Let us only follow His will, let us co-operate with His graces, let us study purity of heart, and rest assured that He will not be wanting to us.

§ in. Many will never arrive at a high perfection, because they do not hope sufficiently. We must have a strong and solid hope, grounded on the mercy and infinite goodness of God, and on the infinite merits of Jesus Christ. " Thou only, O Lord, art the sustainer of my hope."

We must hope and expect great things from God, because the merits of our Lord belong to us ; and to hope much in God is to honour Him much. The more we hope, the more we honour Him.

Article III

On hv/milUy.

St. Lawrence Justinian says that we do not know what humility is, unless we have it in our heart. It is only those who are humble in heart that are capable of understanding it. Therefore our Lord said, " Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart." To acquire humility, we must, in the first place, never omit any outward actions in which we may be able to practise it according to our condition, and on such occasions as present themselves; and we must ask of God true feelings of humility, that we may perform well those exterior acts of this virtue which sometimes are done in a spirit of vanity. In the second place, we must make frequent interior acts of humility, acknowledge our own nothingness and wretchedness, love our own abasement, exercise continually a rigorous judgment, and inwardly pass sentence upon ourselves and upon every thing we do.

We must never reprove any one without being previously convinced, and acknowledging before God, that we do far worse ourselves, and are more guilty than him whom we are about to reprove.

When we enter upon the duties of any office, as that of regent, preacher, or superior, we ought to prepare ourselves for it by some practice of humility, mortification, or charity; such as visiting prisoners or the poor in hospitals, serving in the kitchen, <fec. mi^mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm9mmmmm'^fmf^^9f^ti9m i i u j i j-HI i. j gtWBn«lg»Jgff^ Offices of humility and charity are the best, because humility preserves within us the peace and the gifts of God, and charity keeps us occupied about our neighbour.

Let us be humble, patient, mortified, united to God, and He will bless our labours: their success depends absolutely on the blessing of God ; for without it all our talents and all our exertions are nothing.

§ in.

God ever reserves to Himself dominion over the gifts with which He favours us. He desires to have the sole glory of them. It is not for the display of our excellence that He confers them upon us; it is to manifest His own. We have not, neither ought we to have, more than the simple use of them solely for the glory of God, and not for our own interest. And this must be understood of all kinds of graces, gifts, and privileges, and even of natural talents and endowments.

In the good we do, and in the good we possess, God leaves to us the profit and advantage, reserving to Himself the glory ; He will not have us attribute that to ourselves.

We are not content with this allotment; we take God's share to ourselves ; we desire to have the glory as well as the profit of our possessions. This injustice is a kind of blasphemy ; for nothing is due to nature, considered in itself — and thus we ought to consider it — ^but vileness and abasement. It is to that we ought incessantly to tend and aspire with a desire and a thirst insatiable, since therein consists our true greatness ; all else is but presumption, vanity, illusion, and sin. So much so, that they in whom this desire of abjection is most ardent are the greatest in the sight of d2 God. It is they who, above all others, walk in the truth, and they are so much the more like unto God, as with Him they seek only His glory. This is His own property; glory belongs to Him alone. As for us, all our estate is nothingness; and if we attribute any thing to ourselves, we are robbers. If we love the esteem and applause of the world, we are fools ; we feed ourselves with wind.

We commonly form to ourselves a false idea of humility, imagining it to be something degrading to us. It has the very contrary effect ; for as it gives us a true knowledge of ourselves, and is itself unmixed truth, it brings us near to God, and consequently it confers true greatness upon us, which we seek in vain out of God.

Humiliation degrades us only in the estimation of men, which is nothing ; it raises us in the estimation of God, in which true glory consists.

Upon such occasions, so trying to nature, we must reflect, that if men behold us despised, defamed, and made a mock of, God looks upon us as exceedingly exalted by the very things which lower us in the eyes of men. Jesus Christ rejoices to see us wearing His livery, and the angels envy us the honour.

Some one will say, " I cannot persuade myself that I am a greater sinner than others. If I break one rule, I see others who break many ; if I am guilty of certain faults, I see others who are guilty of greater."

The difficulty we feel in conceiving this humble opinion of ourselves arises from our being as yet so very unspiritual. We shall have it when we are more advanced. In all arts and sciences there are secrets which are known only to those who are adepts in them. So in spiritual soience^ which is the most excellent of all, inasmuch as it is purely supernatural, there are maxims the knowledge of which belongs only to the Saints, who are doctors in this divine science. A St. Francis of Assisi, a St. Francis Borgia, were most eminent masters in humility. They esteemed themselves, not after a manner of speaking, but sincerely and from the bottom of their heart, the greatest sinners in the world. They were inwardly persuaded of that which their lips declared.

Article IV

OftJie love of crosses, St. Ignatius the Martyr had the love of crosses and of self-annihilation so deeply graven in his heart, that being condemned to be devoured by wild beasts in the amphitheatre, he desired that the lions, after tearing his body in pieces, might also consume his bones ; that nothing might remain of the holocaust which he had consecrated to God in order to prove himself His worthy disciple. He would have deemed himself happy could he have been so completely annihilated in his torments as to leave not a particle of his body visible to the eyes of the world. " The world," said he, " will see my body no more :" he exulted with joy at the thought.

As our Lord wrought the redemption of the world only by His cross, by His death, and the shedding of His blood, not by His miracles or preachings, so likewise the evangelical labourers apply the grace of redemption only by their crosses, and by the persecutions they suffer. So much so, that no great fruits can be m^^lt»mim0m»00,mmmi» > i »«iii expected from their ministry, if it be not accompanied by contradictions, calumnies, injuries, and sufferings.

Some think they do wonders because they preach powerful discourses, well composed, w^ prepared, and delivered with grace ; because they are the fashion, and are welcomed every where. They deceive themselves ; the means on which they rely are not those which God makes use of to do great things. Crosses are needed to effect the salvation of the world. It is by the way of the cross that God leads those whom He employs to save souls, apostles and apostolic men, a St. Francis Xavier, a St. Ignatius, a St. Vincent Ferrer, a St. Dominic.

§ in.

We must not look upon our crosses and afflictions in the light of evils which are the cause to us of suffering, or as mortifications which lower us in the eyes of the world ; but we must look at them, after the example of our Lord, in the eternal counsels of God, in the decrees of His providence, and in the designs of His love towards us ; in the Heart of Jesus Christ, who has chosen them for us, and presents them to us as the material of those crowns which He is preparing for us, and as a trial of our courage and fidelity in His service.

In the beginning of the spiritual life, we must not ask sufferings of God ; we must think rather of purging our conscience, devoting ourselves to acquire purity of heart, the knowledge of our own interior, and recollection. From thence we rise to peace of soul, thence to communion with God, next to infused virtues, and finally to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Then it is that God inspires us according to His designs and will ; leading some by labours, as St. Francis Xavier j others by sufferings, as St. Ludwine ; others by contradictions and persecutions, as St. Ignatius : but of ourselves we must not make any particular choice, otherwise we shall always be in trouble ; not possessing as yet sufficient virtue to endure crosses, it would be to undertake to carry a giant's load without the strength to do it. When, however, at the call of God, we enter into states of toil, suffering, and humiliation, then neither will labours overwhelm us, nor persecutions disturb us, and often even great austerities will not destroy our health.