Chapter II. The things from which we must cleanse our hearts

Article I

Venial sins.

We conceive of venial sin only as of a light word, a vain thought, an act of little consequence. This is a great illusion ; since it is of faith that God punishes a venial sin with supernatural sufferings, longer and keener than the most terrible torments of this life. From whence the conclusion follows, that the malice of venial sin is greater, beyond compare, in the judgment of God than it. is in the idea of men.

Venial sin is an evil so great, that it obliges a God of infinite goodness — ^who would have been willing to remain upon the cross for the love of men even for centuries — ^to condemn a soul He loves to the bitterest of all sufferings when it appears before His tribunal with the stain of this sin upon it ; for the greatest torment we can conceive a soul enduring, when separated from the body, is to be deprived for ever, or for a time, of the sight of God. And this it is that venial sin deserves, which has not been expiated by penance during this life. Such is the light in which we ought to regard it. . Now we look at our sins only under their physical aspect; which attracts us^ or under their moral aspect^ of which we scarcely form a conception. We must contemplate them in their effects, and consider that they prevent our union with God, and banish us from Him for ever in this life, if we continue in them. We must view them as opposed to that which is God's peculiar possession, that is to say. His glory, as well as to our own spiritual advancement, and to the designs of His providence with respect to us, which they interrupt and thwart.

That which happens to seculars in the matter of mortal sin, we reli^ous experience with respect to venial. In seculars passion quenches the light of faith, as well as that of reason. Inordinate affection corrupts the judgment, and they then fall into the greatest disorders. The Jews had sufficient light to know that Jesus Christ was God ; envy blinded them, and they put to death the Messiah whom they expected. Socrates, Plato, Trajan, might have known by the simple light of nature the abominable crimes to which they abandoned themselves. Their brutal passion blinded them. Nothing is more plain than the obligation of making restitution when we have unjustly deprived our neighbour of his goods ; and yet every day we see how avarice quenches all the lights, natural and supernatural, which demonstrate this obligation. Men do not make restitution, and they never will make it. Attachment to worldly goods has so corrupted their judgment, that they have no longer light to see its necessity.

It is in the same way that we harden ourselves in a multitude of habitual venial sins. Vanity, sensuality, attachment to our own little comforts, stifle within us the lights of grace, which enable us to see the evil of this class of faults. Those who, from tenderness of <;onscience, pursue another course, we regard as scrupulous persons. And to flatter ourselves in our blindness, we palliate, by a thousand specious pleas, the passion that blinds us. We invent for ourselves some good intention, and this done, we carelessly pass by all the movements of grace.

§ in.

The multiplication of venial sins is the destruction of souls, causing the diminution of those divine lights and inspirations, those interior graces and consolations, that fervour and courage, which are needed to resist the assaults of the enemy. Hence follow bhndness, weakness, frequent falls, an acquired habit of insensibiHty of heart ; because, when once an affection to these faults is contracted, we sin without feeling that we are sinning.

A man who takes no pains to avoid venial sins, though his labours of zeal in behalf of his neighbour be crowned with ever so brilliant a success, is in peril of being lost ; for it is impossible for him, Living as he does, not to fall sometimes into mortal sin, even without knowing it. But he is none the less guilty of the sins which he commits in this ignorance, because it is, as it were, wilful. ^ They who carefully avoid venial sins, generally preserve a constant feeling of devotion, and possess within them a moral certainty that they are in a state of grace. On the contrary, they who allow themselves to commit venial sins without scruple feel no unction of solid piety, and the Holy Spirit gives them no assurance that they are in a state of grace.

In case of falls, we ought, as soon as ever we are sensible of them, to offer to God an act of interior adoration, to returti to Him with love, to beg His forgiveness with confidence, and begin again to do what is good, without giving way for an instant to despondency or disquietude.

Article II

The pasaiona, Clement of Alexandria calls the passions the devil's cha/racters ; as if the devil, by means 6i our sins and evil habits, our disorderly affections and passions, imprinted his mark upon us. He alludes to the imperial badge worn by soldiers, which St. Augustine calls the " character of malice."

So long as we are in subjection to passions, we are the slaves of Satan, who makes them act at will, pretty much as the performer does the notes of the organ on which he presses. To this end he excites the himiours of the body and the phantoms of the imagination. He awakens the remembrance of certain objects, and represents the image of them before the mind in such manner as he knows is calculated to arouse the passion which he desires to put in action ; and unless we are on our guard, he generally succeeds in his design. Often he is permitted to irritate the humours of our body in such a way, that we become disagreeable to others as well as to ourselves.

They who are perfect have such dominion over their passions, that they rule them as they will. In them they are, in some wise, as they were in our Lord, in the Blessed Virgin, and in certain of the Saints, rather pro-passions (in the place of passions) than really passions ; that is to say, they are movements of the inferior appetite resembling those of the passions, but subject to reason, and excited only at its command, and by the impulse of grace directing the reason.

The imperfect axe now joyful, now sad, according as their passions are calm or disturbed ; for sadness and anxiety arise solely from the affections, which, when unmortified, produce these alternations of peace and disquietude.

They who aspire to perfection find the tyranny of the 'passions intolerable, and endeavour to free themselves therefrom by labouring constantly to mortify them. But worldly people, who live in a state of perpetual slavery, do not even sigh after liberty. They love their chains, and, as Job says, " they find their delight among the briers and thorns that lacerate them."

§ in.

Concupiscence and the passions insensibly extinguish the infused and supernatural lights of the understanding, so that in the end they succeed in stifling them entirely. Hence it is that we see minds of a high order extremely blind nevertheless in spiritual things. A man enjoys strong sight, but it does not therefore follow that he has a strong mind ; the two faculties are quite distinct. Such as are led by passion to make a profession of heresy (as was done by a certain German prince to pique Charles V.,) are at the beginning heretics only by humour and passion, retaining in their soul a conviction opposed to the errors of the false religion which outwardly they profess. But in course of time, as passion strengthens and sins multiply, all that remained of the light of faith is lost, the understanding is darkened, and they become altogether heretics.

Thus, in matters which concern perfection, all disorders commence by means of a passion or irregular affection for some object. Little by little it corrupts the understanding, and this again at last lets itself be so won over as no longer to pronounce judgment save in favour of that passion which has possession of us.

We contemplate some object, an employment, for example, which we think would suit us, or which would give us a distinguished position. Passion is aroused ; we love, we desire this emplo)nment. At first the understanding, illuminated by the lights of grace, resists the desire, and condemns it; but passion growing stronger, and the lights of grace being gradually extinguished, the understanding no longer makes any resistance. It yields to the disorderly inclinations of the will ; it approves them ; it discovers reasons to justify them ; and, corrupted by the will, it helps in its turn to corrupt it, proposing to it false maxims in order to sanction its irregularities.

Article III

Thefumd of pride there is in us, Pride is the love and desire of our own superiority. It is of all our vices the most hidden, the most deeply rooted, and that of which the occasions are the most frequent. These are occurring every hour ; either with respect to the goods and advantages which we possess and from which we draw matter for self-complacency^ exaltation of ourselves above others, and desire to be esteemed and praised, or with respect to the evil and the faults that are in us, and which we try to conceal, to disguise, to diminish, to excuse, and are unwilling even inwardly to acknowledge. In one day we are guilty of more than a hundred acts of pride.

This vice in religious is of a different character to what it is in seculars. In the latter, pride finds its object and its matter in worldly goods and exterior advantages, wherein they desire to excel ; but in religious, pride is what it was in the rebel angels, it attaches f2 itself to their personal superiority and spiritual goods. It is a great evil, and the source of all evils.

To become like to Grod we must renounce aU resemblance to the devil, which consists in pride, vanity, and presumption ; as also all resemblance to brutes, which consists in the passions, and the disorderly movements of the sensual appetite.

Every vice produces in the soul four evil effects: 1. it clouds and blinds it ; 2. it defiles it ; 3. it disquiets and harasses it ; 4. it enfeebles it. But of all vices, that which specially darkens the mind is pride ; and that which specially defiles the heart is pleasure.

We are naturally always disposed to let ourselves be captivated by the splendour of honours and the applause and esteem of men, and by the allurements of pleasure and gratification of our senses, because we suffer grace to have but very slight dominion over our mind. For the same reason, if any one says a word about bur faults, we cannot endure it. It will excite in our heart fifty movements of anger, vexation, bitterness, and impatience.

Strange injustice of the human heart ! God has forgiven us venial sins innumerable ; and when we have confessed them, even after such frequent relapses. He has given us interior consolations, as a sign and pledge of our reconciliation ; and yet we cannot forget a disobliging word which has been said to us, or a slight affront which has been offered us ; we continue to preserve the remembrance of it, and wait only for an opportunity to testify our displeasure. This comes of the foolish esteem and false love which we entertain for ourselves. We think more of our own interests than those of God ; pride blinds us.

The malice of our proud heart is manifested also in this^ that if any one has the least defect,, although he may excel in every thing else, we pass over all the perfections he possesses, and fasten upon the one defect ; we think of it, we talk of it, we take occasion thereupon to reckon such person our inferior, and inwardly to exalt ourselves above him ; so that, in fact, we rank in our own estimation above every body in the world.

We are extremely averse to acknowledge those faults in us which are opposed to the virtues which we believe ourselves to have acquired ; although, as a matter of fact, we are very evidently guilty of such. But our proud spirit cannot stoop humbly to acknowledge them, because such acknowledgment is contrary to the idea we entertain of ourselves, and shocks the vain -glory with which we flatter ourselves.

We are so full of deceit and vanity, that, even though we cannot but perceive that we do not possess certain virtues, yet should we accidentally perform some acts belonging to them and receive praise, on that account we immediately allow ourselves to be persuaded that we really possess these virtues, and flatter ourselves with this false opinion, like those madmen who fancy themselves kings ; for we believe ourselves to be what we are not.

Unless we are most strictly faithful to grace, we do every thing, even the most sacred acts, with a view to our own individual excellence ; so that if we say Mass, if we betake ourselves to prayer, if we make our spiritual reading, or perform other exercise, all that we-look to therein is our own spiritual superiority. Such motive is an improper one. What we ought to aim at is to tend towards God, and to unite ourselves to Him by these holy exercises. This last motive regards only the glory of .God. It is conformable to the will of God. It is pure and disinterested. It is pleasing to God.

We sometimes feel too sensitively those occasions of discontent which are given us by superiors, or by the community at large. What state of life is there in the world in which from time to time we do not suffer some annoyance ? If we are refused something which others are not bound to grant us, leave of absence, for instance, we murmur and make loud complaints. What can be more unreasonable ? a little humility, a little self-mortification would save us a great deal of pain.

God tries hearts, and sometimes He withdraws His graces because He perceives how much pride there is in us. He foresees that if He gave us more consolations and lights, if He granted us such and such favours, we should become still prouder. Already we are on the brink of the precipice, and to prevent us falling. He withholds from us graces which would be the occasion of our falling ; thus He refused to deliver St. Paul from that importunate temptation of impurity, lest his heart should be puffed up with vanity. It was not that St. Paul was proud, but God would prevent his becoming so.

The littleness of our heart is inconceivable. Does God grant us the least consolation, a single tear of devotion, we make it a ground for exalting ourselves wonderfully in our own eyes. And yet what is it ? it is not a thousandth part of what God is ready to give us. Let us imagine a poor man who has received a penny from the hand of some great noble, going away exulting with joy, without staying to partake of the great man's bounty, who is willing to shower on him handfuls of gold. This is exactly what we do.

Article IV

We m/ust not neglect ov/r least iTnperfections, We ought to pay the strictest attention to the least movements of the spiritual life within us, seeing that God makes more account of them than of all the occupations and all the actions of our natural life.

To have stifled in our heart the stirring of a passion, or of one irregular inclination, to have rooted out of the soul one single imperfection, is a greater gain than if we had obtained possession of a hundred thousand worlds for a whole eternity.

Should we have accomplished nothing else, by labouring a whole day like a common porter, than delivering ourselves from an idle thought, we ought to reckon ourselves well rewarded for our trouble.

§n. Certain things which are trifling in themselves are nevertheless of great importance in the case of religious. Thus, to walk carelessly through the streets, to allow ourselves some indulgences at table with seculars, to laugh loud before extems; these are slight faults in themselves, but important in their consequences, because seculars draw the conclusion that those in whom they witness such things have not much devotion, and hence they go on to lose the respect which they had for the Order. Or, again, to say something to the disadvantage of a house, or of the superior of a house, to one who is to go and reside there, is a considerable faulty because it deprives the religious of that indifference which he ought to have with respect to place, and which is a point of great moment. This defect is only too common.

§ ni.

We must carefully suppress certain volitions, or incipient acts of the will, which we are continually making with respect to different objects which excite in us feelings having the character of imperfection, as of pride, envy, bitterness, sensuality ; because, from these incipient acts proceed such as are formal ; and from a simple volition we easily pass to a full and deliberate consent of the will. However, in the matter of devotion, these incomplete acts of the will are good, as Suarez observes.

Article V

Of the denial of owr inclinations in order to put oursdvea in a stcUe of holy indifference.

We commonly harbour in our soul some one thing which mars the whole interior life ; this may be some ill-regulated affection, some project, some preference as to place, or desire for a particular employment or office. We must study to acquire a complete indifference, and protest that we seek nothing in this life, except to possess God as much as it is possible for us to possess Him, and that all else is matter of indifference to us.

We are wrong in complaining, as we do sometimes, of not having sufficient occupation where we are. Such complaint proceeds from our not being sufficiently detached from our own inclinations and our own will. We have not a perfect indifference as respects all employments ; we have private ends of our own. We wish to be employed in certain offices, to which we limit our desires ; as preaching, for instance, or directing a congregation in such and such a town ; and when these particular occupations are not allotted to us, we seem to have our hands tied, we {ieuicy ourselves without employment This is all illufflon. He who has a will disposed for any good indifferently, of whatever kind it be, and forms no private design of his own, will have only too much to do. First of aU, there is prayer, which by itself might form the whole employment of a religious ; but they who have made no progress in prayer during youth will never devote themselves to it in their old age. Then, visiting the hospitals and the prisons ; catechising, which is a ministration so peculiarly belonging to the Company, and one which St. Ignatius and our first Fathers performed with so much zeal j giving exhortations to nuns, and missions to country })arishes for one or two days, &c You aspire to such and such an employment ; you wish, for example, to have a certain class in a particular college. Suppose you obtain it by interest, or by importunity. It is true, your own will has found its satisfaction ; but all the labour of this class will at least prove fruitless to you ; in vain will you offer it to God by subsequent good intentions. It vrill not be pleasing to Him, because it is not conformable to His will. This is not at all what He desired of you. All the favour you can expect from God, under such circumstances, according to His ordinary dealings, is not to allow some great fall to happen to you in the said employment ; unless, acknowledging your fault, you put yourself sincerely in the disposition to take another occupation, and, informing your superiors of the whole matter, resign yourself absolutely to their wilL lt is of no use your protesting that you are indifferent to ever}* thing ; if you prize certain distinguished employments, you are not so. So long as you set this value on them, your pretended indifference is nothing short of hypocrisy.

It is not possible to acquire indifference, unless, in the first place, we have a due esteem for the interior life, and sufficient acquaintance with it to rank it above every occupation. Secondly, unless we despise all the distinction connected with exterior functions, all the gratification to be found in them, and all the advantages they hold out. Without this, we may indeed attain to a species of indifference, but even this only with difficulty and effort. It will never be lasting, because, after all, the heart cannot refrain from loving something. But if we love and value as we ought the interior life, we shall be for ever indifferent to all the employments of the exterior life, because the former, when we have it, has, beyond comparison, more attractions and more delights than the latter. It is extremely important that we should be thoroughly convinced of this, for as we can induce seculars to despise riches only by shewing them how they may acquire other goods more solid and more lasting, in like manner we shall never despise the satisfaction we may promise ourselves from exterior employments, until we are similarly convinced that we shall find more solid good in the self-recollection of the interior life.

Without the gift of prayer, we shall never reach a perfect, general, and lasting indifference. We may, it is true, be in a measure indifferent to certain things and for a limited time, but our indifference will be neither complete nor peaceable, it will always be accompanied with uneasiness, and have much repugnance to combat.

§ in. We ought to be so indifferent as to be more readily disposed to those things for which we feel the most aversion, and ask for them of God and our superiors.

He who cannot as yet bring himself to this is far removed from true indifference.

Some entertain no plans^ but they hope for such an employment or such an advantage ; they must rid themselves of this also^ or they cannot attain to a perfect indifference.

We ought to live in a state of complete abandonment of ourselves to the will of God, the decrees of His providence, and the calls of obedience, sacrificing to Grod all our aspirations, and all those human hopes which we are ever ceaselessly entertaining, especially in youth. The young live on the hope of the future, the old on the memory of the past.

Let us consider that there is nothing more vain than hopes of this kind, and that they mostly deceive us ; that of fifty, scarcely three come to any thing, Grod taking pleasure in confounding them, because they are so many usurpations of His rights; in fine, that to labour for success is to diverge from the ways of Providence, and to quit the road which God has marked out to us from all eternity.

ARTICLE VI. How toe ought to comport ourselves with respect to divine graces, and with w?iat sdf-aJtmegaJtion we must receive them.

Self-abnegation in the case of beginners consists in withdrawing from the occasions of sin, in mortifying their passions, their own will and private judgment. In those who have made some progress in the spiritual life, it consists in not attaching themselves to the gifts of God. For although we acknowledge we hold every thing from God, we nevertheless act as if the graces which are the gift of His pure mercy, were our own by nature ; as if we could keep and possess them in the same manner as we possess the presents which we have received from the liberality of men ; which is false.

Gk)d, in order to prevent this appropriation of His graces, sometimes withdraws them, and takes from us that facility in the practice of virtues which He had given us ; so that we shall seem to ourselves to have become again proud or sensual, and shall experience as much difficulty in humbling and mortifying ourselves as we felt at the beginning. But God act^ thus only for our good; we must not interfere with Him; He has His own work to do at present, and we have to learn to endure the operation of His hand. Ut simus patientes divina.

He deprives us of His consolations and of sensible devotion in prayer and in our other exercises, to try our fidelity, and to reduce us to that perfect nudity of spirit in which those souls ought to be which the Holy Spirit would fill with His gifts. All that we have to do on our part is to keep our heart as pure as possible ; carefully avoiding the least faults, and for the rest giving ourselves up wholly to God, and submitting to all the dispensations of His providence.

This rule applies not only to the time of our noviciate, but to our whole life ; let us then have confidence in God, and be sure He will not be wanting to us.

We appropriate to ourselves the good affections which God enables us to form, and attach ourselves to them with a sort of spiritual sensuality or secret vanity ; we write them down, and would wish never to be without them.

Not that it is a bad custom to make a brief memorandum of them, for the purpose of recollecting them and making use of them hereafter ; but to do so in a spirit of ownership is a dangerous abuse.

We are travellers ; we must be always advancing towards our destination, and not stop for so small a matter. God has far greater favours in store for us ; He is infinitely rich and infinitely bountiful ; He never fails to impart His gifts to us in proportion as we are faithful in co-operating with them. Let us but employ those which He bestows upon us whilst we have them, and then pass on like a traveller who walks gaily along a beautiful road, nor, for all its beauty, lingers on his way, any more than he would elsewhere.

They who never cease reflecting on the lights and affections which grace bestows, are like a traveller who, from time to time, after taking a few steps forward, turns back to look at the road he has traversed, and loses his time in gazing at it with a vain complacency.

§ ni. Let us consider that the graces which God gives us are God's property, and not ours. We must practise poverty even in respect to these spiritual goods : the more we receive the graces of God with purity of heart and self-denial, the greater and more abundant will they be.

When God favours us with some light, immediately, at the very moment we receive it, it produces the effect which God intended, for it has wrought in the soul that disposition which He desired, viz. a greater capacity for divine union, which is the object for which all grace is bestowed.

We must not, then, after the manner of some, make action and practice the end of all the lights we receive, so as to esteem those thrown away which do not lead to some active result. It is enough that they gradually dispose the soul to union with God, which is the very end of all our works. For every thing we do in the exercise of virtue is bearing us on to this goal. When these lights and sentiments have passed away, we must not make eiffbrts to recall them. If, however, God brings them back to the mind, it is well then to remember them; but hardly any but beginners should allow themselves to write them down.

§v.

No sooner do we attach ourselves to any object out t)f God, than we give a handle to the devil, who, by means of such attachment, will not fail either to deprive us of freedom of mind, and fill our souls with disquiet, or to give us, or at least obtain for us, as far as in him lies, that on which we have set our affections, especially if it be some sweetness or sensible consolation, of which he will be most lavish in order to destroy us if he can.

When, then, a director perceives that the souls he is guiding have attachments of this kind, he must debar them the object of them for a time : when hereafter he shall see them in a state of indifference, he may permit them their customary use of it.

They who have been truly enlightened by the Holy Spirit direct their affection to God only, not attaching themselves even to the holiest things. Does God inspire them with some good sentiment, they receive it with thanksgiving and reserve, taking good care not to be deceived by admitting other thoughts, which the devil endeavours craftily to suggest to them. And when this divine sentiment has gone by, they no longer hanker after it, nor strive to retain it longer than God wills. They do not set about recalling the cause or the occasion which had excited it, as by repeating the. same exercises, the same meditation, the same spiritual reading, with the view of experiencing a like sentiment ; but they pass on, walking ever in perfect nudity of spirit ; and thus they deprive the devil of the power and the opportunity of deceiving them by sweetnesses and sensible consolations and other extraordinary means, that he may afterwards lead them on to the precipice.