VI. Monastic Profession

Summary. — The necessity, in order to be a monk, of being incorpo¬ rated in the monastic society by religious profession. — I. Monastic profession constitutes an immolation of which Christ’s oblation is the model. — II. Character of a holocaust attached to religious profession. — III. To unite this act to the oblation which Christ made of Himself. — IV. Blessings bestowed by God upon those who make the vows of religion. — V. Ne¬ cessity of remaining constantly faithful to our Vows.

In order to draw the Christian life at its authentic source and to be Christ’s disciple, it is necessary to belong not only to the soul but likewise to the body of the Church. It is necessary to become a member of the visible organism of the Church. This incorporation is made by the profession of faith and the reception of Baptism, the Sacrament of Christian initiation ; it is maintained by participation in the other Sacraments, the rites of religion and by obedience to the authorities ordained by Christ.

The same analogy holds good as regards the monastic life. To be truly a monk, is it sufficient to live according to the spirit of the great Patriarch ? No, it is further necessary to be received and incorporated in the monastic society. When about to receive the holy Habit, the postulant asks to be admitted to the fellowship of God’s servants : Vestram confraternitatem x. His incorporation takes place on the day of his profession. Faith brought him to the threshold of the cloister, love expressed by a solemn engagement will attach him to the monastic life ; that will be the work of his Profession.

The Profession is to the monastic life what Baptism is to the Christian life ; certainly it is not a sacrament but its consequences are in some manner comparable with those of baptism. Baptism places the neophyte in God’s family and seals him with the character of Christian ; the Profession or emission of vows places the novice in the monastic family and consecrates him to God’s service that he may become a perfect disciple of Christ Jesus.¹

Let us then analyse the meaning of the monastic pro¬ fession ; we shall see that it is an immolation of our whole being which, made with love, is extremely pleasing to God ; — that it becomes, for those who remain faithful to it, the starting-point towards perfection — and an unfailing source of spiritual blessings.

I

It is an acquired truth for us that, in the work of our perfection, we ought to keep our gaze always fixed on Christ Jesus, Who is not only the one Model of our perfection but also the Fount of holiness for us.

When Our Lord calls His disciples to Him, He invites them to leave everything so as to follow and imitate Him, and this they do : “ Leaving all things they followed Him " : Relictis omnibus, secuti sunt eum. Our Lord even tells us that we cannot truly be worthy or perfect disciples, capable of partaking in the glory of “ His Kingdom, ” unless having left all things to follow Him, we have the persevering strength not to look back. Nemo mittens manum suam ad aratum, et respiciens retro, aptus est regno Dei.

Now as we are by nature weak and inconstant, St. Benedict wills that he who presents himself at the door of the mo¬ nastery in order to return to God by following Christ, shall first of all be tried during the space of a year to ascertain if he truly seek God : Si r ever a Deum quaerit 3. In a general manner, the Orders founded in the course of the Middle Ages adopted the same " probation ” of a year. The Council of Trent appropriated' this delay, in enacting the Canonical Noviceship. After having persevered in his purpose during this space of time, the novice will confirm it in an irrevocable way by a promise made to God, a promise of his stability, conversion of his manners, and obedience. This is monastic profession, which having once made, the monk is definitely considered as a member of the community : Et jam ex ilia hora in congregatione reputetur.

The holy Legislator encompasses this promise with much solemnity : he wishes it to be put into writing — to be read aloud “ in the oratory ”, — “ before all the members he Apostolic Age (Ch. VI). These pages full of sure knowledge show how, n the spirit of ecclesiastical tradition, religious Profession is a second Baptism. Setting aside this aspect of the question, we will especially confine ourselves to pointing out in what way religious Profession is an oblatioD ; we shall see how this concept is placed in relief by St. Benedict. of the monastery ”, — and made “ in the name of the saints whose relics enrich the altar ” : Ad nomen sanctorum quorum reliquiae ibi sunt. His solemn engagement publicly made, the monk is to go and “ cast himself at the feet of his brethren that all may help him with their prayers " ; Tunc prosternatur singulorum pedibus, ut orent pro eo.²

The “ promise ” is at the same time a “ prayer ” a “ peti¬ tion. ” The novice asks to be received ; he especially asks that God’s help may be obtained for him ; he asks God Himself to accept him and not let the expectation of his soul be in vain. The terms “ engagement, ” " oath ” denote therefore only one side (that of the human will, the secondary cause) of monastic Profession, which is eminently regarded by St. Benedict as an act of co-operation wherein God’s action works, wherein human liberty co¬ operates.

One detail is especially to be noted : St. Benedict links this profession to the Sacrifice of the Altar. When the novice has read and signed the document that bears his promise, he goes to place it, with his own hand, on the altar : Et manu sua earn super altar e ponat, as if to join the tangible and authentic testimony of his engagement to the gifts that are offered to God in sacrifice ; the monk then unites his immolation with that of Christ Jesus. This is in fact what our holy Father St. Benedict intends. We see how this intention is expressed in a complementary chapter where he treats of the reception of children ; St. Benedict wishes the parents to wrap their child's hand and the act of pro¬ fession in the altar cloth, at the same time as the elements destined to become the matter of the Sacrifice.

Monastic Profession is indeed an immolation, and this immolation derives all its value from its union with Christ’s holocaust. Now whence does the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass derive its value ? Is it not from the Sacrifice of the Cross which the oblation of the altar renews and reproduces ? It is in contemplating this Sacrifice of the Cross, in taking the immolation of Jesus as our example, that we shall learn the qualities that the offering of ourselves in Profession ought to have. Christ’s immolation has three special characters : it is a holocaust worthy of God, — a full holocaust, — a holocaust offered out of love. These characters should b<» found again in our Profession.

It is first of all a holocaust worthy of God.³

IO9

St. Paul tells us that at the moment when Christ entered into the world through the Incarnation, the first movement of his soul was to cast His gaze upon the by-gone centuries, upon the sacrifices that had been offered to God under the Old Law. The Divine Word, Who knows His Father’s infinite perfection, does not find these sacrifices worthy of the Father: “ Holocausts for sin did not please Thee ” : Holocautomata non tibi placuerunt. But Christ has seen that His own Body is destined to be the true Victim of the only sacrifice worthy of God, “ A body Thou hast fitted Me ” : Corpus autem aptasti mihi 2. Why is the immolation of this Body to be the only sacrifice pleasing to the Father ? First of all, because this Victim is pure and spotless ; secondly, because the Priest Who offers this sacrifice is “ holy, innocent, separated from sinners 3 : " this Victim and this Priest are identified in the Person of the Father’s Well-beloved Son, “ the Son of His love. " If all that Jesus does is accepted by His Father Whose good pleasure He ever accomplishes : Quae placita sunt ei, facto semper 5, this is above all true of His Sacrifice.

The plenitude of this Sacrifice further augments its value.

It is a holocaust. We ought not to consider Christ’s Sacrifice as offered only at the time of the Passion. Christ is a Victim from the moment of the Incarnation, and it is as Victim that He offers Himself ; in entering into the world. He beheld the sum of suffering, humiliation, abjection and ignominy that He was to endure from the Crib to the Cross : He accepted to fulfil all that was decreed : He said to His Father: "Behold I come”: Ecce venio. The initial act of offering whereby He wholly yielded Himself up, virtually contained all His sacrifice ; from that instant His immolation began ; and His whole life of suffering was but the continua¬ tion of this immolation. Let us clearly understand the meaning, at once present and retrospective, of the words our Lord utters upon the Cross, before breathing forth His last sigh : “ All is consummated ” : Consummatum est 7 . This word is like the supreme echo of the Ecce venio.

Our Lord’s sacrifice is one ; it is perfect in its duration ; it is also perfect in its plenitude. It is Himself, the whole of Himself, that Jesus Christ offers : Semetipsum obtulit, and ^that He offers unto the last drop of His Blood, unto the fulfil¬ ment of the last prophecy and of His Father’s last desire.

1. Hebr. x, 6. — 2. Ibid. 5. — 3. Ibid, vii, 26. — 4. Col. 1, 13. — 5. Joan, vin, 29. — 6. Ps. xxxix, 8 ; Hebr. x, 7. — 7. Joan, xix, 30. — 8. Hebr. ix, m.

IIO CHRIST, THE IDEAL OF THE MONK

There is nothing so perfect as this holocaust ; it is so perfect that this oblation which Jesus Christ made, once for all, of His own Body suffices to sanctify us : In qua voluntate sanctificati sumus per oblationem corporis Jesu Christi semel. By this “ one oblation He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified ” : una enim oblatione consummavit in sempiternum sanctificatos 2.

What completely renders this holocaust infinitely pleasing to God is the perfection of love wherewith it is offered.

What, in fact, is the inward motive power which urges the soul of Christ Jesus to embrace the Father’s will and to confess, by His oblation and immolation, God’s infinite perfections and sovereign rights ? It is love. “ Behold I come. In the head of the book it is written of Me that I should do Thy will : O My God, I have desired it, and Thy law in the midst of my heart " : Ecce venio, in capite libri scriptum est de me; ut faciam voluntatem tuam! Deus mens volui, et legem tuam in medio cordis mei. It is in the midst of His Heart that Jesus places His Father’s will : this is as much as to say it is love that urges Him to offer Himself entirely to God’s good pleasure. Our Divine Saviour gives this clearly to be understood when the moment comes to complete, to consummate, upon the Cross, the Sacrifice inaugurated by the Incarnation. Doubtless He dies for love of His brethren : " greater love, " He says, “ than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends ”, Majorem dilectionem nemo habet ut animam suam ponat quis pro amicis suis *. But His fraternal charity is itself totally subordinate to the love He bears towards His Father and to the zeal that devours Him for His Father’s glory and interests, and He would have the whole world know the supremacy that this love exerts over all that He does : Ut cognoscat mundus quia diligo Patrem... sic facio 6.

II

We shall find these characters again in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Our Lord has willed that the immolation of the Altar shall renew the immolation of the Cross, by reproducing it inorder to apply its fruit to every soul. It is the same Christ Who offers Himself to His Father in the odour of sweetness ” i i. Hebr. x, xo. — 2. Ibid. — 3. Ps. xxxix, 8-9 ; cf. Hebr x 7 _ a

Joan, xv, 13. — 5. Ibid, xiv, 3x. * ^ * * 7* 4*

III cum odore suavitatis 1 ; this unbloody oblation is as acceptable to God as the Sacrifice of Calvary : here Jesus is the Victim, as He was when upon the Cross, and as He was when He came upon earth. Upon the altar, Christ Jesus comes again into this world every day as Victim ; every day He repeats his oblation and His immolation for us. Doubtless He wishes us to offer Him to the Father ; but neither does He ever weary of urging us to offer ourselves to His Father, in union with Him, that we too may thus be accepted, and, having shared in His Sacrifice here below, may likewise share in His eternal glory.

Our condition as creatures already obliges us to offer ourselves to God, for His dominion over us is sovereign : “ The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof : the world and all they that dwell therein ” : Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus, orbis terrarum et universi qui habitant in eo 2. We ought to confess, by our adoration and the sacrifice of our submis¬ sion to God’s will, His supreme perfection and our absolute dependence.

But our condition as members of Jesus Christ also obliges us to imitate our Divine Head. St. Paul addresses these words to Christians : “ I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, ” — that is to say because of God’s infinite bounty towards you — “ that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service": Obsecro vos, fratres, per misericordiam Dei, ut exhibeatis corpora vestra hostiam viventem, sanctam, Deo placentem, rationabile obsequium vestrum.

These words ought to be especially true of those who offer themselves to God by religious profession.

Christians in the world offer sacrifices to God. On account of our fallen nature, a certain self-abnegation is necessary for all, a certain self-immolation, in order to obey God's commandments. But with the ordinary Christian this immolation has its limits ; he may offer his possessions to God, but he keeps the free disposal of his person ; he must love God, but he may also give a legitimate share of his love to creatures.

He who gives himself to God by religious profession, renounces everything ; he comes to God with all that he has, all that he is : “Behold I come ’’, Ecce venio ; and he offers all this to God, keeping nothing back. This is what it means to be a living sacrifice, to offer a holocaust. At our profession, it is as if we said : “ My God, my nature gives me the faculty of possessing ; but I abdicate earthly goods that I may possess Thee alone. It allows me to love creatures, but I wish to love Thee alone. It authorises me to dispose of myself, but I wish to lay my liberty at Thy feet. " We give up not only earthly possessions and the right of making a home of our own, but we renounce what is dearest to our being : our liberty ; and because we surrender this citadel of the will, we surrender our entire being, the very root of all our activity, we keep back nothing. From this day we have not even, as our holy Father St. Be¬ nedict says, the disposal of our own bodies : Ex illo die nec proprii corporis potestatem se habiturum sciat x. We make the tradition of everything in the joyful simplicity of our love : Domine, in simplicitate cordis mei laeius obtuli universa 2.⁴

That great monk St. Gregory says : '* When a soul offers to the Divine Omnipotence all that it has, all that is within it, all that pleases it, that is a holocaust ” : Cum quis omne quod habet, omne quod vivit, omne quod sapit omnipotenti Deo voverit, holocaustum est. St. Thomas expresses the same thought : “ A holocaust consists in offering to God all that we have " : Holocaustum est cum aliquis totum quod habet offert Deo 4.

By this immolation we acknowledge that God is the First Principle of all things ; we lay down at His feet all that we have received from Him, we offer ourselves up entirely, in order that all that we are and all that we have may return to Him.

Moreover, in order to make this holocaust more perfect, more complete, and, as far as possible, perpetual, we offer it by a solemn public promise, accepted by the Church : this is the Profession, the emission of the vows. It is true that from the day we entered the monastery, we effectively left all to follow Christ Jesus ; but the great moral threshold was not crossed : it is the part of the vows to consecrate the donation and make it, of itself, irrevocable. The vows of religious require, as you know, a deliberate act of the will, bound by a public promise made to the Church. St. Benedict evidently means it to be so : the novice is to consider well within himself for some length of time, before binding himself for ever by a promise : Et si habita secum delibe¬ ration , promiserit se omnia custodire.⁵

O God, Infinite Being, Who art very Beatitude, what an immense and inestimable grace Thou dost give to Thy poor creatures in calling them to be, with the Son of Thy love, acceptable sacrifices, wholly consecrated to the glory of Thy Majesty 1

III

For this holocaust to be “ pleasing unto God ”, Deo placens, as St. Paul says, it must be united to the sacrifice of Christ Jesus.

This is a truth of capital importance : it is Christ’s oblation which gives value to ours, and makes it worthy of the Hea¬ venly Father. It is in order to manifest outwardly this union of our immolation with that of Christ, that St. Benedict wishes the Profession to be made during the Holy Sacrifice, and the novice to place upon the altar, with his own hand, the parchment that contains his written promise. As every¬ thing laid upon the altar as an offering is consecrated to God, this act of profession is the symbol of the immolation that the newly professed brother has just made in the sanctuary of his own soul.

How is this union of our sacrifice with that of Jesus carried into effect ? Through love. Love it is that unites. It is because we love Christ that we wish to cleave to Him and prefer Him to every creature. “ Come, follow Me, ” says Jesus ; Vent, sequere me ; and like Jesus when entering into this world, we have said to Him : “ Behold I come, ” Ecu venio; I wish to cleave to Thee alone. Because I believe that Thou art God, very Perfection and Beatitude ; because I trust in the infinite value of Thy merits and of Thy grace ; because in Thee I love the Supreme Being, and “ for Thy Name’s sake ” ; propter nomen tuum 2, I have left all things and I even relinquish that which is most near and dear to me — my liberty. Ecce nos reliquimus omnia, et secuti sumus te 3.

Doubtless what we have given to God is, taken in itself, a very small thing. We are poor creatures who have received everything from our Heavenly Father, and God has no need of our goods : Bonorum meorum non eges 4. But what God asks is our heart, our love ; and, as St. Gregory says, when love gives all, however little this " all ” may be, the gift is very pleasing to God, because the giver keeps nothing back. “ In this transaction, it is the love that must be

1. Matth. xix, 21. — 2. Cf. Marc, x, 29-30. — 3. Matth. xx, 27 ; cf. Marc, x, 28 ; Luc. xvm, 28. — 4. Ps. xv, 2.

Christ* the Ideal of the Monk. considered rather than the thing itself ” : Hac in re affect, debemus potius pensare quant censum ; multum reliquit qui sibi nihil retinuit ; multum reliquit qui quantumlibet parum, totum deseruit x. The holy Pontiff remarks that the Apostles Peter and Andrew materially left nothing but their fishing nets, but that, having left these things for love’s sake to follow Christ, they relinquished all right and power of possessing.

Separation from all that is earthly, all that is created, is the first aspect of holiness ; the donation of oneself to God is the second. But it is necessary to be “ separated ” in order to be “ consecrated The vows give us the power of reaching the highest possible degree of separation from the creature, since we renounce our own will. We can truly say : “ We have left all”, Reliquimus omnia. But we must not delay to add : “ that we may follow Thee ", Et secuti sumus te. Such is the formula of union with God, the second aspect of holiness : we give ourselves, we consecrate ourselves to God ; and we can say to God in our monastic profession : “ Uphold me, O Lord, according to Thy word, and I shall live ; and let me not be confounded in my expectation ” : Suscipe me, Domine, secundum eloquiumtuum, et vivam, et non confundas me ab exspectatione me a 2.

When a soul thus gives itself fully to God, through love, to seek Him alone, when it is detached, as far as possible, from every creature, from itself, from all human springs of action, in order to cleave only to God, then it is a “ holy sacrifice ” : Hostiam sanctam. It is a spotless sacrifice, unstained by earth. If, on the contrary, a soul retains its attachment to created things, it remains glued to the earth, it is not “ holy. ” The Heart ot Christ Jesus was attached only to the Father : Ego vivo propter Patrem 3. There! ore St. Paul says that Christ was an unspotted sacrifice offered to God: Qui semetipsum obtulit immaculatum Deo 4. The monk who makes profession casts away from him, in prin¬ ciple, every creature, all that could turn him away from God ; he is freed from every fetter that he may be perfectly bound to Christ, and seek solely the will of His Father. This is an act of perfect love extremely pleasing to God. And because Profession is the expression of so complete a love, God outpours immense blessings and unceasing joy upon the soul that gives itself to Him through the vows and remains faithful to them.⁶

IV

The most inestimable of the blessings that religious Profession brings to the soul is, assuredly, that of rendering it very pleasing to God. It is solidly establishedin ecclesiastical tradition that Profession is like a second baptism which restores to the Christian his entire purity 1 ; at the moment of the emission of vows, God forgets all the past and grants a universal forgiveness to the professed : He sees before Him only a creature totally renewed : Nova creatura 2. At this blessed hour, the soul is given to Jesus as the bride to the bridegroom ; the mystical tomb wherein the soul is buried may be compared to the baptismal font wherein the neophyte was plunged. The Heavenly Father can say of this soul as of the newly baptised who has just " put on Christ : ” This is My beloved child in whom I am well pleased. ” What bounty is lavished upon this soul while God so lovingly beholds it in His Son !

The second blessing that God gives to the new religious is that all his actions henceforward possess great value. These actions all participate in the virtue of religion.

As you know, every virtue has its own form, its particular beauty and special merit. But the act of a virtue can be the fruit of a superior virtue, for example an act of mortification or humility, may be inspired by the virtue of charity, which is the queen of virtues. Then besides its own splendour and intrinsic value, this act of temperance or of humility assumes the beauty and merit of an act of charity. Now in the life of a monk, all acts of virtue assume, by the fact of his profession, the value of acts of religion. “ The acts of the different virtues, ” says St. Thomas, “ become better and more meritorious, when they are performed in virtue of a vow : on this head they appertain to Divine worship, as if they were sacrifices ” : Opera aliarum virtutum... sunt meliora et magis meritoria, si fiunt ex voto, quia sic jam perti¬ nent ad divinum cultum, quasi quaedam Dei sacrificia 3. Thus Profession communicates to the monk’s whole life the character and virtue of a holocaust ; it makes of our life a perpetual sacrifice. The act of profession itself only lasts a few moments, but its effects are permanent and its fruits eternal. As Baptism is the starting point of Christian holiness, so is Profession that of our monastic perfection. It should appear to us like the gradual developing of an initial act of immense weight. “ The property of the vows, ” says St. Thomas, “ is to immobilise the will in good. And the acts which proceed from a will thus fixed in good, appertain to perfect virtue ” : Per votum immobiliter voluntas firmatur in bonum. Facer e autem aliquid ex voluntate fir mat a in bonum, pertinet ad perfectionem virtutis K⁷

But here a precision is necessary : the perfection assigned to us is of a definite type. In the same way as the baptismal vows are the initial point of our supernatural holiness, so monastic profession is the first impulsion towards our Benedictine perfection. It is not, in fact, either a Dominican perfection, nor a Carthusian perfection which is to arise from our profession : it is a Benedictine perfection ; for our vows have in view the practice of the Rule of St. Benedict and of the Constitutions which govern us : Promitto... obedientiam secundum regulam S. P. Benedicti in congregatione nostra 2. The Rule, interpreted by our Constitutions — and not the Rule of another Order, or the constitutions of another Congregation — is what we have vowed to observe. The Rule contains moreover all that is necessary for our perfection and holiness : it is in giving themselves to God by the bonds of this Rule that so many monks are made holy and come to the highest perfection, to the summit of sanctity.

As it is the starting point of our perfection, so our profession is also the origin of our joy. “ Lord, in the simplicity of my heart, I have gladly given Thee all : ” such are the accents of the soul, at the moment of offering itself to God. But God repays this joyful generosity of the soul with a further increase of joy. “ God loveth a cheerful giver ” : Hilar em datorem diligit Deus, says St. Benedict, repeating the expression of the Apostle 4. And as God is the source of all beatitude and we have left all things in order to cleave to Him alone. He says to us : It is I Myself Who will be Thy reward, a reward “ exceeding great ” : Ego merces tua magna nimis 6. ego : Myself ! I will not leave the care of crowning thee to any other, God says to the soul ; because thou art My victim, because thou art wholly Mine, I will be all thine, thy inheritance, thy possession, and thou shalt find in Me thy beatitude : Ego merces tua!

Yes, Lord, it is thus indeed : “ For what have I in Heaven And besides Thee what do I desire upon earth ?... Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever ” : Quid enim mihi est in caelo, et a te quid volui super terram ? Deus cordis mei et pars mea Deus in aeiernum l.⁸

V

But in order to taste these joys, we must keep ourselves at the height of our profession ; we must remain in this state of absolute oblation ; we must, during our whole life, be faithful to our vows. In the same way as, by baptism, the Christian engages himself for ever “ to die to sin ” and to strive ever “ to live unto God 2, " so the monk, by his profession, obliges himself to be ever more and more detached from all that is created, in order to follow Christ more and more closely.

This is an arduous task which requires of us great generosi¬ ty, because our fallen nature ever tends to take back some¬ thing ot what it has given. We cannot withdraw the offer¬ ing of ourselves once made ; if we do so by wilful infidelities, we incur God’s anger. Our holy Father St. Benedict himsell warns us ot this in dramatic terms : “ Let him who acts other¬ wise than as he has promised, know that he will be condemned by Him Whom he mocketh " : Ut se aliquando aliter fecerit, ab eo se damnandum sciat quem irridei 3. Never let us forget indeed that our chart of profession is registered in Heaven in the book of Predestination, and that we shall be judged not only as to our baptismal promises, but also as to the vows which we have pronounced before the holy altar : Stas in conspectu Dei ante hoc sacrosanctum altar e*. The thought of not having faithfully observed the vows by which he freely bound himself would be a cause of terrible anguish for a religious at the hour of death. God judges according to the truth ; He even judges our justices : Ego justitias judicabo. Let us therefore often examine the object of our threefold offering and see if we are faithful, despite opposition and difficulties, in keeping our vow of stability, in labouring at the conversion of our manners, in living in obedience under the guidance of the one who, for us, represents Christ and holds His place.

Doubtless, this faithfulness is perfectly compatible with our miseries, our infirmities, the faults that escape us and that we deplore and try to repair ; but it cannot be recon¬ ciled with habitual and unresisted tepidity or with deliberate infidelities. A religious, whether monk or nun, who bargains ri with Christ, who thinks that too much is asked, who makes reservations in the gift of self, who “ looks back ”, is not worthy of Him. For such souls, neither perfection nor intimate union with God is possible.⁹

We must then fervently strive to remain generously faithful. Strange aberration of certain souls who imagine that the profession once made, they can “ take things easily ! ” But in reality it is quite the contrary ; then it is that the true life of intimate union with Jesus in His sacrifice begins for us.

Union in sacrifice, we say, but also in our inward ascen¬ sions ; for God has likewise bound Himself on His side, if I may thus speak : He is bound to help us, to make us attain to holiness. And be assured that He will keep His contract. Fidelis Deus 2 : “ God is faithful ; ” He will never fail the soul who sincerely seeks Him. Our Lord clearly tells us so : “ Everyone that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother... or lands for My Name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlast¬ ing. " And Christ Jesus confirms this promise by a kind of oath : “ Amen, I say to you 3. ” His word is that of Truth itself ; it is infallible. If we are faithful to cleave to Jesus alone, we shall receive even here below, and without any possible miscalculation, the promised hundredfold ; we shall have our hands filled with great, immense blessings. He is for our souls the most sincere of Friends, the most faithful Bridegroom.

Let us ask our Lord for the grace never to leave Him. Juravi et statui : O Lord Jesus, “I have sworn and am determined to keep the judgments of Thy justice ”, Custodire judicia justitiae tuae 4. Like Thee, for love of Thee, I am determined to keep my Rule even to the least detail ; not so much as an iota, not so much as a comma, shall be taken away by me from Thy law : Iota unum aut units apex non praderibit a lege donee omnia pant.

Christ offered Himself to His Father on entering into the world. At that moment, He, so to speak, made His profession ; from that moment He gave everything, although this donation was to be manifested throughout His whole life until His death upon the Cross. He never retracted aught of this tradition of Himself, He took back nothing from this holocaust. He sought only what pleased His Father, even when the chalice that His Father proffered Him overflowed with bitterness. He could therefore say in all

106.' -S.Matth.T/is! C°r- • 9‘ ~ 3’Mattb' XIX’ 2*’2* ~ 4- Ps. cxvm. lit, truth before dying : Consummation est. Let us often contemplate Christ Jesus in the supreme and immutable fidelity with which He fulfilled His mission, let us beseech Him to give us the grace to take nothing back of what we have given. Like Him, and tor love ol Him, we gave all at the moment ot our profession : all the good we have done since is but the daily and exterior manifestation of a will and determination rendered irrevocable by our vows.

St. Paul writing to his disciple Timothy exhorts him to “ stir up ” within himself the grace which he received on the day of his ordination, whereby he became a partaker of Christ’s eternal Priesthood. It is for us likewise a salutary practice to revive within us the grace of Profession by renewing the promises we then made. This monastic sacramental is always at our disposal : when we have recourse to it a new influx of divine life flows into our souls.

After Holy Mass, there is no action so pleasing to God as the self-oblation of religious Profession : there is no state so precious in His sight as that of constancy in the disposi¬ tions wherein the soul was at that moment. It is a holy practice then to renew our profession daily, for example at the offertory of the Mass. Let us unite our sacrifice with that of Christ Jesus. Let us offer ourselves with Him “ in the spirit of humility, and with a contrite heart that our sacrifice may be pleasing in the eyes of the Lord " : In spiritu humilitatis et in animo contrito suscipiamur a te,Domine, et sic fiat sacrificium nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie, itt placeat tibi, Domine Deus 3. O Eternal Father, receive not only Thy Divine Son, but ourselves with Him of Whom we say that He is “ a pure Host, a holy Host, an immaculate Host ” : Hostiam pur am, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam 4. Of ourselves, we are only poor creatures, but, miserable as we are, Thou wilt not reject us, for the sake of Thy Son Jesus Who is our Propitiation, and to Whom we would be united, so that through Him, and with Him, and in Him, all honour and glory be to Thee, O Father Almighty, in the unity of the Holy Ghost : Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti , in unitate Spiritus Sancti ,omnis honor et gloria 6.

When with all our heart we thus associate ourselves with our Lord’s Sacrifice, our daily life becomes the practical expression of the oblation made at the hour of our profes- sion : it is like the prolongation of the Mass wherein Christ our Divine Head is immolated, and hence, our whole existence is transfigured into a hymn of praise, a continual^ Gloria rising up to God like the incense of the. sacrifice, “in the odour of sweetness ” \ cum odore suavitatis, an act of perfect adoration indefinitely renewed. The vows nail us to the Cross with Christ, and it may be said that these mystical nails were forged by the Church, the Bride of Christ, since it is she who approves our vows. It is the Church s explicit intervention which guarantees that our vows are so pleasing to our Lord and so useful to our souls. Doubtless the religious state is hard for nature, for it obliges us to constant abnegation. When St. Gertrude, on one All Saints Day, contemplated the legions of the elect, she saw that religious figured in the ranks of martyrs : the vision signified that profession makes of our life a perpetual holocaust. “ Do not say, ” an author of the first centuries had already exclaimed, “ do not say that in our days the conflicts where martyrs triumph no longer exist. For peace itself has its martyrs. To repress anger, to flee from impurity, to keep justice, despise avarice, to beat down our pride, is not this to accomplish the principal acts of martyrdom 2 ? ”¹⁰

But the generous and faithful soul finds in this ever renewed self-oblation an inexhaustible joy, an ever increasing joy, because this joy comes from One Who is infinite and immutable Beatitude. It is this Divine Beatitude that we wished to gain when we left all things, like to the merchant, “ who when he had found one pearl of great price... sold all that he had, and bought it ” : Inventa autem una pretiosa margarita... vendidit omnia quae habuit, et emit eum 3. This happiness we shall find if we are ever seeking it ; we shall possess it one day in all its perfection, or rather we shall lose ourselves in its infinity : so much the more deeply lost in it according to the measure wherein here below we are the more detached from creatures in order to cleave exclusively to Christ : Ecce nos reliquimus omnia et secuti sumus te. x. The Herald of Divine Love, 1. IV, ch. lv.— 2. Nemo dicat quod temporibus nostris martyrum certamina esse non possint; habei emm pax marlyres suos. Nam iracundiam mitigare, libidinem fugere, lustttiam custodire, avarUiam contemnere, super biam humiliare, pars magnet martyrn est. Migne, P. L. p. xxxix, col. 2301. (Sermons attributed to St Augustine.) The same thought is found again with S' Gregory: Quamvis occasio persecutioms desit, habet lamen et pax nostra martyrium suum: quia etsi carnis colla fero non subpcimus, spirilualt tamen gladio carnalia desideria in mente trucidamus. Homil. LI 11 in Evangel. Of course, the word “ martyrdom " here is not to be taken literally, and the aureola of martyrdom belongs only to one who has shed his blood for the faith. — 3. Matth. xin, 46.

Footnotes

1. 1. Ritual for the Clothing. — 2. The numerous analogies existing between Monastic Profession and Christian Baptism have nowhere been shown so remarkably (although briefly) as in The Ideal of the Monastic Life found in
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2. 1. Luc. v, ix. — 2. Ibid, ix, 62. — 3. Rule, ch. lviii. — 4. This and the following texts cited are taken from the same chapter lviii of the Rule.
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3. 1. Rule, ch. ux.
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4. 1. Ordinary of the Mass, offering of the Chalice. — 2. Ps. xxm. — 3. Ron.
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5. 1. Rule, ch. lviii. — 2. I Parab. xxix, 17. — 3. Super Ezech., 1, 1 homil. 8, n° 16. — 4. 11-11, q. clxxxvi, a. 7. — 5. Rule, ch. lviii.
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6. 1. Lib. I Homil. v in Evangel. n° 2. — 2. Ps. cxvm, 116 ; Rule, ch. lviii. — 3. Joan, vx, 58. — 4. Hebr. ix, 14.
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7. 1. See D. G. Morin : L'ideal monastique, p. 60. — 2. Gal. vi, 15. — 3. n-il q. 88, a. 6.
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8. 1. ii-ii, q. 88, a. 6. — 2. Ceremonial of the Monastic Profession. — 3. Rule, ch. v. — 4. II Cor. ix, 7. — 5. Gen. xv, 1.
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9. 1. Ps. lxxii, 25-26. — 2. See Baptism, Sacrament of Initiation and Adoption in Christ, the Life of the Soul. — 3. Rule, ch. lviii. — 4. Ceremo¬ nial of Monastic Profession. — 5. Ps. lxxiv, 3.
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10. 1. Joan, xix, 30. — 2. II Tim. 1, 6, — 3. Ordinary of the Mass. — 4. Canon of the Mass. — 5. Ibid.
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