IX. Self-Renunciation

Summary. — Acts of Christian renunciation ought to correspond with sincere compunction. — I. The expiation of sin concerns, for different reasons, both Christ and the members of His Mystical Body. — II. Practice of renunciation : mortifications imposed by the Church. — III. Mortifications inherent to common life and the observance of the Vows. — IV. The mortifications which every one of good will may practise on his own initiative ; essential condition which St. Benedict lays down on this point. — V. Practices of self-renunciation constitute only a means, and their value is derived from their union with the sufferings of Jesus.

According to the Divine Plan which the Eternal Father has traced out for us, He wills that we should only go to Him by walking in the footsteps of His Son, Christ Jesus. Our Lord has given us the formula of this fundamental truth : “lam the Way... No man cometh to the Father but by Me ” : Nemo venit ad Pattern nisi per Me.

Compunction of heart, as we have seen, by fostering the habitual detestation of sin, works very efficaciously at dissol¬ ving the obstacles which would hinder us from following the Divine Model.

However our inward dispositions must logically become a part of our conduct, ruling and inspiring our deeds. To sincere compunction will necessarily correspond acts of Chris¬ tian renunciation. Did not our Lord bequeath this maxim to all His disciples : " If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me Si quis vult post Me venire, abneget semetipsum et tollat crucem suam et sequatur Me.

This precept, in one sense characteristic of Christian asce¬ ticism, has naturally passed into our Holy Father’s teaching, which is the faithful reflection of the Gospel. Before detail¬ ing the practice of renunciation among the instruments of good works, the very words of the Word Incarnate are recalled to us by the Holy Patriarch : “ To deny oneself, in order to follow Christ ” : A bnegare semetipsum sibi ut sequatur Christum 3.¹

Let us then study the way wherein Our Lord has gone before us, that we, in our turn, may walk in it. And if this way appears hard to our nature of flesh and blood, let us ask Jesus Himself to uphold us ; He is the Life as well as the Truth and the Way ; by the unction of His Al¬ mighty grace. He will give us the power to contemplate Him as we should, and to follow Him whithersoever He goes.

I

Since Adam’s fall, man can only return to God by expia¬ tion. St. Paul tells us in speaking of Christ that He is “ a High Priest, holy innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners”: Pontifcx sanctus, innocens, impollutus et segregatus a peccatoribus. Jesus, our Head, is infinitely far from ail that is sin ; and yet He has to pass through the sufferings of the Cross before entering into His glory.

You know the episode of Emmaus related by St. Luke. On the day of the Resurrection, two of Jesus’ disciples set out to this town, a short distance from Jerusalem. They speak to one another of their disappointment caused by the death of the Divine Master, and the apparent downfall of all their hopes concerning the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. And behold, Jesus, unde the guise of a stranger, joins them and asks them the subject of their discourse. The disciples tell Him the cause of their sadness. Then the Saviour, Who has not yet revealed Himself to them says, in a tone of reproach : “ O foolish and slow of heart to believe... Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory ? ” : Nonne haec oportuit pati Christum et ita intrare in gloriam suam 2 ?

Why then “ ought ” Christ to have suffered ? If He had so willed, could not God have universally forgiven sin without requiring expiation ? Assuredly He could. His absolute power knows no limits ; but His justice has exacted expiation, and, first of all, Christ’s expiation.

The Word Incarnate, in taking human nature, substituted Himself for sinful man, powerless to redeem himself ; and Christ became the Victim for sin. This is what our Lord gave His disciples to understand in telling them that Plis sufferings were necessary. Necessary, not only in their generality, but even in their least details : for if a single sigh of Christ would have sufficed, and far more than sufficed, to redeem the world, a free decree of the Divine will, touching all the circumstances of the Passion, has accumulated therein an infinite superabundance of satisfaction.²

You know with what love and abandonment to the will of His Father, Jesus accepted all that He had decreed. He suffered from His first entrance into the world, that He might fully accomplish this Divine will of which He knew the full extent : Ecce venio l. All was to be accomplished to the last detail with most loving faithfulness : Iota unum aut unus apex non praetsribit a lege, donee omnia pant 2.

We find a singular testimony of this Divine exactness in St. John’s Gospel. Fastened to the Cross, suffering with thirst, on the point of expiring, Christ Jesus remembers that a verse of the prophecies is not yet fulfilled , and, in order that it should be so, He says: “ I thirst. ” Then, having said this, our Lord pronounces the supreme words : Consummatum est 4. “ It is consummated. ” O Father, I have fulfilled all : since the moment when I said : “ Behold I come to do Thy will, ” I have omitted nothing ; now I have drunk to the dregs the chalice Thou gavest Me to drink ; there is nothing left for Me to do but commend My spirit into Thy hands.

But if our Divine Saviour suffered that He might redeem us, it was also to give us the grace to unite our expiation to His own and thus render it meritorious. For, says St. Paul, “ they that are Christ’s, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences " : Qui sunt Christi carnem suam crucifixerunt cum vitiis suis 5. The expiation required by Divine Justice touches not only Christ Jesus ; it extends to all the members of His Mystical Body. We share in the glory of our Head only after having shared in His suffer¬ ings ; it is St. Paul again who tells us so : Si tamen compatimur ut et conglorificemur 6.

Having solidarity with Christ in suffering, we are however condemned to bear it for a quite different reason. He had but to expiate the sins of others : Propter scelus populi mei percussi eum. We, on the contrary, have first to bear the weight of our own iniquities : Digna factis recipimus, hie vero nihil mali gessit 8. By sin, we have contracted a debt towards God's justice ; and, when the offence has been remitted, the debt still remains for us to pay. This is the role of satis¬ faction

Moreover, the spirit of self-renunciation assures perseve- ranee. Every actual sin turns the soul in the direction of evil. Even after forgiveness, there remains a tendency, an inclination, latent for the moment, but real, which, engrafted upon our native concupiscence, finds the first opportunity of producing fruit. It is for mortification to uproot these vicious tendencies, to counteract these habits, to annihilate this attachment to sin. Mortification pursues sin inasmuch as sin is an obstacle between the soul and God ; therefore mortification must continue until these perverse tendencies of our nature are mastered ; otherwise, these tendencies will end by dominating, by being the source of numerous faults which will compromise, or, in any case, will keep at. a very low level, our union with God and the life of charity in us. We have made a fervent Communion in the morning ; our soul is entirely united to God. But if, in the course of the day, in the midst of our occupations, the “ old man ” awakens to incline us to pride, to touchiness, to anger, we must imme¬ diately repress these movements. Otherwise we might be surprised into giving consent ; and the life of charity, the union of our soul with God would be lessened. If, for example, we are strongly inclined to self-love, accustomed to consider self in everything and direct everything towards self, we shall be touchy, hurt by a nothing, we shall be sullen and show bad temper ; a quantity of reprehensible actions will be almost instinctively born of this self-love and will impede the action of Christ in it ; this is why we must mortify this self-love, so that in the end the love of Jesus Christ may alone reign within us. Our Lord expects of us to repress the ill-regulated movements that urge us to sin, and imperfection ; do not let us suppose we can pretend to the state of union if we allow bad habits to govern our heart.³

As you see, renunciation is necessary, not only as satis¬ faction for our past sins, but also as a means to preserve us from falling into them again, thanks to the mortification of the natural tendencies that incline us to evil.

It is this twofold motive that our Holy Father, ever filled with the spirit of the Gospel, indicates first of all to those who enter the monastery, when he speaks of the morti¬ fying of vicious habits : “ the amendment of vices " or “ the ■ preservation of charity. ” Si quid paululum restrictions, dictante aequitatis ratione, propter emendationem vitiorum vel con- SERVATIONEM CARITATIS processent K

To those who are more advanced “ in the observance and in faith*, " who by Christ’s grace have already gained the strength to overcome evil tendencies and ie to run in the way of God's commandments,” St. Benedict brings for¬ ward another motive — a higher and not less powerful one : the participation in Christ’s sufferings : Passionibus Christi per patientiam pariicipemur 2. Indeed, for faithful and holy souls who have made satisfaction for their faults, . whose union with God is more assured against the assaults of the enemy, self-renunciation becomes the means and proof of a more perfect imitation of our Lord. These souls willingly embrace the cross to “ help ” Christ in His Passion : Cal¬ vary is the chosen place where they are led and held by Love.⁴

II

The need of mortification once recognised, we must learn in what measure we ought to practise it, — and first of all how we are to appreciate specifically the value of the different acts of renunciation proposed to us. Their hierarchy is as follows : in the first place, the mortifications which the Church, the Bride of Christ, prescribes ; — next those, which are prescribed by the Rule, or are inherent to the daily observance of the monastic life ; — finally, those we choose for ourselves or that are sent to us by God.

To begin with the mortifications that the Church prescribes for us.

We find in a letter of St. Paul some words that at first sight seem astonishing : “ I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body, which is the Church ” : Adimpleo e a quae desunt passionum Christi in came mea, pro corpora ejus, quod est Ecclesia 3. What do these words mean ? Is something then wanting to the sufferings of Christ ? Certainly not. We know that in themselves they were, so to speak, measureless : measureless in their intensity, for they rushed like a mighty torrent upon Christ ; measure¬ less above all in their value, a value properly speaking infinite, since they are the sufferings of a God. Moreover, Christ, having died for all, has become by His Passion, the Propitiation for the sins of the whole world 4. St. Augustine explains the meaning of this text of the Apostle : to understand the mystery of Christ, we must not separate Him from His Mystical Body. Christ is not the “ Whole Christ, ” according⁵

*77 to the expression of the great Doctor, unless He is taken as united to the Church. He is the Head of the Church which forms His Mystical Body. Hence since Christ has brought His share of expiation, it remains for the Mystical Body to bring its share : Adimpletae fuerunt passiones in capite, restabant adhuc passiones in corpore *.

In the same way as God had decreed that, to satisfy justice and crown His work of love, Christ was to undergo a sum of sufferings, so has he determined a share of sufferings for the Church to distribute among her members. Thereby each of them is to co-operate in the expiation of Jesus, whether in expiation of one’s own faults, or in the expiation endured, after the example of the Divine Master, for the faults of others. A soul that truly loves our Lord desires to give Him this proof of love for His Mystical Body by means of these mortifications. Here is the secret of the “ extravagances ” of the saints, of that thirst for mortifications which characterises nearly all of them : “ To fill up those things that are wanting ” to the Passion of their Divine Master.

The Church has naturally to legislate as to the work of expiation which concerns her as a whole. She has fixed for all her children a share of mortification which notably comprises the observances of Lent, of Fridays, of the Ember Days and Vigils. One who is little enlightened prefers his own mortifications to these ; but it is beyond doubt that the expiations imposed by the Church are more pleasing to God and more salutary for our souls.

The reason for this is clear. All the value of our suffer¬ ings and self-denial is derived from their union, through faith and love, with the sufferings and merits of Jesus, without Whom we can do nothing. Now, who is more united to Christ than the Church, His Bride ? The mortifications she lays upon us are her own ; it is as His Bride that she adopts and officially presents them to God ; these mortifications become like the natural prolongation of Christ’s expiations ; presented by the Church herself they are extremely acceptable to God Who sees in them the closest and deepest participation that souls can have in the sufferings of His Beloved Son.

Moreover, these mortifications are very salutary for us.

The Church herself tells us, at the beginning of Lent, that she has “ instituted them as a salutary remedy not only for our souls but also for our bodies ” : Animabus corporibusque curandis salubriter institutum est 2.⁶

Do not forget either that in the course of the holy forty days, the Church prays daily for those who submit to these expiations ; she unceasingly beseeches God that these works may be accepted by Him ; that He will make them beneficial to us ; that He will give us strength to perform them with the piety befitting disciples of Christ and with a devotion that nothing can trouble : Ut jejuniorwn veneranda solemnia et congrua pictate suscipiant et secura devotione percurrantx. This constant prayer of the Church for us is powerful over the Heart of God, and becomes a fount of heavenly benediction which makes our mortifications fruitful.

If then we wish “ to be Christ’s, " as St. Paul says, let us accept, with great faith and generosity, these mortifica¬ tions of the Church ; in God’s sight, they have a value and a power of expiation which other afflictive practices do not possess.

We shall therefore not be astonished that our great Patriarch, the heir in this of the piety of the first ages, consecrates a long chapter of his Rule to the observance of Lent. He desires that during this holy season, besides the fast and abstinence, we should keep ourselves “ in all purity of life ; and repair the negligences of other times ” : Omnes negligentias aliorum temporum his diebus sanctis dilucre 2. “ This is what we shall worthily do, ” he adds, “ if we abstain from all vices, and apply ourselves to prayer with tears, to holy reading, compunction of heart and abstinence. ” You see that to the expiation that afflicts the body, St. Be¬ nedict is careful to join inward mortification and especially the exercise of that sense of compunction which is, as it were, the will to do uninterrupted penance.

III

After the penances instituted by the Church rank the mortifications and self-renunciation inherent to the monastic state.

We must first name the common life. However much it be sweetened by fraternal charity, however fervently mu¬ tual love reigns, the common life still bears with it a great deal of suffering. We love one another very much mutually, with sincere affection, and yet, without wishing it, we jar upon one another. This is part of the very condition of our poor human nature. Since sin entered the world, we are all, says St. Augustine, men subject to death, infirm, weak, bearing earthen vessels, which rub against each other : Sumus homines mortales, fragiles, infirmi, lutea vasa portantes, quae faciunt invicem angustias.⁷

The history of the lives of the saints is full of this want of concord, these misunderstandings and dissensions resulting from temperament, from character, the turn of mind, educa¬ tion and the ideal formed by each one. Were there in mo¬ nasteries none but holy religious, worthy of canonisation, they would still have to suffer from the common life ; and this suffering can be so much more acute in as far as the mind is more refined and the soul more delicate. No com¬ munity, however fervent it may be, to whatever Order it may belong, escapes this law, any more than the greatest saints have escaped it.

Look at the Apostles. Were they not at the best school of sanctity ? During three years, they were able to con¬ template Jesus, to listen to His teaching and be under the direct influence of His Divine grace. Now what do we read in the Gospel ? Two of them, to the exclusion of the others, ask for a special place in Christ’s Kingdom 2 ; before the Last Supper there is again “ a strife amongst them, which of them should seem to be the greater, " to such a degree that our Lord has to rebuke them anew. Later, St. Peter and St. Paul are at variance ; St. Barnabas who, for quite a long time, had accompanied St. Paul in his preach¬ ing, has one day to separate from him : they no longer agree. St. Jerome and St. Augustine do not always under¬ stand one another, anymore than St. Charles Borromeo and St. Philip of Neri.

Thus human nature has at times such weaknesses and deficiencies that even souls who sincerely seek God and are most united together in tne charity of Christ, are true subjects of mortification for one another. And this happens in every clime, in every latitude, in every community in the world. Now, to endure this friction daily, with patience, with charity, without ever complaining, constitutes a very real mortification.

Thus our holy Patriarch, who had such great experience of the human heart, who knew that everywhere human nature, even among the best, has its infirmities and miseries, insists upon our duty of patiently enduring one another’s infirmities : Infirmitates suas sive corporum sive morum patientissime tolerent*. When these little dissensions arise

1. Sermo X de Verbis Domini. P. L. 38, Sermon lxix. — 2. Matth. xx, 26- 28 ; Marc, x, 35-45. — 3. Luc. xxii, 24-25. — 4. Rule, ch. lxxii. l8o CHRIST, THE IDEAL OF THE MONK which he so well calls “ thorns of scandal ”, Scandalorum spinea 1, he will not have us let the sun go down upon our resentment lest it be given time to take root : Cum discordante ante sclis occasum in pacem redire 2. On this subject he introduces into the holy liturgy itself a practice inspired by the purest spirit of the Gospel. He prescribes that the Abbot shall say the Pater noster aloud every day in choir, at Lauds and Vespers, in the name of the monastic family, so that when we ask our Heavenly Father to forgive us our own offences, we may not forget in our turn to forgive our brethren if they offend us.

So true is it that the common life easily becomes a continual source of friction for our weak nature,. But for those who seek God, this life is transformed into one of boundless and unremitting charity : Si angustiantur vasa carnis, dilatentur spatia caritatisi!

To the mortifications of common life which result from, the social order of things, are to be added those of the vows with their precise object and character of a contract between us and God. Constant fidelity to our engagements consti¬ tutes a veritable mortification : we are, by nature, so inclined to independence, so fond of liberty and change ! It is true that faithful souls observe their vows with gladness, fervour and love ; but this observance remains none the less an immolation for nature. Let us again look at our Divine Sa¬ viour in His Passion. We know that He accepted it out of love for His Father, and that this love was immense : “ That the world may know, that I love the Father ” : Ut cognoscat nmndus quia diligo Patrem 5. But did He not suffer despite this love ? Certainly He did : what suffering has ever equalled His suffering which He accepted on coming into this world ? Hear the cry which escapes from His Heart crushed beneath the burden : “ My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt. ” Love for His Father lifted Him above the shrinking of His sensitive native. And yet His agony was terrible, His sorrows indescribable. His Heart, says the Psalmist, became like wax, melting beneath the inten¬ sity of suffering. But because He remained fastened to the Cross by love, He gave His Father infinite glory, worthy of the Divine perfections.

We, too, fastened ourselves to the cross on the day of our profession ; we did so out of love ; and if we remain faith¬ ful to our post of immolation it is still through love. This does not prevent nature from feeling pain. You may ask : Is not the monastery the ante-chamber of Heaven ? Assuredly it is ; but to stay a long time in a place of waiting, and there to bear monotony and annoyances, can become singularly burdensome and require a big dose of endurance L⁸

We must however remain firm and be patient till God's good time : Viriliter age et sustine Dominum. God is never so near to us as when He places His Son’s Cross upon our shoulders ; never do we give our Father in Heaven more of the glory that He receives from our patience than in these moments : A jferunt fructum in patientia 3.

The vows being established to procure the practice of the corresponding virtues, it is not astonishing that as regards renunciation, they lead us very far. It is true one finds souls who, after a time, submit to obedience, endure stability: this they do from force of habit. With them, the vow may, strictly speaking, remain intact ; but the virtue is absent or very enfeebled. Such a disposition is very poor in love of God. Let us, on the contrary, strive to practise from love, in all its extent and perfection, the virtue that serves as a stimulus to the vow. This love will solve all the difficulties that can arise in our life, will brave all the renunciations to which our profession obliges us.

Difficulties, disappointments, contradictions, are ever to be encountered in whatsoever part of the world we may be. It is so much the more impossible to escape them in that they have less to do with circumstances than with our human condition. Our Holy Father, the most discreet of religious law-givers, warns us of this. Although he wishes to esta¬ blish in his Rule “ nothing too harsh or rigorous, ” he will however have the Master of Novices show the postulants “ the hard and rugged things, ” dura et aspera 5, that fallen nature will inevitably meet with upon the path that leads to God. But, he says 6, like St. Paul, love makes us overcome in all things : Quis nos separabit a caritate Christi?... Propter te moriificamur tota die. It is for Thy sake, O God, and to show Thee our love, that all the day long we deny ourselves.

If we truly love Christ Jesus, we shall not try to avoid the difficulties and sufferings that occur in the faithful practice of the vows and observances of our monastic life ; we shall embrace them as our Divine Lord embraced His Cross when it was offered to Him. Some have a heavier cross than others ; however heavy it may be, love gives them the strength to bear it ; the unction of divine grace makes them cling to it instead of seeking how to cast it away, and in the end they come to feel affection for it as a means of continually testifying to their love : Aquae multae non potuerunt exstinguere caritatem. If a monk who for love of Christ to Whom he gave himself for ever on the day of his profession, were to remain constantly faithful to what he then promised, if he were to live in a spirit of poverty and never admit into his heart a too human and too natural affection, if his -whole life were to be spent in absolute depen¬ dence on his Rule and on those who represent Christ towards him, if he were to bear, without ever murmuring, the burden of the day and the uniformity inherent to the regular life of the cloister — this monk would give our Lord continual proofs of love and find God perfectly. He would have brought to naught within himself every obstacle that could have been opposed to perfect divine union. But who will will show us this religious, that in him we may celebrate the summit of virtue ! Quis est hie, et laudabimus eum? Fecit enim mirabilia in vita sua...2.⁹

IV

If the first place is reserved by right, in our estimation and in our life, to the penances prescribed by the Church and by the Rule, the preference given to them of course does not tend to dissuade from and depreciate the mortifica¬ tions wherein everyone of goodwill takes the initiative. Indeed in the monastery, personal initiative remains entire. Not only does St. Benedict safeguard it, but he positively encourages it. On this subject it suffices to read the chapter in his Rule on Lent. He wishes that during these forty holy days, we should add something to that which is ordina¬ rily appointed to us as regards God’s service, augeamus nobis aliquid solito penso servitutis nostrae 3: private prayers, a ''greater abstinence from food and sleep, and a tighter rein on our liberty of speech. These are only a few points proposed by the holy Legislator, for the field in this direction is vast, and private initiative can be given free course .* unusquisque super mensuram sibi indictam aliquid propri voluntate... offer at.¹⁰

This liberty left by St. Benedict to private initiative is not limited to the season of Lent ; it extends to the whole life of a monk ; the holy Patriarch liimself makes this understood at the beginning of the abovesaid chapter. If at no time would he discourage the weak, he always leaves free scope to the holy ambition of the valiant : Ut sit quod fortes cupiant x. Tnese are the works of supererogation which the valiant alone have the strength to undertake. To those on the contrary who find the integral accomplishment of the common observance beyond their physical powers, the idea will come spontaneously of imposing upon themselves some slight penances, so that if they are obliged to renounce the " letter ” of the regular discipline they may at least have some modest pledges to give to its “ spirit. ”

But whatever be the reason that instigates the exercise of free choice in this matter of penitential practices, St. Be¬ nedict subjects it to one essential condition : every project of mortification foreign to the rule laid down, is to be first of all submitted to the approbation of those who hold the place of Christ towards us.

The end that is here proposed by the holy Legislator is altogether worthy of a clear-sighted director of souls : “ If obedience intervenes, it will not be to reduce initiative or manly resolution, but to guide them and make them fruit¬ ful;” he especially takes precautions against self-will; he would avoid the danger of vainglory which so easily creeps in with those who undertake mortifications of their own choice : “ All that is done without permission of the spiritual Father shall be accounted as presumption and vainglory and deserve no reward ” : Quod sine permissione patris spiritualis pit, praesumptioni deputabitur et vanae gloriae, non mercedi 4.

Our holy Father furthermore exhorts us to offer to God, with the joy that emanates from the Holy Spirit, something beyond the measure appointed to us : Offerat Deo cum gaudio sancti Spiritus 5. Let us be happy to have the opportunity of offering God some acts of penance : fervour and joy must needs accompany what we give to God ; magnanimity and generosity are joyful in the giving : H ilarem datorem diligit Deus 6.

However, before approaching the question itself of excep- tional mortifications, we must well understand the attitude St. Benedict recommends to us in general regarding the creat¬ ed things with which God surrounds us in our exile here below, and the legitimate pleasure we derive from them. The holy Patriarch gives us a valuable counsel in this matter : “Not to embrace delights,” delicias non amplecti. What, harms the soul in this domain, is to give oneself up to them in excess. Christ Jesus partook of food, contemplated the beauties of nature, and enjoyed the charms of friendship, but He only gave Himself to His Father and to souls. In the same way, self-renunciation forbids us to let ourselves be carried away in the use of permitted created things ; and it is in following this line of conduct indicated by St. Be¬ nedict that we acquire, little by little, that holy liberty of soul and heart in regard to all creatures — a liberty that was one of the characteristic virtues of our great St. Gertrude and won for her most precious favours from Christ.¹¹

To return to outward mortifications or afflictive penances, let us say that in this matter itself, a certain discretion must be kept. The degree of voluntary mortification must be measured according to the past state of the soul, and the obstacles to be avoided ; it is for the director to fix this degree.

It would be dangerous temerity to undertake extraordinary mortifications without being called to do so by God. In fact, to be able to give oneself to constant macerations of the body is a gift of God. And this gift often constitutes one of His most precious favours. W’hen God grants it to a soul, it is because He wills to lead her far in spiritual ways ; often He prepares her in this manner to receive ineffa¬ ble communications of His Divine grace ; He delves deep down in the soul in order to empty her entirely of self, and possess her undividedly. Only, before entering into this way, it is necessary that we should be called to it by God ; there is danger in entering it of our own accord. To be able to sustain these great mortifications, we need a special grace which God will only give us if He calls us to it ; without this grace we break down physically and in consequence have to take special care of out health. And this easily opens the door to relaxation, not without great detriment to the soul ; one then becomes a burden to others and to one’s self.

It is therefore with great wisdom that the holy Legislator has prescribed, as we have just seen, that in the matter of exterior renunciation, nothing should be done " without permission of the spiritual Father, ” for “ every one hath his proper gift from God ” : Unusquisque proprium habet donum ex Deo, alius sic, alius vero sic.¹²

The domain where all latitude may be taken is that of interior mortification, which is likewise the most perfect. This mortification represses the vices of the mind, breaks our self-love and attachment to our own judgment ; it refrains tendencies to pride, independence, vanity, touchiness, levity, curiosity, and subjects us to the common life, that penance of penances. Let us take the order of our day : — To rise at the first sound of the bell, to go to the choir wether inclined to do so or not, there to praise God with attention and fervour ; to accept the thousand details of the rule as they are laid down for work, meals, recreation, sleep ; to submit oneself continually to these things without ever murmuring or being in any way singular, forms an excellent penance which makes the soul greatly pleasing to God, and altogether docile to the action of the Holy Spirit. Consider silence, for instance. How many times, during the course of the day, occasions occur which tempt us to speak needlessly ! But we say to ourselves : “No, out of love for Christ, to keep the perfume of His Divine presence in my soul, I will not speak. " A single day may be thus made up of acts of mortification which are so many acts of love. Again another point in which virtue may be frequently practised, is in immediate obedience to the voice of God calling us to the different exercises: Mox exoccupatis manibusz, says St. Benedict. It needs great virtue to put constantly into action what these few words signify. We are busy at our work ; the bell rings. We are often tempted to say “ It will oniy take a few moments to finish this. ” If we listen to this suggestion what is it that we do ? We prefer our own will to God’s Will. This is not “ forsaking ” our own will, nor is it what St. Be¬ nedict wants : Quod agebant imperjectum relinquentcs. Little things ? Yes, in themselves ; but great by reason of the virtue they require, great by reason of the love that observes them, and the holiness to which they lead. “ He who desires for My sake to mortify his body with many penances, ” said the Eternal Father to St. Catherine of Siena, “ but without renouncing his own will is wrong in thinking that this is pleasing to Me 3. ” We only please God when we seek to do His good-pleasure in all things. z. I Cor. vii, 7. and Rule, ch. xl. — 2. Rule, ch. v.¹³

Let us also accept willingly the mortifications sent to us by Providence : hunger, cold, heat, small inconveniences of place or time, slight contradictions coming from those around us. You may again say that these things are trifles ; yes, but trifles that form part of the Divine plan for us. Is not that enough to make us accept them with love ?

Finally, let us accept illness, if sent to us by God, or what is sometimes more painful, a state of habitual ill-health, an infirmity that never leaves us ; adversities, spiritual aridity ; to accept all these things can become very mortifying for nature. If we do so with loving submission, without ever relaxing in the service we owe to God, although heaven seems to be cold and deaf to us, our soul will open more and more to the Divine action. For, according to the saying of St. Paul, “ all things work together unto good " to those whom God calls to share His glory : omnia cooperantur in bonum its qui secundum propositum vocati sunt sancti.

V

Whatever be our morti fications, corporal or spiritual, those that afflict the body or those that repress the ill regulated tendencies of the mind, they are however only a means. In some institutes, exercises of penance and expiation play so preponderant a part that they constitute the very reason of their existence. These institutes have their own mission in the Holy Church, a special function in the Mystical Body; for the diversity of functions, of which St. Paul speaks, exists for religious orders as it does for the individual. Those who make profession in these institutes are “ vic¬ tims ” ; the life of continual immolation gives them a parti¬ cular character and splendour. Happy the souls whom God calls to the bareness of the cross I It becomes for them an inexhaustible fount of precious graces.

The spirit of St. Benedict is rather to form Christians who simply aim at practising every virtue in a high degree without specialising in any of them. Our Patriarch, in this domain, has quite other conceptions than some of those which prevailed with the Fathers of the desert and the anchorets of the East in the matter of afflictive practices. Without neglecting, as we have just seen, exterior mortifica¬ tion, his asceticism is however brought to bear upon the virtues of humility and above all of obedience : it is to them that he chiefly looks for the destruction of the “ old man ” necessary to the fruition of the soul’s union with God l.

Finally, one truth upon which it is important to insist here, in relation to exterior mortification, is that, although renunciation is an indispensable means, afflictive practices have no value in themselves in the plan of Christianity. Their value comes to them from their union through faith and love with the sufferings and expiation of Christ Jesus. Our Divine Saviour came down upon earth to show us how we must live in order to be pleasing to His Father. He is the perfect Model of all perfection. Now the Gospel tells us He ate what was set before Him, without making any distinction, so much so that the Pharisees took scandal thereat. And our Lord tells them : “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man : but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man 2. ” Let us then not place our perfection in exterior mortifications, even extraordinary ones, considered in themselves. What is above all important is that we mortify ourselves and bear our sufferings out of love for our Lord as a participation in His Passion.

“ True perfection and true holiness, ” says a great master of the spiritual life, the Venerable Louis Blosius, heir in this of the best Benedictine traditions, “ does not lie in frightful macerations nor the excessive use of instruments of penance ; they consist in the mortification of self-will and of our vices, as well as in true humility and sincere charity. ” Great austerity of life is excellent when added to these fundamental dispositions, but everyone is not capable of this, while everyone can lead a life of true and holy mortification if tney are careful to offer continually “ to God the Father, the fasts, watchings and tribulations of Christ’s most bitter Passion, " and to accomplish the little they do in union with these sufferings of the Saviour and in honour of His continual and total submission to His Father’s Will. He who knows how to offer to God the complete submission of his free-will, after the Saviour’s example, has

1. Rom. vi, 6. Cf. D. Morin, The Ideal of the Monastic Life in the Apostolic Age. ch. hi. Do penance. This perfectly characterises S* Benedict’s method on this point. — 2. Matth. xv, 16. — 3. The Mirror of the Soul, ch. vii, 3. S‘ Cathe¬ rine in her Dialogue sets down the same teaching of the Eternal Father: “Those who are nourished at the table of penance are good and perfect, if their penance is founded in me with befitting discernment... with great humility, and the constant study to judge according to My will and not according to the will of man. If they are not thus clad with My will through true humility, they will very often put obstacles in the way of their perfection, by making thems Ives judges of those who do not follow the same path as they do. And knowest thou why they do not attain perfection ? Because they have exerted their real and desire much more in mortifying their body than in slaying their self-will. " — 4. The Mirror of the Soul, ch. vii, 3. a soul that is “ truly detached and mortified like unto a ripe, tender and delicious grape ; ” he who knows not this self-renunciation is, on the contrary, for God, like “ unripe fruit, hard and sour to the taste L ”

This thought is a very useful one to encourage us in our work of self-renunciation. During the day let us think of our morning Mass. We were then united to the immolation of Jesus and placed upon the altar with the Divine Victim ; let us therefore accept generously the sufferings, the vexations, the burden of the day and the heat thereof, the difficulties and self-denial inherent to the common life. Thus we shall practically live our Mass. Indeed, is not our heart an altar whence the incense of our sacrifice and our submission to His adorable Will unceasingly rises up to God ? What altar could be more pleasing to Him than a heart full of love constantly offered up to Him. For we can always sacrifice upon this altar, and offer ourselves with the Son of His love, for His glory and the welfare of souls.

This is the teaching that our Lord Himself gave to St. Mech tilde. “ One day whilst she was thinking that her illness made her useless and that her sufferings were unavail¬ ing, the Lord said to her : * Place all thy pains in My Heart and I will give them the most absolute perfection that suffer¬ ing can possess. As M3' Divinity drew to itself the sufferings of My Humanity and made them its own, so will I transport thy pains into My Divinity, I will unite them to My Passion and make thee share in that glory which God the Father has bestowed on My Sacred Humanity in return for all its sufferings. Confide, therefore, each of thy pains to Love in saying : * O Love, I give them to thee with the same intention that thou hadst when thou didst bring them to me from the Heart of God, and I beseech thee to offer them to Him again, made perfect by intensest gratitude... ’ “ My

Passion, ” added Christ Jesus, " bore infinite fruit in Heaven and upon earth ; thus thy pains, thy tribulations offered to Me and united to My Passion will be so fruitful that they will procure more glory for the elect, new merit for the just, forgiveness for sinners, and an alleviation of their pains for the souls in Purgatory. What is there indeed that My Heart cannot change for the better, since it is from the goodness of My Heart that all good flows both in Heaven and on earth 2. ” iSg¹⁴

Such is the Catholic doctrine on this point. God is the first Author of our holiness, the source of our perfection, but we must labour at removing the obstacles that hinder His action in us ; me must renounce sin, and the tendencies that give rise to it ; we must free ourselves from created things in as far as they prevent us going to God. One who will not submit himself to this law of mortification, who seeks his ease and comfort, who is anxious to escape suffering and does all he can to avoid the cross, who puts no constraint upon himself to keep all the observances of common life, will never arrive at intimate union with Christ Jesus. This union is so precious that it must needs be bought with labour and toil and perpetual self-denial. We can only find God fully after having removed all obstacles from our path, and destroyed all that displeases Him in ourselves. St. Gregory — whose words are evidently a commentary on the first lines of the Prologue of the Rule — says that in cleaving to ourselves and to creatures, we separate ourselves from God. In order to return to Him, Ut ad Eum redeas, it is to Christ, and to Christ crucified, that we must cleave ; we must carry the cross with Him along the path of compunction, obedience and self-forget¬ fulness. It is only by passing through the sorrows of Calvary and the poverty of the Cross that we shall come to the triumph of the Resurrection and the glory of the Ascension : Nonne oportuit Christum pati et ita intrare in gloriam suam 2.

With this thought we will end our conference after the example of our great Patriarch who thus closes his Pro¬ logue : Passionibus Christi per patientiam participemur , ut in regno ejus mereamur esse consortes. Mortification and self-denial are but for a time ; the life that they safeguard and foster in us is everlasting. It is true that here below, where we live by faith, the splendour of this life is hidden from our eyes : Vita vestra abscondita est ; but in the light of heaven where there is no more darkness it will shine for ever ; there will be no more crying, no more suffering ; God Himself will wipe away the tears from the eyes of His servants ; He will make His elect sit down at the heavenly feast, and will inebriate them at the ever flowing torrent of i. llegio nostra paradisus est, ad quam, Jesu cognito, redire per viam qua venimus prohibemur. A regione enim nostra superbiendo, inobediendo, visibilia sequendo, cibum vetitum gustando disccssimus ; sed ad earn necesse est ut flendo obediendo, visibilia contemnendo atque appelitum carnis refrenando redeamus. Homil. io in Evang. The Church has inserted this passage in the Octave of the Epiphany as the interpretation applied to the “ per aliam viam reversi surd " of the Magi. — 2. Luc. xxiv, 26. — 3. Col. 111, 3. unalloyed delights: Et torrente voluptatis tuae potabis eos.

We shall then see the fulfilment of those words that the Church, the Bride of Christ, applies to us on the day of our religious profession. At that decisive hour when we responded to the Divine call, the Abbot showed us the Rule. He told us by what path of renunciation we must go to God. And we chose to enter upon this path, to labour at the soil of our soul that heavenly virtues might spring up among the thorns and briars. “ They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” Now they plough the furrows in the sweat of their brow, and the seeds they cast therein they water with their tears. The hour will come of overflowing joy when they will bring their full sheaves to the Lord of the Harvest : Euntes ibant et flebant mittentes semina sua : venientes antem venient cum exsultatione portantes manipulos suos 2.

1. Ps. xxxv, 9. — 2. Ibid, cxxv, 5-7.

Footnotes

1. 1. Joan. XIV, 6. — 2. Matth. xvi, 24. — 3. Rule, ch. rv.
   ↩
2. 1. Hebr. vii, 26. — 2. Luc. xxiv, 26.
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3. 1. Ps. XXXIX, 8 and Hebr. x, 7. — 2. Matth. v, 18. — 3. Joan, xix, 28. — 4. Ibid. 30. — 5. Galat. v, 24. — 6. Rom. vm, 17. — 7. Isa. uii, 8. — 8. Luc. xxin, 41.
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4. 1. Prologue of the Rule. — 2. Ibid.
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5. 1. Prologue of the Rule. cf. Ps. cxvm, 32. — 2. Ibid. — 3. Co. 1, 24. — 4. I Joan, ix, 2.
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6. 1. S. Augustin. Enarrat. in Ps. lxxxvi, 5. — 2. Collect for the Saturday after Ash Wednesday.
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7. 1. Collect for Ash Wednesday. — 2. Rule, ch. xlix.
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8. 1. Rule, ch. xm. — 2. Ibid. iv. — 3. Ibid. xm. — 4. S. Aug. L. c. — 5. Joan, xiv, 31. — 6. Matth. xxvi, 39. — 7. Ps. xxi, 15.
   ↩
9. 1. See above, what we said about fortitude, p. 143. — 2. Ps. xxvi, 41- ~~ 3* Luc. viii, 15. — 4. Prologue of the Rule. — 5. Rule, ch. lviii. — 6. Ibidem, ch. vii. — 7. Rom. viii, 36. and Rule, ch. vn.
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10. 1. Cant, via, 7. — 2. Eccli. xxxi, 9. — 3. Rule, ch. xlix.
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11. 1. Rule, ch. lxiv, — 2. Ibid. ch. xlix. — 3. Abbot of Solesmes. Commen¬ tary on the Rule of S* Benedict, translated by Dom Justin Me Cann. P. 319* — 4. and 5. Rule, ch. xlix. — 6. I Cor. ix, 7 and Rule, ch. v.
    ↩
12. 1. Rule, ch. iv. — 2. This is the teaching that God gave to S4 Catherine. See Dialogue on the Gift of Discernment , ch. vii.
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13. 3. Dialogue, ch. x.
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14. 1. A Book of Spiritual Instruction. The whole of this passage is taken from the article of D. P. de Puniet : La place du Christ dans la doctrine spirituelle de Louis de Blois. (La Vie Spirituelle. Aug. 1920, p. 393, sq.) — 2. The Book of Special Grace, 2B<S Part, ch. xxxvi. See also 3rd Part, ch. xxxvi.
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