3. Unity and Multiplicity — Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

Synopsis — Definition of simplicity — Three classes of created things-Abandonment — Purity of heart — Unquiet souls— Perfection defined— Souls abandoned by God — Contemplating Christ.

I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.— John i, 23.

We are close to that festival, so full of charm, in which the Eternal Word took birth in human nature, in order that He might ceaselessly be begotten in every one of us. Speech, or word, and the voice are closely related to each other. Yesterday I explained to you how we should sincerely abandon ourselves to God, and annihilate ourselves before Him from the depth of our soul. Would it not be a great help if, in order to reach that end, we could find a road shorter than all others? That road is simplicity. And to obtain simplicity one must close his senses, empty his mind of every image, and despise himself. Amid the infinite multiplicity of our outward actions we should remain masters of our senses, for without this they will carry us outside of ourselves, and bring back into us a thousand foreign images. We read of a father of the desert, venerable for the holiness of his life, that, being obliged to go outside of his cell in the month of May, he covered his eyes with his hood. When asked why he did so he said : aSo that my eyes may not look at the trees of these country places, and that I may be nowise hindered from seeing my soul." Ah, my children, if the sight of a lonely forest was a hindrance to that holy man, what an injury to us shall often be the worldly and trifling things which surround us. The second means to lead us to that simplicity, is to love God above all things.

Now, we can make three classes of the things amid which we live. One class is injurious; the other is vain and fleeting; the third, though consisting of good things, is yet capable of being made a hindrance to us. Outward things are hurtful to us when they draw creatures to us with pleasure and content and we are happy with them, and when we seek or enjoy in them ill-regulated or blameworthy delight. Ah, chil-di en, no one can tell how* disastrous such things are to us, for they force < tod to draw away from us to make room for them, even when we have no intention of sinning, in clinging to them. Why rob that sweet friend of our souls of the happiness and pleasure He would love to enjoy in His own palace? Why defile this precious vine of His as if by a poisonous vapor ; and we while in that state can no longer say, with the spouse in the Canticle: "Our bed is flourishing" (Cant, i, 15).

Bui here a distinction must be made. A man who loves God sincerely and who would love Him yet more, sometimes experiences the influence of creatures pressing upon him against his will and inflicting on him a kind of martyrdom, even unto death. What, then, should he do? Suffer them with patience and in abandonment to God — providing, always, that he is himself in no manner the cause of these temptations by his attachment to creatures. Happy, children, a thousand times happy, is the man whose purity shall never have been soiled by any image alien to purity. He will possess a priceless treasure.

Besides bad things, there are those that are vain and useless. As to these, we should be no more disturbed by them than by flies flying about, or the Rhine flowing along; these are no real hindrances to us, and no one here below* is quite free from them ; only it happens that by them some are more disturbed than others. --When the heart is full of the love of God," says St. Bernard, ''vain things no longer find any room in it." What w*e should do in such a case, is to drive out one nail by driving in another on top of it, which means the sinking deep into our heart of thoughts of Divine things, so as to drive out thoughts of vain things.

Finally, there are things which, in spite of their usefulness, are yet for us a hindrance. We meet with people who make as much anxiety and uneasiness for themselves as if the river Rhine flowed over their soul. Their heart never can enjoy a moment of calm. If they try to taste a little outward peace and rest, they are prevented by the multitude of thoughts and cares that trouble them, as the wind tosses the leaves of a tree. They cannot free their hearts of the things they have undertaken to do, and they carry them on with such struggles of mind, that they are never happy, and enjoy no interior peace. Beloved children, when one wishes for many things he loses unity. I know that there are men w*ho are quiet and restful by character. These more easily avoid these anxious preoccupations than the others do. But if men of a lively and eager disposition, had a little persistence in overcoming their restless nature, and would but do violence to themselves, thus conquering and winning peace of heart, they would become very superior to the others.

These unquiet and agitated souls should watch themselves closely and unremittingly; they should renounce and avoid all frivolity, put under the ban certain recreations and amusements, if they would reach a perfect way of life and fulfill God's will. Like brave and loyal knights, they should behave with honor on the field of battle and fight generously. They should break down nature, triumph over the images which usurp their mind, and act like a man who bas a chain entangled in his hair and cannot remove it without pain — cut off and cast away what enslaves them. If a schoolmaster had among his pupils a child who, instead of learning his lessons, went gadding about and playing, he would correct him once or twice ; then, if he saw that all this was useless, he would turn away from him and leave him to become what he willed. That is what our Saviour does with those wbom He has deigned to invite into His Divine school, that holy state in which one enjoys His familiar company, learns to love Him tenderly and tastes His sweetness. His disciples — these are members of communities or others who are striving for perfection ; his school — it is the spiritual life in which, by leaving the world, one frees himself from a multitude of sorrows and cares in order to love God sincerely and in the most perfect way, fixing one's glances ever upon God and oneself, and dying wholly to nature, to the senses, and to the world. There we are under the eyes of God ; He warns, punishes, strikes us; and if, in spite of this, we run away to play instead of attending to His lessons, He expels us from His school and gives us up to our own will. From that on warnings cease, and so do chastisements; and thus without love and, so to speak, without grace, yea, without God, we are content to live in a deceitful calm, for now our Master deigns no more to chide us, to strike us or to be concerned about us. O children, how disquieting and perilous is that state? Guard carefully against falling into it.

A spiritual man should long only for God, forgetting self and creatures, acting as worldlings do who, if they can but obtain the earthly goods for which they strive, are indifferent to the pleasure or pain it costs them. Our Lord complains that the children of light are less wise in seeking their ends than the children of darkness. A spiritual man should be so aflame with Divine fire, and become so Divine inwardly and outwardly, that we could only see God in him, and that no heart would be bo cold but it would be warmed in His company, as we see dead coals lighted up again by a burning one placed among them, receiving from it their light and heat. Be sure of this, children; there is not a single instant in which God does not pour into us some Divine influence, which we would plainly feel if we were but more attentive: for God is borne on by His nature to communicate Himself unceasingly, and all the nature of our spirit is formed to receive Him. God is all act, and the soul is all receptivity. The soul should be to God. who is our origin and our end, what the stream is to its fountainhead. But, alas, poor creatures that we are, we are ever going out of ourselves and remaining in the life of the senses! Therein we deceive and injure ourselves, even though we know that Jesus Christ has said : "God is a spirit, and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth" (John iii, 24), and, therefore, not externally alone with the senses and the imagination.

But do not fancy that I wish to strip thee of all images ; there is one which I would engrave deeply in thy soul. Enter, then, into thy interior, and from thence take thy flight, even to the heart of God; there possess thyself of that supreme image which is eternally being formed, and which God is ever drawing forth from the abyss of His Divinity, namely, Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son. Go yet deeper into that Divine abyss in order to sink that ravishing image yet further down into the depths of thy being, as if in a mirror, until it penetrates all the powers of thy soul. Whether thou dost walk or stand still, dost eat or drink, sleep or wake, let not that beloved image be absent one instant from thy mind and thy imagination. According to it, guide and arrange all thy being and ail thy life, whether inward or outward. Do as a painter does who would copy a masterpiece; at every touch of his brush his eye is carefully fixed on the model before him, which he reproduces as exactly as he possibly can.

Enter thou, therefore, into the Divine depths; contemplate there unceasingly that Divine and enrapturing image and all that it has received of the Father, and make after that picture the copy thou desirest; fix thy gaze upon both its Divinity and its holy humanity; studv its humility and kindness; but stav not for anv fixed form ; rather elevate thyself above all forms and use them all vaguely, according to circnmstances, having everywhere and always thy mirror before thy eyes, as well amid the throngs of men as alone in solitude. If thou art even the busy porter of a convent, or occupied in other outward works.

let that sweet image be none the less familiar to thee than if thou wert seated quietly in thy chamber or in the church ; act and speak as if thou wert ever in its presence. When thou eatest, moisten each mouthful with the precious blood of the heart of Jesus; if thou drinkest, think that it is He who giveth thee His blood to drink out of His sacred wounds; if thou sleepest, rest upon His bleeding heart; if thou speakest, realize that He is very close to thee and hears thy words, that He is present with thee and sees all thy movements and all thy thoughts, and thus busy thyself in the contemplation of this Divine model.

And He will draw thee yet further, and will lift thee up to that image without form, without mode, which nothing can picture or describe as it is revealed to devout souls interiorly. Go ever onward and upward, for whosoever halts and sits down before God has ordered him to do so, shall be expelled from his place. Sometimes we have many purposes in our mind, and when that is the case we lose unity with God- Formerly and in happier times a master of spiritual life saiu: "Watch well the depths of the soul, what works and observances raise thee up most quickly to that Divine image above all forms, and choose them instead of others, until thou shalt be stripped of thyself and of all images and absorbed into the Divine being." May God grant us that grace. Amen.