84. Renewal of Spirit — Sormon for the Eighteenth Sunday After Trinity

Synopsis — Patience a very interior virtue — Meekness closely allied to patience — Peace with God is won by absolute abandonment to Him — This is sometimes an exceedingly hard trial.

SECOND SERMON FOR SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

As a prisoner in the Lord, I beseech you that you walk worthily of the vocation in which you are called, with all humility and mildness, with patience, supporting one another in charity, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one Spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling. — Eph. iv, 1-5.

These holy words should be constantly before every man's eyes. We should never forget the apostle's admonition to realize the sanctity of our vocation, and we should be true to it in all humility, mildness, and patience, meanwhile bearing with one another's shortcomings in all brotherly love. I exhort all of you by the love you bear to God, to cultivate these virtues with great earnestness; for all good works depend on them, even those attached to receiving the adorable sacrament; namely, humility, mildness, patience and brotherly love.

But one will never acquire them except by suffering contradictions. If a man meditates on how humble he would be if he were oppressed, and if he imagines how patient he would be if he were persecuted — that amounts to nothing, it easily drops out of the soul, it is artificial virtue. But when one is actually shamed and dishonored by works and deeds, and forthwith in all affection and meekness looks about to do some special favor to the one who has injured him : and when in return for his gentle kindness his enemy spits in his face, and yet he continues to serve him — this is indeed meekness. Meekness and patience must be won by hard fighting; for how am I to be patient if no man reviles me? And as patience mostly concerns our bearing outward injuries, so is meekness rooted mainly in interior self denial. Suppose that I am proclaimed a lying teacher, and that I am covered with reproach and shame and my teaching condemned as false, and a friend of mine should be deeply pained at this; should not bis sympathy seem to me like doing me a wrong? For does he not seek to lessen my good fortune in having the opportunity to practise patience? I ought not to love him the better for his condolence but rather the less. How unworthy a Christian should I not be, if I were not willing to walk in the footsteps of my Lord and God, whose whole life and. teaching was so shamefully falsified and brought to nought in the hearts of men. Hence my earnest entreaty to you that you should suffer gently and patiently all shame, and tribulation, and all painful inflictions of what kind soever, bearing with one another's faults in universal love.

Now St. Paul says: Be "careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." And the virtues we have been praising are a true bond, binding all into oneness of spirit in holy peace. And how shall we attain to oneness with God's spirit? The exercises of religion for that end are best placed in the later hours of the night when the winter season prolongs the time of darkness. Go to thy rest early in the evening, if thou wilt seriously endeavor after this holy state, so that being refreshed with sleep thou mayst be able to rise after mid night, search thy innermost motives in holy prayer, making manifest to thy conscience every love thou dost cherish, revealing to thyself every habit of thy mind; and then directing all thy life into conformity with the life of our Lord. And if thou findest no special grace in this, then in God's name, renounce once more all sense of ownership in thy spiritual practices, and devote thyself earnestly to meditating on the passion and death of our Lord, adoring His precious blood and His sacred wounds. By this shall one endeavor to arouse his love, and herein shall his inner life be made manifest to him ; for as a great heap of coals or wood blazes up into a great fire, so shall this pious practice inflame one's heart. But let a man soon dispense with the figures of his imagination, and with fiery love penetrate through the middle ground of his spirit into its hidden interior. Such a man now works not but God works within him, God alone, in whose hands he rests passive. And yet his former good pious practices still profit ably linger in his soul, and light shines upon him from our Lord's passion ; he feels the bitterness of sorrow for his sins ; he prays as before for the living and the dead ; but all this must now be cast deep into God in great nudity and singleness of spirit. And when the rays of divine light have broken a way into this soul, thus all noble, almost passive under God, then comes essential Truth, namely, God, and draws the spirit into Himself. And His beams are swift as lightning, yea, swift as angels' flights between earth and heaven, whose speed is above that of the lightning. Nor does even this rightly tell how swift and bright are the rays of God's love and truth in the soul's inner life, winning and absorbing the soul, which must refer all back again to God, and be at one with Him.

Here is indeed the true adorer, that adores God in spirit and in truth (John iv, 23). Here true peace is born, and those virtues that lead to it, of which we have been discoursing, and now a struggle commences. For poor human nature is so wasted and weakened as to seem to have lost itself. Then the soul feels like saying to itself: God have mercy on thee, what has become of thy good pious practices? Why is thy psalm singing silenced? This poor man would have something, know something, love something of created existence; and ere these three somethings have faded from his mind, his natural forces are exhausted. All this does not happen in a day; the long combat must be patiently fought out; the soul must exert continually an eager zeal for its sanctification and gradually grow accustomed to conflict; and so win its new spiritual strength ; until at last it becomes like the saints, happy and triumphant in its trials : "Afflicted in few things, in many they shall be well rewarded" (Wis. iii, 5). And, as St. Bernard tells us, when nature is at last put totally to death, the soul shall address our Lord words of tenderest love: O love, only love of my heart! Would that I were worthy of a place among Thy best loved and could embrace Thee fast and firm in my soul's embrace, and Thou me in Thy deepest Spirit, and that I might never lose Thee more! — words uttered from the innermost consciousness of the heart.

Dear children, turn to God with all your heart, and do it in any approved way whatsoever, for the way that is given thee by God's providence, that is the way that leads to Him. Whatever devotion attracts thee, follow it faithfully, noting carefully beforehand whatsoever gives thee the most grace. Be sure that a single sweep of thy mind upon the wings of love, into the wounds of Christ, is worth more to God than all bell ringing and organ playing and fine singing and gorgeous vestments in the world. Dear children, if you will but turn to God earnestly, and with your inmost soul, then will your temptations cease, and with them will cease your scrupulous pestering of your father confessor. All will soon be well ordered by your more interior devotional spirit, which gives a clear knowledge of our imperfections, and a humble avowal of them to God; so that when one goes to confession, one can hardly think of anything to tell. May God help us to all this, so that we may devoutly follow our Lord in the practise of virtue. Amen.