5. A generally admitted custom can and even should be followed in all indifferent matters; but no custom, however universal it may be, can ever have the power to change the nature and essence of things or render allowable that which is in itself indecent and immodest. Were it otherwise, many sins could be justified by the sanction they receive in fashionable society. Remember, therefore, that the sin of others can never in the sight of G.o.d authorize yours, and that where it is the fashion to sin it is likewise the fashion to go to h.e.l.l. Hence it rests with yourself whether you prefer to be saved with the few or to be d.a.m.ned with the many.
XXIII.
HUMAN RESPECT.
I will pay my vows to the Lord before all his people.... Lo, I will not restrain my lips.... I have not concealed thy mercy and thy truth from a great council. (Psalms CXV. and x.x.xIX.)
That which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops....
Whosoever shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. (St. Matthew, c. X., vv. 27-32.)
1. Charity towards your neighbor, tolerance for his opinions, indulgence for his defects, compa.s.sion for his errors, yes; but no cowardly and guilty concessions to human respect. Never allow fear of the ridicule or contempt of men to make you blush for your faith.
2. We are not even forbidden to call one human weakness to the a.s.sistance of another that is contrary to it: men do not like to contradict themselves, and they dread to be considered fickle. Well, then, in order that no person may be ignorant of the fact that you are a christian, once for all boldly confess your faith and your firm resolve to practise it, and let it be known that in all your actions your sole desire is to seek the glory of G.o.d and the good of your neighbor. Let this profession be made upon occasion in a gentle and modest manner, but firmly and positively; and you will find that subsequently it will be much easier for you to continue what you have thus courageously begun. (Read Chapters I. and II., IVth Part of the _Introduction to a Devout Life_.)
XXIV.
RESOLUTIONS.
Long-standing custom will make resistance, but by a better habit shall it be subdued. (_Imitation_, B. III., c. XII.)
To him who shall overcome, I will grant to sit with me in my throne, as I also have overcome. (Apocalypse, c. III., v. 21.)
1. We should not undertake to perfect ourselves upon all points at once; resolutions as to details ought to be made and carried out one by one, directing them first against our predominant pa.s.sion.
2. By a predominant pa.s.sion we mean the source of that sin to which we oftenest yield and from which spring the greater number of our faults.
3. In order to attack it successfully it is essential to make use of strategy. It must be approached little by little, besieged with great caution as if it were the stronghold of an enemy, and the outposts taken one after another.
4. For example, if your ruling pa.s.sion be anger, simply propose to yourself in the beginning never to speak when you feel irritated. Renew this resolution two or three times during the day and ask G.o.d"s pardon for every time you have failed against it.
5. When the results of this first resolution shall have become a habit, so that you no longer have any difficulty in keeping it, you can take a step forward. Propose, for instance, to repress promptly every thought capable of agitating you, or of arousing interior anger; afterwards you can adopt the practice of meeting without annoyance persons who are naturally repugnant to you; then of being able to treat with especial kindness those of whom you have reason to complain. Finally, you will learn to see in all things, even in those most painful to nature, the will of G.o.d offering you opportunities to acquire merit; and in those who cause you suffering, only the instruments of this same merciful providence. You will then no longer think of repulsing or bewailing them, but will bless and thank your divine Saviour for having chosen you to bear with Him the burden of His cross, and for deigning to hold to your lips the precious chalice of His pa.s.sion.
6. Some saints recommend us to make an act of hope or love or to perform some act of mortification when we discover that we have failed to keep our resolutions. This practice is good, but if you adopt it do not consider it of obligation nor bind yourself so strictly to it as to suppose you have committed a sin when you neglect it.
7. It is by this progressive method that you can at length succeed in entirely overcoming your pa.s.sions, and will be able to acquire the virtues you lack. Always begin with what is easiest. Choose at first external acts over which the will has greater control, and in time you can advance from these, little by little, to the most interior and difficult details of the spiritual life.
8. Resolutions of too general a character, such as, for example, to be always moderate in speech, always patient, chaste, peaceable and the like, ordinarily do not amount to much and sometimes to nothing at all.
9. To undertake little at a time, and to pursue this little with perseverance until one has by degrees brought it to perfection, is a common rule of human prudence. The saints particularly recommend us to apply it to the subject of our resolutions.
XXV.
CONCLUSION.
But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and which have been committed to thee; knowing of whom thou hast learned them. (St.
Paul, II Tim., c. III., v. 14.)
1. The writer of these instructions makes no pretension to have derived them from his own wisdom. The material was furnished him by the greatest saints and the most eminent doctors of the Church. You can therefore believe in them with great confidence, follow them without fear and adopt them as a safe and reliable guide in your spiritual life.
2. If you try to regulate your practice by making personal and indiscriminate application of everything you find in sermons and books you will never be at rest. _One draws you to the right, the other to the left_, says Saint Francis de Sales: doctrine is one, but its applications are many, and they vary according to time, place and person. Besides, those who speak to a hardened mult.i.tude, from whom they cannot get even a little without exacting a great deal, insist vehemently upon the subject with which they wish to impress their hearers and for the time being appear to forget everything else. If they preach on mortification of the senses, fasting, or any other penitential work, they fail to explain the proper manner of practising it, the limits that should not usually be exceeded and the circ.u.mstances under which we can and should refrain from it. This is due to the fact that the cowardly and the lukewarm, whom it is more necessary to excite than to restrain, will take from these instructions only just what is suitable for them. Now as these form the majority, it is for them above all that it is necessary to speak.
3. It would then be better for you individually, without lessening your respect and esteem for books of devotion and for preachers animated by the spirit of G.o.d, to confine yourself as far as practice is concerned to the advice of your director and to the teachings of the saints as presented in this little volume.
4. Recall what has been already said, that Saint Francis de Sales counsels you to select your spiritual guide from among ten thousand, and to allow yourself subsequently to be entirely directed by him as though he were an angel come down from heaven to conduct you there.
5. Without this rule of firm and confident obedience, books and sermons and all that is said and written for the mult.i.tude, will become for you a source of fatiguing inquietude, and of doubts and fears, owing to the fact that you will try to a.s.similate things which were not intended for you.
6. Remember, moreover, the pleasant saying of Saint Philip de Neri,-namely, that he had a special predilection for those books the authors of which had a name beginning with the letter S.; that is to say, the works of the saints, because he supposed them to be more illumined by heavenly wisdom.
Now, in observing these instructions you will have for guide and director not the poor sinner who has compiled them for the glory of G.o.d and the good of souls, but Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas, Saint Philip de Neri and especially Saint Francis de Sales, in whom the Church recognizes and admires such exalted sanct.i.ty, profound wisdom, and rare experience in the direction of souls. These are the three eminent qualities requisite to const.i.tute a great doctor in the Catholic Church, and to form the safest and the most enlightened guide for those who wish to be his disciples.
ADDITIONS.
FINAL ADVICE IN REGARD TO HOLY COMMUNION.
A cause of frequent error and trouble, particularly in regard to Holy Communion, is that feelings are confused with acts of the will. The faculty of willing is the only one we possess as our own, the only one we can use freely and at all times. Hence it follows that it is by the will alone that we can in reality acquire merit or commit sin. The natural virtues are gratuitous gifts of G.o.d. The world is right in esteeming them for they come from Him, but it errs when it esteems them exclusively for they do not of themselves give us any t.i.tle to heaven. G.o.d has placed them at the disposal of our will as means to an end, and we can make a good or bad use of them just as we can of all G.o.d"s other gifts. We may be deprived of these natural virtues and live by the will alone, spiritually dry and devoid of sentiment, and yet in a state of intimate union with G.o.d.
This explanation is intended to rea.s.sure such persons as are disposed to feel anxious when they find nothing in their hearts to correspond with the effusions of sensible love with which books of devotion abound in the preparation for Holy Communion. These usually make the mistake of taking for granted the invariable existence of sentiment, and of addressing it exclusively. How many souls do we not see who in consequence grow alarmed about their condition, believing they are devoid of grace notwithstanding their firm will to shun sin and to please G.o.d! They should, however, not give way to anxiety, nor exhaust themselves by vain efforts to excite in their hearts a sensibility that G.o.d has not given them. When He has granted us this gift we owe Him homage for it as for all others; but G.o.d only requires that each of His creatures should render an account of what he has received, and free-will is the one thing that has been accorded indiscriminately to all men. Thus we find Saint Francis de Sales, who possessed in such a high degree sensible love of G.o.d and all the natural virtues, making this positive declaration: "The greatest proof we can have in this life that we are in the grace of G.o.d, is not sensible love of Him, but the firm resolution never to consent to any sin great or small."
Pious persons can make use of the following prayers with profit when they are habitually or accidentally in the condition described above. They will then see how the will alone, without the aid of feeling, can produce acts of all the christian virtues.
Act of Confidence.
I will go unto the altar of G.o.d. (Ps. XLII.)
It is obedience, O my G.o.d! that leads me to Thy Holy Table: the tender words by which Thou hast invited us would not have sufficed to draw me, for in the troubled state of my soul I cannot be sure they are addressed to me. Misery and infirmity are claims for admission to Thy Feast, but nothing can dispense from the nuptial garment. Therefore when I turn my eyes on myself, after having raised them to Thee, I doubt, I hesitate, I tremble; for if I go from Thee I flee from life, and if I approach unworthily, to my other sins I add the crime of sacrilege.[27] But Thy merciful wisdom, O my G.o.d, whilst foreseeing our every need, has foreseen all our weaknesses and has prepared helps for us against both presumption and distrust. For if Thou hast not willed that, certain of Thy grace, we should ever advance with the a.s.surance of the Pharisee and say like him: I come to the altar of the Lord because I know I am just in His eyes: neither hast Thou permitted that a sacrament of love should become for us a torture and an unavoidable snare. I therefore obey, O my G.o.d, and in the darkness that envelops me I wish to follow implicitly the guidance of him whom Thou hast appointed to lead me to Thee. I shall approach the Holy Table without wishing for any other warrant than the words spoken by my confessor, or rather by Thee: _You may receive Holy Communion_. I accept, O my G.o.d!-be it a well merited punishment or a salutary trial,-this privation of light and sensible devotion, this coldness and distraction, which accompany me even into Thy presence when all the faculties of my soul should be absorbed and confounded in sentiments of adoration and of love. Faith, hope and charity seem to be extinct in my heart, but I know that Thou never withdrawest these virtues when we do not voluntarily renounce them.
Act of Faith.
Notwithstanding, then, the doubts that cross my mind, _I wish to believe_, O my G.o.d! and _I do believe_ all that Thy holy Church has taught me. I have not forgotten that brilliant light of Faith which Thou didst cause to illumine my soul in the days of mercy in order that the precious remembrance of it should serve me as support in the days of trial and temptation.
Act of Hope.