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This week we are continuing Saint Francis’ Treatise on the Love of God with book 8, chapter 11, “Of
The Union Of Our Will With God’s In The Inspirations Which Are Given
For The Extraordinary Practice Of Virtues; And Of Perseverance In One’s
Vocation, The First Mark Of Inspiration.”
There are certain inspirations which tend only to an extraordinary perfection of the ordinary exercises of the Christian life.
Charity towards the sick
poor is an ordinary exercise of true Christians; but an ordinary
exercise which was practised by S. Francis and S. Catharine with an
extraordinary perfection, when they licked and sucked the ulcers of the
leprous and the cancerous; and by the glorious S. Louis, when bare-head
and upon his knees he served the sick; – at which a Cistercian abbot was
lost in admiration, seeing him in this posture handle and dress the
horrible and cancerous sores of a poor wretch.
And it was also a very
extraordinary exercise of this holy monarch to serve the most abject and
vile of the poor at his table, and to eat their leavings. S. Jerome
entertaining in his hospital at Bethlehem the pilgrims of Europe who
fled from the persecution of the Goths, did not only wash their feet,
but descended even so low as to wash and rub the legs of their camels,
imitating Rebecca whom we just mentioned, who not only drew water for
Eliezer, but for his camels also.
S. Francis was not only
extreme in the practice of poverty, as is known to all, but was equally
so in the practice of simplicity. He redeemed a lamb which he feared was
going to be slaughtered, because it represented our Saviour. He showed
respect to almost all creatures, contemplating in them their Creator, by
an unusual yet most wise simplicity. Sometimes he would busy himself
with removing worms from the road, lest passers by should trample them
under their feet, remembering that our Saviour had compared himself to
the worm. He called creatures his brothers and sisters, by a certain
admirable consideration which love suggested unto him.
S. Alexius, a gentle man
of very noble descent, practised in an excellent manner the abjection of
himself, living unknown for the space of seventeen years in his
father’s house at Rome as a poor pilgrim.
All these inspirations
were for ordinary exercises, practised, however, with extraordinary
perfection. Now, in this kind of inspiration we are to observe the rules
which we gave for desires in our Introduction. We must not strive to
practise many exercises at once, and upon a sudden, for the enemy often
tries to make us undertake and begin many designs, to the end that
overwhelmed with the multiplicity of business we may accomplish nothing,
but leave all unfinished: yea, sometimes he suggests the desire of
undertaking some excellent work which he foresees we shall not
accomplish, in order to turn us from prosecuting a work less excellent
which we should have performed; for he cares not how many purposes,
plans and beginnings be made, so long as nothing is done.
He will not hinder the
bringing forth of male children, any more than Pharao did, provided that
before they grow they are slain. On the contrary, says the great S.
Jerome, amongst Christians it is not so much the beginning as the end
that is regarded. We must not swallow so much food as to be unable to
digest what we take. The deceiving spirit makes us stay in beginnings,
and content ourselves with the flowery spring-time, but the Divine
Spirit makes us regard beginnings only in order to attain the end, and
only makes us rejoice in the flowers of spring in the expectation of
enjoying the ripe fruits of summer and autumn.
The great S. Thomas is of
opinion that it is not expedient to consult and deliberate much
concerning an inclination to enter a good and well-regulated religious
Order; for the religious life being counselled by our Saviour in the
Gospel, what need is there of many consultations?
It is sufficient to make
one good one, with a few persons who are thoroughly prudent and capable
in such an affair, and who can assist us to make a speedy and solid
resolution; but as soon as we have once deliberated and resolved,
whether in this matter or in any other that appertains to God’s service,
we must be constant and immovable, not permitting ourselves to be
shaken by any appearances of a greater good: for very often, says the
glorious S. Bernard, the devil deludes us, and to draw us from the
effecting of one good he proposes unto us some other good, that seems
better; and after we have started this, he, in order to divert us from
effecting it, presents a third, ready to let us make plenty of
beginnings if only we do not make an end. We should not even go from one
Order to another without very weighty motives, says S. Thomas,
following the Abbot Nestorius cited by Cassian.
I borrow from the great S.
Anselm (writing to Lanzo) a beautiful similitude. As a plant often
transplanted can never take root, nor, consequently, come to perfection
and return the expected fruit; so the soul that transplants her heart
from design to design cannot do well, nor come to the true growth of her
perfection, since perfection does not consist in beginnings but in
accomplishments. The sacred living creatures of Ezechiel went whither
the impulse of the spirit was to go, and they turned not when they went,
and every one of them went straight forward: we are to go whither the
inspiration moves us, not turning about, nor returning back, but tending
thither, whither God has turned our face, without changing our gaze. He
that is in a good way, let him step out and get on.
It happens sometimes that
we forsake the good to seek the better, and that having forsaken the one
we find not the other: better is the possession of a small treasure
found, than the expectation of a greater which is to find. The
inspiration which moves us to quit a real good which we enjoy in order
to gain a better in the future, is to be suspected.
A young Portuguese, called
Francis Bassus, was admirable, not only in divine eloquence but also in
the practice of virtue, under the discipline of the Blessed (S.) Philip
Neri in the Congregation of the Oratory at Rome. Now he persuaded
himself that he was inspired to leave this holy society, to place
himself in an Order, strictly so called, and at last he resolved to do
so. But the B. Philip, assisting at his reception into the Order of S.
Dominic, wept bitterly; whereupon being asked by Francis Marie Tauruse,
afterwards Archbishop of Siena and Cardinal, why he shed tears: I
deplore, said he, the loss of so many virtues. And in fact this young
man, who was so excellently good and devout in the Congregation, after
he became a religious was so inconstant and fickle, that agitated with
various desires of novelties and changes, he gave afterwards great and
grievous scandal.
If the fowler go straight
to the partridge’s nest, she will show herself, and counterfeit weakness
and lameness, and, raising herself up as though she would take a great
flight, will immediately tumble down, as if she were able to do no more,
in order that the fowler being busied in looking after her, and
expecting easily to take her, may not light on her little ones in the
nest; but when he has pursued her a while, and fancies he has her, she
rises into the air and escapes.
So our enemy, seeing a man
by God’s inspiration undertake a profession and manner of life fitted
for his advancement in heavenly love, persuades him to enter into some
other way, more perfect in appearance; but having put him out of his
first way, he makes him by little and little apprehend the second way
impossible, proposing a third; that so keeping him occupied in the
continual inquiry for various and new means of perfecting himself, he
may hinder him from making use of any, and consequently from attaining
the end he seeks, which is perfection.
Young hounds leave the
pack at every new scent, and make after the fresh quarry; the old and
wellscented hounds never change, but keep the scent they are on. Let
every one then, having once found out God’s holy will touching his
vocation, keep to it holily and lovingly, practising therein its proper
exercises, according to the order of discretion and with the zeal of
perfection.
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