But God, in His goodness, reveals Himself, in a certain manner, through His saints, and even through fervent souls. In this way, the supernatural filters through and becomes visible to the faithful, who are thus able to apprehend something of the mystery of God.
How does this diffusion of the supernatural come about? It is the visible brilliance of sanctity, the shining-forth of that divine influx which theology commonly calls sanctifying grace; or, better still perhaps, we may say it is the result of the unutterable presence of the Divine Persons within those whom They sanctify.
St. Basil gave it precisely this explanation. When the Holy Spirit, he said, unites Himself to the souls purified by His grace, He does so in order to make them still more spiritual. Just as the sunlight makes the crystal upon which it falls, and which it penetrates, more sparkling and bright, so too the sanctifying Spirit fills the souls in which He dwells with light, and, as a result of His presence, they become blazing fires, spreading all around them grace and charity.
De Spiritu Sancto, ix, 23.
The manifestation of the Divine which showed itself in every movement, and even in the repose of the Man-God, can also be perceived in certain souls gifted with an intense interior life. The amazing conversions which some saints were able to effect merely by the fame of their virtues, and the groups of aspirants to perfection that attached themselves to them, proclaim loudly enough the secret of their silent apostolate. St. Anthony caused the deserts of Egypt to become filled with men. St. Benedict was the reason why an unnumbered army of holy monks rose up to civilize Europe. St. Bernard’s influence, throughout the Church, both upon rulers and their people, was something unparalleled. St. Vincent Ferrer was greeted, wherever he went, by the wild enthusiasm of huge crowds of people; and what is more, he converted them. There rose up such an army of valiant saints in the wake of St. Ignatius Loyola that one of them, all by himself, St. Xavier, was enough to save the souls of an incredible number of pagans. The only thing that can explain these wonders is the power of God Himself, radiated through His human instruments.
It is a terrible misfortune when there is not to be found one really interior soul among all those at the head of important Catholic projects. Then it seems as though the supernatural had undergone an eclipse, and the power of God were in chains. And the saints teach us that, when this happens, a whole nation may tall into a decline, and Providence will seem to have given evil men a free hand to do all the harm they desire.
Make no mistake, there is a sort of instinct by which souls, without clearly defining what it is they sense, are aware of this radiation of the supernatural.
What else would bring the sinner, of his own accord, to cast himself at the feet of the priest and ask pardon, recognizing God Himself in His representative? On the other hand, it was when the full conception of sanctity ceased to be the necessary ideal of a minister of a certain Christian sect, that this sect found itself, infallibly, abolishing confession.
“John, indeed, did no sign.”
Joannes quidem signum fecit nullum (Joan. 10:41).
Without working a single miracle, John the Baptist attracted great crowds. St. John Vianney had a voice so weak that it could not reach most of those in the crowd that surged around him. But if people could hardly hear him, they saw him; they saw a living monstrance of God, and the mere sight of him overwhelmed those who were there, and converted them.
A lawyer had just returned from Ars. Someone asked him what it was that had impressed him. He said: “I have seen God in a man.”
Perhaps we may be permitted to sum all this up in a rather commonplace comparison. It is a familiar experiment with electricity. Put a man on an insulating stool, and then establish contact between him and an electric machine. His body becomes charged with electricity, and as soon as anyone else touches him, he gives off a spark and shocks the one who has contacted him. It is the same with a man of prayer. Once he is detached from creatures, a continous flow is established between him and Christ, an uninterrupted current. The apostle becomes an accumulator of supernatural life, and condenses, in himself, a divine current which is diversified and adapted to the conditions and all the needs of the sphere in which he is working. “Virtue went out from Him and healed all.”
Virtus de illo exibat et sanabat omnes (Luc. 6:19).
His words and acts become mere emanations of this latent power: but the power itself is supremely efficient in overcoming every obstacle, obtaining conversions, and increasing fervor.
The more a man’s soul is filled with the theological virtues, the more such emanations will bring these same virtues to life in other souls.
THE INTERIOR LIFE MAKES THE APOSTLE RADIATE FAITH.
Those who hear him realize that God is present within him.
He follows the example of St. Bernard, of whom it was said: “Taking with him, wherever he went, the solitude of his own heart, he was everywhere alone.”
Solitudinem cordis circumferens, ubique solus erat.
And so he keeps apart from others, and in order to do so he creates a hermitage within himself, but it is easy to see that he is not all by himself in this retreat and that he has, in his heart, a mysterious and familiar Guest, and that he goes within, at every moment, to commune with Him, and that he does not talk until he has received. His directions, His advice, His orders. We are made to feel that he is sustained and guided by Him and that the words uttered by his lips are simply a faithful echo of those of this interior Word: “as the Words of God.”
Quasi Sermones Dei (1 Ptr. 4:11).
And thus what is made manifest by his speech is not so much the logic and conviction of his arguments as the interior Word, the Verbum docens, speaking through His creature. “The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. But the Father Who abideth in me, He doth the work.”
Verba quae ego loquor vobis, a meipso non loquor. Pater autem in me manens ipse facit opera (Joan. 14:10).
The effects of such speech will be deep and enduring indeed, far deeper than the superficial admiration or passing burst of devotion that can be aroused in others by a man without the interior spirit. Such a one can move his hearer to declare that what he says is true and interesting. But that only indicates a state of mind in itself powerless to lead to supernatural faith, or to make that faith live in the soul.
Brother Gabriel, the Trappist lay brother, did much more to revive the faith of numerous visitors to his monastery merely by carrying out his duties as assistant to the guest master,
His life is published under the title: “Du Champ de Bataille à la Trappe.” Bro. Gabriel had been a captain of dragoons in the Franco-Prussian war. In 1870, at the battle of Gravelotte, he made a vow to enter the Trappists, as a lay brother. The duties of assistant to the guest master are the simple ones of washing dishes, waiting on table, making beds, and so on: but those in this position are allowed to speak with the guests.
than could have been done by a learned priest whose words might appeal more to the mind than to the heart. General Miribel frequently came to converse with the humble brother, and used to say: “I came here to revive my faith.”
Never has there been so much preaching, and arguing, or such a spate of learned works of apologetics as in our day, and yet never, at least as far as the bulk of the faithful is concerned, has the faith been so dead. Those whose job it is to teach too often seem to see nothing in the act of faith but an act of the intellect; but as a matter of fact the will also has a large part in it. They forget that belief is a supernatural gift, and that there is a deep gulf between merely seeing the motives of credibility and making a definite act of faith. This gulf can be bridged by God alone, together with the will of the one who is being instructed: but the divine light reflected by the sanctity of the instructor is of immense assistance in accomplishing this task.
HE RADIATES HOPE.
It would be impossible for a man of prayer not to radiate hope. By his faith, he is unshakably fixed in the conviction that happiness is to be found in God, and in Him alone. And so, with what persuasive accents does he speak of heaven, and what power he has to console the sorrowful! The best way to get men to listen to you is to hold out to them the secret of carrying the Cross, which is the lot of every mortal, with joy. This secret lies in the Eucharist and in the hope of Heaven.
What life there is in the words of consolation uttered by a man who can say, in all truth, that his “conversation is in Heaven.”
Nostra conversatio in coelis est (Phil. 3:20).
Someone else may, perhaps, display finer phrases and more fancy rhetoric in talking about the joys of our heavenly home: all his speeches will fall flat. But the interior soul, with a few convincing words that reveal the state of mind of him who utters them, will be able to calm the grief, soothe the sorrow felt by our souls, and help us to accept the keenest suffering with resignation.
And thus the virtue of hope goes forth from this man of prayer and communicates itself irresistibly to a soul who had perhaps never felt its warmth before, and who was about to sink into the depths of despair.
HE RADIATES CHARITY.
The chief ambition of a soul that aspires to sanctity is to possess charity. The interpenetration of Jesus and the soul, the state expressed in the words: “he that abideth in Me and I in him,” is the end that every man of interior life has in view.
Experienced preachers are unanimous in declaring that although the introductory sermons on death, judgment, and hell are indispensable and always salutary in a retreat or mission, the sermon on the love of Our Lord generally does more good. When it is preached by a true missionary, who is able to make his hearers share in the sentiments with which he is filled, it is a guarantee of success and leads to many conversions.
When there is question of detaching a soul from sin or of leading one from fervor to perfection, the love of Christ is always the best means of all. A Christian who has sunk deep into the mire, yet who is able to sense, in another, the presence of a burning love enkindled by invisible realities, and who, on the other hand, considers the deception and hollowness of earthly loves, begins to feel intense disgust at sin. He has understood something of God, something of Christ’s immense love for His creatures. He feels within himself the stirrings of the latent grace of his Baptism and first Communion. Christ has appeared to him, living and real, for the love of His Heart has shown itself through His minister’s countenance and voice. The sinner has caught a glimpse of another kind of love, one that is pure, ardent, and noble, and he has said to himself: “So it is possible, after all, to love, on this earth, with a love that transcends the love of creatures!”
Yet a few more intimate manifestations of the God of Love through His herald, and the soul will emerge from the mire in which it was held fast, and will no longer fear the sacrifices that must be made to acquire the love of God, which, up until that time, had been something almost unknown in its life.
Though this is not the place to develop this idea further, one may easily see what great increase of love, and therefore what progress, a true pastor will be able to effect in souls that have already emerged from sin, or have become fervent. Even those workers in Catholic Action who are not ordained priests will be able, by their ardent charity, to cause this, the highest of theological virtues, to spring to life all around them.
HE RADIATES KINDNESS.
“A zeal that is not charitable,” says St. Francis de Sales, “comes from a charity that is not genuine.”
Un zèle qui n’est pas charitable vient d’une charité qui n’est pas véritable.
When a soul tastes, in prayer, the delights of One whom the Church calls an “ocean of kindness,” bonitatis oceanus, it will soon undergo a great transformation. Even if a man is naturally disposed to egotism and unkindness, all these defects will vanish little by little. If he nourishes his soul upon Him in whom appeared the “goodness and kindness of God our Savior,”
Benignitas et humanitas apparuit Salvatoris nostri Dei (Titus 3:4).
to the world, upon Him who is the Image and adequate expression of the divine Goodness (imago bonitatisillius),
Sap. 7:26.
the apostle will share in the bounty of God and will feel the need to be, like God, “diffusivus,” spreading kindness.
The more a soul is united to Christ, the more it shares in the dominant quality of the Divine and Human Heart of the Redeemer—His kindness. In such a soul forbearance, benevolence, compassion are all multiplied beyond belief and his generosity and self-sacrifice may be carried to the limits of joyful and magnanimous immolation.
Transfigured by divine love, the apostle will have no trouble in winning the sympathy of souls. “In the goodness and readiness of his soul he was pleasing.”
In bonitate et alacritate animae suae placuit (Eccl. 45:29).
His words and acts will be full of kindness, a kindness that is completely disinterested and has nothing in common with that which is inspired by a desire for popularity or by subtle egoism.
“God,” wrote Lacordaire, “has willed that no good should be done to man except by loving him, and that insensibility should be forever incapable either of giving him light, or inspiring him to virtue.” And the fact is that men take glory in resisting those who try to impose anything on them by force; they make it a point of honor to raise countless objections against the wisdom that aims at arguing everybody, all the time, around to its own point of view. But because there is no humiliation involved in allowing oneself to be disarmed by kindness, men are quite willing to yield to the attraction of its advances.
The Little Sister of the Poor, the Little Sister of the Assumption, the Sister of Charity would be able to tell us of a host of conversions brought about without any arguing, merely by the power of a tireless and often heroic kindness.
The unbeliever, in the presence of such self-sacrifice, exclaims: “God is there. I can see Him, and see that He is what He is called: ‘the good God.’ He would have to be good, if living with Him were to be enough to make so frail a creature as man trample his own self-love under his feet and silence his most legitimate repugnances.”
These angels of this earth fulfill the definition of Fr. Faber: “Kindness is the overflow of self on others. To be kind is to put others in one’s place. Kindness has convinced more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning, and these three things have never converted anybody without kindness having something to do with it. In a word, kindness makes us as gods towards one another. It is the manifestation of this feeling in apostolic men which draws sinners to them and brings them thus to their conversion.”
Spiritual Conferences.
And he adds: “Everywhere kindness shows itself the best pioneer of the Precious Blood. . . . Without doubt the fear of the Lord is frequently the beginning of that wisdom which we call conversion: but we must frighten men kindly, for otherwise fear will only make infidels.”
“Have the heart of a mother,” says St. Vincent Ferrer, “whether you have to encourage souls or scare them, show to them a heart full of tender charity, and let the sinner feel that your language is inspired by it. If you want to be useful to souls, begin by appealing to God with all your heart, asking Him to fill you with charity which is the compendium of all the virtues, in order that by its means you may efficaciously attain the end you have in view.”
Traité dc la Vie Spirituelle, p. II, Ch. 10.
It is as far a call from natural kindness, which is nothing but the result of our temperament, to supernatural kindness, in the soul of an apostle, as it is from man to God. The former may arouse a certain respect, even sympathy for the minister of Christ, and sometimes it can even divert an affection that belongs to God alone and direct it to His creature. But it will never induce any soul to stir itself up, with a pure intention of pleasing God, to make the sacrifice that is necessary if it is to return to its Creator. Only the kindness that flows from a close friendship with Christ can achieve this result.
An ardent love of Christ and a true flair for saving souls will give an apostle all the daring compatible with tact and prudence. Here is a story that was told us directly by an eminent layman. On the occasion of a conversation with Pius X he chanced to let fall a few biting words against an enemy of the Church. “My son,” said the Pope, “I do not approve of the way you talk. For your penance, listen to this story. A priest I used to know very well had just arrived in his first parish. He thought it his duty to visit every family, including Jews, Protestants, and even Freemasons. Then he announced from the pulpit that he would repeat the visits every year. His confreres got very excited at this, and complained to the Bishop, and the Bishop, in turn, sent for the culprit and reprimanded him severely. ‘My Lord,’ answered the priest modestly, ‘Jesus orders his pastors, in the Gospel, to bring all His sheep into the fold, oportet illas adducere. How are we going to do that without going out after them? Besides, I never compromise on principles, and I confine myself to expressing my interest and my charity towards all the souls entrusted to me by God, even the ones that have gone furthest astray. I have announced from the pulpit that I would make these visits; if you formally desire me to give them up, please be good enough to give me this prohibition in writing, so that everybody may know that I am simply obeying your orders.’ Moved by the justice of this appeal, the Bishop did not insist. And in any case, the future proved that the priest was right, because he had the happiness to convert a few of these strays, and inspired all the others with a great respect for our holy religion. This humble parish priest, by the will of God, eventually became the Pope who is now giving you this lesson in charity, my son! Therefore, cling firmly to principles through thick and thin, but let your charity go out to all men, even the worst enemies of the Church.”
HE RADIATES HUMILITY.
It is easy to understand how the goodness and kindness of Christ attracted people to Him in crowds. Nor is there any doubt that they were just as powerfully drawn to Him by His humility.
“Without Me, you can do nothing.”
Sine me nihil potestis facere (Joan. 15:5).
The apostle, raised up by his Creator to the exalted position of collaborator, is destined to become an instrument in the performance of supernatural works, but only on the condition that Christ alone be seen as the One who does these works. The better the apostle knows how to keep out of the picture, and remain impersonal, the more surely will Christ show Himself. But without this impersonal quality, which is the fruit of the interior life, the apostle will plant and water his garden in vain, nothing will grow.
True humility has a special charm that comes directly from Christ. It has something of the divine in it. In proportion to the apostle’s zeal to efface himself and let Christ alone be seen as performing the work (“He must increase, but I must decrease”
Illum oportet crescere, me autem minui (Joan. 3:30).
Our Lord will give him a greater and greater power over the hearts of men.
That is how humility becomes one of the chief means of converting souls. “Believe me,” St. Vincent de Paul said to his priests, “we will never be any use in doing God’s work until we become thoroughly convinced that, of ourselves, we are better fitted to ruin everything than to make a success of it.”
The reader may perhaps be surprised to see us returning so often to the same ideas. But it seems to us that the only way to drive them home and firmly establish their importance in your minds is to keep on repeating them.
Is it not true that failure very often comes, largely, from a high-handed way of doing things, and airs of superiority?
The so-called “modern” Christian wants to preserve his independence. He will consent to obey God, all right: but God alone. And therefore he is only going to take orders, or direction, or even advice, from a minister of God when he is quite sure that the orders do come from God.
Consequently, the apostle has got to cultivate humility (and only the interior life will show him how) to the point of effacing himself and disappearing from view until those who look at him see right through him to God, so to speak. And thus he will carry out the Master’s words: “He that is the greatest among you shall be your servant. Be you not called Rabbi . . . neither be you called masters.”
Qui major est vestrum erit minister vester. Vos autem nolite vocari Rabbi . . . nec vocemini magistri (Matt. 23:8, 11).
The mere outward appearance of a man of prayer can teach men the science of living, that is, the science of prayer.
St. Augustine.
Why? Because his humility breathes the sweet fragrance of dependence on God. This dependence, which is the unvarying disposition of such a soul, manifests itself by a habit of recourse to God under every possible circumstance, either in order to come to some decision, or to seek consolation in all troubles, or else to obtain the strength to overcome them.
In the Common of Confessors not Pontiffs, in the Breviary, the priest reads St. Bede’s wonderful comment upon the words of the Gospel, “Fear not, little flock.”
Luke 12:32.
“The Savior,” he says, “calls the flock of the elect little either by comparison with the multitude of the reprobate, or, better still, because of their great zeal for humility, for no matter how great and extensive His Church may have become, He wills that she should ever grow in humility right up to the end of the world, and thus arrive at the Kingdom promised to the humble.”
Comm. Conf. non Pont., Alterae lectiones, III Noct. (From St. Bede’s Homilies on St. Luke’s Gospel, Bk. iv, Ch. 54).
This text draws its inspiration from the powerful lessons of Our Lord to His Apostles when, for instance, they wanted to turn their apostolic vocations to their own personal profit, and showed themselves so full of ambition and jealousy in their expressions of that desire! “You know,” He said, “that the princes of the gentiles lord it over them; and they that are the greater exercise power upon them. It shall not be so among you, but whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your master, and he that will be the first among you, shall be your servant.”
Matt. 20:25–27.
“But,” asks Bourdaloue, “would not that take away the power of authority? There will always be enough authority among you, if there is enough humility, and if humility is lost, authority will become an intolerable burden.”
If the apostle has not humility, he will go to one of two extremes. It will be either a matter of careless and excessive familiarity, with all its free-and-easy licenses, or else of domineering over everybody else. The latter case is the more likely.
Leaving questions of doctrine to one side, let us suppose that the apostle has enough sense to protect his mind from an unlimited tolerance on one hand and, on the other, from a harsh and bitter zeal of which the excesses would be very displeasing to God. Let us credit him with good, sane principles and correct knowledge. When all this has been granted, we still affirm that without humility, the apostle will not be able to hold a middle course between the two extremes, and that his behavior will either betray weakness or, more likely, overweening pride.
On the one hand, he will yield to a false humility and become timid, allowing the spirit of charity to degenerate into weakness. He will be ready to make any exaggerated concession, to seek conciliation at any price, and a thousand pretexts will serve to overcome his zeal for maintaining his principles. He will be prepared to sacrifice them for any motive of human prudence, or any immediate material gain, without a thought for the ultimate consequences.
Or else, on the other hand, his purely natural way of doing things, and the misdirection of his will, will bring into play his pride, his touchiness, his Ego. There will follow any number of personal dislikes, attempts to lay down the law, bitterness, spite, rivalries, antipathies, jealousies, a purely human desire to get ahead of everybody else, calumnies, backbiting, sarcastic talk, a worldly spirit of partisanship, great harshness in defending his principles, and so on.
The glory of God, instead of remaining the true end in the pursuit of which our passions can be sublimated, will be reduced, by such an apostle as we are describing, to the level of a pretext and a means of supporting and encouraging and excusing his passions in all that is weakest and most human about them. The slightest attack upon the glory of God, or upon the Church, will be the signal for an outburst of anger in which the psychologist will be able to see that the apostle is rushing to the defense of his own personality or of the privileges of his religious caste in society, insofar as it is a human group, and not showing devotion to God’s cause, which is the sole reason for the existence of the Church insofar as it is a perfect Society instituted by Our Lord.
Correct doctrine and good judgment will not be enough to preserve him from these aberrations, because the apostle without interior life, and, therefore without humility, will be at the mercy of his passions. Humility alone, by keeping him to the path of right judgment and preventing him from acting on impulse, will maintain a more perfect balance and stability in his life. It will unite him to God, and so make him participate, in a sense, in the changelessness of God. In the same way, the frail strands of ivy become strong and stable with all the unshakable strength of the oak when, with all its fibers, it clings to the sturdy trunk of this forest king.
Let us therefore not hesitate to recognize that, without humility, if we do not fall into the first error, our nature will carry us into the second; or else we will float in and out with the tide, according to circumstances or to the impulsion of our passions, now towards one extreme and again towards the other. We will bear out St. Thomas’ words that man is a changing being, constant only in his inconstancy.
The logical result of such an imperfect apostolate will be either that men despise an authority that has no strength, or mistrust, and even detest, an authority which does not give forth any reflection of God.
HE RADIATES FIRMNESS AND GENTLENESS.
The saints have often been extremely outspoken against error, the contagion of loose living, and hypocrisy. Take St. Bernard, for example. This oracle of his own time was one of those saints who showed most firmness in his zeal for God. But the attentive reader of his life will be able to see to what an extent the interior life had made this man-of-God selfless. He only fell back on strong measures when he had clear evidence that all other means were useless. Often, too, he varied between gentleness and strength. After having shown his great love for souls by avenging some principle with holy indignation and stern demands for remedies, reparation, guarantees, and promises, he would at once display the tenderness of a mother in the conversion of those whom his conscience had forced him to fight. Pitiless towards the errors of Abelard, he speedily became the friend of the one whom his victory had reduced to silence.
When it was a matter of choosing means, if he saw that no principle was necessarily involved, he always stood before the hierarchy of the Church as a champion of non-violent procedure. Learning that there was a movement on foot to ruin and massacre the Jews of Germany, he left his cloister without a moment’s delay and hurried to their rescue, preaching a crusade of peace. Fr. Ratisbonne quotes a document of great significance in his Life of St. Bernard. It is a statement of the most exalted Rabbi of that land, expressing his admiration for the monk of Clairvaux, “without whom,” he says, “there would not be one of us alive in Germany.” And he urges future generations of Jews never to forget the debt of gratitude they owe to the holy abbot. On this occasion St. Bernard uttered the following words: “We are the soldiers of peace, we are the army of the peacemakers, fighting for God and peace: Deo etpaci militantibus. Persuasion, good example, loyalty to God are the only arms worthy of the children of the Gospel.”
There is no substitute for the interior life as a means of obtaining this spirit of selflessness which characterizes the zeal of every saint.
In the Chablais district of the Alps, every effort of orthodox Christianity fell through, until the appearrance of St. Francis de Sales upon the scene. On his arrival, the Protestant leaders made ready for a fight to the death. They desired nothing less than the life of the Bishop of Geneva. But he appeared among them full of gentleness and humility. He showed himself to be a man whose Ego had become so subdued and effaced that the love of God and of other men possessed him almost entirely. History teaches us the almost incredibly rapid results of his apostolate.
But even the gentle Francis de Sales knew when to be inexorably firm. He did not hesitate to call upon the power of human laws to confirm the results obtained by kind words and the example of virtue. Hence the saint advised the Duke of Savoy to take severe measures against any heretics who went back on their agreements.
All that the saints ever did was copy their Master. We see our Savior, in the Gospel, welcoming sinners with great mercy. He was the friend of Zacchaeus and the publicans, full of goodness towards the sick, the suffering, and the little ones. And yet He who was gentleness and meekness incarnate did not hesitate to take a whip to chase the money-changers out of the temple. And what severe and powerful words He uses when He speaks of Herod, or castigates the vices of the scribes and hypocrite pharisees!
But it is only in certain very rare cases, after all other means have failed us, or when it is obvious that they would be of no use, that one may, against his will, so to speak, have recourse to a seemingly more drastic procedure, out of charity and to prevent the spread of evil.
Apart from such exceptional cases, and when some principle is not actually at stake, it is meekness that must direct the conduct of the Gospel worker. “You catch more flies,” said St. Francis de Sales, “with a little honey than with a barrel of vinegar.”
Remember how Our Lord reproved His Apostles when they were hurt and ruffled in their human dignity and allowed themselves to be led by a zeal that was by no means either disinterested or pure, to seek violent means, demanding fire from heaven to consume the little Samaritan town that had refused to receive them. “You know not of what spirit you are,” He said to them.
Luc. 9:55.
One of our Bishops, who is often pointed out as an example of unshakable firmness in his defense of principles, went through his episcopal city visiting stricken families during the First World War. Making himself all things to all men, he went to say a few words of consolation to a Calvinist who was mourning a son fallen on the field of honor—words that came straight from the heart, and were full of a sincere tenderness. Touched by this act of humble charity, the Protestant afterwards declared: “Is it possible that this Bishop, a man so nobly born, should have condescended to enter my poor little home, in spite of the difference of our religion? What he has done and said goes straight to my heart.” The manufacturer in whose employment the Protestant was added, as he told us of this event, “As far as I can see, this Protestant is already halfway to conversion. And in any case the Bishop has done more, by his kindness, to promote his conversion than he would have done by any number of heated arguments.” This pastor of souls gave evidence of the meekness of Our Lord. The Protestant saw the Savior before him, in a manner of speaking, and was forced to conclude that a church with Bishops who so truly reflect him whom he admired in the Gospels must be the true Church.
The interior spirit will keep both mind and will working in the service of the Gospel. A soul that sees all things and acts always according to the Heart of Jesus will never be thrown off balance by indolence on one hand or unjustified violence on the other. Its prudence and its ardor alike come only from that adorable Heart. That is the secret of its success.
On the other hand, it is lack of interior life, and, consequently, the manifestation of human passions, that is the reason why we are so often defeated.
HE RADIATES MORTIFICATION.
The spirit of mortification is another principle of fruitfulness in good works. Everything is summed up in the Cross. And as long as we have not made the mystery of the Cross sink deeply into the souls of men, we have, as yet, barely touched their surface. But who will ever be able to get people to accept this mystery which so repels that horror of suffering which is so natural to mankind? Only the man who can say, with the great Apostle: “With Christ I am nailed to the Cross.”
Christo confixus sum Cruci (Gal. 2:19).
The only ones capable of such a task are those who carry in themselves Jesus crucified: “Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies.”
Semper mortificationem Jesu in corpore nostro circumferentes ut vita Jesu manifestetur in corporibus nostris (2 Cor. 4:10).
To mortify oneself is to reproduce the “Christ who did not please Himself.”
Christus sibi no placuit (Rom. 15:3).
That is, to renounce ourselves under all circumstances, to get to love everything that displeases our nature and, finally, to tend to the ideal of being a victim that is immolated without ceasing every moment of the day.
Now, without the interior life, it is simply impossible to uproot all our most stubborn instincts in this way.
The Poverello of Assisi could walk in silence through the streets of the old hill-town preaching the mystery of the Cross by his mere appearance: but an apostle who knows no mortification wastes his time preaching Calvary even if he is able to borrow the finests flights of Bossuet to do so. The world is so firmly entrenched in the spirit of pleasure that ordinary arguments, and even the most brilliant analyses and intuitions will be incapable of destroying its citadel. What is needed is for some minister of God to make the Passion a vivid, living reality by his own mortification and detachment.
They are “enemies of the Cross of Christ,”
Inimicos Crucis Christi (Phil. 3:18).
St. Paul would say of those numerous Christians who only see in Christianity a form of social conformity: men for whom our religion is nothing but a habit of certain external practices, handed down by tradition and carried out from time to time with respect, of course, but without any relation to the amendment of life, the combat against the passions, or the introduction of the Gospel spirit into our practical living. The Lord might well say of such as this: the people appear to honor Me; “They honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.”
Populus hic labiis me honorat, cor autem eorum longe est a me (Matt. 15:8).
“Enemies of the Cross of Christ,” those weakkneed Christians who think it is indispensable that they should surround themselves with every comfort, and give in to all the demands made by the world, to seek its inordinate pleasures, and to follow with passionate interest all its changing fashions. Such people are shocked by these words of Our Lord, which they can no longer understand; and yet it is something He said for the benefit of every man:
“Except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish.” Luc. 13:5.
As St. Paul says, the Cross has become to them a “stumbling block.” Cor. 1:23.
And yet how is the apostle going to produce other Christians if he himself has no interior life?
Any true priest will naturally feel great satisfaction when he sees large crowds at his various services: and yet he will have no real enthusiasm over all this if he knows that they have all come as a matter of routine, merely out of fidelity to certain respectable family customs, to certain habits which do nothing to influence the course of their lives in general. Nor will he draw any joy from this big attendance if he finds that its only cause is the pleasure the people take in hearing good music, in seeing nice decorations, or listening to a rhetorical exercise which they have come to enjoy for its form and style alone.
One might think that this enthusiasm would be quite legitimate when there was question of many people making frequent Communions. But at this point, a memory of my trip to America
The previous translator of the Soul of the Apostolate into English, writing in English, saw fit to omit this passage from his translation, perhaps with an undue regard for the sensitiveness of American readers. But such solicitude is no compliment to us! Did the good Father think that we would listen complacently to Dom Chautard pointing out faults in his own country, and yet fall into despair if he suggested that there might be a few imperfections over here too?
comes to my mind. As I visited certain parishes, I was delighted to find out that a good number of men there were faithful to the Communion of the First Friday of the month. But a holy New York priest commented on my delight with: “homo videt in facie, Deus autem in corde”—Man sees the face, but God sees the heart! “Do not forget,” he went on, “that you are in a country where nobody is held back by human respect, and where bluff is fairly universal. Restrain your admiration until you come to a parish where a reliable observer can testify that frequent Communion is a genuine indication, if not of a complete amendment of life, at least of sincere efforts to lead a Christian life, and a loyal desire not to compromise with heavy drinking and the ruthless ambition to make a lot of money.”
Far be it from us to underrate the slightest traces of Christian life, however paltry. But the real burden of these pages is to deplore our lamentable incapacity, without interior life, to produce any effects except these trivial, though not altogether negligible, results.
All that Jesus wants is our heart. The reason why He came to reveal to men the sublime truths of faith was to conquer their hearts, possess their wills, and inspire them to follow Him in the path of renunciation.
An apostle who is accustomed to an interior life based on Our Lord’s words, “Let him deny himself,”
Abneget semetipsum (Matt. 16:24).
will be fully capable of producing in others this selfdenial, which is the foundation of all moral perfection. But one who only lags far behind Our Lord, in carrying the Cross, will be incapable of such a result: Nemo dat quod non habet. Nobody gives what he does not possess.
Since he himself is such a coward, when it comes to imitating Christ crucified, how will he ever preach to his people the holy war against the passions—the war in which Our Lord sounded the rallying cry for us all?
Only an apostle who is disinterested, humble, and chaste can lead souls on into the battle against the ever-growing forces of greed, ambition, and impurity. Only an apostle who has learned the science of the Crucifix will be able to check that everlasting search for comfort and ease, that worship of pleasure that threatens to sweep the whole world and undermine families and whole nations to their eventual destruction.
St. Paul summed up his apostolate as “preaching Christ crucified.” Because he lived in Christ, and in Christ crucified, he was able to give souls a taste for the mystery of the Cross, and teach them to live it.
Too many apostles in our own day no longer have enough interior life to fathom this life-giving mystery, to steep themselves through and through with it, until it shines forth from everything they do. They look at religion too much from the point of view of philosophy, sociology, or even of esthetics. They see in it only those elements which appeal to the mind and excite the sensibilities and imagination. They give free scope to their inclination to regard religion as a sublime school of poetry and of incomparable art. It is quite true that religion possesses all these qualities; but to consider it only under these secondary aspects would be to subject the economy of the Gospel to a grievous distortion, making an end of something that is nothing but a means. But it is a species of sacrilege to take the Christ of Gethsemani, of the Pretorium, of Calvary, merely as a good subject for a holy picture. Ever since man sinned, penance, reparation, and spiritual war have become necessary conditions of our life. At every turn, the Cross of Christ is there to remind us of the fact. The Incarnate Word’s zeal for His Father’s glory will not be satisfied with mere admiration: He wants imitation.
Benedict XV invited all true apostles, in his Encyclical of November 1, 1914, to put their hand to the plow with greater determination than ever, in their labor of getting souls away from their love of comfort, their egotism, their flippant tastes, and their forgetfulness of eternal values. That amounted to an appeal to all ministers of our crucified God to lead an interior life.
God, who has given us so much, asks of the Christian, as soon as he has reached the age of reason, to unite something of himself to the bitter bloodshedding of Christ’s passion: to unite what we might call our soul’s blood, that is, all the sacrifices that are required in the observance of the law of God. How will the faithful be inspired to generosity in sacrificing wealth, pleasure, and honor? Only by the example of a director of souls who has made himself familiar with the spirit of sacrifice.
When we see the repeated victories of our infernal foes, we may well wonder, in our anxiety, where to look for the salvation of our society. When will it be the Church’s turn to win a few battles? The answer is easy: we can say with Our Lord, “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting.”
Hoc autem genus non ejicitur nisi per orationem et jejunium (Matt. 17:20).
It will be our turn when the ranks of the clergy and of the religious orders will have begun to produce a body of mortified men who will make the great splendor of the mystery of the Cross blaze in the eyes of all peoples: and the nations of the earth, seeing, in mortified priests and religious, how reparation is made for the sins of the world, will also understand the Redemption of the world by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ. Only then will the army of the devil begin to retreat, and the ages of human history will no longer echo with the terrible anguished cry of our outraged Lord—that cry that will at last have found some to make reparation: “And I sought among them for a man that might set up a hedge, and stand in the gap before Me in favor of the land, that I might not destroy it, and I found none.”
Et quaesivi de eis virum qui interponeret sepem et staret oppositus contra me pro terra, ne dissiparem eam, et non inveni (Ezech. 22:30).
Someone has tried to find out why a single Sign of the Cross from Fr. de Ravignan was enough to electrify indifferent Catholics and even unbelievers who had come to hear him out of mere curiosity. The conclusion to which he was led after questioning many of those who had heard the holy Jesuit, was that it was the preacher’s austerity of life which was given a most striking manifestation by this Sign of the Cross, uniting him with the mystery of Calvary.
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