The true spouse of Jesus Christ/Chapter 10
II.
Detachment from Seculars, and even from the Sisters.[1]
St. Augustine says that whoever does not shun dangerous conversations will soon fall into a precipice: "He that will not avoid suspected familiarity soon falls into ruin." The example of the unhappy Solomon should make us all tremble. At first he was most dear to God, and even the inspired of the Holy Ghost, but by the love of strange women he was in his old age led into idolatry. Nor should his fall be a subject of wonder; for, as St. Cyprian says, to stand in the midst of flames and not to burn is impossible.
Be assured, O blessed spouse of the Lord, that for religious the atmosphere of the parlor, where conversations are held with seculars, is pestiferous. As in the choir religious breathe the salubrious air of paradise, so in the parlor they may inhale the pestilential vapors of hell. A religious, were she in her father's house, would certainly not dare to spend an hour or two in conversation with persons of every age and of both sexes, and will she not scruple to do so in God's own dwelling? Is the house of the Lord to be treated with less respect than the house of a secular?
But you will say: By the grace of God such conversations are harmless. Let those that speak thus remember, that all friendships founded on a sensible affection for external objects, if not productive of other evils, are at least great obstacles to perfection. They certainly destroy the spirit of prayer and recollection; and the nun that entertains such friendships will be in the church in body, but her thoughts will be fixed on her friends. Such friendships serve to weaken her affection for the sacraments, and to conceal from herself and others the source of her tepidity; and thus she daily becomes more imperfect. She loses her peace; for should anything be said against those for whom she has conceived a regard, or whose conversation she seeks to enjoy, she is at once disturbed, and censures the person by whose language she is offended. She loses obedience; for when admonished by the Superior to break off such friendships, she excuses herself by various pretences, but does not obey. In fine, she loses the love of God, who desires to possess her whole heart, who will not suffer any affection that is not for him; and therefore seeing her soul attached to others, he withdraws himself, and deprives her of his special assistance. The Venerable Sister Frances Farnese used to say to the religious under her care: "We are shut up in this monastery, that we may neither see nor be seen, but that we preserve our souls spotless before God." The more we hide ourselves from seculars, the more God will manifest himself to us by his grace in this life, and by his glory in the next.
Affections that arise from certain external qualifications, possessed by persons of a different sex, not only deprive the soul of great advantages, but also expose her to very great danger. In the beginning they appear indifferent, but by degrees they become sinful, and finally lead the soul into some mortal transgression. St. Jerome says: " Man and woman are like fire and straw, and the devil does not cease to blow so that there may be a blaze." Persons of different sexes, as soon as there exists too much familiarity among them, are inflamed as easily as when straw is held near the fire; for the devil is there trying his best to produce a conflagration. St. Teresa was once shown the place prepared for her in hell had she not renounced a certain inordinate, though not impure, affection for a relative.
If, dear reader, you ever feel an attachment of this kind, your only remedy is a resolute and total retreat from the object of your affection. If you seek to withdraw by degrees, believe me your efforts will be fruitless: such chains, because they are strong, are burst only with difficulty — without a sudden and violent effort their bondage shall never be dissolved. You will perhaps say that no impropriety can occur. Remember that the devil never begins by suggesting the worst of evils, but by degrees he leads negligent souls to the brink of ruin, and then by an easy effort casts them over the precipice. It is a common maxim of masters of the spiritual life, that the only remedy is flight and the removal of occasions. St. Philip Neri used to say that in this warfare only cowards, that is, they that fly from the occasions of defeat, shall be conquerors. St. Thomas has said before: "Whoever can resist the other vices cannot resist this except by flight."
Although you have been free from such affections, you must still guard yourself against them with all possible care; for you too are exposed to the danger of being caught in the snare into which, through their own negligence, others have fallen. To preserve your soul free from every dangerous attachment, I advise you, in the language of St. Teresa, first, to prize yourself more for the plainness than for the elegance of your manners, the agreeableness of your conversation, or the facility of paying compliments to seculars. "With externs," says St. Catharine of Sienna in a letter to her niece, "you should be modest; your head should be bowed down, and your manner and conversation simple and unaffected." At the grate be careful to abstain from unguarded looks and indecent laughter, and never appear in a habit affectedly neat. It would be a still greater fault to go to the grate with any badge of worldly pomp or vanity.
In a word, if you expect to escape every danger, remove yourself as much as possible from all conversation with seculars. "Sit solitary," says St. Bernard, " as the turtle: have nothing to do with crowds." Remain in solitude; love the choir and the cell, and shun the parlor as the abode of pestilence. To consecrate your whole being to God, you have left the world; what, then, have you to do with seculars? "If," says the Venerable Sister Jane of St. Stephen, of the Order of St. Francis, "you are the spouse of the King of kings, turn not your eyes toward slaves." It is a crime in a slave to fix his eyes on the king's spouse, and should the queen take complacency in his attention to her, she would be guilty of a similar transgression. Speaking of nuns, St. Catharine of Sienna says: "We shall not be spouses but sacrilegious violators of our engagements, if we seek for happiness in the gratification of self-love; if we hate the cell, and love the society of seculars." Should you, in conversation, ever feel a disorderly affection, stifle it at once before it acquires the strength of a giant. "While," says St. Jerome, "the enemy is small, destroy him." To kill a lion when young is an easy task; but to conquer him when he has attained full growth is a work of extreme and insuperable difficulty.
It would be still more criminal and disgraceful to permit any secular to indulge in indecent jests; I do not speak of improper familiarities, not wishing to suppose such an excess. Should any worldling carry his sacrilegious insolence so far as to utter such jests in your presence, imagine not that because you only listen you are blameless. By not retiring at once you co-operate with him and render yourself a partaker of his guilt. Besides, should you not instantly withdraw from such infernal conversation you will soon become more criminal than its author; and from the dignity of the spouse of Jesus you will fall to the degraded condition of the slave of Satan. Besides, you might easily be the cause of ruin to your convent; for such a religious that keeps up so unhallowed a relationship is sufficient by her bad example to seduce others into doing the same thing.
Be specially on your guard if your brother or another of your relatives in visiting you brings with him one of his friends who has taken a fancy to you; they may perhaps call in your aunt to be present, but you will after all be the principal person in the scene. Should you ever perceive that such a snare has been laid, cast down your eyes at once, keep silence, and show yourself very grave; but the best thing for you to do would be to go away immediately. If later on you are again called to the parlor, knowing that the same person is there, send word that you are busy and that you cannot go. Be careful not to act otherwise, for if you again allow that person to have an interview with you, I shall look upon you as lost.
Likewise, if you receive from any one a letter in which you notice tender and affectionate words, tear up the letter at once, throw it into the fire, and do not answer it. If, however, on account of some matter of importance, an answer should be necessary, answer it briefly and seriously, without showing that you have taken the least pleasure in the sentiments that have been expressed to you, or that you have paid any attention to them. And if afterwards the same person calls you to the grate, refuse absolutely to go there; for if after his letter you consent to speak to him, it will be all over with you. You must know, besides, that you will be an accomplice of the same disorder if you have less fear to displease God than to displease one of your sisters by daring to encourage her in her unlawful attachment. In this case you would have to expect an exemplary chastisement, such as was inflicted upon a religious who was sacristan. To please one of her sisters she took upon herself the care of having a letter forwarded to a person with whom her companion kept up an improper correspondence. But when she gave the letter to the porter, the latter, being in a hurry, closed the revolving turn of the sacristy with such violence that her hand was caught and entirely torn off. She died a few days after, in consequence of this accident.
With religious and ecclesiastics who visit you, not for the purpose of speaking of God, nor for your spiritual good, but for the pleasure of your society, you should be reserved. I would recommend you to speak with your confessor only in the tribunal of penance. I advise you to abstain as much as possible from all correspondence with him by little presents, or by any similar means; and if you have to speak to him, do so at the turn and not at the grate. It is of importance that you use great reserve in regard to your directors, because the confidence that you have to repose in them by revealing to them the secrets of your conscience is always accompanied by a certain sympathy, which, if it is not moderated, may degenerate into a fire of hell. This is the reason why I counsel you to abstain as much as possible from having any worldly business with your confessor; do not make him presents; do not undertake the care of his secular affairs, of providing him with meals, of taking care of his linen, and other similar things. " Oh!" says St. Teresa, " what obstacles does such worldly correspondence present to the spiritual progress of religious." Should there be an ancient custom in your convent of making presents to the confessor, it will be enough for you to send him two or three times a year some trifle as a mark of attention. Be always most watchful over your words so that nothing may ever escape you that would express the least affection or tenderness.
Do not pretend that there is no danger because that priest is a saint. " Nor," says St. Thomas, " are they to be less avoided because they are more holy: for the greater their sanctity the more they excite sentiments of affection." The Venerable Father Sertorio Caputo of the Society of Jesus says that the devil first makes us love a man's virtue, then his person, and at length draws us over the precipice. St. Thomas teaches that the devil at first kindles an attachment which only slightly wounds the soul: but what appeared to be pure angelic love soon degenerates into the human affection of beings clothed with flesh. Looks and words of tenderness follow; these are succeeded by a desire of each other's society: thus by degrees a holy attachment will be converted into a natural affection. Such is the doctrine of St. Thomas.
St. Bonaventure gives five marks by which we may ascertain whether a mutual attachment between two friends is pure or otherwise. 1. It is not pure when it leads to long and useless discourses; and when conversations are very long they are always useless. 2. When each delights in looking at each other and in praising each other. 3. When either excuses the other's defects. 4. When they manifest certain little jealousies. 5. When either feels unhappy at being separated from the other. The attachment is not pure when personal beauty or gracefulness is a source of pleasure; when either desires to be esteemed by the other, or when either is unwilling that his friend should receive attention from others; when one does not wish that others should observe, hear, or speak of what is passing.
Father Peter Consolini of the Oratory has justly remarked that we should treat with holy persons of a different sex as with the souls in purgatory, that is, at a distance, and without looking at them. Some religious have a strong desire of conversing with their spiritual Father because they imagine that his instructions will stimulate their fervor. But what need is there of such conversations, of such long and familiar discourses? Have they not an abundant supply of spiritual books? Have they not spiritual reading at table and at prayer? Have they not the benefit of sermons in the church? Without any of these the reading and observance of their Rules and Constitutions ought to be sufficient to make them saints.
What has been said refers to outside persons; but it is necessary to remark that even among the religious themselves inordinate attachments may be found, especially among those who are young. "Young man," says St. Basil, " avoid familiarity with your equals: how many young persons has the devil, through their companions, drawn into hell to be burned with eternal fire." Many of them, continues the saint, were, in the beginning enticed into a certain attachment that appeared to be charity, but that afterwards led them to the loss of peace and of the perfection of their state. "Love," says Blessed Angela of Foligno, "includes every evil as well as every good. I do not speak of criminal love, which every one knows should be avoided, but of the love that one friend entertains for another; and that may degenerate into an irregular affection. Frequent conversations along with the manifestation of mutual regard produce too close a union of their hearts, render their friendship noxious; and by strengthening their attachment, obscure the light of reason. Each yields to the will of the other, and thus both are led into the neglect of duty."
It is, moreover, to be remarked, that if the friendships with outside persons cause more scandal, the friendships that exist at home among the religious themselves are more dangerous, either because they are more difficult to remove, or because the occasion is more proximate. Would to God that the religious in the house of the Lord may never have the misfortune to commit a grave fault against chastity! Isaias regards such a one as already lost. He says: In the land of the saints he hath done wicked things, and he shall not see the glory of the Lord.[2] Hence those nuns who have charge of the education of young pupils must always be watchful in regard to their conduct, and should not scruple to suspect the worst. When they perceive any attachment or familiarity between two young persons they must separate them at once, and not permit them to go together, and they should continually keep their eyes upon them lest any evil should happen. They should also from time to time exhort them in general to avoid, as they would avoid death, ever concealing through shame any sin in confession, and for this purpose they should relate to them the sad example of persons who had the misfortune of being condemned to hell for having made sacrilegious confessions.
St. Basil prescribed a very severe chastisement for the nuns of his Order who should entertain particular friendships. St. Bernard calls such friendships " poisoned attachments, and the enemies of the peace of communities." They are a source of disturbance, of murmurings, of irregularities, of factions, and of parties; and sometimes they influence the votes at elections to office in favor not of the most worthy, but of the greatest favorites. Let it be your study to love all and to serve all, so that each will regard you as a friend. But abstain from familiarity with any; let your intimacy be only with God. Be particularly careful to avoid familiarity with all who manifest attachment to you. The way through which you walk in this life is dark and slippery: if you select an imperfect companion who will lead you to the precipice, you are lost.
Beware of all human respect — of the accursed fear of what others will say or think of you. " If," you will say, " I give up all intercourse with such a secular; if I separate from such a one; if I consecrate myself to retirement, to prayer, and to mortification — what will be said of me? I shall be an object of jest and derision to all." Ah! how many religious of both sexes has this accursed weakness of human respect brought to eternal misery? " Oh!" says St. Augustine, "how many has this infirmity precipitated into hell?" St. Francis Borgia says that he who desires to consecrate himself to God must, in the first place, trample under his feet all regard for what others will say of him. O my God, why do we not ask what Jesus Christ or his holy mother will think of our conduct? My spouse, says our Lord, it a garden enclosed.[3] To be the true spouse of Jesus, the heart of a religious must be an enclosed garden, excluding every affection that is not for God. Remember that to cherish in the soul any strange affection is, perhaps, of all the defects of nuns the most displeasing to God. He requires the full and undivided possession of the heart of his spouse. Even men cannot bear with any division in the affections of their spouses. In conclusion, I exhort you to endeavor to love God as if he and you were the only beings in existence.
But before finishing, I cannot omit to blame the folly of certain religious who become fond of animals, such as cats and dogs. These they wish to have always with them at table, and even in bed. They often carry them in their arms, kiss them, and say even affectionate words to them. If these animals become sick they are greatly afflicted; if they die they are inconsolable, and are an annoyance to those who may have been the cause of the death. If such an affection is unreasonable even in a person of the world, how much more is it unreasonable in a spouse of Jesus Christ!
Prayer.
My Jesus, I already understand Thee. Thou dost desire my whole heart and all my love; and I desire to consecrate my whole soul and all my affections to Thee. After all the insults which I have offered to Thy majesty, I deserve to be abandoned by Thee. But I feel that Thou dost still call me to Thy love. Thou shall, thou sayest, love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart. I desire, O my God, to obey, and henceforth to love Thee only. Oh that I were wholly consumed for Thee, O my Jesus, who hast been entirely consumed for my salvation! For my sake Thou hast given all Thy blood; for my redemption Thou hast spent Thy life; and shall I be reserved with Thee? Even a thousand hearts are too little to love Thee, and shall I give a part of this, my miserable heart, to creatures? No Thou dost wish for it entirely; I give it wholly to Thee. Accept my being, O my Jesus, my Love, and my Spouse. I am Thine, and entirely Thine: dispose of me as Thou pleasest.
Mary, my hope, unite me with thy Son Jesus; make me belong entirely to him. From thee I desire this favor; from thee I hope for it.