THE INSTRUMENTS OF GOOD WORKS

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of perfection. Only, bear this well in mind: What is important in our observance is the inner principle that animates us. The Pharisees observed all things exactly but it was that they might be seen and applauded by the multitude: and this moral deviation utterly spoiled all their works. As to the outward observance, kept mathematically, but for its own sake and without anything to ennoble it, we may at least say that it is in nowise perfection.

The interior life must be the soul of our exterior fidelity. It must be the result, the fruit and manifestation of the faith, confidence and love that govern our heart. The Rule is the expression of God's Will. Now the fulfilling of the Rule out of love constitutes fidelity. Fidelity is the most precious and delicate flower of love here below. Up above, in heaven, love will blossom out into thanksgiving, in delight and enjoyment, in the full and entire possession of the beloved object; here, upon earth, it is manifested by a generous and constant fidelity to God, despite the obscurity of faith, despite trials, difficulties, oppositions.

After the example of our Divine Model, we ought to give ourselves unreservedly, as He gave Himself unreservedly to the Father on entering into the world: Ecce venio, "Behold I come... that I should do Thy will": Ut faciam voluntatem tuam1. Each morning, when, after Holy Communion, we make but one with Him, let us renew our disposition of wishing to belong entirely to Him. O Jesus, I wish to live by Thy life, through faith and love; I wish Thy desires to be my desires, and,like Thee, out of love for Thy Father, I wish to do all that may be pleasing to Thee: I have placed Thy law in the midst of my heart": Et legem tuam in medio CORDIS MEI 2. It is pleasing to Thee when I faithfully keep the prescriptions of the Christian law which Thou hast established and those of the monastic code which I have accepted; as proof of the delicacy of my love for Thee, I wish to say as Thou hast said Thyself: Neither a jot nor a tittle shall be taken away by me from Thy law: Iota unum aut unus apex non praeteribit a lege donec omnia fiant3; grant me Thy grace that I may not let the least thing pass that could give Thee pleasure, in order that, according to Thine own word, being faithful in small things, I may become so likewise in great things; grant above all that I may ever act out of love for Thee and for Thy Father: Ut cognoscat mundus quia diligo Patrem5; my sole desire is to be able

1. Ps. xxxix, 8-9. Heb. x, 559. 2. Ps. xxxix, 8-9. 3. Matth. v, 18. 4. Cf. Luc. XVI, 10. 5. Joan. xiv, 31.

to say like Thee "I do always the things that please Him". Quia placita sunt ei, facio semper 1.

This is the programme that our Lord traced out for the Blessed Bonomo, an Italian nun: "Before each of thy actions, offer all to Me, with thy whole being, asking of Me the help and grace to do nothing except for Me : for I am thy End, thy God, and thy Lord Whom thou oughtest to please".

All things done in love love being the mainspring of all our activity and the guardian of all our fidelity: is not this the very formula of perfection? Love it is that measures, in the last resort, the value of all our actions, even of the most ordinary.

Thus St. Benedict points out as the first "instrument the love of God: "In the first place, in primis, to love the Lord God with all one's heart, all one's soul and all one's strength. This is as much as to say: Place love in your heart before all things; let love rule and guide you in all your actions; it is love that is to put in your hands all the other instruments of good works; it is love that will give a high value to the most insignificant details of your days. Little things, says St. Augustine, are little in themselves, but they become great through the faithful love with which they are done: Quod minimum est, minimum est; sed in minimis fidelem esse magnum est3.

even

Outward observance, sought after for its own sake, without the inward love which quickens it, is a formal show a Pharisaical show. An interior love pretending to dispense with the exterior faithfulness which is its fruit, would be an illusion, for our Lord tells us that he who loves Him keeps His commandments. And this is true of the monastic life as it is of the Christian life. Christ Jesus says to us: You protest that you love Me? It is for My Name's sake that you have left all things: Propter nomen meum 5? Then keep faithfully the least points of your Rule.

The ideal we ought to have in view is the exactitude of love not scruple, nor anxiety never to make a mistake, nor the wish of being able to say: "I will never be found in fault" there is pride in this. It is from the heart that the inner life springs; and if you possess it, you will seek to fulfil by love all you have to do with the greatest purity of intention, and the greatest care possible. Universa 1. Joan. VIII, 29. 2. La Bee Bonomo, moniale bénédictine by D. du Bourg, P. 54. Read above all in The Book of Special Grace of St Mechtilde, chapter XXVII of the 3rd part: How the heart of man is united to the Heart of God. -3. De doctrina christiana, L. IV, c. 18. Was it not Pascal who wrote: Do small things as well as great for the sake of the majesty of Jesus Christ Who does them in us?" 4. Joan. xiv, 21. 5. Matth. XIX, 29.

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custodire... amore Christi1: St. Benedict says, the monk ought to be faithful in all things" for the love of Christ.

Let us take care then not to content ourselves with regulating the outward behaviour; God must have His own spectacle; that is to say, a heart which seeks Him in secret 2. And this is what our great Patriarch asks of us : that we should seek God in the sincerity of our hearts: Si revera Deum quaerit3.

VI.

In this exactitude which is born of love there is something easy, wide, free, lovable, joyous. On the contrary, if a monk places all his perfection in merely outward observance, it often happens that, when even without any fault of his own, he is unable to carry out such or such a prescription he is troubled and upset; he imagines that his spiritual edifice is about to crumble into ruins, and that perfection is not for him. If this happens repeatedly he gets discouraged, and this sense of discouragement is easily to be understood, since, for him, all is summed up and made to consist in outward observance.

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On account of this same false principle, it will sometimes occur that he fails in charity towards his brethren and creates friction. Having to choose between the observance and an accidental occasion of helping someone, he will not hesitate "The observance before everything!" This is servitude to the "letter", with its aridity and hardness. See how the Pharisees reproached our Divine Saviour for healing the sick on the Sabbath day: under the pretext that the Sabbath was a day of rest 5, they even reproached the disciples because, being hungry, they rubbed the ears of corn in their hands to eat.

Opposed to this, one who loves Christ Jesus and does all for love, enjoys, at the same time, a great liberty in regard to observances. In fact, not placing his perfection principally in material practices, he does not seek them for themselves; and when, in consequence of some circumstance, he is prevented from accomplishing them, he is not unduly troubled, because he is not attached to them. And if, as may happen, he sees one of his brethren in need, he does not hesitate first of all to help his brother, even if such or such a prescription we are supposing, of course, that it does not oblige under sin has to be put aside. Some might 1. Rule, ch. vii. 2. Bossuet, Meditations upon the Gospel, The Sermon on the Mount, 20th day.—3. Rule, ch. LVIII. 4. Luc. VI, II.-5. Matth. XII, 2.

say as the Pharisees said of Jesus: This man is not of God, who keepeth not the sabbath1; but this is taking scandal in a Pharisaical spirit to which no attention must be paid.

Let us learn by this that we ought not generally to make ourselves the judges of how our brethren observe the Rule. There are some who, outwardly, may appear less correct than others, yet whose inner life is more intense. The ideal would be doubtless that there should be nothing to blame in them, but it is not for us to set ourselves up as censors of our brethren. Let us not then be Pharisees; lest thinking so much of being a monk, it may befall that one is no longer either Christian, or human, and fails in the great natural precept of charity.

See how well these truths were understood by our great Lawgiver. He assuredly esteemed the monastic observances which after a long experience he had himself laid down. But none the less he knew how to make them cede to a higher motive. When for example on a fast day a guest arrives, St. Benedict wishes that, out of humanity and charity for this guest, the prior who receives him, shall break his fast: Jejunium a priore frangatur propter hospitem 2. A Pharisee would not have acted thus he would have fasted and... made his guest fast! But our Holy Father full of the spirit of all the just," places perfection before all things in charity, whether it goes directly to God, or is manifested to Christ in the person of the neighbour.

You will not mistake my meaning. I in nowise mean to sanction failings in the observance, nor to excuse negligences, the letting things go; far from that; I only want you to appreciate each thing at its true value. Never forget that the very source of the value of our deeds is in our oneness with Christ Jesus by grace, in the love wherewith we perform our actions. To this end, we must, as our Holy Father says, direct our intention towards God before each good work that we undertake, with great intensity of faith and love: Quidquid agendum inchoas bonum, ab eo perfici instantissima oratione deposcas 4.

VII.

What we have undertaken for God and put under His protection, we must never, by our own fault, cease to pursue. It is only at the cost of persevering faithfulness, says 1. Joan. ix, 16.-2. Rule, ch. LIII. 4. Prologue of the Rule.

3. S. Greg. Dialog. L. 11, c. VIII.

St. Benedict, that we shall deserve the reward promised to the good servant.

Perseverance is, in fact, the virtue that consummates and crowns all the others.

We must be careful to distinguish this virtue from the gift of final perseverance by which we die in the Lord; this gift is purely gratuitous, and, says the Council of Trent, none can, with absolute certitude, be assured that it will be granted to him1.

However, the Holy Council adds, "we ought to have and to keep the most lively confidence in God's help, for God is all-powerful to finish in us the good that He has begun, unless we ourselves be unfaithful to grace": Nisi ipsi illius gratiae defuerint 2.

The means then given to us in order that we may count upon this infinitely precious gift, the gift exceeding all others, is daily fidelity; and we shall carry out well and to its end the great work of our whole life, if we carry out well and to its end each work that we undertake for God: this is the object of the virtue of perseverance.

St. Thomas3 most justly links this virtue to the virtue of fortitude. What indeed is fortitude? It is a disposition of steadfastness which inclines the soul to support valiantly all evils, even the worst and most continuous, rather than forsake good; pushed to the supreme degree, fortitude goes so far as to endure martyrdom.

This virtue of fortitude is particularly required by cenobites living together in a monastery. It seems truly as if Providence, in instituting cloisters, had, besides its principal design, a secondary one. The principal design is to create the coenobitarum fortissimum genus, the secondary design to receive now and then weak souls who rely upon the strong. Thus in a forest of giant trees, beautiful and powerful, shrubs are not completely excluded from the soil where the former flourish. Here and there shrubs live in the shade of their great elders and protectors, but they do not make the forest. St. Benedict does not intend to discourage weak souls, but it is chiefly to the ambition of the strong that he opens the avenues to perfection. It is in conformity with the spirit of the great Patriarch that the abbot does not always repulse a postulant who avows his fears in face of the temptations of the world and declares that one of the reasons that brings him to the cloister is the desire of security, provided that this postulant "truly seeks God,

1. Sess. VI, c. 13.-2. Ibid. 3. 11-11, q. cxxxvi, a. 2.

and that

4. Rule, ch. 1.