all the circumstances of the Passion, has accumulated therein an infinite superabundance of satisfaction.

You know with what love and abandonment to the will of His Father, Jesus accepted all that He had decreed. He suffered from His first entrance into the world, that He might fully accomplish this Divine will of which He knew all the extent: Ecce venio1. All was to be accomplished to the last detail with most loving faithfulness: Iota unum aut unus apex non praeteribit a lege, donec omnia fiant 2.

We find a singular testimony of this Divine exactness in St. John's Gospel. Fastened to the Cross, suffering with thirst, on the point of expiring, Christ Jesus remembers that a verse of the prophecies is not yet fulfilled; and, in order that it should be so, He says: I thirst 3. Then, having said this, our Lord pronounces the supreme words : Consummatum est 4. "It is consummated. O Father, I have fulfilled all: since the moment when I said: “Behold I come to Thy will," I have omitted nothing; now I have drunk to the dregs the chalice Thou gavest Me to drink; there is nothing left for Me to do but commend My spirit into Thy hands.

But if our Divine Saviour suffered that He might redeem us, it was also to give us the grace to unite our expiation to His own and thus render it meritorious. For, says St. Paul," they that are Christ's, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences": Qui sunt Christi carnem suam crucifixerunt cum vitiis suis 5. The expiation required by Divine Justice touches not only Christ Jesus; it extends to all the members of His Mystical Body. We share in the glory of our Head only after having shared in His sufferings; it is St. Paul again who tells us so: Si tamen compatimur ut et conglorificemur 6.

Having solidarity with Christ in suffering, we are however condemned to bear it for a quite different reason. He had but to expiate the sins of others: Propter scelus populi mei percussi eum. We, on the contrary, have first to bear the weight of our own iniquities: Digna factis recipimus, hic vero nihil mali gessit 8. By sin, we have contracted a debt towards God's justice; and, when the offence has been remitted, the debt still remains for us to pay. This is the role of satisfaction

Moreover, the spirit of self-renunciation assures perseve

rance. Every actual sin turns the soul in the direction of evil. Even after forgiveness, there remains a tendency, an inclination, latent for the moment, but real, which, engrafted upon our native concupiscence, finds the first opportunity of producing fruit. It is for mortification to uproot these vicious tendencies, to counteract these habits, to annihilate this attachment to sin. Mortification pursues sin inasmuch as sin is an obstacle between the soul and God; therefore mortification must continue until these perverse tendencies of our nature are mastered; otherwise, these tendencies will end by dominating, by being the source of numerous faults which will compromise, or, in any case, will keep at a very low level, our union with God and the life of charity in us. We have made a fervent Communion in the morning; our soul is entirely united to God. But if, in the course of the day, in the midst of our occupations, the " old man "awakens to incline us to pride, to touchiness, to anger, we must immediately repress these movements. Otherwise we might be surprised into giving consent; and the life of charity, the union of our soul with God would be lessened. If, for example, we are strongly inclined to self-love, accustomed to consider self in everything and direct everything towards self, we shall be touchy, hurt by a nothing, we shall be sullen and show bad temper; a quantity of reprehensible actions will be almost instinctively born of this self-love and will impede the action of Christ in it; this is why we must mortify this self-love, so that in the end the love of Jesus Christ may alone reign within us. Our Lord expects of us to repress the ill-regulated movements that urge us to sin, and imperfection; do not let us suppose we can pretend to the state of union if we allow bad habits to govern our heart.

As you see, renunciation is necessary, not only as satisfaction for our past sins, but also as a means to preserve us from falling into them again, thanks to the mortification of the natural tendencies that incline us to evil.

It is this twofold motive that our Holy Father, ever filled with the spirit of the Gospel, indicates first of all to those who enter the monastery, when he speaks of the mortifying of vicious habits: "the amendment of vices" or "the preservation of charity. " Si quid paululum restrictius, dictante aequitatis ratione, propter EMENDATIONEM VITIORUM vel CONSERVATIONEM CARITATIS processerit1.

To those who are more advanced

' in the observance

and in faith," who by Christ's grace have already gained

the strength to overcome evil tendencies and "to run in the way of God's commandments 1," St. Benedict brings forward another motive a higher and not less powerful one: the participation in Christ's sufferings: Passionibus Christi per patientiam participemur 2. Indeed, for faithful and holy souls who have made satisfaction for their faults, whose union with God is more assured against the assaults of the enemy, self-renunciation becomes the means and proof of a more perfect imitation of our Lord. These souls willingly embrace the cross to help" Christ in His Passion: Calvary is the chosen place where they are led and held by Love.

II.

The need of mortification once recognised, we must learn in what measure we ought to practise it, and first of all how we are to appreciate specifically the value of the different acts of renunciation proposed to us. Their hierarchy is as follows in the first place, the mortifications which the Church, the Bride of Christ, prescribes; next those, which are prescribed by the Rule, or are inherent to the daily observance of the monastic life; - finally, those we choose for ourselves or that are sent to us by God.

To begin with the mortifications that the Church prescribes for us.

We find in a letter of St. Paul some words that at first sight seem astonishing: “I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body, which is the Church": Adimpleo ea quae desunt passionum Christi in carne mea, pro corpore ejus, quod est Ecclesia3. What do these words mean? Is something then wanting to the sufferings of Christ? Certainly not. We know that in themselves they were, so to speak, measureless: measureless in their intensity, for they rushed like a mighty torrent upon Christ; measureless above all in their value, a value properly speaking infinite, since they are the sufferings of a God. Moreover, Christ, having died for all, has become by His Passion, the Propitiation for the sins of the whole world. St. Augustine explains the meaning of this text of the Apostle: to understand the mystery of Christ, we must not separate Him from His Mystical Body. Christ is not the " Whole Christ," according 1. Prologue of the Rule. cf. Ps. cxvIII, 32. 3. Co. I, 24. -4. I Joan. II, 2.

-2. Ibid.

to the expression of the great Doctor, unless He is taken as united to the Church. He is the Head of the Church which forms His Mystical Body. Hence since Christ has brought His share of expiation, it remains for the Mystical Body to bring its share: Adimpletae fuerunt passiones in capite, restabant adhuc passiones in corpore1.

"

In the same way as God had decreed that, to satisfy justice and crown His work of love, Christ was to undergo a sum of sufferings, so has he determined a share of sufferings for the Church to distribute among her members. Thereby each of them is to co-operate in the expiation of Jesus, whether in expiation of one's own faults, or in the expiation endured, after the example of the Divine Master, for the faults of others. A soul that truly loves our Lord desires to give Him this proof of love for His Mystical Body by means of these mortifications. Here is the secret of the "extravagances of the saints, of that thirst for mortifications which characterises nearly all of them: "To fill up those things that are wanting to the Passion of their Divine Master. The Church has naturally to legislate as to the work of expiation which concerns her as a whole. She has fixed for all her children a share of mortification which notably comprises the observances of Lent, of Fridays, of the Ember Days and Vigils. One who is little enlightened prefers his own mortifications to these; but it is beyond doubt that the expiations imposed by the Church are more pleasing to God and more salutary for our souls.

"

The reason for this is clear. All the value of our sufferings and self-denial is derived from their union, through faith and love, with the sufferings and merits of Jesus, without Whom we can do nothing. Now, who is more united to Christ than the Church, His Bride? The mortifications she lays upon us are her own; it is as His Bride that she adopts and officially presents them to God; these mortifications become like the natural prolongation of Christ's expiations ; presented by the Church herself they are extremely acceptable to God Who sees in them the closest and deepest participation that souls can have in the sufferings of His Beloved Son.

Moreover, these mortifications are very salutary for us. The Church herself tells us, at the beginning of Lent, that she has "instituted them as a salutary remedy not only for our souls but also for our bodies": Animabus corporibusque curandis salubriter institutum est2.

1. S. Augustin. Enarrat. in Ps. LXXXVI, 5. 2. Collect for the Saturday after Ash Wednesday.

Christ, the Ideal of the Monk.

12

Do not forget either that in the course of the holy forty days, the Church prays daily for those who submit to these expiations; she unceasingly beseeches God that these works may be accepted by Him; that He will make them beneficial to us; that He will give us strength to perform them with the piety befitting disciples of Christ and with a devotion that nothing can trouble: Ut jejuniorum veneranda solemnia et congrua pictate suscipiant et secura devotione percurrant1. This constant prayer of the Church for us is powerful over the Heart of God, and becomes a fount of heavenly benediction which makes our mortifications fruitful.

If then we wish "to be Christ's, as St. Paul says, let us accept, with great faith and generosity, these mortifications of the Church; in God's sight, they have a value and a power of expiation which other afflictive practices do not possess.

We shall therefore not be astonished that our great Patriarch, the heir in this of the piety of the first ages, consecrates a long chapter of his Rule to the observance of Lent. He desires that during this holy season, besides the fast and abstinence, we should keep ourselves "in all purity of life; and repair the negligences of other times " : Omnes negligentias aliorum temporum his diebus sanctis dilueres. "This is what we shall worthily do," he adds, "if we abstain from all vices, and apply ourselves to prayer with tears, to holy reading, compunction of heart and abstinence. You see that to the expiation that afflicts the body, St. Benedict is careful to join inward mortification and especially the exercise of that sense of compunction which is, as it were, the will to do uninterrupted penance.

III.

After the penances instituted by the Church rank the mortifications and self-renunciation inherent to the monastic

state.

We must first name the common life. However much it be sweetened by fraternal charity, however fervently mutual love reigns, the common life still bears with it a great deal of suffering. We love one another very much mutually, with sincere affection, and yet, without wishing it, we jar upon one another. This is part of the very condition of our poor human nature. Since sin entered the world, we are all, says St. Augustine, men subject to death, in firm, 1. Collect for Ash Wednesday. 2. Rule, ch. XLIX.