upon the soul; a divine touch which becomes the starting point of a new orientation of our soul towards God, and strengthens, in a more radical and absolute manner, our seeking after God. By our recollection, let us then be like to men who wait for their Lord, Similes hominibus exspectantibus Dominum suum1; the Lord finding us ready will make us enter with Him, cum eo 2, into the festal hall...

"

Thus, little by little, the soul mounts towards God and prayer becomes its very breath; habitual union, full of love, is established, a very simple but steadfast contact with the Lord God becomes the life of the soul. If the monk keeps silence, it is to converse inwardly with God; if he speaks, it is in God, of God, for His glory. Such was the practice of a holy monk, Hugh, Abbot of Cluny: Silens quidem, semper cum Domino; loquens autem, semper in Domino vel de Domino loquebatur3.

The monk who lives this life does not waste his time thinking of himself, of what others are doing, of the wrongs that may have been done to him, or that he imagines have been done to him; he does not turn over in his mind all these littlenesses, all these trifles, but he seeks only God; whenever he can do so, at every free moment left to him by work, the functions of his charge, the ministry of souls, his heart turns towards God to cleave to Him, to express to Him his desires, brief but ardent that is the tendency of his soul. The soul withdraws into its own depths there to find God, the adorable Trinity, Christ Jesus Who dwells in us by faith. Christ unites us to Himself; we live with Him in sinu Patris; and there we are united to the Divine Persons; our life becomes a communing with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; and in this union we find the well-spring of joy. We meet sometimes with sorely tried souls who yet by a life of prayer make within themselves a sanctuary where the peace of Christ reigns. It is enough to ask them: Would you not like to have some diversion in your life? to hear them at once reply: "Oh, no, I wish to dwell alone with God. Happy state of a soul living the life of prayer! It everywhere finds God, and God suffices for it, because it is filled with God, the Infinite Good.

But the soul feels the need of consecrating one hour exclusively to communing with God, that, this may be, as it were, the intensification of the soul's habitual life. This hour 3. Vita Hugonis, c. 1, P. L. 159,

I. Luc. XII, 26. 2. Matth. xxv, 10. col. 863.

4. Joan. 1, 18.

Christ, the Ideal of the Monk.

24

is at once a manifestation of and a means of attaining the life of prayer. It is impossible for a soul to have arrived at a state where prayer is its life without giving itself in an exclusive manner, at certain hours of the day, to the formal exercise of prayer but this exercise is only the natural expansion of its state: this is why our holy Lawgiver, who has regulated everything to establish and maintain this life of prayer in his monasteries, has not thought it necessary to fix determined times of prayer for his sons. He wants the monk to seek God; and if this desire of seeking Him be true and sincere, the monk will try to find these hours where he may be alone with Him Who is the One and Sovereign Good of his life.

Thus animated, monastic life necessarily becomes an ascending pathway towards God. The virtues are nourished by the frequent contact of the soul with the fount of all perfection: Ibunt de virtute in virtutem1. Prayer brings down the dew that fructifies the earth of the soul. Without prayer, the soul is dry as earth without water": Anima mea sicut terra sine aquat ibi 2; the divine seed of grace, sent to us through the Sacraments, the Mass, the Divine Office, the exercise of obedience, may fall abundantly, but it may fall upon ground hard as a rock, and touch only the surface without penetrating the depths; it then "withers away": Semen cecidit supra petram et aruits. To fructify our soul, prayer must descend upon it as a shower upon the herb, and as drops upon the grass" : Quasi stillae super gramina, it must soak through and soften the soil of the heart, and make it ready to profit as much as possible from the manifold means of sanctification to be met with in our life; prayer is the secret of great supernatural fruitfulness and the very condition of the soul's progress.

Do not let us say that these are mystical heights to which a few privileged souls alone can attain ; no, it is the normal state of a religious in his monastery, of a nun in her cloister; it is the necessary expansion of our grace of adoption, of our monastic vocation. This life of prayer is our most excellent inheritance; optima pars. We can and ought to give ourselves, and to give God to souls; but this ministry should be the natural radiation of our innermost life in God. Let nothing turn us away from it: Non auferatur ab ea 5, but rather let us strive to become souls of prayer. Our condition as monks is a magnificent one for attain

1. Ps. LXXXIII, 8. 2. Ibid. CXLII, 6. 3. Cf. Luc. VIII, 4. XXXII, 2. - 5. Luc. x, 42.

-

4. Deut.

ing this lofty end. We live in solitude, far from the vain noise of the world; we sit down daily, and are served by the Church herself, at the splendid table of the liturgy where we find in abundance that bread of God's Word which is the soul's best food. Everything in the monastery, even the stones, the archways, the architecture bears us towards God. The Lord thus draws us to Him, for it was not for nothing that He brought us into monastic solitude; He wished that we should be able to listen more easily to Him. God is doubtless everywhere, even in the tumult of great cities, but His voice is only to be heard in silence. He Himself has told us so: "I will lead her [the soul] into the wilderness and I will speak to her heart": Ducam eam in solitudinem et loquar ad cor ejus1. Religious vocation is the expression of a singular love of God and of Christ Jesus towards each one of our souls: God wills to be for us the Only Good and our sole reward; He contains all good, all joy, all beatitude, but let us be persuaded that we shall only find Him fully by a life of prayer.

Happy the humble and obedient monk who seeks but to listen to God in the sanctuary of his soul, with deep reverence and unutterable tenderness. God will often speak to him, even when least expected; He will fill him with lights to rejoice his soul, even in the midst of his tribulations and trials. "For Thy word, O my God, is sweeter to the soul than is the most delicious honey to the mouth2; it contains all light and all strength; it gives the secret of patience, and is the source of all joy.

We have said elsewhere (Christ, the Life of the Soul, conference on Prayer) how the contemplation of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus is the source of prayer even for the most perfect. We there gave a very explicit text of St Teresa. Let us add thereto the following passage. Having, in The Interior Castle, taught that it must be truly admitted that the soul raised to perfect contemplation cannot meditate in discoursing inwardly, the Saint however adds: Souls... would be wrong in saying that they cannot dwell on these mysteries (of the Life and Passion of Jesus Christ) nor frequently think about them, especially when these events are being celebrated by the Catholic Church. Nor is it possible for the soul which has received so much from God to forget these precious proofs of His love, which are living sparks to inflame the heart with greater love for our Lord... Such a soul comprehends these mysteries... in a more perfect way than do other people. Interior Castle, 6th Mansion. ch. vII. Translated by the Benedictines of Stanbrook.

The

XVI.

THE SPIRIT OF ABANDONMENT TO GOD'S
WILL.

SUMMARY. The spirit of holy abandonment is the crowning point of the way of detachment. — I. Objective basis of this abandonment: the Divine Will. — II. This spirit of abandonment is found in a high degree in the Rule of St. Benedict. III. Practice of this virtue. IV. Above all in trials. V. Holy abandonment constitutes a very pleasing homage to God. VI. Special blessings flow from it for the soul.

Τ

HE end of the whole life of the monk is to seek God": Si revera Deum quaerit1; and on the day of our Profession, we promised to pursue with constancy this high and great end. In order to attain it we have left everything; we have all made sacrifices; like St. Peter we can say to our Lord: Ecce nos reliquimus omnia et secuti sumus te 2: "Behold we have left all things, and have followed Thee.

The motive power of these sacrifices and acts of renunciation is love which drew us in the footsteps of Christ Jesus. We said to Him: Good Master, Thou callest me, and I am here I believe that Thou art so great, so powerful, so good, that Thou wilt not confound any of my hopes: Non confundas me ab exspectatione mea. I believe that Thou wilt cause me

to find in Thee the fount of all beatitude and of all life: Et vivam 3!" This is, on our part, an act of faith in Jesus Christ. We leave all, persuaded that in Him we shall find all. Faith is already, of itself, the giving of our whole being to the Truth Who is Jesus, the Incarnate Word. And our monastic existence is only to be the extension to our entire life of an initial act of faith and abandonment.

This act received its official consecration in the offering that we made of ourselves to God on the day of our religious profession.

When our whole life is maintained in this spirit of holy abandonment whereby we were animated when we pronounced our Vows, it becomes true and extremely pleasing to God.

1. Rule, ch. LVIII. — 2. Matth. xIx, 27. 3. Prayer borrowed from the Psalmist, and that St Benedict ordains to be sung thrice by the novice at the moment of his monastic profession.

All those virtues of which we have spoken until now: poverty, humility, obedience, are like the fruits of the monastic profession; their practice is the logical consequence of that deed which yielded us up entirely to Christ under the Rule of the holy Patriarch; all our Benedictine perfection flows from that as from its source. That donation to God on the blessed day of our profession can only be true, entire, complete, absolute, if it is afterwards manifested during our whole existence by these virtues of detachment, reverence and submission; but these virtues, to be living and fruitful, must constantly draw their sap from that loving abandonment which marked our donation 1.

It is now the moment to speak of this spirit of abandonment not only does it explain our existence, because, being at the very basis of religious profession, it inspires all the acts that are derived from this profession as from their point of departure; but it also gives them their supreme fecundity. Indeed holy abandonment is one of the purest and most absolute forms of love; it is the height of love; it is love giving to God, unreservedly, our whole being, with all its energies and activities in order that we may be a veritable holocaust to God when the spirit of abandonment to God animates a monk's whole life, that monk has attained holiness. What in fact is holiness? It is substantially the conformity of all our being to God; it is the amen said by the whole being and its faculties to all the rights of God; it is the fiat full of love, whereby the whole creature responds, unceasingly and unfalteringly, to all the Divine Will: and that which causes us to say this amen, to utter this fiat, that which surrenders, in a perfect donation, the whole being to God is the spirit of abandonment, a spirit which is the sum total of faith, confidence and love 2.

Let us try to see what is the basis of this spirit of abandonment; how it constitutes one of the characteristics of the inner life as it is understood by our Blessed Father St. Benedict; we shall then show how we can practise it, and the excellent fruits to be gained from it.

I.

The objective basis of holy abandonment is the Divine 1. The spirit of holy abandonment can be considered as being the last expression of detachment or the summit of the life of union: these two aspects are correlative, but it is chiefly the first that we are here considering. 2. In the beautiful book by the Right Rev. Abbot Lehodey, Le Saint Abandon, 1919, is to be found a complete exposition of the teaching relative to this important subject.