(5th degree); to be contented with the worst of every thing, to perform the meanest tasks, because of the feeling of unworthiness which makes one humble himself before God (6th degree) and before men (7th degree). Is not this recognition of God's rights the underlying reason of entire self-surrender and complete detachment ? Each degree of humility itself only increases with faith and confidence in God. With every degree of inward humility, our Blessed Father gives hope of a special correspondence of Divine grace. Have we not shown how with him humility finds its completion in invincible confidence in the merits of Christ Jesus Who brings grace to us? It is for God then to direct us by His will, by that of His Church, by events; it is for us to do this will each time that it is manifested to us, trusting ourselves to God, for the rest, and holding ourselves assured that we shall infallibly come to perfect charity: Mox ad caritatem Dei perveniet... perfecta[m]... This is the whole aim of the asceticism of humility.

The practice of obedience, such as St. Benedict understands it, has no other aim. Why does the monk come to the monastery? Is it to accomplish such or such special work? To give himself to some occupation that he prefers ? No, it is solely to follow Christ in obedience, relinquishing all that is his own: Relinquentes statim quae sua sunt1. The monk, faithful to the spirit of his Rule, " relinquishes himself literally by obedience; he gives up his will to that of God. He says to God: I lay down my will into Thy hands; I wish henceforward to listen only to Thee. act thus is to follow Him Who, by essence, is the principle of all things; it is to will to be guided by Eternal Wisdom.

To

We make this act of self-surrender on the day of our religious profession, which is the most perfect expression of the full surrender of ourselves into God's hands. The inner life of the monk who remains faithful to his vows infallibly evolves into this spirit of abandonment which is one of the greatest graces for the soul.

This is because, in a soul thus yielded up unreservedly, God's action, the source of all holiness, is supreme. The Rule which we promise to follow is like a sacred and beneficial mill-wheel when we allow ourselves to be taken up into this mill of God," the soul is ground like wheat and set free from all that is displeasing in God's sight. Our holy Legislator gives us to understand this in remarkable terms,

1. Rule, ch. v.

at the end of the chapter on humility. When he has led his disciple, by successive acts, to the last degree of selfabnegation, he no longer gives him any direction: he leaves him to the action of the Holy Spirit, Who makes the soul altogether yielded up to Him, His abode full of delights, and brings it, if such be His design, to the most sublime perfection, to the height of contemplation; in this soul there is no longer, as it were, any other life than that of love 1.

We see how St. Benedict leads the soul to the spirit of self-surrender. For him this is not a negative state of immobility or mistaken indifference. To arrive at holy abandonment, the soul labours to put away a crowd of obstacles, then to keep itself faithfully in this fundamental disposition of humility and of submission in regard to grace; it accepts all the Divine Will, even in things most contrary to its tastes, even those that make it suffer the most; but, this done, the soul has fulfilled its task, it no longer looks to anyone except God for what is necessary to enable it to come to Him, and it looks to Him with invincible confidence and unshaken faith in His word, in His power, in His goodness, and in the merits of Christ. This state of abandonment is the purest and sweetest fruit of the practice of humility and obedience, upon which the holy Patriarch has founded our inner life.

III.

It is from the very nature of holy abandonment that the means we have of practising it are derived.

Abandonment is first of all the consecration of one's self, in faith and love, to God's will. The will of God is not distinct from Himself; it is God intimating to us His wishes; it is as holy, as powerful, as adorable, as immutable as God Himself.

In relation to us, this will is in part manifested, and in part hidden. God's will is revealed, is manifested to us by Christ. Hear ye Him": Ipsum audite; this is what the Father said in sending us His Son. On His side, Our Lord tells us that He has made known to us all that His Father has given Him to reveal: Omnia quaecumque audivi a Patre meo nota feci vobis3. The Church, the Bride of Christ, has received the deposit of these revelations and these precepts, whereto are joined the voice of Superiors, the precepts of the 1. Rule, ch. vii. — 2. Matth. xvII, 5. 3. Joan. xv, 15.

Rule these are so many manifestations of the Divine will. What ought to be the attitude of the loving soul with regard to this will? The soul ought to feel itself fire and flame to fulfil it. Every energy of our being should be employed, with fidelity and constancy, to carry out this will. The more intimate we are with anyone, the more careful we are not to displease him; in regard to God, our fidelity ought to be absolute: "I do always the things that please Him": Quae placita sunt ei facio SEMPER. Such ought to be the passion of a soul that seeks God solely; his eyes, as the Psalmist says, should be ever towards the Lord": Oculi mei SEMPER ad Dominum, thereby to learn His will and to do it.

As

Souls differ from one another in the fulfilment of the Divine will, in the intensity of love wherewith they acquiesce in it. None of us would do what God forbids, act in opposition to the Divine law, transgress, however slightly, the Lord's commandments. But can we testify that we do everything solely because God wills it? Are we totally detached from ourselves and given up unreservedly to the good pleasure from on high? Are we always ready to bow down before the Divine will, however painful it be to our nature? far as it depends upon us we ought always to be ready to execute this will perfectly, whatever it be, with the greatest love possible. Is it not written: "Thou hast commanded Thy commandments to be kept most diligently": Tu mandasti mandata tua custodiri NIMIS 9. Whenever this Divine law commands, we must be ready to let ourselves be cut in pieces rather than hesitate, for to transgress this will is to wish that God did not exist. Love serves as the measure of this self-surrender, and the deeper love is, and the more intense and active, the more complete and absolute it renders self-surrender. St. Benedict intends to carry us to the furthest limits of self-surrender. Do we not see him bidding the monk whom the Superior commands, in the name of God, to do impossible things " to obey for love, trusting solely in the help of God": Ex caritate confidens de adjutorio Dei obediat? That is perfect abandonment which, for love's sake, totally forgets self, and confides only in the Divine Power and Goodness.

The loving soul does not only adhere to the will of God manifested; it yields itself also, and especially, to the hidden 1. Joan. VIII, 29. 2. Ps. XXIV, 15. 3. Ibid. cxvIII, 4.

ch. XLVIII.

4. Rule,

will of God; this enwraps our natural existence and our supernatural life, in the whole as in detail. The state of health or sickness, the events in which we are involved, the success or failure of our undertakings, the hour and circumstances of our death, the degree of our holiness, the particular means which God wills to employ to lead us to this degree, these are so many things whereof we are ignorant, that God wills to keep hidden from us.

In regard to this will, two attitudes are possible.

There is that dictated by the wisdom of the world, merely human wisdom, which always wants to be ruled by itself, to do everything only according to merely natural lights; it wants to arrange life in its own fashion; it is irritated by all that is contrary to what it seeks, contrary to the conceptions of perfection that it forms for itself. But what is "the wisdom of this world" in God's sight? "Foolishness," replies St. Paul: Sapientia enim hujus mundi stultitia est apud Deum1. It has not understood that God willed to redeem the world not by riches or brilliant deeds, nor by the prestige of science or of eloquence, but in taking the weakness of our nature, and in leading a poor and hidden life; it has not comprehended that during thirty years God put "under a bushel" that ineffable plenitude of perfection which is the Sacred Humanity of Jesus; it has not comprehended that it behoved Christ to die a bitter death upon the gibbet. The Cross is " a stumbling-block and foolishness 2" to the world's wisdom. But God has willed to confound this wisdom by the folly of His impenetrable decisions.

We must not let ourselves be guided by this natural wisdom. God's thoughts are not our thoughts; His ways are not ours. What are our ways, those that we should ourselves suggest? What would be our own ideal? To be the master of our life, to arrange our existence, even supernatural; not to suffer, never to be subject to temptation, never to feel any repugnance in obedience. Human ways are these, leading up to an extraordinary increase of our pride. What are God's ways? the thoughts of Eternal Wisdom? Without Me you can do nothing3; if any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross; no man... looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God; blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the pure, the merciful, those who mourn, those who suffer persecution for justice' sake. And so many other thoughts that each

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2. I Cor. 1, 23. — 3. Joan. xv, 5. 4. Matth. xvI, 24.

6. Matth. v, 3-11.

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page of the Gospel yields to us! But their application to each one of us often remains veiled.

In face of God's designs, our attitude will be one of abandonment; to give ourselves to God, to place within His hands our personality, our own views, in order to accept His, in all humility: such will be the order we follow. In this matter, true wisdom is not to have any wisdom of our own but to trust entirely in the infallible word, the eternal wisdom and ineffable tenderness of a God Who loves us. At present God hides from me certain of His designs over me; I ought to find it well that He hides them from me, without troubling myself as to wherefore. I do not know if I shall live a long time, or if I shall die soon; if I shall remain in good health, or if sickness will weigh me down; if I shall keep my faculties, or if I shall lose them long before my death; I do not know whether God will lead me by one particular path or by another. In this domain God keeps the sovereign right of disposing everything both as concerns my natural existence and my supernatural perfection; for He is the Alpha and Omega of all things. And what am I to do? To lose myself in adoration. To adore God as Principle, as Wisdom, as Justice, as Infinite Goodness; to throw myself into His arms, like a child in the arms of its mother, letting itself be swayed with her every movement. Are you afraid of throwing yourself into your mother's arms? Certainly not, for what mother, unless a monster, has ever betrayed the confidence of her child? And where has a mother derived her tenderness, her goodness, her love? From God. Or rather, these virtues of a mother are but the pale reflection of the perfections of goodness, love, and tenderness, that are in God. Has He not compared Himself to a mother? Can a mother forget her infant... and if she should forget, yet will I not forget thee1. Therefore whether this Divine will leads me by wide paths strewn with roses, or draws me along rugged ways bristling with thorns, it is still the adorable and loving will of God, of my God.

But I know that this Will wills my holiness, that, guided by love, it works ever and mightily to this end; beyond the means that God has officially established to lead me to perfection, such as the sacraments, prayer, the practice of virtue, He possesses a thousand particular means for realising in me, little by little, the special form of holiness that He wills to see in my soul. The whole thing for me, in this

1. Isa. XLIX, 15.