[741] The story of Job is re-enacted in some way in the life of every soul dear to God [....] God permits the sufferings of the innocent, and even uses the consequences of sin—wars, disorders, social and personal injustices—for the greater good of His elected. It is often true, however, that when we are [742] undergoing a trial we neither see nor understand the reason for it. God does not account for His actions nor does He reveal His plans to us [....]
The least act of hope, of trust in God, made in the midst of trials, in a state of interior or exterior desolation, is worth far more than a thousand acts made in times of joy and prosperity. When we are suffering in mind or body, when we are experiencing the void of abandonment and helplessness, when we find ourselves a prey to the repugnances and rebellions of nature which would like to throw off the yoke of The Lord, we cannot pretend to have the comforting feeling of hope, of confidence; often we may even experience the opposite sentiment, and yet, even in this state we can make acts of hope and of confidence which are not felt but willed. The theological virtues are practiced essentially by the will. [...] When the acts must be made by the will alone, then this exercise is dry and cold, but is not for this reason of less merit; on the contrary, it is even more meritorious and therefore gives more glory to God. We should not, therefore, be disturbed if we do not feel confidence; we must will to have confidence, will to hope, to hope at any cost, in spite of all the blows God may inflict on us by means of trials. This is the moment to repeat with Job: "Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him" (Jb 13:15). [...] These feelings [of rebellion] do not offend God, provided we always try to react gently by making acts of confidence with our will. Every time a wave of discouragement tries to carry us away, we must react against it by anchoring ourselves in God by a simple movement of trust [....] It is precisely by going through these trials that we reach the [743] heroic practice of faith and hope; and the heroism of the virtues is necessary for the attainment of sanctity. [...]
[744] [God's] helpful power and His desire for our good, for our sanctification, infinitely exceed our most ardent hopes. This blind, unlimited hope is so pleasing to God that the more hope we have, the more He overwhelms us with favors: "The more the soul hopes, the more it attains" (St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, 7.2). [...]
The more wretched, weak, and powerless we find ourselves, the more we should hope in God. [...] The knowledge of our weakness ought to make us keenly aware of our need for God; indeed, our weakness itself ought to be an incessant cry, begging with complete confidence for His all-powerful aid. [...] God's mercy is waiting to come to us, to purify and sanctify us, [745] but it will not come until we open the doors of our heart by an act of complete confidence.
A soul that endeavors to apply itself with all the strength of its will to the practice of the virtues and the fulfillment of every duty, a soul that is determined to refuse nothing to Our Lord, should strive to maintain itself in an attitude of total trust in Him, in spite of inevitable falls. Yes, we should have complete confidence that God will come to sanctify us, regardless of our past faults, our present miseries, the aridity of our soul, the repugnances of nature, or the state of weariness and depression in which we may find ourselves. [...]
If we become discouraged, it is because we are seeking perfection not for God's glory alone, but for our own satisfaction as well, and also because we would prefer to find security in ourselves rather than to rely upon God alone. All this, in reality, is the result of a subtle pride. Instead of becoming disturbed and irritated by our imperfections, we must acknowledge them humbly, present them to God as a sick man shows his wounds to his doctor, ask pardon, and then immediately renew our efforts with great confidence. We must learn to make use of our miseries and failings to plead our cause, to show God how much we need His help, and to increase our confidence in Him. Hope in God is the great anchor of salvation for our poor soul, tossed by the billows of human frailty. [...]
[746] "O Jesus, how can a soul as imperfect as mine aspire to possess the plenitude of love? O Jesus, my first, my only Friend, You whom I love solely, tell me, then, what mystery is this? [...] I see myself as a feeble little bird with only a light down to cover me; I am not an eagle, yet I have an eagle's eyes and an eagle's heart; for, notwithstanding my extreme littleness, I dare to gaze on the divine Sun, the Sun of Love, and I burn to fly to You, resplendent Sun, who attract my gaze. I would imitate the eagles I see soaring [...] but alas, I can only flutter my little wings [....]
"What then, is to become of me? Must I die of sorrow because of my helplessness? Oh, no! I will not even grieve. With daring confidence, I shall remain here, gazing on my divine Sun. Nothing can frighten me, neither wind nor rain; and should impenetrable clouds come to conceal You from my eyes, O Jesus, I shall not change my place, knowing that beyond the dark clouds Your love shines always and that its splendor cannot be eclipsed for a single moment. Sometimes, it is true, my heart will be assailed by the tempest and I may feel as if I believe that beyond this life there is only the darkness which envelops me. This would be the hour of perfect joy... what happiness to remain here at all costs, to fix my gaze on the invisible Light which hides itself to my faith.
"Yet should You remain deaf to my plaintive cries, if You still veil Yourself... well then, I am content to remain benumbed with cold, and so I rejoice in such well-merited suffering.
"O Jesus, how sweet is the way of love. True, one may fall and be unfaithful to grace, but love knows how to draw profit from everything, and quickly consumes whatever may be displeasing to You, leaving in the heart only a deep and humble peace" (St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, 13-8).
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Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2005), 741–746.
Showing posts with label Gabriel of St Mary Magdalene. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gabriel of St Mary Magdalene. Show all posts
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Friday, July 18, 2014
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene on Generosity
[868] Generosity is very similar to magnanimity but has a wider scope, including not only great things, but anything which concerns the service of God. It urges the soul to do all with the greatest devotion. Generosity is the virtue which teaches us to spend ourselves, without counting the cost, without ever saying, "It is enough"; it teaches us to give ourselves completely, and to work with the maximum of love, not only in great things but also in little ones, even the least. Only when we are not hampered by the bonds of selfishness can we be really generous, that is, capable of giving ourself [sic] wholly to the service of our ideal, to the accomplishment of our mission, without thinking of self, without letting ourself be detained by personal preoccupations. If we really understood that our vocation comes from God, and that He has prepared for us all the graces we need to correspond with it most perfectly, we should not allow ourselves to be disheartened by the sacrifices it requires. Selfishness, preoccupation with self, and discouragement are all enemies of generosity; they are "earth and lead" which weigh down our spiritual life, making it more fatiguing and keeping us from soaring to the heights. Why should we reduce ourselves to walking at "a hen's pace" (St. Teresa of Avila, Life, chap. 13) when God has made us capable of flying like the eagle? St. Teresa laughs somewhat mischievously at those who are afraid of doing too much for God, and under pretext of prudence, measure their acts of virtue with a yardstick: "You need never fear that they will kill themselves; they are eminently reasonable folk! Their love is not yet ardent enough to overwhelm their reason. How I wish ours would make us dissatisfied with this habit of always serving God at a snail's pace! As long as we do that we shall never get to the [869] end of the road. Do you think that if we could get from one country to another in a week, it would be advisable to take a year over it?" (Interior Castle, 3rd Mansions, chap. 2).
To become generous, we must first learn to forget ourselves, our own interests, our convenience, our own rights, making no account of weariness or pain. We must have but one thought: to give ourselves entirely to God and to souls. "God's good pleasure, the welfare of others, not my own; for me the most unpleasant things, in order to please God" (Bl. Marie Thérèse Soubiran). Such is the program of the generous soul. It desires nothing but to spend life, strength, and talents in serving God, knowing that it is in the total gift of self that the greatest love consists. "To love is to give all and to give oneself" (St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Poems).
To become generous, we must learn to do with our whole heart, not only what is a duty, but also what, though not obligatory, will give more glory to God. St. Teresa gives us a golden rule for this: the "first stone" of our spiritual edifice must be the decision to "strive after the greatest possible perfection" (Way, chap. 5). The proposal may seem too arduous, but the Saint is not talking at random. Even if at first the soul does not succeed in discerning or in doing always what is most perfect, yet this resolution, if it is sincere and accompanied by humility and trust in the help of grace, will be a great stimulus to desire always to do better, always to do a little more; it will prevent us from settling down in a tranquil mediocrity. It is very important for those who would be intimate with God to cultivate these dispositions; in this way, little by little, we will be able to make the complete gift of ourself, the gift God awaits before giving Himself completely. "God does not give Himself wholly until He sees that we are giving ourselves wholly to Him" (ibid., 28). God whats to give Himself to us in this life, but He proportions His gift to ours; it will depend upon our generosity in giving ourselves to Him.
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Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1996), 868–869.
To become generous, we must first learn to forget ourselves, our own interests, our convenience, our own rights, making no account of weariness or pain. We must have but one thought: to give ourselves entirely to God and to souls. "God's good pleasure, the welfare of others, not my own; for me the most unpleasant things, in order to please God" (Bl. Marie Thérèse Soubiran). Such is the program of the generous soul. It desires nothing but to spend life, strength, and talents in serving God, knowing that it is in the total gift of self that the greatest love consists. "To love is to give all and to give oneself" (St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Poems).
To become generous, we must learn to do with our whole heart, not only what is a duty, but also what, though not obligatory, will give more glory to God. St. Teresa gives us a golden rule for this: the "first stone" of our spiritual edifice must be the decision to "strive after the greatest possible perfection" (Way, chap. 5). The proposal may seem too arduous, but the Saint is not talking at random. Even if at first the soul does not succeed in discerning or in doing always what is most perfect, yet this resolution, if it is sincere and accompanied by humility and trust in the help of grace, will be a great stimulus to desire always to do better, always to do a little more; it will prevent us from settling down in a tranquil mediocrity. It is very important for those who would be intimate with God to cultivate these dispositions; in this way, little by little, we will be able to make the complete gift of ourself, the gift God awaits before giving Himself completely. "God does not give Himself wholly until He sees that we are giving ourselves wholly to Him" (ibid., 28). God whats to give Himself to us in this life, but He proportions His gift to ours; it will depend upon our generosity in giving ourselves to Him.
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Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1996), 868–869.
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene on Patience
[871] Although courage is needed to face or to undertake hard tasks, it is even more necessary in order to persevere in them, above all when they are unpleasant or of long duration, and it is impossible to avoid or change them. In this sense, St. Thomas teaches that the principal act of fortitude is not to attack but to stand firm in the midst of dangers, and to endure struggles, opposition, privations, and persecutions with a virile spirit.
In the spiritual life we meet not only difficulties which can be surmounted and overcome once and for all by a strong act of courage, but we encounter—and this much more frequently—difficult, painful situations from which it is impossible to escape, and which willingly or unwillingly we must face. There are physical ailments which exhaust us, and prevent us from extending our activity as we would wish; there are moral sufferings caused by our own temperamental deficiencies or by contact with persons who are opposed to us or do not understand us; or again, there is the pain of seeing our loved ones suffer without our being able to relieve them; there is the experience of separation from our friends, and loneliness of heart. There are also spiritual troubles due to aridity, interior darkness, weariness of mind, temptations, and scruples. In addition to these, there are all the problems, fatigue, and difficulties inherent in our everyday duties. We know that all these things are planned by God for our sanctification and our good; nevertheless, that does not prevent us from feeling the weight of them; suffering is never pleasant, and though we will to accept all for the love of God, we are sometimes tempted to react, to give up, to shake off the yoke, or we are weighed down by sadness and discouragement. What remedy is there? There is the one which Jesus suggested to the Apostles after telling [872] them of the persecutions they would have to endure: "In patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras," in your patience you shall possess your souls (Lk 21:19). Patience is the virtue which permits us to live in a state of suffering, hardship and privation without losing our serenity. It enables us to remain firm amid storms, contradictions, and dangers, without becoming irritated or despondent, without being deterred by them.
Christian patience is not the forced resignation of the fatalist or the philosopher who submits to suffering because he cannot escape it, nor is it the attitude of one who submits because he is not able to react through lack of strength and resources; it is the voluntary acceptance of suffering in view of God and eternal happiness, an acceptance sustained by the knowledge that suffering is absolutely necessary to purify us from sin, to atone for our faults, and to prepare us to meet God. Christian patience incites us to accept suffering serenely, and gradually to esteem and love it, not because we see it as an end in life, but rather as a necessary means for attaining the end, which is love of God and union with Him. If Jesus willed to live a life of martyrdom and to die on the Cross in order to kindle the fire of charity in us and restore us to friendship with God, how can we expect to attain the plenitude of love and intimacy with God if we do not follow in His footsteps? "Christ, therefore, having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought," cries St. Peter (1 Pt 4:1). Let us embrace suffering, then, with the same sentiments which Jesus had: to do the heavenly Father's will, to atone for sin, and to give Him proof of our love.
Christian patience is not merely a passive attitude in the face of suffering; it is also active and voluntary. The latter is the more important because it is this which makes suffering meritorious. A patient man is passive because he wills to be passive, because he uses his free will to submit to all the sufferings which he meets on his way, because he voluntarily bows his shoulders under the yoke of suffering, just as Jesus bowed His under the weight of the Cross, because He willed to do so, "quia ipse voluit" (Is 53:7). A Christian is not a forced Cyrenean, but a willing one, not in the sense that he goes spontaneously in search of suffering—this would not be feasible for all, and sometimes would be imprudent—[873] but in the more modest sense whereby he accepts willingly all the suffering which he encounters on his way, recognizing in this the Cross offered him by God for his sanctification. [...]
[874] Patience is a virtue of primary importance and daily necessity. As we need bread to live, so every day, even every moment, we need patience, because every day and every moment brings with it its own trial. We become patient by making acts of patience, that is, by accustoming ourselves to accept peacefully all that contradicts us and makes us suffer. If, however, instead of accepting annoyances, we use every means possible to avoid them, we shall never acquire patience. For example, we may at our work come in contact with someone who clashes with us, or we may be given a difficult or disagreeable tasks; if under these or similar circumstances we do our utmost to free ourselves as soon as possible, asking for a change, we are depriving ourselves of a precious opportunity prepared for us by God Himself to make us practice the virtue of patience. In certain cases it is lawful and even a duty to represent our problems to our superiors and to ask humbly for a solution, but we should never insist on obtaining one at all costs. On the contrary, we should think that divine Providence has arranged these circumstances to help us acquire the patience we do not yet possess. St. Philip Neri once complained to Our Lord because he had to deal with an extremely insulting, disagreeable person. Our Lord replied to him interiorly, "Philip, you have asked for patience. Here is the means of acquiring it."
God will surely give us the virtue we ask of Him, but only on condition that we make use of the means He gives us, and apply ourselves to practice that virtue with the help of His grace. Whoever wishes to become a saint will not be anxious to avoid opportunities for practicing patience, but will welcome them, recognizing in them the means offered by God for his sanctification. And how can a mere creature dare wish to make any change in what has been [875] ordered "in measure, and number, and weight" (Wis 11:21) by God's infinite wisdom?
God can draw good out of evil; therefore, He can, and in fact does, use our faults and even our sins and the sins of others, to make us practice patience: patience with ourselves, seeing ourselves so frail, so imperfect, so prone to fall, yet humbly recognizing our faults and bearing their consequences peacefully; patience with others, being indulgent toward their frailties, compassionating the weaknesses of each one, and accepting without irritation the discomfort and sufferings caused by their faults. For example, when anyone disturbs or provokes us, we must not stop to consider his manner of behaving, for that would rouse our indignation, making it more difficult to practice patience. Instead, we should turn our gaze away from the creature to fix it upon God who permits this contradiction to make us advance in virtue. We should also avoid complaining about our sufferings to others, or even to ourselves. Complaints always make the heart bitter, rendering it ill-disposed to accept trials calmly. "To suffer and be silent for You, my God" (St. Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) is the motto of the patient soul who wishes to conform its conduct to that of Jesus in His Passion: "He was offered...and He opened not His mouth" (Is 53:7). If we feel the need of a little help in bearing a trial, let us speak of it only to those who will encourage us to suffer for the love of God, and not to those who will give us merely human consolation and sympathy, thereby nourishing our resentment toward those who make us suffer.
All the saints were eager for the occasions of suffering which we so eagerly avoid. Let us consider St. Jane Frances de Chantal who chose to live for many years in her father-in-law's house, amidst the disrespect and calumnies of a servant who also attempted to endanger her children's welfare. Let us think of St. John of the Cross who being free to choose the monastery in which he would spend his last days, gave the preference to one whose superior was hostile to him. These are examples of the heroism of the saints, to be sure—but heroism from which no soul of a good will is excluded and to which everyone is called by God, heroism for which we too, if we really wish to be generous, must prepare ourselves by lovingly accepting everything which causes us suffering. [...]
[877] To become a saint, it is not enough to be courageous and patience and to practice the other virtues for a few days or a few months, or even for a few years. We must persevere in these dispositions to the end of our life, never yielding to fatigue, discouragement, or laxity. This is the crucial point for, as St. Thomas says, "to apply oneself for a long time to a difficult task—and virtue is almost always difficult—constitutes a special difficulty" (Summa IIa-IIae, q. 137, a.1); and it is only by overcoming this difficulty that we shall be able to reach perfection. We are not angels, we are human beings. The angel, a pure spirit, is stable by nature; if he makes a resolution, he holds to it; but this is not the case with us. We, being composed of spirit and matter, must suffer the consequences of the instability and fluctuations of the latter. As stability is characteristic of spirit, so instability is characteristic of matter; hence it becomes so difficult for us to be perfectly constant in the good. Although we have formed good resolutions in our mind, we always feel handicapped by the weakness of the sensible part of our nature which rebels against the weariness of sustained effort, and seeks to free itself from it, or at least to reduce it to a minimum. Our bodies are subject to fatigue; our minds are disturbed by emotions which are always fluctuating. That which at once moment fills us with enthusiasm may, at the next, become distasteful and annoying to such a point that we think we can no longer endure it. This is our state while on earth and no one can escape it. However, God calls us all to sanctity, and since sanctity requires a continual practice of virtue, He, who never asks the impossible, has provided a remedy for the instability of our nature by giving us the virtue of perseverance, the special object of which is the sustaining of our efforts. Though fickle by nature, we can by the help of grace become steadfast.
[878] There are two types of perseverance. The first is so perfect that it never wavers, it is always inflexible, maintained even in the most difficult and unexpected circumstances. This is the perseverance of heroic virtue, of souls who have reached the state of transforming union, who habitually live under the influence of the Holy Spirit. It is the beautiful goal to which we can and should aspire, though we cannot attain to it by the practice of virtue alone; only the continual intervention of the gifts of the Holy Spirit can completely overcome the instability of our nature.
The second type is the perseverance practiced by fervent or even perfect souls who do not as yet enjoy the habitual motions of the Holy Spirit, and whose perseverance, therefore, shows some fluctuations, more or less slight, according to the degree of perfection of the soul. In this case perseverance does not consist in remaining perfectly stable in good, but rather in constantly beginning again as soon as any failure is recognized. Sometimes just a momentary inattention, an unexpected happening, a little weariness or emotion, is enough to make us commit some fault that we had sincerely resolved to avoid at any cost, and here we have failed again! This, however, is no reason for being discouraged or sad; rather it is a motive for humbling ourselves, for recognizing our weakness and begging more insistently for God's help to rise at once and begin again. Because our human nature is so unstable, our perseverance will usually consist in continually beginning again. This is the perseverance to which we should all attain, because it depends on our good will, in the sense that God has infused this virtue in our soul, giving us at every moment sufficient grace to practice it. It is not in our power to free ourselves from this instability of our nature, and therefore we cannot avoid every slackening in virtue, every negligence, weakness, or fault; but it is within our power to correct ourselves as soon as we perceive that we have failed. This is the kind of perseverance that God demands of us, and when we practice it faithfully, and are always prompt in rising after each fall, He will crown our efforts by granting us the supreme grace of final perseverance.
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Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1996), 871–878.
In the spiritual life we meet not only difficulties which can be surmounted and overcome once and for all by a strong act of courage, but we encounter—and this much more frequently—difficult, painful situations from which it is impossible to escape, and which willingly or unwillingly we must face. There are physical ailments which exhaust us, and prevent us from extending our activity as we would wish; there are moral sufferings caused by our own temperamental deficiencies or by contact with persons who are opposed to us or do not understand us; or again, there is the pain of seeing our loved ones suffer without our being able to relieve them; there is the experience of separation from our friends, and loneliness of heart. There are also spiritual troubles due to aridity, interior darkness, weariness of mind, temptations, and scruples. In addition to these, there are all the problems, fatigue, and difficulties inherent in our everyday duties. We know that all these things are planned by God for our sanctification and our good; nevertheless, that does not prevent us from feeling the weight of them; suffering is never pleasant, and though we will to accept all for the love of God, we are sometimes tempted to react, to give up, to shake off the yoke, or we are weighed down by sadness and discouragement. What remedy is there? There is the one which Jesus suggested to the Apostles after telling [872] them of the persecutions they would have to endure: "In patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras," in your patience you shall possess your souls (Lk 21:19). Patience is the virtue which permits us to live in a state of suffering, hardship and privation without losing our serenity. It enables us to remain firm amid storms, contradictions, and dangers, without becoming irritated or despondent, without being deterred by them.
Christian patience is not the forced resignation of the fatalist or the philosopher who submits to suffering because he cannot escape it, nor is it the attitude of one who submits because he is not able to react through lack of strength and resources; it is the voluntary acceptance of suffering in view of God and eternal happiness, an acceptance sustained by the knowledge that suffering is absolutely necessary to purify us from sin, to atone for our faults, and to prepare us to meet God. Christian patience incites us to accept suffering serenely, and gradually to esteem and love it, not because we see it as an end in life, but rather as a necessary means for attaining the end, which is love of God and union with Him. If Jesus willed to live a life of martyrdom and to die on the Cross in order to kindle the fire of charity in us and restore us to friendship with God, how can we expect to attain the plenitude of love and intimacy with God if we do not follow in His footsteps? "Christ, therefore, having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought," cries St. Peter (1 Pt 4:1). Let us embrace suffering, then, with the same sentiments which Jesus had: to do the heavenly Father's will, to atone for sin, and to give Him proof of our love.
Christian patience is not merely a passive attitude in the face of suffering; it is also active and voluntary. The latter is the more important because it is this which makes suffering meritorious. A patient man is passive because he wills to be passive, because he uses his free will to submit to all the sufferings which he meets on his way, because he voluntarily bows his shoulders under the yoke of suffering, just as Jesus bowed His under the weight of the Cross, because He willed to do so, "quia ipse voluit" (Is 53:7). A Christian is not a forced Cyrenean, but a willing one, not in the sense that he goes spontaneously in search of suffering—this would not be feasible for all, and sometimes would be imprudent—[873] but in the more modest sense whereby he accepts willingly all the suffering which he encounters on his way, recognizing in this the Cross offered him by God for his sanctification. [...]
[874] Patience is a virtue of primary importance and daily necessity. As we need bread to live, so every day, even every moment, we need patience, because every day and every moment brings with it its own trial. We become patient by making acts of patience, that is, by accustoming ourselves to accept peacefully all that contradicts us and makes us suffer. If, however, instead of accepting annoyances, we use every means possible to avoid them, we shall never acquire patience. For example, we may at our work come in contact with someone who clashes with us, or we may be given a difficult or disagreeable tasks; if under these or similar circumstances we do our utmost to free ourselves as soon as possible, asking for a change, we are depriving ourselves of a precious opportunity prepared for us by God Himself to make us practice the virtue of patience. In certain cases it is lawful and even a duty to represent our problems to our superiors and to ask humbly for a solution, but we should never insist on obtaining one at all costs. On the contrary, we should think that divine Providence has arranged these circumstances to help us acquire the patience we do not yet possess. St. Philip Neri once complained to Our Lord because he had to deal with an extremely insulting, disagreeable person. Our Lord replied to him interiorly, "Philip, you have asked for patience. Here is the means of acquiring it."
God will surely give us the virtue we ask of Him, but only on condition that we make use of the means He gives us, and apply ourselves to practice that virtue with the help of His grace. Whoever wishes to become a saint will not be anxious to avoid opportunities for practicing patience, but will welcome them, recognizing in them the means offered by God for his sanctification. And how can a mere creature dare wish to make any change in what has been [875] ordered "in measure, and number, and weight" (Wis 11:21) by God's infinite wisdom?
God can draw good out of evil; therefore, He can, and in fact does, use our faults and even our sins and the sins of others, to make us practice patience: patience with ourselves, seeing ourselves so frail, so imperfect, so prone to fall, yet humbly recognizing our faults and bearing their consequences peacefully; patience with others, being indulgent toward their frailties, compassionating the weaknesses of each one, and accepting without irritation the discomfort and sufferings caused by their faults. For example, when anyone disturbs or provokes us, we must not stop to consider his manner of behaving, for that would rouse our indignation, making it more difficult to practice patience. Instead, we should turn our gaze away from the creature to fix it upon God who permits this contradiction to make us advance in virtue. We should also avoid complaining about our sufferings to others, or even to ourselves. Complaints always make the heart bitter, rendering it ill-disposed to accept trials calmly. "To suffer and be silent for You, my God" (St. Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) is the motto of the patient soul who wishes to conform its conduct to that of Jesus in His Passion: "He was offered...and He opened not His mouth" (Is 53:7). If we feel the need of a little help in bearing a trial, let us speak of it only to those who will encourage us to suffer for the love of God, and not to those who will give us merely human consolation and sympathy, thereby nourishing our resentment toward those who make us suffer.
All the saints were eager for the occasions of suffering which we so eagerly avoid. Let us consider St. Jane Frances de Chantal who chose to live for many years in her father-in-law's house, amidst the disrespect and calumnies of a servant who also attempted to endanger her children's welfare. Let us think of St. John of the Cross who being free to choose the monastery in which he would spend his last days, gave the preference to one whose superior was hostile to him. These are examples of the heroism of the saints, to be sure—but heroism from which no soul of a good will is excluded and to which everyone is called by God, heroism for which we too, if we really wish to be generous, must prepare ourselves by lovingly accepting everything which causes us suffering. [...]
[877] To become a saint, it is not enough to be courageous and patience and to practice the other virtues for a few days or a few months, or even for a few years. We must persevere in these dispositions to the end of our life, never yielding to fatigue, discouragement, or laxity. This is the crucial point for, as St. Thomas says, "to apply oneself for a long time to a difficult task—and virtue is almost always difficult—constitutes a special difficulty" (Summa IIa-IIae, q. 137, a.1); and it is only by overcoming this difficulty that we shall be able to reach perfection. We are not angels, we are human beings. The angel, a pure spirit, is stable by nature; if he makes a resolution, he holds to it; but this is not the case with us. We, being composed of spirit and matter, must suffer the consequences of the instability and fluctuations of the latter. As stability is characteristic of spirit, so instability is characteristic of matter; hence it becomes so difficult for us to be perfectly constant in the good. Although we have formed good resolutions in our mind, we always feel handicapped by the weakness of the sensible part of our nature which rebels against the weariness of sustained effort, and seeks to free itself from it, or at least to reduce it to a minimum. Our bodies are subject to fatigue; our minds are disturbed by emotions which are always fluctuating. That which at once moment fills us with enthusiasm may, at the next, become distasteful and annoying to such a point that we think we can no longer endure it. This is our state while on earth and no one can escape it. However, God calls us all to sanctity, and since sanctity requires a continual practice of virtue, He, who never asks the impossible, has provided a remedy for the instability of our nature by giving us the virtue of perseverance, the special object of which is the sustaining of our efforts. Though fickle by nature, we can by the help of grace become steadfast.
[878] There are two types of perseverance. The first is so perfect that it never wavers, it is always inflexible, maintained even in the most difficult and unexpected circumstances. This is the perseverance of heroic virtue, of souls who have reached the state of transforming union, who habitually live under the influence of the Holy Spirit. It is the beautiful goal to which we can and should aspire, though we cannot attain to it by the practice of virtue alone; only the continual intervention of the gifts of the Holy Spirit can completely overcome the instability of our nature.
The second type is the perseverance practiced by fervent or even perfect souls who do not as yet enjoy the habitual motions of the Holy Spirit, and whose perseverance, therefore, shows some fluctuations, more or less slight, according to the degree of perfection of the soul. In this case perseverance does not consist in remaining perfectly stable in good, but rather in constantly beginning again as soon as any failure is recognized. Sometimes just a momentary inattention, an unexpected happening, a little weariness or emotion, is enough to make us commit some fault that we had sincerely resolved to avoid at any cost, and here we have failed again! This, however, is no reason for being discouraged or sad; rather it is a motive for humbling ourselves, for recognizing our weakness and begging more insistently for God's help to rise at once and begin again. Because our human nature is so unstable, our perseverance will usually consist in continually beginning again. This is the perseverance to which we should all attain, because it depends on our good will, in the sense that God has infused this virtue in our soul, giving us at every moment sufficient grace to practice it. It is not in our power to free ourselves from this instability of our nature, and therefore we cannot avoid every slackening in virtue, every negligence, weakness, or fault; but it is within our power to correct ourselves as soon as we perceive that we have failed. This is the kind of perseverance that God demands of us, and when we practice it faithfully, and are always prompt in rising after each fall, He will crown our efforts by granting us the supreme grace of final perseverance.
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Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1996), 871–878.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
At What Cost?
Perhaps some of us have difficulty in committing to the spiritual life because we have little sense of responsibility. A sense of responsibility follows an awareness of some pressing and important task to be completed, the failure or neglect of which would result in something unfavorable. The greater the task, the greater the potential failure, but also the greater the potential success—and hence, the greater the sense of responsibility. This sense of responsibility, which follows from a true perception not only obligation but its consequences, is different than the resentment of workaholics, who work to hide within the busyness of their work from what they must actually take responsibility for—their brokenness.
It's easy to put off the responsibility of cooperating with God's grace in becoming transformed to our fullest potential in God for His glory and the salvation of souls because we do not see and hence do not believe that there are any serious consequences to neglecting our interior life. Hence what Christ said to the Samaritan woman, He says to us all: "If you but knew the gift of God!" (Jn 4:10). If we knew what was offered to us and Whom was offering it to us, we would have asked Him, and He would have given us living water. But because we do not know, we do not ask. The paradox, of course, is that we must ask to know and know to ask.
Perhaps many of us believe that if we put off praying today or persevering in being more charitable, more self-giving, more noble and generous, everything will be all right since we have tomorrow. There is always time, we think, because our lives are relatively stable and predictable. And in the trap of predictability, we become stagnant, like J. Alfred Prufrock, and perhaps even end up like Richard Cory.
But everything is affected. St. John of the Cross warned us: imperfection leads us imperceptibly but surely to venial sin, which disposes us bit by bit for mortal sin. A trickle adds up over time, the same time that we think we have to change. Not only do we reject God's infinitely wise and noble plan for us, but we spurn those that we could have helped if only we had cooperated with God. How many more souls could we have touched; how many more prayers and sacrifices could we have offered—if only we were generous and realized that the time we have now is the time that affects everything, everywhere. The smallest prayer said now, in good faith, only in heaven shall we see its effects. Dr. Peter Kreeft said that he believes if we saw the effect of one such a small prayer throughout the entire world, we would fall to our knees and never rise for the rest of our lives, deep in intense prayer and rapt admiration for how God uses such seemingly-insignificant means to effect great change in the world.
When we come closer to God through this little sacrifice or that little act of virtue, the angels rejoice, devils fly, and the entire Mystical Body of Christ is strengthened, like medicine being administered through its veins because the mouth opened to receive the pill, the hand accepted the medicine, the throat swallowed, the heart pumped blood, the lungs breathed to aid the heart, etc. Everything works together. And when we become holy, we change the entire fabric of the universe by aiding it in its goal of transformation to become a symphony to God's glory.
For this reason did Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, the renowned spiritual theologian of the early 20th century, recommend that someone beginning to read the works of St. John of the Cross begin with his Spiritual Canticle or the Living Flame of Love because these books show us the glorious end that holiness attains to. With the end in mind, we might persevere because we see how precarious the situation is, how much danger we truly are in, how much progress there is to be made, how close the devils are to us but as well as the angels, how intense the struggle is over each and every soul.
But stuck in the day-to-day monotony and gray of work and technology, it's easy to forget that anything is really happening. It's easy to disbelieve that monotony has been sanctified by Christ's Resurrection. It's easy to forget that gray, like all the other colors, glorifies God. Some of us want yellow and blue and green and red all the time, thinking that these colors matter more somehow. But Christ spent thirty years with the grey—or the brown wood, if you prefer—to show us that each has its proper place—the red for the Passion and the gold and white for the Resurrection.
And so Christ also told us, surely knowing how easily we are prone to forget, since He knew how easily the Israelites forgot the covenant they had with God, "For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?" (Mt 16:26; Mk 8:36; Lk 9:25). Remember: "If thou didst know the gift of God, and who he is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water."
It's easy to put off the responsibility of cooperating with God's grace in becoming transformed to our fullest potential in God for His glory and the salvation of souls because we do not see and hence do not believe that there are any serious consequences to neglecting our interior life. Hence what Christ said to the Samaritan woman, He says to us all: "If you but knew the gift of God!" (Jn 4:10). If we knew what was offered to us and Whom was offering it to us, we would have asked Him, and He would have given us living water. But because we do not know, we do not ask. The paradox, of course, is that we must ask to know and know to ask.
Perhaps many of us believe that if we put off praying today or persevering in being more charitable, more self-giving, more noble and generous, everything will be all right since we have tomorrow. There is always time, we think, because our lives are relatively stable and predictable. And in the trap of predictability, we become stagnant, like J. Alfred Prufrock, and perhaps even end up like Richard Cory.
But everything is affected. St. John of the Cross warned us: imperfection leads us imperceptibly but surely to venial sin, which disposes us bit by bit for mortal sin. A trickle adds up over time, the same time that we think we have to change. Not only do we reject God's infinitely wise and noble plan for us, but we spurn those that we could have helped if only we had cooperated with God. How many more souls could we have touched; how many more prayers and sacrifices could we have offered—if only we were generous and realized that the time we have now is the time that affects everything, everywhere. The smallest prayer said now, in good faith, only in heaven shall we see its effects. Dr. Peter Kreeft said that he believes if we saw the effect of one such a small prayer throughout the entire world, we would fall to our knees and never rise for the rest of our lives, deep in intense prayer and rapt admiration for how God uses such seemingly-insignificant means to effect great change in the world.
When we come closer to God through this little sacrifice or that little act of virtue, the angels rejoice, devils fly, and the entire Mystical Body of Christ is strengthened, like medicine being administered through its veins because the mouth opened to receive the pill, the hand accepted the medicine, the throat swallowed, the heart pumped blood, the lungs breathed to aid the heart, etc. Everything works together. And when we become holy, we change the entire fabric of the universe by aiding it in its goal of transformation to become a symphony to God's glory.
For this reason did Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, the renowned spiritual theologian of the early 20th century, recommend that someone beginning to read the works of St. John of the Cross begin with his Spiritual Canticle or the Living Flame of Love because these books show us the glorious end that holiness attains to. With the end in mind, we might persevere because we see how precarious the situation is, how much danger we truly are in, how much progress there is to be made, how close the devils are to us but as well as the angels, how intense the struggle is over each and every soul.
But stuck in the day-to-day monotony and gray of work and technology, it's easy to forget that anything is really happening. It's easy to disbelieve that monotony has been sanctified by Christ's Resurrection. It's easy to forget that gray, like all the other colors, glorifies God. Some of us want yellow and blue and green and red all the time, thinking that these colors matter more somehow. But Christ spent thirty years with the grey—or the brown wood, if you prefer—to show us that each has its proper place—the red for the Passion and the gold and white for the Resurrection.
And so Christ also told us, surely knowing how easily we are prone to forget, since He knew how easily the Israelites forgot the covenant they had with God, "For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?" (Mt 16:26; Mk 8:36; Lk 9:25). Remember: "If thou didst know the gift of God, and who he is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water."
"Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?"
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen on the Effects of Imperfections
[133] Because, writes [St. John of the Cross], dryness might very often proceed not from the Night, or purgation of the sensitive part of the soul, but from sins or imperfections, or from lukewarmness, or from some bodily indisposition, I here set down some signs whereby it may be known whether the dryness is owing to the said purgation, or to some other of the causes we have mentioned.
The first sign, he says, is that as the soul feels no pleasure and comfort in the things of God, so neither does it in creatures. This sign allows us to exclude one first cause: sins or recent imperfections. In fact these are often the reason why a soul falls into a sort of spiritual languor.
[134] Let us remember that, when he speaks, the Saint has in mind fervent souls, that is such as have set out eagerly on the spiritual road with a great longing to attain to sanctity. Since he knows that, in order to please God, he must be pure of heart, the novice who has entered religion really desiring to become holy has bravely undertaken the labour of perfect and absolute abnegation. He has definitely renounced certain pleasures, certain distractions, which held his heart in thrall in the world. He now sets himself faithfully to remove from his path everything that might be an obstacle to his spiritual progress. To speak in more concrete language: let us suppose the case of someone who, before entering the monastery, was passionately fond of playing cards. In itself a very innocent thing; in itself, yes, but not always in its consequences and under certain given circumstances. There are persons for whom card-playing is a source of continual imperfections, even sins: impatience, faults against charity, even against justice, are not rare among inveterate card-players. It is no matter for surprise if some soul, anxious to give itself completely to God and having experienced such difficulties, should have decided never to touch cards again. Perhaps he has felt the sacrifice in the early days, but to a spiritual person all these things soon come to appear but foolish trifles and the passion has been lulled to sleep fairly easily. But do not imagine that it is dead!
Since there are certain games not forbidden even to religious, it may happen that, in good company, our novice is invited to take part in a game which, for him, was once upon a time a continual source of failings. Before the urging of others, he gives way. He begins whilst keeping careful watch over himself but, forthwith, he feels that the passion is not dead! He is very quickly drawn into the old faults: impatience, temptations to cheating, anger become perceptible. Moreover, as he afterwards perceives, from beginning to end of the game all spiritual life seems to be forgotten.
When, on the same day, he goes to his prayer, or places himself in the presence of God, he feels that he no longer possesses the same serenity as before. He is a prey to certain agitation. In that hour of silence destined to converse with God, he finds he is pursued by vivid memories of the pleasure [135] felt some hours previously; he is even a little ashamed to perceive that he rather longs for other similar occasions. If the soul is generous, when faced with such an experience it reacts, asks God's forgiveness and renews, more decidedly than ever, its resolution to abstain from games of chance. In that case, it will be able to say: Felix culpa! But it is not always so, however. The first unfaithfulness will be followed by another, and that much more culpable because experience has rendered the subject aware of the consequences. These latter will make themselves felt much more strongly than on the former occasion. The passion will be fully roused and in the silence of prayer the soul will feel it so keenly that it will suffer disturbance and strong distractions from it. How can it hope that it sprayer will not suffer as a result?
"Every time," says the Mystical Doctor, "that the appetite gives way to some imperfection, forthwith it becomes inclined to it, more or less in the measure of the affection wherewith it applied itself to it" (Dark Night, I, c. 9, n. 2).
We have taken as an example at hint very innocent in itself and, already, we see how serious may be the consequences for the good progress of prayer… What will it be when there is a question of consenting to some inclination that is directly sinful, say in a matter of purity or singleness of heart? The religious who allows himself to be caught in the snare of a particular friendship puts a great obstacle in the way of his life of prayer. When we nourish within us a source of continual infidelities, the heart is inevitably drawn away by many inclinations to creatures. Now the more a heart is inclined to creatures the less free it is to occupy itself with the love for God. And as prayer chiefly consists in expressing our love of God, of necessity it will become less intense when there arise within us the evil tendencies aroused by our blameworthy failures. In expressing its love, the soul will speak less energetically; God's company, once its sole desire, will be less relished, will even be found boring, whilst recollection will be rendered difficult thanks to the numerous distractions which will be born spontaneously from the new attraction for creatures. Hence the soul falls into aridity; it no longer [136] finds pleasure and consolation in the things of God. But the same cannot be said with respect to created things. No, it has again taken pleasure in the things of the world and its heart desires to receive consolation from them. In this soul that has fallen into dryness, the first sign mentioned by St. John of the Cross is wanting.
Many souls, on the other hand, fall into dryness without this having been preceded by any willful imperfection. Unexpectedly they have found themselves transported from a region irradiated by the warm light of the divine Sun into a polar desert; there is no food either for the imagination or for the heart. Yet this heart wants only God and remains faithful to its Beloved. Here distaste for prayer is conjoined with distaste for creatures. The first sign of the Mystical Doctor is verified, but this does not yet suffice to recognize with certainty the aridity sent by God.
"The second sign," St. John goes on, "is that the mind ordinarily turns to God with painful anxiety, the soul fearing lest it is not serving Him but has turned back; seeing that it finds itself with no relish for divine things" (Dark Night, I, c. 9). This sign excludes another cause of dryness: lukewarmness.
Lukewarmness is a cooling-off of the spiritual life, a diminution of the energy wherewith the soul was following after perfection. It is often found in unstable persons, in emotional and changeable temperaments, ruled chiefly by imagination and in whom their actions are the consequences of impressions rather than of real decision of the will. It is not rare to find a soul that at the beginning of the spiritual life seemed fire and flame, but in which all this ardor was seated only in the sensitive part. Its fancy had pictured sanctity as a sort of charm, as a life not without suffering, indeed, but one wherein the divine consolations so far surpassed the trials as to render them all very light. In short, it has imagined the spiritual road to be a path of roses, the perfume of which so consoled the soul as to prevent its feeling the pricks of the thorns. It was urged to the quest of this [137] imagined ideal more under the impulse of some strong emotion than as a result of a serious decision of the will. Now, however, that it has come into contact with the realities of life, and finds from experience how much energy is required in order to go forward, it becomes tired of the continual mortification imposed upon it. It would like to take a holiday and, since this is not granted, it takes it for itself and then … these holidays never end! So it returns to a life more free, less recollected, in search of little human satisfactions and, naturally, all the fair energy of its early days disappears.
Moreover, not only the emotional souls are exposed to lukewarmness. This happens in every soul that, after a period of generous life, grows weary of mortification and allows itself to be recaptured by its self-love. How many young clerics, for instance, lose their devotion by letting themselves be overcome by a passion for study! Instead of considering study as an instrument of the apostolate, they seek therein the natural satisfaction of their intellect, or even, if they are very successful, an occasion of compliments and applause that ministers to their vanity. How can it be expected that the soul that permits itself to be caught again in the snares of its self-love will succeed in saying to God with conviction: "I love Thee with all my heart"? It is simply not true! That heart is divided. Whereas in the early days of conversion, or the entrance not the novitiate, it beat for God alone, now it follows its desires of personal happiness, personal glorification. Naturally such a soul is overtaken by dryness. When love is feeble, prayer is necessarily tepid; and when the soul is cherishing another ideal than that of pleasing God, it loves itself far too well to be able to love God intensely. Prayer will be full of distractions, it will seem too long, it will be easily neglected… We are far from the soul that, amidst aridity, turns its thoughts to God in loving anxiety, fearing lest it should be no longer serving Him.
"Hence there is great difference between purgative aridity and tepidity," writes St. John, "since tepidity implies no [138] little sloth of the will and weakness of soul, without diligent care to serve God; whereas what is simply purgative aridity carries with it ordinary care, together with painful doubt lest the soul is not serving God" (Dark Night, I, c. 9).
A soul that remains full of longing to please God, that suffers at the thought that it is not serving Him as once it did, that notwithstanding all the trials it experiences in prayer goes to it faithfully, as to an appointment with God, and would not shorten even by a moment the time which it has decided to consecrate to His service, that soul may be tranquil; its dryness does not arise from lukewarmness. That soul loves God. Its carefulness, its painful anxiety are unmistakable signs; they are the proper effects of the love that is ever anxious for its object, for the Beloved. Yea, it is a precious anxiety which keeps love awake in the soul amidst aridity. Happy the soul that is aware of it within! It may thereby rest assured that its trial is not unto death but unto salvation.
Besides the two former signs, St. John mentions a third, which has also its special importance. It is: "Inability to meditate and make reflection, and to excite the imagination as before, notwithstanding all the efforts we may make" (Ibid.).
This inability to meditate is scarcely distinguishable from the actual aridity; rather it seems to constitute an element of the latter. In fact the soul that is suffering from dryness is just precisely a soul that can no longer practice meditation. Therefore, for this to be a sign of the purgative aridity, it must be found conjointly with the two preceding signs; then, however, its value as a "sign" lies especially in the fact that this incapacity for reflection assumes a form that is ever more general, more thoroughgoing and more continuous. There is, indeed, a certain incapacity for meditation which results from temporary physical or psychological conditions. When we have risen very early in the morning, after a very hot summer night during which we have had very little sleep, we find our eyes heavy with sleep and, undoubtedly, this sleepiness will hinder the mental work of meditation.
[139] He who generously fights against sleep need not fear, for that reason, that he is not praying! He is doing even more than expressing his love, he is actually showing it in this trying struggle. We are supposing, however, that he resists the sleep; if he does not, and lets himself give way, he does not pray … he sleeps! The faithful soul knows how to profit by all the circumstances of life, whereas the lukewarm soul is continually losing opportunities. Hence he who is assailed by drowsiness is unable to meditate and suffers from dryness, but when the cooler weather comes and, with it, refreshing sleep at night, the obstacle will disappear and he will be able to return to his meditation. On the contrary, if the inability to meditate arises from the purgative aridity, it will tend rather to become permanent. At first there may be a certain alternation; sometimes the soul will feel inclined to practice meditation and at others will find it quite impossible to do so; finally, however, the distaste for meditation will become permanent.
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Source: Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, St. John of the Cross: Doctor of Divine Love and Contemplation, trans. Benedictine of Stanbrook Abbey (Cork: Mercier Press, 1947), 133-139.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene on the Apostolate, pt. 2
Apostolic prayer must be accompanied by sacrifice [....] Love should urge those who pray to "active sacrifice which does not allow them to rest calmly in prayer as long as pain and suffering have not all but reached the limits of endurance. Then, consumed by the ardor of charity and the vehemence of desire, they are no longer persons who pray but living prayers" (Pius XII, January 17, 1943). [...] The more prayer is nourished by sacrifice, the more efficacious it becomes; indeed, it attains its maximum efficacy when sacrifice is total.
Every contemplative soul should be "an altar worthy of the presence of His Majesty" (Ascent of Mt. Carmel, 1.5.7), an altar from which prayer rises, and on which the sacrifice is immolated. The apostolate of Jesus reached its climax and was consummated in the annihilation of death on the Cross. [...] Only when we have really sacrificed ourselves for souls, when we have willingly immolated ourselves with Jesus for their salvation, shall we be able to repeat with Him: "It is consummated." [...]
Many souls are lost because there is no one to pray and make sacrifices for them. [...]
There is no one who cannot contribute to the spiritual good of his neighbor by giving the example of a life which is integrally Christian: holding to the principles one has professed and faithfully fulfilling one's duties. [St. John Chrysostom says,] "There would be no pagans if Christians were real Christians, if they really kept the commandments. A good life sounds clearer and louder than a trumpet." A good life speaks for itself, it has an authority and exercises an attraction greatly superior to that of words. [...]
There is no difficulty in finding books and teachers who will present it in an attractive form, but there is much difficulty in finding persons whose lives give practical testimony to it. [...] The eternal Word became incarnate and through the concrete reality of His human life on earth, He manifested the infinite perfections of God and His tremendous love for us. Jesus, who possessed the divine perfections, could tell us: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:48). [...]
St. Gregory explains [...]: "Let the action [of good works] be public," he says, "while the intention remains hidden; thus we shall give our neighbor the example of a good work and, at the same time, by our intention which is directed only toward God, we shall please Him alone in secret." [...]
Every soul who lives an interior life, trying to please God alone, should also endeavor to be an apostle by his good example. His life of sincere piety, solid virtue, and union with God, should shine before men, inspiring them to pray, to be recollected, to seek after the things of heaven. [...]
The more deeply interior a soul is, the more brightly will its light shine upon other souls and bring them to God.
One who is just setting out in the spiritual life is not capable of attending to his own sanctification and the sanctification of others simultaneously; he should first have time to concentrate all his powers on his own spiritual formation. Furthermore, since the effectiveness of the apostolate corresponds to the degree of love and union with God which the apostle has attained, it is evident that a beginner will not be capable of exercising a very fruitful apostolate. Hence, if he engages in the active apostolate prematurely, he will dissipate his energy uselessly, with consequent harm to his own interior life and to the fruitfulness of his apostolate.
Jesus Himself spent thirty years in prayer and retirement although, being God, He had no need to do so. It was as if He wanted to show us that before we plunge into the work of the exterior apostolate, we must have reached a certain spiritual maturity by the exercise of the interior life. He treated the Apostles in a similar way: the three years they spent with Jesus were years of true formation for them. [...] Thus true Catholic tradition demands that, before apostles go out into the field of battle, they must prepare themselves by the practice of an intense interior life, which will make them qualified, fruitful instruments for the good of souls. [...]
Enthusiasm and good will are not enough. A vigorous interior life, maturity of thought and judgment, and a spirit of sacrifice and union with God are also necessary; if these are wanting, no good will be accomplished, and the spiritual life of the apostles themselves will be endangered. [...]
St. Teresa of [Avila] says, "A single one who is perfect will do more than many who are not" (Way of Perfection, 3). [...] The entire history of the Church is a practical demonstration of this principle: "St. Paul was only one, yet how many he attracted! . . . If all Christians were like St. Paul, how many worlds would be converted!" (St. John Chrysostom). The holy Curé of Ars [and St. Padre Pio] had very few human resources, yet he converted an immense number of souls by the power of his own holiness, love, and union with God. [...]
It is the saints who are the most efficient apostles. Must we then be saints before devoting ourselves to the apostolate? Theoretically, this is the ideal, but in practice, it is impossible. [...] We must therefore conclude that when the period allotted exclusively to preparation is over, we must combine our own personal efforts toward sanctity with the exercise of the active apostolate. In other words, apostles must sanctify themselves in the apostolate and by means of it. [...] Every apostle should be convinced that precisely in his own field of labor—and nowhere else—will he find all the graces necessary to sanctify himself, to attain intimate union with God. When a person gives himself to the apostolate, not by his own choice, nor because of a natural attraction for activity, but solely in answer to a call from God, he can be certain that, since God has willed him to engage in the apostolate, and as He also wills him to become a saint, that the apostolate will provide him with the means to become one. God cannot condemn to mediocrity one who, in order to do His will, and out of love for Him, is burdened with apostolic labors and responsibilities. [...] In the measure that an apostle is docile and faithful to grace, God will purify him, refine him, and sanctify him, precisely by means of his apostolic labors. [...]
It would be a fatal error to allow oneself to become so absorbed in work that time could no longer be found for concentration on God in intimate heart-to-heart conversation with Him. Not even from the standpoint of greater generosity should an apostle renounce his hours of prayer. [...]
He must make every effort to maintain an equilibrium, avoiding both extremes [of too much activity or too much time spent in leisure and prayer], and unifying his life by means of love. [...]
[Pope Pius XII in Primo Feliciter proposed four conditions for effective apostolic work]: purity of intention, union with God, self-abnegation, love for souls. [...]
An apostle whose heart is torn between opposing intentions will look in vain for peace in his work; he will always be disturbed and dissatisfied.
There can be a lack of right intention in a way that easily escapes one's notice; it may be so subtle that to a distracted soul, it passes wholly unobserved. [...] An atmosphere of recollection and prayer is necessary. In his moments of quiet at the feet of Our Lord, the apostle will discover that often, in the course of his daily occupations, he loses sight of the supernatural end which should animate his activity, and that in its place secondary ends appear, becoming the immediate motive of many of his decisions and acts. This means that his intention has not remained directed solely toward God and souls, but has often deviated under the influence of self-love. [...] He should not be discouraged by it; instead, he should humbly recognize his own misery and thank God who has revealed it to him in order that he may correct it. [...] His love is not strong enough yet to triumph completely over human passions. Therefore, the apostle should not give up the struggle against the manifestations of self-love, no matter how trivial. He must not yield to them under the pretext that they are natural tendencies, but must correct, mortify, repress, and cut them off without pity, and must always rectify his intentions. A long, thorough purification is necessary to overcome completely the dualism between God and "self," between love for souls and love of self. The apostle must ask Our Lord for the grace of this total purification and dispose himself to receive it, profiting by every occasion for detachment, renunciation, sacrifice, and humiliation, which apostolic activity offers in abundance to all who seriously dedicate themselves to it. If the apostle does this, he will find in his work an excellent means of spiritual progress, and instead of becoming entangled in the dangers which abound in external activity when self-love is not mortified, he will be purified by the very exercise of his apostolate. [...]
Without forgetfulness of self, it would be impossible to have rectitude of intention. [...]
Every apostle must renounce many things [...] tastes, habits, personal demands of culture, education, sensibility must be generously put aside, that the apostle may adapt himself to the mentality and to the demands of others; quiet, rest, relaxation, must yield their place to the service of souls. The apostle should not go about seeking interesting conversations, consoling friendships, pleasant occupations, satisfying results. Occasionally it may happen that he will meet these things on his way, but even then, he may not stop to enjoy them selfishly, but must use them as means for the apostolate. [...] The apostle is sent to "give" and not to "receive" [....]
Not only in moments of enthusiasm, on bright days [...] but also in moments of darkness, on gray days, when all seems to crumble under the impact of difficulties, when his tired body claims a little rest, when the work is heavy and energy declines and, with the onrush of internal and external struggles, it becomes very difficult to remain at his post. Yes, even in hours of abandonment and trial, the apostle must continue to give himself with equal constancy and generosity. If he does not do so cheerfully, that is, with a true spirit of sacrifice, it will be impossible for his conduct not to betray his ill humor, discontent, aversion, or impatience; and all this is very prejudicial to his work and the influence he could exercise. But where can the strength be found for this complete and continual gift of self? In the Holy Eucharist. [...] [We] can nevertheless follow [Christ's] example by putting himself at [others'] disposal to the point of allowing himself to be "eaten" by them, that is to say, by allowing himself to be consumed in their service. [...]
Humility is the indispensable foundation of the whole spiritual life; hence it is the basic condition of every apostolate and constitutes the principal part of the program of abnegation and forgetfulness of self which the apostolate requires. [...]
Oh! If we were truly convinced that, although God may will to make us of us, He alone possesses the power to make our action fruitful, He alone can produce fruits of eternal life, He alone can give grace to souls, and we are nothing but instruments! In fact, the smaller we make ourselves by acknowledging our poverty, the more qualified we become to be used as a means for the salvation of others. What glory can a brush claim if a skillful artist uses it to perfect a work of art? Can the marble used by Michelangelo to sculpture his Moses boast of any merit? "You have not chosen Me," Jesus said to His Apostles, "but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go and should bring forth fruit" (Jn. 15:16).
"Without Me you can do nothing." How many ambitions and points of honor, how much vain self-complacency, how many desires for applause and for advancement in recognition of our personal worth are broken, like waves on the rocks, by these words! Jesus does not tell us that "without Him we can do little," but, nothing, absolutely nothing, and if in appearance the works flourish, admirers increase, churches and halls are filled, in reality not the least atom of grace can descend into hearts if God does not intervene.
Poor apostle, at times so satisfied, so inflated by success! Despite your abilities, your talent, your brilliant style, your attractive conversation, your titles, your successes—in relation to the apostolate, you are smaller and more powerless than an ant before a very high mountain. Recognize your nothingness, take refuge in God, keep yourself closely united to Him, for only from Him will you draw the fruitfulness of your works. [...]
If our apostolic activity produces few fruits, is it because, relying too much on ourselves, we do not constantly strive to keep close to God by means of humility and prayer?
"Abide in Me," Jesus repeats to us. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me" (Jn. 15:4). It does not suffice for the apostle to be united to Jesus through the state of grace; he must remain united to Him, plunged in profound humility which makes him realize that he can do nothing, absolutely nothing, without continual help.
---
Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2005), 980-981, 983-985, 992-997, 999-1007, "326: Apostolic Immolation," "327: The Apostolate of Example," "330: The Formation of Apostles," "331: Sanctification in the Apostolate," "332: A Right Intention," "333: Self-Forgetfulness and Abnegation," "334: Humility in the Apostolate."
Every contemplative soul should be "an altar worthy of the presence of His Majesty" (Ascent of Mt. Carmel, 1.5.7), an altar from which prayer rises, and on which the sacrifice is immolated. The apostolate of Jesus reached its climax and was consummated in the annihilation of death on the Cross. [...] Only when we have really sacrificed ourselves for souls, when we have willingly immolated ourselves with Jesus for their salvation, shall we be able to repeat with Him: "It is consummated." [...]
Many souls are lost because there is no one to pray and make sacrifices for them. [...]
There is no one who cannot contribute to the spiritual good of his neighbor by giving the example of a life which is integrally Christian: holding to the principles one has professed and faithfully fulfilling one's duties. [St. John Chrysostom says,] "There would be no pagans if Christians were real Christians, if they really kept the commandments. A good life sounds clearer and louder than a trumpet." A good life speaks for itself, it has an authority and exercises an attraction greatly superior to that of words. [...]
There is no difficulty in finding books and teachers who will present it in an attractive form, but there is much difficulty in finding persons whose lives give practical testimony to it. [...] The eternal Word became incarnate and through the concrete reality of His human life on earth, He manifested the infinite perfections of God and His tremendous love for us. Jesus, who possessed the divine perfections, could tell us: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:48). [...]
St. Gregory explains [...]: "Let the action [of good works] be public," he says, "while the intention remains hidden; thus we shall give our neighbor the example of a good work and, at the same time, by our intention which is directed only toward God, we shall please Him alone in secret." [...]
Every soul who lives an interior life, trying to please God alone, should also endeavor to be an apostle by his good example. His life of sincere piety, solid virtue, and union with God, should shine before men, inspiring them to pray, to be recollected, to seek after the things of heaven. [...]
The more deeply interior a soul is, the more brightly will its light shine upon other souls and bring them to God.
One who is just setting out in the spiritual life is not capable of attending to his own sanctification and the sanctification of others simultaneously; he should first have time to concentrate all his powers on his own spiritual formation. Furthermore, since the effectiveness of the apostolate corresponds to the degree of love and union with God which the apostle has attained, it is evident that a beginner will not be capable of exercising a very fruitful apostolate. Hence, if he engages in the active apostolate prematurely, he will dissipate his energy uselessly, with consequent harm to his own interior life and to the fruitfulness of his apostolate.
Jesus Himself spent thirty years in prayer and retirement although, being God, He had no need to do so. It was as if He wanted to show us that before we plunge into the work of the exterior apostolate, we must have reached a certain spiritual maturity by the exercise of the interior life. He treated the Apostles in a similar way: the three years they spent with Jesus were years of true formation for them. [...] Thus true Catholic tradition demands that, before apostles go out into the field of battle, they must prepare themselves by the practice of an intense interior life, which will make them qualified, fruitful instruments for the good of souls. [...]
Enthusiasm and good will are not enough. A vigorous interior life, maturity of thought and judgment, and a spirit of sacrifice and union with God are also necessary; if these are wanting, no good will be accomplished, and the spiritual life of the apostles themselves will be endangered. [...]
St. Teresa of [Avila] says, "A single one who is perfect will do more than many who are not" (Way of Perfection, 3). [...] The entire history of the Church is a practical demonstration of this principle: "St. Paul was only one, yet how many he attracted! . . . If all Christians were like St. Paul, how many worlds would be converted!" (St. John Chrysostom). The holy Curé of Ars [and St. Padre Pio] had very few human resources, yet he converted an immense number of souls by the power of his own holiness, love, and union with God. [...]
It is the saints who are the most efficient apostles. Must we then be saints before devoting ourselves to the apostolate? Theoretically, this is the ideal, but in practice, it is impossible. [...] We must therefore conclude that when the period allotted exclusively to preparation is over, we must combine our own personal efforts toward sanctity with the exercise of the active apostolate. In other words, apostles must sanctify themselves in the apostolate and by means of it. [...] Every apostle should be convinced that precisely in his own field of labor—and nowhere else—will he find all the graces necessary to sanctify himself, to attain intimate union with God. When a person gives himself to the apostolate, not by his own choice, nor because of a natural attraction for activity, but solely in answer to a call from God, he can be certain that, since God has willed him to engage in the apostolate, and as He also wills him to become a saint, that the apostolate will provide him with the means to become one. God cannot condemn to mediocrity one who, in order to do His will, and out of love for Him, is burdened with apostolic labors and responsibilities. [...] In the measure that an apostle is docile and faithful to grace, God will purify him, refine him, and sanctify him, precisely by means of his apostolic labors. [...]
It would be a fatal error to allow oneself to become so absorbed in work that time could no longer be found for concentration on God in intimate heart-to-heart conversation with Him. Not even from the standpoint of greater generosity should an apostle renounce his hours of prayer. [...]
He must make every effort to maintain an equilibrium, avoiding both extremes [of too much activity or too much time spent in leisure and prayer], and unifying his life by means of love. [...]
[Pope Pius XII in Primo Feliciter proposed four conditions for effective apostolic work]: purity of intention, union with God, self-abnegation, love for souls. [...]
An apostle whose heart is torn between opposing intentions will look in vain for peace in his work; he will always be disturbed and dissatisfied.
There can be a lack of right intention in a way that easily escapes one's notice; it may be so subtle that to a distracted soul, it passes wholly unobserved. [...] An atmosphere of recollection and prayer is necessary. In his moments of quiet at the feet of Our Lord, the apostle will discover that often, in the course of his daily occupations, he loses sight of the supernatural end which should animate his activity, and that in its place secondary ends appear, becoming the immediate motive of many of his decisions and acts. This means that his intention has not remained directed solely toward God and souls, but has often deviated under the influence of self-love. [...] He should not be discouraged by it; instead, he should humbly recognize his own misery and thank God who has revealed it to him in order that he may correct it. [...] His love is not strong enough yet to triumph completely over human passions. Therefore, the apostle should not give up the struggle against the manifestations of self-love, no matter how trivial. He must not yield to them under the pretext that they are natural tendencies, but must correct, mortify, repress, and cut them off without pity, and must always rectify his intentions. A long, thorough purification is necessary to overcome completely the dualism between God and "self," between love for souls and love of self. The apostle must ask Our Lord for the grace of this total purification and dispose himself to receive it, profiting by every occasion for detachment, renunciation, sacrifice, and humiliation, which apostolic activity offers in abundance to all who seriously dedicate themselves to it. If the apostle does this, he will find in his work an excellent means of spiritual progress, and instead of becoming entangled in the dangers which abound in external activity when self-love is not mortified, he will be purified by the very exercise of his apostolate. [...]
Without forgetfulness of self, it would be impossible to have rectitude of intention. [...]
Every apostle must renounce many things [...] tastes, habits, personal demands of culture, education, sensibility must be generously put aside, that the apostle may adapt himself to the mentality and to the demands of others; quiet, rest, relaxation, must yield their place to the service of souls. The apostle should not go about seeking interesting conversations, consoling friendships, pleasant occupations, satisfying results. Occasionally it may happen that he will meet these things on his way, but even then, he may not stop to enjoy them selfishly, but must use them as means for the apostolate. [...] The apostle is sent to "give" and not to "receive" [....]
Not only in moments of enthusiasm, on bright days [...] but also in moments of darkness, on gray days, when all seems to crumble under the impact of difficulties, when his tired body claims a little rest, when the work is heavy and energy declines and, with the onrush of internal and external struggles, it becomes very difficult to remain at his post. Yes, even in hours of abandonment and trial, the apostle must continue to give himself with equal constancy and generosity. If he does not do so cheerfully, that is, with a true spirit of sacrifice, it will be impossible for his conduct not to betray his ill humor, discontent, aversion, or impatience; and all this is very prejudicial to his work and the influence he could exercise. But where can the strength be found for this complete and continual gift of self? In the Holy Eucharist. [...] [We] can nevertheless follow [Christ's] example by putting himself at [others'] disposal to the point of allowing himself to be "eaten" by them, that is to say, by allowing himself to be consumed in their service. [...]
Humility is the indispensable foundation of the whole spiritual life; hence it is the basic condition of every apostolate and constitutes the principal part of the program of abnegation and forgetfulness of self which the apostolate requires. [...]
Oh! If we were truly convinced that, although God may will to make us of us, He alone possesses the power to make our action fruitful, He alone can produce fruits of eternal life, He alone can give grace to souls, and we are nothing but instruments! In fact, the smaller we make ourselves by acknowledging our poverty, the more qualified we become to be used as a means for the salvation of others. What glory can a brush claim if a skillful artist uses it to perfect a work of art? Can the marble used by Michelangelo to sculpture his Moses boast of any merit? "You have not chosen Me," Jesus said to His Apostles, "but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go and should bring forth fruit" (Jn. 15:16).
"Without Me you can do nothing." How many ambitions and points of honor, how much vain self-complacency, how many desires for applause and for advancement in recognition of our personal worth are broken, like waves on the rocks, by these words! Jesus does not tell us that "without Him we can do little," but, nothing, absolutely nothing, and if in appearance the works flourish, admirers increase, churches and halls are filled, in reality not the least atom of grace can descend into hearts if God does not intervene.
Poor apostle, at times so satisfied, so inflated by success! Despite your abilities, your talent, your brilliant style, your attractive conversation, your titles, your successes—in relation to the apostolate, you are smaller and more powerless than an ant before a very high mountain. Recognize your nothingness, take refuge in God, keep yourself closely united to Him, for only from Him will you draw the fruitfulness of your works. [...]
If our apostolic activity produces few fruits, is it because, relying too much on ourselves, we do not constantly strive to keep close to God by means of humility and prayer?
"Abide in Me," Jesus repeats to us. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me" (Jn. 15:4). It does not suffice for the apostle to be united to Jesus through the state of grace; he must remain united to Him, plunged in profound humility which makes him realize that he can do nothing, absolutely nothing, without continual help.
---
Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2005), 980-981, 983-985, 992-997, 999-1007, "326: Apostolic Immolation," "327: The Apostolate of Example," "330: The Formation of Apostles," "331: Sanctification in the Apostolate," "332: A Right Intention," "333: Self-Forgetfulness and Abnegation," "334: Humility in the Apostolate."
Monday, February 3, 2014
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene on the Apostolate, pt. 1
An apostle, working for God for the good of souls, must live an intimate spiritual union with Him, so as to enter as far as possible into His views and plans for the salvation of the world.
Only by penetrating to the depths of the mystery of God's love for mankind can the apostle cooperate in the actual diffusion of love and grace. He must keep in close contact with God by means of the theological virtues, and must try to grasp the profound inspirations of His love. [...]
An apostle should try to put his own heart into contact with the Heart of God, that it may be filled with God's love and share in His charity toward men. The apostle should, as it were, have the mind of God, the mind of Christ, that is, he should cultivate deep sentiments of love for the brethren, a pale reflection of the love of God for men. [...]
Unless our life is one of intimacy with God and His Son Jesus, we cannot be His collaborators, docile instruments in His hands; unless we have an intense interior life, we cannot have the mind of Christ and be associated with His love and His work for the salvation of souls.
By means of prayer and the struggle against sin, by self-renunciation, and the practice of the virtues, the interior life progressively rids the soul of all that is defective [....] The more a soul cultivates the interior life, the nearer it will come to God, and having become like Him by grace and love, will be able to live in intimacy with Him, enjoy His friendship, penetrate His mysteries and participate in them. Who, then, will be better able to understand the great mystery of the Redemption and contribute his share to it, than one who by means of a fervent interior life, lives in intimate friendship with God?
The first degree of friendship with God, which consists in the absence of serious [mortal] sin, does not suffice to fulfill the purposes of the apostolate. A deeper relationship is required, one which creates such uniformity of will, desire and affection that the apostle is enabled to act according to God's Heart; he is moved not by his own impulses, but by the impulse of grace, by God's will, and the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. [...]
Only if we are friends of God can we be apostles. [...]
The more a soul is united to God, the more it shares in the power of God Himself; and hence, its prayers, sacrifices, and works undertaken for the salvation of souls, are efficacious and attain their end. [...]
In a single moment [...] God infused charity into us without any cooperation on our part, but He does not preserve this gift, much less increase it, unless we remain united to Him by living an interior life. The purpose of the struggle against our passions, the practice of the virtues, recollection, prayer, the practice of the presence of God, and frequent reception of the Sacraments, is to foster union with God and the growth of charity. [...] The interior life is the soul of the apostolate. A deep interior life will generate intense love and intimate union with God, and, therefore, from it will spring a fruitful apostolate, a true sharing in Christ's work of saving souls; on the other hand, a mediocre interior life can produce only a feeble love and union with God; hence, the resultant apostolate cannot have an efficacious influence on souls. [...] If this interior flame be extinguished, then the apostolate will be emptied of its substance and reduced to mere external activity which may make a great noise, but will not bring forth any fruit. St. John of the Cross says, "It is the hammer vigorously and to accomplish little more than nothing, at times nothing at all; at times, indeed, it may even be to do harm" (Spiritual Canticle, 29.3). [...]
The interior life is the vital principle, the force, and the flame of the apostolate. [...] When a soul is fired with zeal for the apostolic life, its very desire to win other souls for God impels it to devote itself with greater generosity to prayer, mortification, and the practice of the virtues, with the intention of making itself more capable of a fruitful apostolate. [...] The apostolate in its turn is a very powerful mainspring urging the soul on to union with God, to perfection, to sanctity. [...]
The dogma of the Communion of Saints tells us precisely that the grace and holiness of one of Christ's members necessarily redounds to the advantage of all the other members. [...]
A cold spiritual life, indifferent to the good of souls, is necessarily dwarfed; it is nothing more than a mean, petty and selfish form of piety; it has lost its vital heat, the warmth of charity, and does not even deserve the name of life. On the contrary, where the fire of the apostolate burns brightly, one's interior life becomes more vigorous than ever and makes one capable of great generosity. [...] When we think that the salvation of other souls may depend on our generosity, our fidelity to grace, or our immolation, then we can refuse nothing to our Lord, and we find the strength to accept even what is most bitter and painful. [...]
God has made the granting of certain graces, necessary for our salvation and that of others, dependent upon our prayers. In other words, by the merits of Jesus, grace—God's infinite mercy—is ready to be poured out abundantly into men's souls, but it will not be poured out unless there is someone who raises supplicating hands to heaven, asking for it. If prayer does not ascend to the throne of the Most High, grace will not be granted. This explains the absolute necessity for apostolic prayer and its great efficacy. [...] There is no substitute for prayer, because prayer draws grace directly from its source, God. Our activity, our words and works can prepare the ground for grace, but if we do not pray, it will not come down to refresh souls. [...]
By their lives of continual prayer, adoration and unceasing praise to the Most High, these souls supply for the negligence and carelessness of many, and thus they re-establish in the world the balance between God's rights and man's duty, between action and contemplation. [...] In the Church they are "powerhouses" of supernatural energy, energy derived from and accumulated by prayer, and diffused by it to the utmost bounds of the earth. [...]
Unfortunately we often put more trust in our work, our diligence, our technique, than in our prayer; we have not enough faith in its efficacy, in the help which God will surely give those who invoke Him from their heart, and as a result, we consider wasted the time we give to prayer. This basic error springs from a lack of faith and humility; it is an error which explains the sterility of so many works. "Let those, then, who are great actives," admonishes St. John of the Cross," that think to girdle the world with their outward works and their preachings, take note here that they would bring far more profit to the Church, and be far more pleasing to God (apart form the good example they would give) if they spent even half of this time with God in prayer" (Spiritual Canticle, 29.3). [...]
---
Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2005), 962-963, 965-967, 971-973, 977-979, "320: One with the Mind of Christ," "321: The Soul of the Apostolate," "323: The Apostolic Ideal," "325: Apostolic Prayer."
Only by penetrating to the depths of the mystery of God's love for mankind can the apostle cooperate in the actual diffusion of love and grace. He must keep in close contact with God by means of the theological virtues, and must try to grasp the profound inspirations of His love. [...]
An apostle should try to put his own heart into contact with the Heart of God, that it may be filled with God's love and share in His charity toward men. The apostle should, as it were, have the mind of God, the mind of Christ, that is, he should cultivate deep sentiments of love for the brethren, a pale reflection of the love of God for men. [...]
Unless our life is one of intimacy with God and His Son Jesus, we cannot be His collaborators, docile instruments in His hands; unless we have an intense interior life, we cannot have the mind of Christ and be associated with His love and His work for the salvation of souls.
By means of prayer and the struggle against sin, by self-renunciation, and the practice of the virtues, the interior life progressively rids the soul of all that is defective [....] The more a soul cultivates the interior life, the nearer it will come to God, and having become like Him by grace and love, will be able to live in intimacy with Him, enjoy His friendship, penetrate His mysteries and participate in them. Who, then, will be better able to understand the great mystery of the Redemption and contribute his share to it, than one who by means of a fervent interior life, lives in intimate friendship with God?
The first degree of friendship with God, which consists in the absence of serious [mortal] sin, does not suffice to fulfill the purposes of the apostolate. A deeper relationship is required, one which creates such uniformity of will, desire and affection that the apostle is enabled to act according to God's Heart; he is moved not by his own impulses, but by the impulse of grace, by God's will, and the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. [...]
Only if we are friends of God can we be apostles. [...]
The more a soul is united to God, the more it shares in the power of God Himself; and hence, its prayers, sacrifices, and works undertaken for the salvation of souls, are efficacious and attain their end. [...]
In a single moment [...] God infused charity into us without any cooperation on our part, but He does not preserve this gift, much less increase it, unless we remain united to Him by living an interior life. The purpose of the struggle against our passions, the practice of the virtues, recollection, prayer, the practice of the presence of God, and frequent reception of the Sacraments, is to foster union with God and the growth of charity. [...] The interior life is the soul of the apostolate. A deep interior life will generate intense love and intimate union with God, and, therefore, from it will spring a fruitful apostolate, a true sharing in Christ's work of saving souls; on the other hand, a mediocre interior life can produce only a feeble love and union with God; hence, the resultant apostolate cannot have an efficacious influence on souls. [...] If this interior flame be extinguished, then the apostolate will be emptied of its substance and reduced to mere external activity which may make a great noise, but will not bring forth any fruit. St. John of the Cross says, "It is the hammer vigorously and to accomplish little more than nothing, at times nothing at all; at times, indeed, it may even be to do harm" (Spiritual Canticle, 29.3). [...]
The interior life is the vital principle, the force, and the flame of the apostolate. [...] When a soul is fired with zeal for the apostolic life, its very desire to win other souls for God impels it to devote itself with greater generosity to prayer, mortification, and the practice of the virtues, with the intention of making itself more capable of a fruitful apostolate. [...] The apostolate in its turn is a very powerful mainspring urging the soul on to union with God, to perfection, to sanctity. [...]
The dogma of the Communion of Saints tells us precisely that the grace and holiness of one of Christ's members necessarily redounds to the advantage of all the other members. [...]
A cold spiritual life, indifferent to the good of souls, is necessarily dwarfed; it is nothing more than a mean, petty and selfish form of piety; it has lost its vital heat, the warmth of charity, and does not even deserve the name of life. On the contrary, where the fire of the apostolate burns brightly, one's interior life becomes more vigorous than ever and makes one capable of great generosity. [...] When we think that the salvation of other souls may depend on our generosity, our fidelity to grace, or our immolation, then we can refuse nothing to our Lord, and we find the strength to accept even what is most bitter and painful. [...]
God has made the granting of certain graces, necessary for our salvation and that of others, dependent upon our prayers. In other words, by the merits of Jesus, grace—God's infinite mercy—is ready to be poured out abundantly into men's souls, but it will not be poured out unless there is someone who raises supplicating hands to heaven, asking for it. If prayer does not ascend to the throne of the Most High, grace will not be granted. This explains the absolute necessity for apostolic prayer and its great efficacy. [...] There is no substitute for prayer, because prayer draws grace directly from its source, God. Our activity, our words and works can prepare the ground for grace, but if we do not pray, it will not come down to refresh souls. [...]
By their lives of continual prayer, adoration and unceasing praise to the Most High, these souls supply for the negligence and carelessness of many, and thus they re-establish in the world the balance between God's rights and man's duty, between action and contemplation. [...] In the Church they are "powerhouses" of supernatural energy, energy derived from and accumulated by prayer, and diffused by it to the utmost bounds of the earth. [...]
Unfortunately we often put more trust in our work, our diligence, our technique, than in our prayer; we have not enough faith in its efficacy, in the help which God will surely give those who invoke Him from their heart, and as a result, we consider wasted the time we give to prayer. This basic error springs from a lack of faith and humility; it is an error which explains the sterility of so many works. "Let those, then, who are great actives," admonishes St. John of the Cross," that think to girdle the world with their outward works and their preachings, take note here that they would bring far more profit to the Church, and be far more pleasing to God (apart form the good example they would give) if they spent even half of this time with God in prayer" (Spiritual Canticle, 29.3). [...]
---
Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2005), 962-963, 965-967, 971-973, 977-979, "320: One with the Mind of Christ," "321: The Soul of the Apostolate," "323: The Apostolic Ideal," "325: Apostolic Prayer."
Sunday, January 5, 2014
The Mystics on Self-Deception Regarding "Little Things"
"I have seen this in myself, for from time to time I have found many natural desires destroyed within me which had previous seemed to me very good and perfect; but when they were thus removed I saw that they had been depraved and faulty, and in accordance with those spiritual and bodily infirmities which, being hidden from me, I had not supposed myself to possess. And this is why it is necessary to attain such a subtlety of spiritual vision, in order that all which at first appears to us perfection may in the end be known as imperfections, robberies, and woes: all this is clearly revealed in that mirror of truth, pure love, in which all things appear distorted which to us had seemed upright."
Source: St. Catherine of Genoa, The Life and Doctrine of St. Catherine of Genoa, ch. 24.
"The disorder of our self-love [pride], of our attachment to our own will is no small thing. It does not require mountains of enormous sins to block the course of this rapid stream [of God’s grace], this ocean of love; the sands of our defects, which we think trivial, but which are not, suffice to do so."
Source: St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, quoted in Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy.
Source: St. Catherine of Genoa, The Life and Doctrine of St. Catherine of Genoa, ch. 24.
"The disorder of our self-love [pride], of our attachment to our own will is no small thing. It does not require mountains of enormous sins to block the course of this rapid stream [of God’s grace], this ocean of love; the sands of our defects, which we think trivial, but which are not, suffice to do so."
Source: St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, quoted in Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy.
The Difficulty of Total Self-Surrender to God
“. . . I see that God is ever ready to give us all the interior and exterior aids necessary for our salvation, and that He observes our deeds solely for our own good . . . on the other hand, I see man continually occupied in useless things, contrary to himself and of no value; and that at the hour of death God will say to him: What is there, O man, that I could have done for thee which I have not done? . . . and I am amazed and cannot understand how man can be so mad as to neglect a thing of such vast and extreme importance."
Source: St. Catherine of Genoa, The Life and Doctrine of St. Catherine of Genoa, ch. 20.
“ ‘The soul desirous of reaching this high state of union with God is greatly impeded when it clings to any understanding or feeling or imagination or appearance or will or manner of its own, or to any other act or to anything of its own, and is unable to detach and strip itself of all these’ (St. John of the Cross, Ascent, 2.4.4). This profound and radical detachment is effected in the soul by the night of the spirit. If then, we wish to enter this night, which will bring such good to our soul, we must try as far as in us lies, to deny ourselves everything, especially in those things to which we are most attached. We must be disposed to renounce our plans, our projects, and our views, not only regarding material things, but even spiritual ones, for we must go to God, not by a way of our own choosing or taste, but only by the way which He Himself has prepared for us. We must be disposed to renounce divine consolations and to walk in darkness and aridity for as long as Our Lord wills, to renounce our most cherished works, our most legitimate affections, our most holy friendships, even the very support of the one who understands and guides us in the ways of God.
“There are few who enter effectively into the night of the spirit precisely because ‘there are few who can enter, and desire to enter, into this complete detachment and emptiness of spirit’ (ibid., 7.3).
“Even among spiritual persons, few are persuaded that the way which leads to union with God ‘consists only in the one thing that is needful, which is the ability to deny oneself truly, according to that which is without and that which is within, giving oneself up to suffering for Christ’s sake, and to total annihilation’ (ibid., 7.8). We must be convinced of this, and act in all things with the greatest detachment, without detaining ourselves through a spirit of ownership or by vain complacency, either in material or in spiritual goods. We must look at Jesus on the Cross: He was truly despoiled, stripped of all things, and ‘annihilated in everything, that is, with respect to human reputation; since, when men saw Him die, they mocked Him rather than esteemed Him; and also with respect to nature, since His nature was annihilated when He died; and further, with respect to the spiritual consolation and protection of the Father, since at that time, He forsook Him’ (ibid., 7.11). From this we should understand that the more completely we annihilate ourselves for love of Him, the more completely will we be united to Him. […]
“The greater our progress in faith, the more detached we shall be from our shallow ways of thinking, not only in what concerns the divine mysteries and our direct contacts with God, but even with respect to the events of life, which we shall learn to judge only in relation to God. […]
“If we exercise ourselves intensively in the hope of heavenly goods, we shall forget earthly ones; if we hope in God alone, we shall no longer be occupied with the remembrance of creatures. […]
“If we wish to attain to detachment and to total renunciation we must love much. The more we grow in divine love, and the more readily we detach ourselves from earthly things and also from ourselves, the more capable we become of renouncing our own will and annihilating our ego in all things. […]
“These virtues will keep us strongly anchored in God.”
Source: St. Catherine of Genoa, The Life and Doctrine of St. Catherine of Genoa, ch. 20.
“ ‘The soul desirous of reaching this high state of union with God is greatly impeded when it clings to any understanding or feeling or imagination or appearance or will or manner of its own, or to any other act or to anything of its own, and is unable to detach and strip itself of all these’ (St. John of the Cross, Ascent, 2.4.4). This profound and radical detachment is effected in the soul by the night of the spirit. If then, we wish to enter this night, which will bring such good to our soul, we must try as far as in us lies, to deny ourselves everything, especially in those things to which we are most attached. We must be disposed to renounce our plans, our projects, and our views, not only regarding material things, but even spiritual ones, for we must go to God, not by a way of our own choosing or taste, but only by the way which He Himself has prepared for us. We must be disposed to renounce divine consolations and to walk in darkness and aridity for as long as Our Lord wills, to renounce our most cherished works, our most legitimate affections, our most holy friendships, even the very support of the one who understands and guides us in the ways of God.
“There are few who enter effectively into the night of the spirit precisely because ‘there are few who can enter, and desire to enter, into this complete detachment and emptiness of spirit’ (ibid., 7.3).
“Even among spiritual persons, few are persuaded that the way which leads to union with God ‘consists only in the one thing that is needful, which is the ability to deny oneself truly, according to that which is without and that which is within, giving oneself up to suffering for Christ’s sake, and to total annihilation’ (ibid., 7.8). We must be convinced of this, and act in all things with the greatest detachment, without detaining ourselves through a spirit of ownership or by vain complacency, either in material or in spiritual goods. We must look at Jesus on the Cross: He was truly despoiled, stripped of all things, and ‘annihilated in everything, that is, with respect to human reputation; since, when men saw Him die, they mocked Him rather than esteemed Him; and also with respect to nature, since His nature was annihilated when He died; and further, with respect to the spiritual consolation and protection of the Father, since at that time, He forsook Him’ (ibid., 7.11). From this we should understand that the more completely we annihilate ourselves for love of Him, the more completely will we be united to Him. […]
“The greater our progress in faith, the more detached we shall be from our shallow ways of thinking, not only in what concerns the divine mysteries and our direct contacts with God, but even with respect to the events of life, which we shall learn to judge only in relation to God. […]
“If we exercise ourselves intensively in the hope of heavenly goods, we shall forget earthly ones; if we hope in God alone, we shall no longer be occupied with the remembrance of creatures. […]
“If we wish to attain to detachment and to total renunciation we must love much. The more we grow in divine love, and the more readily we detach ourselves from earthly things and also from ourselves, the more capable we become of renouncing our own will and annihilating our ego in all things. […]
“These virtues will keep us strongly anchored in God.”
Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, “Meditation 349: Toward Complete Purification,” Divine Intimacy, trans. Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2005), 1052-1054.
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