> [[part-four-chau-soul|← Previous]] | [[chau-soul-apostolate-toc|TOC]] | [[epilogue-chau-soul|Next →]] # Part Five – The Soul of the Apostolate ## Principles and Hints for the Interior Life ### 1. To Active Workers: Hints on the Interior Life If our readers were to admit now that the doctrine put forward in this book is a matter of considerable importance, we would already be achieving a good result; but that is not enough. The real purpose of this work is to get the reader to resolve: “I am going to live according to this doctrine.” Consequently, it is time to say to the worker in Catholic Action, to the apostle who has just read these pages, especially if he has read them on retreat: “Your approval of the subject matter will have little or no effect unless it be united to a firm resolution to intensify your interior life.” And so the aim of this fifth part is to help those on retreat to strengthen those dispositions which are absolutely necessary for an interior life that will make Catholic Action get results. #### **Convictions** > [! NOTE] **Convictions** > > Zeal will only get results in so far as it is united to the action of Christ Himself. Christ does all the work; we are only His instruments. > > Our Lord does not give His blessings to any enterprise in which men place trust in human means alone. > > He does not give His blessings to enterprises that are kept going solely by natura activity. > > Jesus does not give His blessing to an enterprise in which self-love is working in the place of divine love.211 > > Woe to the man who refuses to do the work to which he is called by God! > > Woe to the man who worms his way into an enterprise without finding out what God wills for him! > > Woe to the man who, in his work, wants to run things without really depending on God! > > Woe to the man who lives an active life without taking steps to preserve or to regain the interior life! > > Woe to the man who does not know how to make the interior life and the active life harmonize, so that neither suffers from the other! #### **Principles** ##### 1ST Principle Do not plunge headlong into Catholic Action from mere natural zest for activity, but consult God and make sure you are doing what you do under the inspiration of grace, and with the morally certain guarantee that it is His will. ##### 2ND Principle It is rash and dangerous to remain too long engaged in work so heavy that it might make the soul incapable of performing the essential to the interior life. In such a case all, but especially priests and religious, should apply, even to the holiest of works, the text: “Pluck it out and cast it from thee.”212 211 Fr. Desurmont, C. SS. R. 212 Matt. v: 29. Cf. The passage from St. Bernard quoted above, pages 43, 44. \-96 ##### 3RD Principle Draw up a Schedule Allotting to Each Activity a Fixed Time, and Get it approved by a wise and experienced priest, of interior life. And then do violence to yourself, if necessary, to keep it, and control the flood of your activities. ##### 4TH Principle For your own profit and for the profit of others, it is essential that you develop your interior life, before all else. The busier you are, the more you need the interior life. And therefore, the more you ought to desire it, and the more you ought to take steps to prevent this desire from becoming one of those futile longings which the devil so often uses to drug souls and hold them fast in their illusions. ##### 5TH Principle If it happens by accident, and really as a result of God’s will, that the soul is under great stress of work, and finds it morally impossible to give more time to prayer, what then? There is a thermometer that never lies, and always tells us whether we are truly fervent, in spite of it all. Simply ask yourself if you really thirst for the interior life, and if, with all good will, you seize every possible opportunity to perform at least its essential practices? It so, you may remain at peace, and you can count on very special graces. God holds them in reserve for you; and they will give you the strength you need to continue your advance in the spiritual life. ##### 6TH Principle As long as the active worker has not reached the point where he is habitually recollected and habitually dependent upon grace — a dependence and recollection which accompany him everywhere he goes — he is still not in a satisfactory state of the interior life. But in working for this necessary recollection, strain must absolutely be avoided. A simple, habitual glance of the heart rather than of the mind, is all that is necessary. This glance will be sure, accurate, penetrating, and will tell us clearly whether we are still under the influence of Jesus in the midst of our work. #### **Practical Suggestions** 1\. Let the following conviction become deeply impressed upon your mind; namely, that a soul cannot lead an interior life without the schedule we have referred to, and without the firm resolution to keep it all the time, especially where the rigorously fixed hour of rising is concerned. 2. Base your interior life on its absolutely necessary element: morning mental prayer. St. Theresa said that, “The person who is fully determined to make a half hour’s mental prayer every morning, cost what it may, has already travelled half his journey.” Without mental prayer, the day will almost unavoidably be a tepid one. 3. Mass, Holy Communion, and the recitation of the Breviary are liturgical functions which offer inexhaustible resources for the interior life and are to be exploited with an ever increasing faith and fervor. 4. The particular and general examinations of conscience, should, like mental prayer and the liturgical life, help us to develop custody of the heart in which “watching” and “praying” (“Vigilate et orate”) are combined. The soul that pays attention to what is going on inside itself, and is sensitive to the presence of the Most Holy Trinity within it, acquires an almost instinctive habit of turning to Jesus in every situation, but especially when there appears to be some danger of becoming dissipated or weak. 5. This leads to a need for incessant prayer by means of spiritual Communions and ejaculatory prayers which are so easy, to one who wants to practice them, even in the thick of the most absorbing occupations, and which offer themselves in such a pleasing variation, appropriate to the particular needs of every present moment, to the present situation, dangers, difficulties, weariness, deceptions, and so on. \-97 6\. Devout study of Sacred Scripture, especially of the New Testament, ought to find a place each day, or at least several times a week in the life of a priest. Spiritual reading every afternoon is a daily duty which no generous soul will ever neglect. The mind needs to be brought face to face with supernatural truths, with the dogmas that generate piety, and with their moral consequences, so easily forgotten. 7. Thanks to this custody of the heart, which will serve as its remote preparation, weekly confession will infallibly be imbued with sincere contrition, with true sorrow, and with an ever more loyal and more resolutely firm purpose of amendment. 8. The yearly retreat is very useful, but it is not enough. A recollection (taking up an entire day, or at least half a day), devoted to a serious effort to recover the equilibrium of the soul is almost indispensable to the active worker. ### 2. Mental Prayer a Necessary Element of Interior Life, and Consequently of the Apostolate No results may be expected from a vague desire for the interior life, conceived after the hurried reading of some book. This desire must take shape in a precise, fervent, and practical resolution. Many active workers have asked us to help them on their way to carry out their project of an interior life by stating a few general resolutions. The answer to their requests means adding a kind of appendix to the present volume. However, we are glad to accede to their desires, since we are convinced that no active worker, priest or layman, will have truly profited by the reading of what has been said so far, unless he is fully determined to set apart a certain time, every morning, for mental prayer; and that, on the other hand, no priest who wishes to make progress in the interior life can neglect to use the liturgical life or to practice custody of the heart. It seems to us more practical to present these three points in the form of personal resolutions. We make no pretence of originating a new method of mental prayer, but merely attempt to extract the pith of the best methods. #### I. Fidelity to Mental Prayer ##### Resolution on Mental Prayer 213 **I firmly resolve to practice mental prayer every morning.** 1. Is this fidelity to mental prayer absolutely necessary? I am a priest; I heard, on my ordination retreat, the grave words: _Sacerdos alter Christus_. I then understood that if I do not make Christ in a special manner the source of all my life, I will not be a priest according to His Heart, I will not be a priestly soul. As a priest I must live in intimacy with Christ. That is what He expects of me. “I will not now call you servants... but I have called you friends.”214 But my life with Christ — Principle, Means, and End — will develop in proportion as He is the light of my reason and of all my interior and exterior acts, the love that regulates all the affections of my heart, my strength in time of trial, in my struggles, in my work, and the food of that supernatural life which makes me share even in the life of God. Fidelity to mental prayer will guarantee this life with Christ. Without mental prayer it is morally impossible. 213 Each of these resolutions is to be slowly meditated, or rather divided up into several meditations. Merely reading through them will not be of much benefit. 214 Joan. xv: 15. \-98 --- Shall I dare to insult, by my refusal, the Heart of Him who offers me the means to live in friendship with Him? Another important, though negative, aspect of the necessity for mental prayer: in the economy of the divine plan, it is a sure defence against the dangers inherent in my weakness, in my relations with the world, and in certain of my duties. If I practice mental prayer, I am clad, as it were, in steel armour and am invulnerable to the shafts of the enemy. Without mental prayer, I will certainly be wounded. Hence, there will be many faults which I will hardly notice, if at all, and yet they will be imputed to me as their cause. “A priest in constant contact with the world faces the choice between mental prayer or a very great risk of damnation,” said the pious and learned and prudent Fr. Desurmont, without any hesitation: and he was one of the most experienced preachers of ecclesiastical retreats. Cardinal Lavigerie, in his turn, said: “For an apostle, there is no halfway between sanctity, if not acquired, at least desired and pursued (especially by means of daily mental prayer), and gradual corruption.” Every priest can apply to his meditation the words with which the Holy Cross inspired the Psalmist: “Unless THY LAW had been my meditation I had then perhaps perished in my abjection.”215 Now this law goes so far as to oblige the priest to reproduce the spirit of Our Lord. A Priest Is as Good as His Mental Prayer ##### Two Classes of Priests 1\. Priests whose resolve is so firm that they will not even allow their mental prayer to be delayed by pretexts of social niceties, business, and so on. Only a very rare case, of absolute impossibility, will make them postpone it until some other half-hour, later in the morning. Nothing more. These true priests set their hearts on getting definite results in their mental prayer, which they insist on keeping distinct from their thanksgiving after Mass, from all spiritual reading, and, a fortiori, from the composition of a sermon. They possess sanctity, by virtue of their efficacious desire for it. As long as they persevere in this course, their salvation is morally certain. 2\. Priests who make nothing but a half-hearted resolution and who put off, and so easily omit, their mental prayer altogether, distort its object, or make no real effort to succeed in it. What can they look forward to? Inevitable tepidity, subtle illusions, a drugged or distorted conscience —and these are steps on the slippery path to hell. To which of these two classes do I want to belong? If I hesitate to make my choice, my retreat has been a failure. All these things go together. If I give up my half-hour of mental prayer, even Holy Mass — and therefore my Communion — will soon give me no personal profit and may even be imputed to me as a sin. The laborious and almost mechanical recitation of my Breviary will no longer be the warm and joyous expression of my liturgical life. No vigilance, no recollection, and hence, no ejaculatory prayers. Alas! No more spiritual reading. My apostolate will be less and less fruitful. No frank and sincere examination of faults — still less any particular ex-amen. Confession — a matter of routine, and sometimes of questionable worth... The next step will be sacrilege! 215 Ps. cxviii: 92. \-99 --- The citadel, less and less well defended, lies open to the assault of a legion enemies. The walls are full of holes... soon the whole place will be in ruins. #### II. What Mental Prayer Ought to Be _Ascensio mentis in Deum_. 216 “To ascend thus,” says St. Thomas, “since it is an act not of the speculative but of the practical reason, implies acts of the will.” Consequently: Mental prayer is real hard work, especially for beginners. Work to get detached, for a few minutes, from all that is not God. Work to remain for half an hour fixed in God, and to gather yourself for a new effort to reach perfection. This work is no doubt hard, in the beginning, but I am going to accept it with generosity. Besides this work will be quickly rewarded by great consolations here on earth, by peace in friendship, and union with Jesus. “Mental prayer,” says St. Theresa, “is nothing but a friendly conversation in which the soul speaks, heart-to-heart, with the One Who we know loves us.” A loving conversation. It would be blasphemous to imagine that God, Who makes me feel the need and at times the attraction of this converse, and, what is more, makes it an obligation for me, should not want to make it easy for me. Even if I have long neglected it, Jesus calls me tenderly to mental prayer, and offers me special help in speaking this language of faith, hope, and love, which, as Bossuet says, is precisely what my mental prayer ought to be. Am I going to resist this appeal of a Father Who calls even the prodigal to come and listen to His word, to talk to Him as a son; to open his heart to Him and to listen to the beatings of His own? A simple conversation. I will be myself. I will speak to God of my tepidity, or my sins. I will speak to Him as a prodigal, or from the heat of my fervour. With the simplicity of a child, I will put my state of soul before Him, and I will only use words that express what I really am. A practical conversation. When the smith plunges the iron into the fire, he is not just trying to make it hot and glowing; he wants to make it malleable. So too, the only reason why mental prayer is to give light to my mind and warmth to my heart is to make my soul pliant so that it can be hammered into a new shape, so that the faults and form of the old man may be hammered out, and the form and virtues of Jesus Christ imparted to it. Thus the result of my conversation will be to elevate my soul to the level of the sanctity of Christ,217 so that He may be able to fashion it in His own likeness. “Thou, Lord Jesus, Thou Thyself, with Thine own most gentle and most merciful, yet most powerful hand, dost FORM and MOULD my heart.”218 #### III. How Am I Going to Make My Mental Prayer? To make a practical application of the definition of mental prayer and the notion of its object, I will follow this logical advance. I will put my mind, especially my faith and my heart, in the presence of Our Lord teaching me a truth or a virtue. I will intensify my thirst to bring my soul into harmony with the ideal under consideration. I will deplore what is opposed to it, in me. Foreseeing the various obstacles, I will make up my mind to overcome them. But, convinced that by myself I will get nowhere, I will obtain, by my earnest prayers, the grace to succeed. ##### Footnote 216 The ascent to the mind of God. 217 A definition, by Alvarez de Paz, of the object of mental prayer. 218 St. Augustine. \-100 --- I am a traveller, exhausted, breathless; I seek to quench my thirst. At last, VIDEO219: Isee a spring. But it is flowing from a sheer cliff. SITIO: the more I look at this limpid water that would enable me to continue my journey, the more my desire to quench my thirst increases, in spite of all the obstacles. VOLO: at all costs, I wish to reach this spring, I will to make every effort to get there. Alas! I have to admit that I am helpless. VOLO TECUM: a guide comes up. All that is required to enlist His help is that I ask Him. He carries me even where the going is hardest. Soon I am quenching my thirst in long draughts. And that is the way it is with the living waters of grace that flow from the Heart of Jesus. My spiritual reading, in the evening — so precious an element in the spiritual life — rekindles my desire for mental prayer the following morning. Before going to bed I foresee briefly, but in a clear and forceful manner, the subject of my meditation,220 as well as the special fruit I want to draw from it, and in the presence of God I stir up my desire to profit by it. Now it is time for my meditation.221 It is my desire to tear myself away from the earth, and compel my imagination to present a living and speaking picture, which I am to substitute for my preoccupations, distractions, and so on. 222 This picture will be a quick sketch, in a few bold lines, but it must be striking enough to grip my attention and place me in the presence of God, Whose activity, which is all love, seeks to surround and penetrate me. Thus I come into contact with a living223 interlocutor, who commands all my adoration and love. At once I fall into profound adoration of Him. That is obvious, inescapable. I annihilate myself. I am filled with contrition, I make every protestation of complete dependence on Him, and offer up humble and confident prayer that this conversation with my God may be blessed.224 VIDEO Gripped by the sense of Your living presence, Dear Lord, and so detached from the purely natural order of things, I begin to talk to You in the language of Faith. Faith is much 219 *VIDEO*, I see. *SITIO*, I thirst. *VOLO*, I wish. *VOLO TECUM*, I wish with Thee. 220 A book of meditations is almost necessary to keep the mind from drifting around in a fog. There are plenty of works, old and new, that have everything that is demanded in a true book of meditations, as distinct from spiritual reading. Each point contains some striking truth presented in a clear, forceful, and concise manner, in such a way that once we have reflected upon it, we are inevitably led on into a loving and practical conversation with God. A single point is plenty for half an hour; it should be summed up in a biblical or liturgical text, or in some fundamental idea proper to my state. Above all, we must meditate upon the last things, and sin, at least once a month; after that on our vocation, on the duties of our state, the capital sins, the principal virtues, God's attributes, the mysteries of the Rosary or other scenes from the Gospel, especially the Passion. The feasts of the Liturgy suggest their own subjects. 221 _ Clauso ostio_ (the doors being shut) as we read in the Gospel, suggests that I should prefer that place in which I shall be least likely to be disturbed—the Church, my room, the garden, etc. 222 For instance, Our Lord showing His Sacred Heart and saying: "I am the Resurrection and the Life”—or "Behold this Heart which has so loved men”—or else some scene from His life, Bethlehem, Thabor, Calvary, etc. If after a sincere and brief attempt we do not succeed in visualizing the scene, drop it and pass on; God will make up for it. 223 The whole success of mental prayer depends often enough on how attentively we consider the fact that the One to whom we speak is actually living and present before us; we must cease to treat Him as though He were far away, and passive; that is, little more than an abstraction. 224 We need to be thoroughly convinced of the fact that all God asks of us, in this conversation, is good will. A soul pestered by distractions, but who patiently comes back, each day, like a good child, to talk with God is making first-rate mental prayer. God supplies all our deficiencies. \-101 --- more fruitful than all the analyzing my reason can do. And so, I carefully read over, or turn over in my memory, this point of meditation. Jesus, You are the One Who is talking to me, in this truth. You are the One teaching it to me. I want to get a livelier and greater faith in this truth which You are presenting to me as a thing of absolute certainty, since it is based on Your own veracity. As for you, my soul, do not cease to repeat: “I BELIEVE.” Say it again, with even greater conviction. Be like a child going over a lesson; repeat over and over again that you cling to this doctrine and to all its consequences for your eternity.225 Jesus, this is true, absolutely true, I believe it. I will that this ray from the sun of revelation shall serve as the beacon of my journey. Make my faith more ardent. Fill me with a vehement desire to live this ideal, and a holy anger against all that stands in its way. I want to devour this food of truth, and make it a part of me. But if, after I have spent several minutes in stirring up my faith, I still remain cold to the truth presented to me — no use straining. I will simply turn to You like a child, my good Master, and tell You how sorry I am for this helplessness, and beg You to make up for it. *SITIO* The more frequent are my acts of faith, and above all the more power they have (and they are a true participation in the light of the Divine Intelligence), the more intense will be the response of my heart — the language of affective love. Affections, in fact, spring up all by themselves, or called forth by my will, and are cast like flowers before the feet of Jesus by my childlike soul as He speaks to me. Adoration, gratitude, love, joy, attachment to the Divine Will, and detachment from everything else, aversion, hatred, fear, anger, hope, abandonment. My heart selects one or more of these sentiments, and goes into them in all their depths, tells them to You, Jesus, repeats them to You over and over again, tenderly, with loyal trust, but in great simplicity. If my feelings offer their assistance, I accept it. It may be useful, but it is not necessary. A calm, profound love is much better than surface emotions. These last do not depend on me, and are never a sure standard by which to tell if my prayer is genuine and faithful. But what is always in my power to accomplish and is the most important thing is the effort to shake off the torpor my heart and to make it say: My God I want to be united to You. I want to annihilate myself before You. I want to sing my gratitude and my joy to carry out Your Will I want it to be true, and no longer a lie, when I tell You that I love You, and that I hate what offends You, and so on. No matter how sincerely I try, it may happen that my heart remains cold and expresses these affections with languor. In that case, Dear Lord, I will tell You in all simplicity, how I am humbled and how much I desire to do better. I will be very glad to go on for a long time lamenting my deficiency, convinced that by complaining of my dryness to You I acquire a special right to a most efficacious, though arid, cold, and dark, union with the affections of Your Divine Heart. What a wonderful Ideal is that which I behold in You, my Jesus. But is my life in harmony with that perfect Exemplar? That is what I now set out to discover, under Your earnest gaze, O my Divine Companion. Now You are all Mercy; but when I come before You in the Particular Judgment — then at a single glance You will take in all the secret motives underlying the smallest acts of my life. Am I living according to this Ideal? Jesus, if I were to die right now, would You not find that my life is in contradiction with it? 225 That is the way to make convictions take a firm hold on your soul and to prepare for the gifts of the spirit of lively faith and supernatural insight. \-102 --- Good Master, what are the points that You want me to correct? Help me to find out the obstacles that prevent me from imitating You and then the internal or external causes, and the near or remote occasions of my faults. When I see all my failings and my difficulties, O my Redeemer, whom I adore, my heart cries out to You in confusion, pain, sorrow, bitter regret, and with a burning thirst to do better, and with a generous and uncompromising oblation of all that I am. _Volo placere Deo__in omnibus_. 226 *VOLO* I pass on into the school of willing. Now it is the language of effective love. Affections have given me the desire to correct myself. I have seen what stands in my way. Now it is up to my will to say: “I will get them out of the road. Jesus, my ardour in saying over and over again “I will” springs from the fervour with which I repeat “I believe, I love, I regret, I detest.” If it sometimes happens, dear Lord, that this Volo does not spring forth with all the power I would like it to have, I will deplore this weakness of my will, and far from letting this discourage me, I will tell You over and over again, never tiring, how much I would like to have part in Your generosity in serving Your Father. Besides the general resolution to work for my salvation, and to progress in the love of God, I will also add another, to apply my prayer to the difficulties, temptations, and dangers of this day. But what I want most of all is to intensify in the fires of a more fervent love, the resolution227 which is the object of my particular examen (in which I concern myself with some defect I need to overcome, or some virtue to be gained). I will fortify this resolution with motives drawn from the Heart of the Master. Like a true strategist, I will be very clear as to the means that will ensure success, anticipate the occasion, and prepare for the fight. If I anticipate some special occasion of dissipation, immortification, humiliation, temptation, or some important decision to be made, I will face the approach of this moment with vigilance, strength, and, above all, in union with Jesus, and depending on Mary. If, in spite of all my precautions, I fall again, what a world of difference there will nevertheless be between this surprise fault and my other lapses! No more discouragement now, because I know that God receives more glory from these ever-repeated new beginnings, by which I become more resolute, more mistrustful of myself, and more dependent upon Him. Success is to be had only at this price. VOLO TECUM “To make a lame man walk without a limp is less absurd than to try and succeed without Thee, my Saviour” (St. Augustine). Why do my resolutions bear no fruit? It can only be because my belief that “I can do all things” is not followed by; “in Him Who strengtheneth me.”228 And this brings me, then, to that part of my prayer which is in certain respects the most important of all: supplication, or the language of hope. Without Your grace, Jesus, I can do nothing. And there is absolutely nothing that entitles me to it, Yet I know that my ceaseless prayers, far from irking You, will determine the amount of help You will give me, if they reflect a thirst to belong to You, distrust in myself, and an unlimited, not to say mad, confidence in Your Sacred Heart. Like the 226 “I wish to please God in all things." In these words, Suarez gives us the pith of all his ascetical treatises. These acts of _sitio_ make the soul ready for a resolution never to refuse God anything. 227 It is better to stick to the same resolution for months at a time, or from one retreat to the next. The particular examen, in the form of a short conversation with Our Lord, completes the meditation, and by noting our progress or regress, greatly assists our advance. 228 Phil. iv: 13. \-103 --- Canaanite woman, I cast myself at Your feet, O infinite goodness. With her persistence, full of humility and hope, I ask You not for a few crumbs but a full share in this banquet of which You said: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.” Grace has made me a member of Your Mystical Body, and so I share in Your life and merits, and it is through You, O Jesus, that I pray. Father all-holy, I am praying to You by the Precious Blood that cries out for mercy; can You refuse to hear my prayer? It is the cry of a beggar, going up to You, Who are inexhaustible wealth: “Hear me, for I am needy and poor.”229 Clothe me in Your strength, and in my weakness glorify Your power. Your goodness, Your promises, my Jesus, and my misery and my confidence are the only titles on which I base my request that I may obtain, through union with You, vigilance and strength throughout this day. If any obstacle comes up, or any temptation, or some sacrifice to be exacted from one or other of my faculties, some text or thought which I take along with me as a spiritual bouquet, will help me breathe the fragrance of prayer which surrounded my resolution, and once again, at that time, I will renew my cries of powerful supplication. This habit, a fruit of my mental prayer, will also be the true test of its value: “By their fruits you shall know.” When I get to the point where I LIVE BY FAITH, and in the CONSTANT THIRST FOR GOD, then alone the labour of the VIDEO stage of prayer will sometimes be omitted; *SITIO and VOLO* will spring from my heart at the very beginning of the meditation, which will then be spent in eliciting affections and in offering sacrifices, in strengthening my resolute will, and then in begging from Jesus, either directly or through Mary Immaculate, the angels, or the saints, a closer and more constant union with the Divine Will. Now it is time for the Holy Sacrifice. Mental Prayer has made me ready. My participation in Calvary, in the name of the Church, and my Communion, will follow, as it were, naturally, as a kind of continuation of my meditation.230 In my thanksgiving I will extend my demands to all the needs of the Church, to the souls in my care, to the dead, to my work, my relatives, friends, benefactors, enemies, and so on. The recitation of the various hours, in my beloved Breviary, in union with the Church, for her and for myself, as well as ardent ejaculatory prayers, spiritual communions, particular examen, visit to the Blessed Sacrament, Rosary, general examen, and so on, will all be friendly landmarks along my road. They will give me new strength and will preserve the initial momentum that began with the morning meditation, and will guarantee that nothing escapes the action of Our Lord. Thanks to the momentum, recourse to Jesus, frequent at first, and then habitual, either directly or through His Mother, will wipe out all the contradictions between my admiration of His teachings and my free-and-easy life; between my pious beliefs and my actual conduct. At this point the writer must curb the desires of his heart which, in its anxiety to be of use to active workers, would like to devote a special resolution, at this point, to the particular examen. He fears, however, that if he gives in to his notion, he will make the book over long. And yet, the reading of Cassian, and of several Fathers of the Church, as well as St. Ignatius, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Vincent de Paul, persuades us that the particular and general examinations are absolutely necessary adjuncts of mental prayer, and are closely linked with custody of the heart. ##### Footnotes 229 Ps. lxxxv. 230 See Appendix. \-104 --- Following the guidance of the director, the soul is now resolved to take a more direct aim, in meditation and during the course of the day, at some special defect or some special virtue which is the chief source of other defects and virtues. Many are the steeds that draw the chariot. And the eye is on them all at once, constantly. Yet in the midst of the team there is one that occupies all the care of the driver. In point of fact, if this one charger veers too much to the right or left, the whole team will be thrown off the track. The analysis of the soul, by particular examination, to see if there has been progress, regression, or stagnation with regard to a certain specifically chosen point, is simply one of the elements of custody of the heart. ### 3. The Liturgical Life Is a Source of the Interior Life: Therefore It Is a Source of the Apostolate #### Resolution on the Liturgical Life I want to use my Mass, Breviary, and other liturgical functions to unite myself more and more, both as MEMBER and AMBASSADOR, to the life of the Church, and thus more fully to put on Christ, and Christ crucified, especially if I am His MINISTER. ### I. What Is the Liturgy? It is You, Jesus, that I adore as Centre of the Liturgy. It is You Who give unity to this Liturgy, which I may define as the public, social, official worship given by the Church of God, or, the whole complex of means which the Church uses especially in the Missal, Ritual, and, Breviary, and by which she expresses her religion to the adorable Trinity, as well as instructs and sanctifies souls. O my soul, you must go into the very heart of the Adorable Trinity and contemplate there the eternal Liturgy in which the three Persons chant, one to another, their divine Life and infinite Sanctity, in their ineffable hymn of the generation of the Word and the procession of the Holy Spirit. _Sicut erat in principio_... God desires to be praised outside of Himself. He created the angels, and heaven resounded with their joyous cries of _Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus_. He created the visible world and it magnifies His power: “The heavens announce the glory of God.” Adam comes to life and begins to sing, in the name of creation, a hymn of praise in echo of the everlasting Liturgy. Adam, Noah, Melchisedech. Abraham, Moses, the people of God, David, and all the saints of the Old Law vied in chanting it. The Jewish Pasch, their sacrifices and holocausts, the solemn worship of Jehovah in His Temple, gave this praise, especially since the fall. “Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner.”231 You, Jesus, You alone are the perfect hymn of praise, because You are the true glory of the Father. No one can worthily glorify Your Father, except through You. _Per Ipsum, et_ _cum Ipso et in Ipso est tibi Deo Patri... omnis honour et Gloria_.”232 You are the link between the Liturgy of earth and the Liturgy of heaven, in which You give Your elect a more direct participation. Your Incarnation came and united, in a living and substantial union, mankind and all creation, with the Liturgy of God Himself. Thus it is God Who praises God, in our Liturgy. And this is full and perfect praise, which finds its apogee in the sacrifice of Calvary. 231 Eccli. xv: 9. 232 By Him and with Him and in Him, all honour and glory are given to Thee, O God the Father. (Canon of the Mass.) \-105 --- Divine Saviour, before You left the earth, You instituted the Sacrifice of the New Law, in order to renew Your immolation. You also instituted Your Sacraments, in order to communicate Your life to souls. But You left Your Church the care of surrounding this Sacrifice and these Sacraments with symbols, ceremonies, exhortations, prayers, etc., in order that she might thus pay greater honour to the Mystery of the Redemption, and make it more understandable to her children, and help them to gain more profit from it while exciting in their souls a respect full of awe. You also gave Your Church the mission of continuing until the end of time the prayer and praise which Your Heart never ceased to send up to Your Father during Your mortal life and which It still goes on offering to Him, in the Tabernacle and in the splendour of Your glory in heaven. The Church, who loves You as a Spouse, and who is full of a Mother’s love for us, which comes to her from Your own Heart, has carried out this twofold task. That is how those wonderful collections were formed, which include all the riches of the Liturgy. Ever since, the Church has been uniting her praises to those which the angels and her own elect children have been giving to God in heaven. In this way, she already begins to do, here below, what is destined to occupy her for all eternity. United to the praises of the man-God, this praise, the prayer of the Church, becomes divine and the Liturgy of the earth becomes one with that of the celestial hierarchies in the Court of Christ, echoing that everlasting praise which springs forth from the furnace of infinite love which is the Most Holy Trinity. ### II. What Is the Liturgical Life? Lord, the laws of Your Church do not bind me strictly to anything but the faithful observance of the rubrics and the correct pronunciation of words. But is there any doubt that You want my good will to give You more than this? You want my mind and heart to profit by the riches hidden in the Liturgy and thus be more united to Your Church and come thereby to a closer union with Yourself. Good Master, the example of Your most faithful servants makes me eager to come and sit down at the splendid feast to which the Church invites me, certain that I will find, in the Divine Office, in the forms, ceremonies, collects, epistles, gospels, and so on which accompany the holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the administration of the Sacraments, healthful and abundant food to nourish my interior life. Let us dwell on the basic idea that ties all the elements of the Liturgy together, and the fruits by which progress may be recognised will preserve us from illusion. Each one of the sacred rites may be compared to a precious stone. Yet how much greater will be the value and brilliance of those that belong to the Mass and Office, when I know how to enshrine them all together in that marvellous setting: the liturgical cycle.233 When my soul lives, throughout a certain period of time, under the influence of a mystery, and is nourished by all that Scripture and tradition offer that is most instructive in this subject, and is constantly directed and made attentive to the same order of ideas, it must 233 The Church, inspired by God and instructed by the Holy Apostles, has disposed the year in such a way that we may find in it, together with the life, the mysteries, the preaching and doctrine of Jesus Christ, the true fruit of all these in the admirable virtues of His servants and in the examples of His saints, and, finally, a mysterious compendium of the Old and New Testaments and of the whole of Ecclesiastical History. And thus, all the seasons are full of rich fruits for a Christian: all are full of Jesus Christ. In this variety, which all together leads up to that single unity recommended by Christ, the clean and pious soul will find, together with celestial pleasures, solid nourishment and an everlasting renewal of fervour. (Bossuet: Funeral Sermon on Maria Theresa of Austria.) \-106 --- necessarily be influenced by this concentration, and find in the thoughts suggested by the Church a food as nourishing as it is delightful, and which will prepare it to receive that special grace which God reserves for each period, each Feast of the Cycle. The Mystery comes to fill me not only as an abstract truth, absorbed in meditation, but gripping my whole being, bringing into play even my sense faculties, to stir up my heart and direct my will. It is more than a mere commemoration of some past event, or an ordinary anniversary: it is living actuality with all the character of a present event to which the Church gives an application here and now, and in which she really and truly takes part. For instance, in the Christmas Season, rejoicing before the altar at the coming of the Holy Child, my soul can repeat: “Today Christ is born, today the Saviour has appeared, today the angels sing on earth...”234 At each period in the liturgical Cycle, my Missal and Breviary disclose to me new rays of the love of Him Who is for us at the same time Teacher, Doctor, Consoler, Saviour, and Friend. On the Altar, just as at Bethlehem or Nazareth, or on the shore of the Lake of Tiberias, Jesus reveals Himself as Light, Love, Kindness, and Mercy. He reveals Himself above all as Love personified, because He is Suffering personified, in agony at Gethsemani, atoning on Calvary. And so the liturgical life gives the Eucharistic life its full development. And Your Incarnation, O Jesus, that brought God close to us, making Him visible to us in You, continues to do the very same thing for us all, in each of the mysteries that we celebrate. So it is, dear Lord, that thanks to the Liturgy, I can share in the Church’s life and in Your own. With her, every year, I witness the mysteries of Your Hidden life, Your Public life, Life of Suffering, and Life in Glory; and with her, I cull the fruits of them all. Besides, the periodic feasts of Our Lady and the Saints who have best imitated Your interior Life bring me, also, an increase of light and strength by placing their example before my eyes, helping me to reproduce Your virtues in myself and to inspire the faithful with the spirit of Your Gospel. How am I to carry out, in my apostolate, the desire of Pius X? How are the faithful going to be helped, by me, to enter into an active participation in the Holy Mysteries and, in the public and solemn prayer of the Church which that Pope called the PRIME AND INDISPENSABLE SOURCE of the true Christian spirit, if I myself pass by the treasures of the Liturgy without even suspecting what wonders are to be found therein? If I am going to put more unity into my spiritual life, and unite myself still more to the life of the Church, I will aim at tying up all my other pious exercises with the Liturgy, as far as I possibly can. For instance, I will give preference to a subject for meditation which has a connection with the liturgical period, or feast, or cycle. In my visits to the Blessed Sacrament, I will converse more readily, according to the season, with the Child Jesus, Jesus suffering, Jesus glorified, Jesus living in His Church, and so on. Private reading on the Mystery or on the life of the Saint being honoured at the time will also contribute much to this plan for a liturgical spirituality. My adorable Master, deliver me from all fake liturgical life. It is ruinous to the interior life, above all because it weakens the spiritual combat. Preserve me from a piety which would have the liturgical life consist in a lot of poetic thrills, or in an intriguing study of religious archaeology, or else which leads to quietism and its awful consequences; for quietism strikes at the very roots of the interior life: fear, hope, the desire of salvation, and of perfection, the fight against faults and labour to acquire virtue. 234 Office of Christmas. \-107 --- Make me really convinced that in this age of absorbing and dangerous occupations, the liturgical life, no matter how perfect it may be, can never dispense anyone from morning mental prayer. Keep far from me all sentimentality and fake piety which make die liturgical life consist in impressions and emotions, and leave the will the slave of the imagination and feelings. Not that You want me to remain cold to all the beauty and poetry which the Liturgy contains. Far from it! The Church uses her chant and her ceremonies to appeal to the sense faculties, and to reach, through them, the souls of her children more fully, and to give to their wills a more effective presentation of the true goods, and raise them up more surely, more easily, and more completely to God. I can therefore enjoy all the changeless, wholesome refreshment of dogma thrown into relief by liturgy, and let myself be moved by the majestic spectacle of a solemn High Mass, and esteem the prayers of absolution of the touching rites of Baptism, Extreme Unction, the Burial Service, and so on. But I must never lose sight of the fact that all the resources offered by the holy Liturgy are nothing but means to arrive at the sole end of all interior life: to put to death the “old man” that You, Jesus, may reign in his place. I will, therefore, be leading a genuine liturgical life if I am so penetrated with the spirit of the liturgy that I use my Mass, Prayers, and Official Rites to intensify my union with the Church, and thus to progress in my participation in the interior Life of Jesus Christ, and hence in His virtues, so that I will give a truer reflection of Him in the eyes of the faithful. ### III. The Liturgical Spirit Jesus, This Liturgical Life Means a Special Attraction for All That Pertains to Worship To some people, You have freely given this attraction. Others are less privileged. But if they ask you for it, and aid themselves by studying and reflecting, they too will obtain it. The meditation I shall make, later on, upon the advantages of the liturgical life, is going to increase my thirst to acquire it at any price. At present I pause to consider the distinctive characteristics of this life, which give it such an important place in spirituality. Union, even remote, together with the Church, to Your Sacrifice, by thought and intention, O Jesus: this is already a great thing. So is it to find one’s prayer fused with the official and unceasing prayer of Your Church. The heart of the ordinary baptised Christian thus takes flight with more certainty towards God, carried up to Him by Your praises, adoration, thanksgiving, reparation, and petition.235 235 Union with somebody else’s prayer can lead one to a high degree of prayer! Take the case of the peasant who offered to carry the baggage of St. Ignatius and his companions. When he noticed that, as soon as they arrived at some inn, the Fathers hastened to find some quiet spot and recollect themselves before God, he did as they did, and fell on his knees too. One day they asked him what he did when he thus recollected himself, and he answered: "All I do is say: ‘Lord, these men are saints, and I am their pack-horse. Whatever they do, I want to be doing too’; and so that is what I offer up to God.” (Cf. Rodriguez, _Christian Perf._ Pt. I, Tr. 5, ch. xix.) If this man came, by means of the continuous practice of this exercise, to a high degree of prayer and spirituality, how much more can even a man without education advance in union with the liturgical life of the Church. A Cistercian lay-brother of Clairvaux was watching the sheep during the night of the Assumption. He did his best, chiefly by reciting the Angelic Salutation, to unite himself to the Matins which the monks were singing in choir, the distant bells for which had reached him, out in the hills. God revealed to St. Bernard that the simple and humble devotion of this Brother had been so pleasing to Our Lady that she had preferred it to that of the monks, fervent as they were. (_Exordium Magnum Ord. Cisterciensis_, D. 4, c. xiii. _Migne_: Patr. Lat., Vol. 185.) \-108 --- An active participation (Pope Pius X’s own words) in the sacrosanct mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer: that means assisting at this worship with piety and understanding; it means an avid desire to profit by the feasts and ceremonies; better still, it means serving Mass, and answering the prayers, or joining in the recitation and chanting of the Office. Is not all this a way to enter more directly into the thoughts of Your Church, and to draw from the prime and indispensable source of the Christian spirit?236 But then, O Holy Church, what a noble mission it is to present oneself each day, by virtue of ordination or religious profession, united to the angels and the elect, as your ambassador before the throne of God, there to utter your official prayer! Incomparably more sublime, and beyond all power of expression, is the dignity of a sacred minister who becomes Your other self, O my Divine Redeemer, by administering the Sacraments, and above all by celebrating the Holy Sacrifice. ### First Principle _As a member of the Church, I must have the conviction that when I take part, even as_a plain Christian__237_ _in a liturgical ceremony, I am united to the whole Church not only through the Communion of Saints, but by virtue of a real and active cooperation in an act of_ _religion which the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, offers as a society to God. And by_ _this notion the Church like a true Mother helps dispose my soul to receive the Christian__virtues_. 238 Your Church, Lord Jesus, forms a perfect society, whose members, closely united one to another, are destined to form an even more perfect and more holy society, that of the Elect. As a Christian I am a member of that Body of which You are the Head and the Life. And that is the point of view from which You look at me, Divine Saviour. So I give You a special joy when, in presenting myself before You, I speak to You as my Head, and consider myself as one of the sheep of that Fold of which You are the only Shepherd, and which includes in its unity all my brothers in the Church militant, suffering and triumphant. Your Apostle taught me this doctrine which expands my soul and broadens the horizons of my spirituality. And thus it is, he says, that “As in one body we have many members, so we, the many, are one body in Christ, but severally members one of another.”239 And elsewhere: “For as the body is one and hath many members: and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body, so also is Christ.”240 There, then, is the unity of Your Church, indivisible in the parts and in the whole, all entirely present in the whole Body, and all in each one of the parts,241 united in the Holy 236 Pius X, _Mot. Prop_. Nov. 22, 1903, on Sacred Music. 237 The priest, and even the bishop, is present, like any ordinary member of the faithful, only in his capacity as a plain Christian when he assists at a ceremony, when exercising no special function in it, profiting from it in the ordinary way. 238 We can better understand the efficacy of the Liturgy in making us live the life of grace and in making the whole interior life more easily accessible to us, when we recall that all official prayer, every ceremony instituted by the Church, possesses an impetratory power which is, in itself, irresistible, _per se efficacissima_. In this case the power that is put into operation to obtain a particular grace is more than just an individual gesture, the isolated prayer of a soul, however excellently disposed; it is also the act of the whole Church who becomes a suppliant with us. It is the voice of the dearly beloved Spouse, which always gives joy to the Heart of God, and which He always hears and answers in some way. To sum it all up in a word: the impetratory power of the Liturgy is made up of two elements: the _opus_operantis_ of the soul, making use of the Great Sacramental of the Liturgy, and the _opus operantis_ of the Church. The two actions, that of the soul and that of the Church, are like two forges that combine and leap up, in a single momentum, to God. 239 Rom. xii: 4-5. 240 I Cor. xii: 12. 241 St. Peter Damian, _Opusc_. xi, c. 10. Migne, _Patr. Lat_., Vol. 145, col. 239. \-109 --- Spirit, united in You, Jesus, and brought by this union into the unique and eternal society of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.242 The Church is the assembly of the faithful who, under the government of the same authority, are united by the same faith and the same charity, and tend to the same end, that is, incorporation in Christ by the same means, which are summed up in grace, of which the ordinary channels are prayer and the Sacraments. The great prayer, and the favourite channel of grace is liturgical prayer, the prayer of the Church herself, more powerful than the prayer of single individuals and even of pious associations, no matter how powerful private and non-liturgical forms of social prayer may be, and no matter how much they are recommended in the Gospel.243 Incorporated in the true Church, a child of God and a member of Christ by the Sacraments of Baptism, I have acquired the right to participate in the other Sacraments, in the Divine Office, in the fruits of the Mass, and in the indulgences and prayers of the Church. I can benefit by all the graces and all the merits of my brethren. I bear, from Baptism, an indelible mark which commissions me to worship God according to the rite of the Christian religion.244 My Baptismal consecration makes me a member of the Kingdom of God, and I form part of that “chosen generation, the kingly priesthood, the holy nation.”245 And so, I participate as a Christian in the sacred ministry, although in a remote and indirect manner, by my prayers, by my share in the offering, by my active participation in the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the liturgical offices, and in multiplying my spiritual sacrifices, as St. Peter recommends, by the practice of virtues, by accomplishing all things with a view to pleasing God and uniting myself to Him, and by making of my body a living victim, holy and agreeable to God.”246 And that is what you teach me, Holy Mother Church when, by the priest, You say to the faithful: _Orate frates_... “Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable,” and where the priest says also, in the Canon: _Memento Domine... et_ _omnium circumstantium pro quibus tibi offerimus vel qui tibi offerunt hoc Sacrificium laudis_, “Remember Lord … (N. and N.) and all those who are here present, for whom we offer to Thee, or who offer to Thee this sacrifice of Praise.” And, further on: “Receive, Lord, with “"Each one of the faithful may be called a little Church in himself, since, with the mystery of this hidden unity, one man receives all the Sacraments of man's Redemption (which were given by Our Lord to the whole Church).” This passage is taken from St. Peter Damian's beautiful treatise on the Mystical Body which is also a treatise on the Liturgy, the “_Liber qui Dicitur Dominus Vobiscum_,” or the tract on the "_Dominus_ _Vobiscum_.” The present words occur in his discussion of the way each one of the faithful can say "miserere MEI Deus," and "Deus in adjutorium MEUM intende" (as it is in the psalm and at the beginning of each hour in the monastic Breviary), both in his own name and in that of the whole Church. 242 St. Peter Damian, quoted by D. Gréa, La Sainte Liturgie, p. 51. 243 St. Ignatius Martyr writes, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, c. v: “Make no mistake: unless one come to the altar he is deprived of the Bread of God. Now if the prayer of one or the other of you has such great power, how much greater is the power of that prayer which is of the bishop and of the whole Church? Therefore, he who does not come to the assembly of the faithful, is puffed up with pride, and has already excommunicated and judged himself." (Migne, Patr. Graeca, Vol. III, 647.) St. Alphonsus Liguori preferred one prayer of the Breviary to a hundred private prayers. --- 244 Card. Billot, _De Ecclesiae Sacram_., t. 1, thes. 2. 245 I Peter ii: 9. 246 I Pet. ii: 5. It is this sense that St. Ambrose says: “All the children of the Church are priests, for we are anointed in a holy priesthood, offering ourselves to God as spiritual victims.” (_In Lucam_, lib. iv, n. 33. Migne, _Patr. Lat_., vol. 15, 676.) “Just as call all ‘Christians’ because of the mystical Chrysm, so we call all ‘priests’ because all are members of one Priest.” (St. Augustine, _De Civit. Dei_, xx: 10. Migne, P. L., vol. 41, col. 676.) \-110 --- Kindness, we beg of Thee, this offering which we make to Thee, I Thy servant, and Thy family.”247 Indeed, the holy Liturgy is so truly the common work of the entire Church, that is of the priests and people, that the mystery of this unity is ever really present in the Church by the indestructible power of the Communion of Saints, which is proposed to our belief in the Apostles’ Creed. The Divine Office and Holy Mass, which is the most important part of the Liturgy, cannot be celebrated without the whole Church being involved, and being mysteriously present.248 And so, in the Liturgy, everything is done in common in the name of all, for the benefit of all, All the prayers are said in the plural. This close union between all the members, by the same faith and by participation in the same Sacraments, produces fraternal love in their souls, and this is the distinctive sign of those who wish to imitate Christ and walk in His footsteps. “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”249 This bond among the members of the Church draws them all the closer together in proportion as they participate more fully, through the Communion of Saints, in the grace and charity of the Head who communicates to them supernatural and divine life. These truths are the foundation of the liturgical life which, in its turn, brings me constantly back to them. O Holy Church of God, what great love for you this thought enkindles in my heart! I am one of your members. I am a member of Christ! What love for all Christians this gives me, since I realise that they are my brothers, and that we are all one in Christ! And what love for my divine Head, Jesus Christ! It is not possible for me to remain indifferent to anything that concerns you. Sad, if I behold you persecuted, I rejoice at the news of your conquests, your triumphs. What a joy to think that, while I am sanctifying myself, I am also contributing to the increase of your beauty and working for the sanctification of all the children of the Church, my brothers, and even for the salvation of the whole human family! O Holy Church of God, I wish, as far as in me lies, to make you more lovely and more holy and more full. And the splendour of your whole unity will come forth from the perfection of each one of your children, built on the foundation that dominated solidarity which was the thought that dominated Christ’s prayer after the Last Supper and was the true testament of His Heart: “That they may be one... That they may be made perfect in one.”250 O Mother, Holy Church, how moved I am with love and admiration for your liturgical prayer! Since I am one of your members, it is my prayer too, especially when I am present or take an active part in it. All that you have is mine; and everything I have belongs to you. 247 _Hanc igitur oblationem servitutis nostrae sed et cunctae familiae tuae quaesumus, Domine, at placatus_ _accipias_. (Canon of the Mass.) "We all make this offering together with the priest, our consent is given to all that he does, all that he says. And what is it that he says? ‘Pray, my brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be agreeable to the Lord our God.’ And what is your answer? ‘May the Lord receive from your hands:...' What? ‘... my sacrifice and yours!’ And then, again, what does the priest say? ‘Remember Thy servants for whom we offer....' Is that all? He adds... ‘or who offer Thee this sacrifice.’ Let us, then, offer with him. Let us offer Jesus Christ, and offer up our Own selves, together with the whole Catholic Church, spread over the whole earth.” (Bossuet, _Medit. on_ _the Gospel_. Last Supper, Pt. 1, 83rd day.) 248 St. Peter Damian (also speaking of the _Hanc igitur_...): "By these words it is quite clearly evident that the Sacrifice which is placed upon the altar by the hands of the priest is offered by the entire family of God as a whole." (_Lib. qui Dic. Dominus Vobiscum_, cap. vm. Also see D. Gréa, La Sainte Liturgie, p. 51.) --- 249 Joan. xiii: 35. 250 Joan. xvii: 21, 23. \-111 --- A drop of water is nothing. But united with the ocean, it shares in all that power and immensity. And that is the way it is when my prayer is united with yours. To God all things are present. He takes in, at one glance, the past, the present, and the future; and in His eyes, my prayers is all one with that universal chorus of praises which you have been sending up to Him ever since you began, and which will continue to rise up to the throne of His Eternal Majesty even to the end of time. Jesus, You want my piety to take, in certain respects, a utilitarian, practical, and petitioning character. But the order of petitions in the Our Father shows me how much You want my piety to be first of all devoted to the praise of God,251 and that far from being egotistical, narrow, and isolated, it should make my supplications embrace all the needs of my brothers. Help me, by the liturgical life, to arrive at this generous and exalted piety which, without detriment to the spiritual combat, gives to God, and generously, great praise; this charitable, fraternal, and universal (i. e. Catholic) piety, which takes in all souls and has all theinterests of the Church at heart. Holy Church, it is your mission to beget, without ceasing, new children to your Divine Spouse and to bring them up “into the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.”252 And that means that you have received all the means, in abundance, to achieve this end. And the importance you attach to the Liturgy proves how efficacious it must be to teach me how to begin to praise God and to make spiritual progress. During His public life Our Lord spoke “as one having power.”253 And that is the way you talk too, O Holy Church, my Mother. Guardian of the treasure of truth, you realise the importance of your mission. Dispenser of the Precious Blood, you well know all the means of sanctification which the Lord has put into your hands. You do not call upon my reason, and tell me, “Examine these things, study them.” But you do address yourself to my faith, saying, “Trust in me. Am I not your Mother? And is there anything I desire more than to see you grow, from day to day, in likeness to your divine Model? Now who is there that knows Jesus better than I do, who am His Spouse? Where, then, will you better find the Spirit of your Redeemer than in the Liturgy, which is the genuine expression of what I think and what I feel?” Oh yes, dear holy Mother, I will allow myself to be led and formed by you with the simplicity and confidence of a child, reminding myself that I am praying with my Mother. These are her very own words, which she puts in my mouth in order that I may be filled with her spirit, and that her thoughts may pass into my heart. With you, then, will I rejoice; yes, with you, Holy Church. _Gaudeamus exultemus!_ With you will I lament: _ploremus!_ With you will I praise Him: _confitemini Domino!_ With you will I beg for mercy: _miserere!_ With you I shall hope: _speravi, sperabo!_ With you I shall love: _diligam!_ I will ardently unite myself with all your demands, formulated in the wonderful prayers, in order that the life-giving movements of the mind and will that you wish to elicit by these words and sacred rites may enter more deeply into my heart, and make it more pliant to the touch of the Holy Spirit, so that my will may at last be totally absorbed into the Will of God. 251 “Man was created to this end; that he should praise God and give Him reverence, and, by serving Him, be saved." (St. Ignatius, _Spiritual Exercises_.) “Our end is the service of Our Lord, and it is only in order to serve Him better that we must correct our faults and acquire virtues; sanctity is only a means to better service,” Bl. P. J. Eymard. --- 252 Eph. iv:13. 253 Matt. vii: 29. \-112 ### Second Principle Whenever I take part as a REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CHURCH254 in any liturgical function, it Those who are thus delegated by the Church are: clerics, religious obliged to recite the office, even though is God’s desire that I give expression to my virtue of religion by being fully conscious of the OFFICIAL MANDATE with which I am honoured, and that, thus united more and more perfectly to the life of the Church, I may progress in all the virtues. I am the representative of Your Church for the purpose of offering incessantly to God, through You, Lord Jesus, in His Name and in the name of all His children, the sacrifice of praise and supplication. Consequently, I am what St. Bernardine of Siena so beautifully called: _persona publica, totius Ecclesiae os_, a public person, the mouth of the whole Church.255 And therefore, at every liturgical function, there must be in me a kind of dual personality, such as exists, for instance, in an ambassador. In his private life, such a one is nothing but a private citizen. But once he has put on the insignia of his office and speaks and acts in the name of his king, he becomes, at that very moment, the representative and, in a certain sense, the very person of his sovereign. The same is true in my own case when I am carrying out my liturgical “functions.” My individual being receives the addition of a dignity which invests me with a public mandate. I can and must consider myself, then, as the official deputy of the entire Church. If I pray, or recite my office, even privately, I do so no longer merely in my own name. The words I use were not chosen by me. It is the Church that places them upon my lips.”256 That very fact means that it is the Church that prays with my lips, and speaks and acts through me, just as a king speaks and acts through his ambassador. And then I am truly THE WHOLE CHURCH, as St. Peter Damian so beautifully puts it.257 By me, the Church is united in the divine religion of Jesus Christ and addresses to the Most Holy Trinity adoration, thanksgiving, reparation, and supplication. Hence, if I have any appreciation of my dignity, how will I be able to begin my office, for instance, without there taking place within me a mysterious activity which elevates me above myself, above the natural course of my thoughts, to fill me and penetrate me completely with the conviction that I am, as it were, a mediator between heaven and earth.258 What a disaster if I were to forget these truths! The saints were filled with them.259 These truths were their life. God expects me to be mindful of them whenever I exercise any 254 Those who are thus delegated by the Church are: clerics, religious obliged to recite the office, even though they only do so in private. So, too, are all those who are bound to sing office in choir in Churches canonically erected, and to attend chapter or conventual Masses. The same also applies to those who, without having received Orders, fulfil such functions by the tolerance of the Church, such as servers of Mass. --- 255 Sermon xx. 256 The priest puts on the person of the Church, he utters her words, he takes on her voice. (Gulielm. Paris., _De__Sacramento Ordinis._) 257 "Through the unity of faith, the priest is the whole Church, and acts in her behalf." “What wonder is it, then, if any priest... stands in the place of the whole Church, since by the Sacrament of intimate union, he is, spiritually speaking, the whole Church." (St. Peter Damian, _Lib. qui dic._ _Dominus Vobiscum_, c. x, Migne, P. L., vol. 145, col. 239.) 258 “The priest stands midway between God and human nature: he passes on to us the good things that come down from God, and lifts up to Him our petitions.” (St. John Chrysostom, Hom. V, n. 1, _in illud, Vidi_ Dominum_.) 259 Why is it that the priest, when he says the office, says, even when alone, Dominus vobiscum? And why does he reply, _Et cum spiritu tuo_? and not _Et cum spiritu meo_? The thing is, says St. Peter Damian, that the priest is not alone. When he says Mass, or prays, he has before him the entire Church, mysteriously present, and it is to the Church that he addresses the salutation, _Dominus Vobiscum_. And then, since he represents the Church, the \-113 --- function. By the liturgical life, the Church helps me, unceasingly, to keep in mind the fact that I am her representative, and God demands that I live up to this dignity, in practice, by leading an exemplary life.260 Oh my God, fill me with a profound esteem for this mission which the Church has entrusted to me. What a spur it will be, to me, against cowardly sloth in the spiritual combat! But grant me, also a true sense of my greatness as a Christian, and give me a childlike attitude before Your holy Church, so that I may profit abundantly by the treasures of interior life laid up in the holy Liturgy. ### Third Principle As a PRIEST, when I consecrate the Blessed Eucharist or administer the Sacraments, I must stir up the conviction that I am a MINISTER OF JESUS CHRIST, and therefore an alter Christus. And I must hold it as certain that if I am to find, in the exercise of my functions, the special graces necessary to acquire the virtues demanded by my priesthood, everything depends on me.261 O Jesus, Your faithful children form a single Body, but in that Body “all the members have not the same office.”262 “There are diversities of graces.”263 Since You willed to leave to the Church a visible Sacrifice, You endowed her with a priesthood whose principal end is to continue Your immolation on the altar, and then to distribute Your Precious Blood by the Sacraments and to sanctify Your Mystical Body by communicating to it Your divine Life. Sovereign Priest, You decided from all eternity to choose and consecrate me as Your minister in order to exercise Your Priesthood through me.264 You communicated to me Your powers in order to accomplish by my cooperation,265 a work greater than the creation of the universe, the miracle of Transubstantiation, and in order to remain, by this miraculous means, the Host and the Religion of Your Church. Church replies through his own mouth, _Et cum spiritu tuo_. (Cf. St. Peter Damian, in the _Lib. Dominus_ _Vobiscum_, 6, 10, etc.) His thoughts on this subject are followed throughout this whole section. 260 (St. Augustine, _Enarratio in_ Ps. clxviii, n. 2.) "Praise the Lord, but praise Him from the very roots of your being, that is, let not only your tongues and voices the Lord, but also your consciences, your lives, and all that you do." "Just as men expect you to be a saint when you present yourself among them as God's delegate, so God demands it of you when you appear before Him to intercede for mankind. An intercessor is one sent from the misery of this earth to parley with the justice of God. Now, St. Thomas says, two things are necessary, in an envoy if he is to be favourably received. The first is that he be a worthy representative of the people who send him, and the second that he be a friend of the prince to whom he is sent. You priest, who have no esteem for your sanctity, can you call yourself a worthy representative of the Christian people when you do not show forth the completeness of the Christian virtues? Can you call yourself the friend of God, when you do not serve Him faithfully? "If this is true of the indifferent mediator, how much more so of one who is in sin! How can words be found to express the anomalies of his appalling situation? Good souls come to you and say: “Pray for me, Father, you have credit in the sight of God.” But would you like to know what efficacy there is in the protection thus piously invoked? "God is more pleased with the barking of dogs, than with the prayer of such clerics.“(St. Augustine, Serm. 37; Fr. Caussette, _Manrèze du Pretre_, le jour, 2e discours.) --- 261 What is said here regarding priests also applies, in due proportion, to deacons and sub-deacons. 262 Rom. xii: 4. 263 I Cor. xii: 4. 264 De Lugo, _De Euchar_., Disp.. xix, Sect. VI, n. 86. 265 I Cor. iii: 9. \-114 --- What meaning I find, now, in the exuberant terms with which the Fathers of the Church seek to express the magnitude of the priestly dignity.266 Indeed, their words logically compel me to consider myself by virtue of Your priesthood, communicated to me, as Your other self, _Sacerdos alter Christus_. Is there not, in fact, an identification between You and me? After all, Your Person and mine are so truly one that when I pronounce the words: _Hoc est Corpus meum, Hic est calix_ _Sanguinis mei_, You make them Your own?267 I lend You my lips, since I can say, without lying: My Body, My Blood.268 All that is necessary is for me to will to make this consecration, and You will it also. Your will is fused with mine. In the greatest act which You can perform here below, Your soul is tightly bound together with mine. I lend You what is most mine, my will. And at once Your will and mine are fused. So true is it that You act through me, that if I dared to say, over the matter of the Sacrifice, “This is the Body of Jesus Christ,” instead of “this is My Body,” the Consecration would not be valid. The Blessed Eucharist is Your very Self, Jesus, hidden under the appearances of bread. And does not every Mass make it more strikingly clear to me that You yourself are the Priest;269 for You are the only Priest; and it is You that are concealed under the appearances of the one You have chosen as Your minister. Alter Christus! I re-live that phrase every time I confer one of the other Sacraments. You alone are able to say, in Your quality of Redeemer, _“Ego te baptizo,” “Ego te absolvo,”_ thus exercising a power no less divine than that of creation itself. I too utter these same words. And the angels are more attentive to them than to the fiat which made worlds spring forth where there was nothingness, 270 since (and what a miracle it is, too!) they are capable of forming God in a soul, and producing a Child of God who participates in the intimate life of the Divinity. 266 The Holy Fathers seem to have exhausted their eloquence in speaking of the dignity of the priest. Their thoughts may be summed up in a word, if we say that this dignity outstrips everything else in creation: God alone is greater. "The sublimity of the priest can be expressed by no comparison.” (St. Ambrose, _De Dign. Sacerd_., c. ii.) When you say "priest," you are speaking of a man who is altogether divine. (St. Dionysius, the“Areopagite.") "He has placed you above kings and emperors, he has placed your order above all other orders, indeed, to go higher still, he has placed you above the angels and archangels, Thrones and dominations." (St. Bernard, _Sermo ad Past. in Syn_., an apocryphal work, Migne, P. L., vol. 184, col. 1086.) "It is evident that this is that function of priests, than which no greater can be conceived. Wherefore they are rightly called not only angels, but even gods, because they hold, among us, the power and might of the undying God." (_Cat. Rom. de Ord_., 1.) 267 "All the other words, uttered in the prayers up to this point in the Mass, are spoken by the priest in his own person.... But when the time comes to confect the adorable Sacrament, the priest now no longer uses his own words, but utters the words of Christ. And therefore this Sacrament is confected by the word of Christ. What is the Word of Christ? It is that Word by which all things were created." (St. Ambrose, _De Sacramentis_, Lib. iv, c. 4, n. 14.) “See how Ambrose would have the priest not only speak in the person of Christ, but also not to speak in his own person: nor would he have these words be the priest's at all. For, since the priest is assumed by Christ, to represent Him, and in order that Christ may speak through the mouth of the priest, it is not fitting that the priest should, when uttering these words, retain his own person." (De Lugo, _De Euch_., disp. xi, sec. v, n. 103.) --- 268 “It is Christ Himself who sanctifies and immolates... When you see the priest offering the Holy Sacrifice, do not think that it is as a priest that he does so, but as the hand of Christ, invisibly extended..,. The priest lends his tongue.” (St. Chrysostom, Hom. 86, in _Joan_. n. 4.) 269 “The sacrificer is simply an image of Christ." (Petr. Bles., _Trac. Ryth. de Euch_., c. viii.) 270 “It is a greater work to make a just man out of a sinner, than to create heaven and earth.” (St. Augustine.) \-115 --- At every priestly function, I can almost hear You saying to me: “My son, how is it possible for you to imagine that after I have made you, by these divine powers, another Christ, I should tolerate that in your practical routine of living you should be WITHOUT CHRIST or even AGAINST CHRIST?” “What! In the exercise of these priestly functions, you have just acted as one whose being has been melted into My very own Being. And a few minutes later, Satan comes and takes My place and makes you, by sin, a sort of Antichrist, or hypnotises you to such a degree of torpor that you deliberately forget the obligation to imitate Me, and to strive, as My Apostle says, to “put Me on”? “_Absit!_ You can count on My mercy when human weakness alone is the cause of your daily faults, which you right away regret and for which you quickly make reparation. But if you coolly adopt a program of systematic infidelities, and return from these to your sublime functions without any remorse, you will only arouse My anger! “What an abyss there is between your functions and those of the priests of the Old Law. And yet, if My prophets uttered dire threats against Sion, because of the sins of the people or the rulers, listen to what came of the prevarication of the priests: ‘The Lord hath accomplished His wrath. He hath poured out His fierce anger; and He hath kindled a fire in Sion and it hath devoured the foundations thereof... for the iniquities of her priests.’271 “With what severity, too, does my Church forbid the priest to approach the altar or to confer the Sacraments if there remain one single mortal sin upon his conscience! “Inspired by Me, she goes still further. Her very rites compel you to be either truly holy or an impostor. Either you will have to make up your mind to live an interior life, or else resign yourself to say to Me from the beginning of Mass to the end, things that you do not really think, and ask of Me things that you do not desire. The sacred words and ceremonies necessarily imply, in the priest, a spirit of compunction and a desire to purify his soul of his slightest faults; therefore, custody of the heart. They imply a spirit of adoration, and, therefore, of recollection. They imply a spirit of faith, hope, and love, and, therefore, a supernatural trend in everything that you say or do during the day, and in all your works!” O Jesus, I fully realise that to put on the sacred vestments without being firmly resolved to strive to acquire the virtues which they symbolise, is only a kind of hypocrisy. It is my will that henceforth bows and genuflections, signs of the Cross and other ceremonies, and all the formulas of prayer may never be a hollow fraud hiding emptiness, coldness, indifference for the interior life, and adding to my faults that of a lying mummery under the very eyes of the Eternal God. Let me then tremble with a holy fear every time I draw near to Your dread mysteries, every time I put on the liturgical vestments. Let the prayers with which I accompany this act, the formulas of the Missal and Ritual, so full of unction and strength, move me to scrutinise my own heart and find out whether it is truly in harmony with Yours, O Jesus; that is to say, whether I have a loyal and practical desire to imitate You by leading an interior life. O my soul, get rid of all those compromises which might lead me to consider it enough to be an “alter Christus” only during my sacred functions, and to believe that after them, provided I am not actually against Christ, I can dispense myself from working to put on Jesus Christ. Here I am, not merely an ambassador of Jesus Crucified, but actually His other Self. Can I attempt to get away with an easy-going piety, and content myself with commonplace virtues? --- 271 Lamentations iv: 11-13. \-116 --- Useless for me to try and persuade myself that the cloistered monk is bound, more than I am, to strive after the imitation of Christ and to acquire an interior life. It is a grave error, based upon a misunderstanding. The religious is obliged to tend to sanctity by the use of certain special means; that is, vows of obedience and poverty, and keeping his rule. As a priest, I am not restricted to these means; but I am obliged to pursue and to realise the same end, and I am so obliged by many more considerations than the consecrated soul who does not have the responsibility of distributing the Precious Blood.272 Woe to me, then, if I lull myself to sleep with an illusion that is beyond doubt culpable since it could have easily been dispelled by a glance at the teaching of the Church and of her saints: an illusion whose falsity will be brought home to me on the threshold of eternity. Woe to me if I do not know how to take advantage of my liturgical functions to discover what You demand of me, or if I remain deaf to the voices of all the holy objects that surround me: the altar, the confessional, the baptismal font, the vessels, linen and vestments. _Imitamini quod tractatis_ — “imitate what you handle.”273 “Be ye clean you that carry the vessels of the Lord.”274 “For they offer the burnt-offering of the Lord and the bread of their God and therefore they shall be holy.”275 I would be all the less excusable, Jesus, for turning a deaf ear to these appeals, inasmuch as each one of my functions is the occasion of an actual grace which You offer me to form my soul to Your image and likeness. It is We Church that solicits this grace. It is her heart full of jealous eagerness to fulfil Your expectations, that cares for me like the apple of her eye. It is She who, before my ordination, tried to make me see what immensely important consequences were involved in this identification of me with You. --- 272 “You are the light of the world... You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?” (Matt. v: 13.) "Be thou an example of the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in chastity." (I Tim. iv:12.) “In all divine things, who is there that would dare to show the way to others unless in all his habits he himself first be most closely patterned on God, and most like to God?" (S. Dionysius, _De Eccles. Hier_.) "The priest should lead a life that is without blemish, in order that everyone may look to him for a perfect example." (St. John Chrysostom, _Hom. x_, in Tim.) "The priest has nothing in common with the multitude. The life of the priest should excel as grace excels." (St. Ambrose, _Epist_. 82.) "Priests are either better than everybody else, or else a scandal to everybody else." (St. Bernard., _De_ _Consideratione_, Lib. iv, c. 6.) "Just as those who receive Holy Orders are constituted above the crowd by the degree of their Order, so too they ought to stand out by virtue of their holiness.” (St. Thomas, _Suppl_., q. 35.) "Thus it is fitting that all clerics called to the service of the Lord should order their life and manners in such wise that in their dress, their gestures, their gait, their speech, and in all other things they should display nothing but what is grave and proper and full of religion." (Council of Trent, sess. 22, c. 1, _de reform_.) "In the case of a religious who has not received Holy Orders, it is clear that the Holy Orders have a far superior dignity (to the vows of religion) since by Orders a man is deputed to the most noble of all ministries; namely, that by which Christ Himself is served in the Sacrament of the Altar; and this demands a greater interior sanctity than is required even by the religious state." (St. Thomas, 2a, 2ae, q. 184.) "A good monk will not necessarily be a good cleric." (St. Augustine, _ad Val_.) "Let them know no limit to spiritual progress, nor to likeness to God." (St. Greg. Naz.) “Let them attempt to be equal to God in sanctity, in order that whosoever sees the minister of the altar may revere God in him." (St. Ambrose, _de Offic_., c. 5.), --- 273 Roman Pontifical: Rites of Ordination. 274 Isa. Iii: 12. 275 Levit. xxi: 6 \-117 --- _Impone, Domine, capiti meo galeam salutis,... praecinge mecingulo puritatis... Ut_ _indulgeris omnia peccata mea. Fac me tuis semper inhaerere mandatis et a te numquam_ _separari permittas_, etc.,276 (From the prayers said by the Priest while vesting, and also just before Communion in the Mass.) it is no longer I that make these petitions for myself. They are being made by all the true faithful, all the fervent souls consecrated to You, all the members of the Ecclesiastical hierarchy who made my poor prayer their prayer. Their cry rises to Your throne. It is the voice of Your Spouse that You hear. And when Your priests are resolved to lead an interior life, and therefore bring their hearts into harmony ‘with their liturgical functions, You always grant these entreaties made for them by the Church. Instead, then, of excluding myself by my voluntary negligence from these suffrages which I address to Your Father for the faithful at large, when saying Mass or administering the Sacraments, I want to profit by these graces, Jesus. At each one of my priestly acts I will open my heart wide to Your action. Then You will fill it with light consolation and power which, in spite of all the obstacles, will enable me to identify my judgments with Yours, my affections and desires with Yours, just as my Priesthood identifies me with You, Eternal Priest, when, through me, make Yourself a Victim upon the altar, or Redeemer of souls. A few words to sum up the three principles of the liturgical life. CUM ECCLESIA When I unite with the Church as a simple Christian, this very union impels me to fill myself with her thoughts and her aspirations. ECCLESIA When the Church herself is represented in my person, so that I, so to speak, am the Church, and so act as her ambassador before the throne of God, I am all the more powerfully drawn to make her aspirations my own, in order to be less unworthy to address myself to His Thrice Holy Majesty, and, by means of official prayers, to exercise a more efficacious apostolate. CHRISTUS But when, by virtue of my participation in the Priesthood of Christ, I am an _alter_ _Christus_, what terms can express the insistence with which You call me, Jesus, to take on more and more of Your divine likeness, and that I may thus manifest You to the faithful and move them, by the apostolate of good example to follow You? ### IV. The Advantages of the Liturgical Life #### A. It Helps Me to Be Permanently Supernatural in All My Acts How hard it is for me, O my God, to base the ordinary run of my actions upon a supernatural motive! Satan and creatures conspire with my self-love to lure my soul and faculties away from their dependence upon Jesus living within me. How many times, in the course of the day, this purity of intention which so greatly affects the merit of my actions and the efficacy of my apostolate is ruined through lack of vigilance or of fidelity! Only continual effort will obtain for me, with God’s help the power to ensure that most of my actions may have grace as their vivifying principle, and be directed by grace, towards God, as their end. 276 From the prayers said by the Priest while vesting, also just before Communion in the Mass. \-118 --- I cannot make these efforts without mental prayer. Yet what a difference it makes, when this striving for purity of intention has, for its background, the liturgical life! Mental prayer and the liturgical life are two sisters who help each other. Mental prayer, before my Mass and Office, puts me in a supernatural atmosphere. The liturgical life makes it possible to transmit the fruits of my mental prayer to all the actions of the day.277 O Holy Church, when you are teaching me, how easy it is for me to acquire the habit of giving to my Creator and Father at all times the worship that is His due! You are the Spouse of Him Who is Adoration, Thanksgiving, Reparation, and Meditation in the highest degree, and, by your Liturgy, you give me that thirst, which Jesus had, to glorify His Father; and this is the first end, you had in view when you established the Liturgy. Is it not obvious that if I live the liturgical life I will become steeped in the virtue of religion, since the whole Liturgy is nothing but the continuous and public exercise of that virtue, which is the most excellent of all virtues after Faith, Hope, and Charity? If I make use of the light of faith, it is quite true that I can manifest the dependence of all my faculties upon God, as well as piety, vigilance, and valor in the spiritual combat. But what great need there is for this human being of mine, composed of body and soul, to receive the assistance of its every faculty in order to fix the mind upon eternal values, and fill the heart with an eager enthusiasm to profit by them, and excite the will to ask for them repeatedly and to strive, without respite, to possess them! The Liturgy grips my entire being. The whole complex of ceremonies, genuflections, bows, symbols, chants, texts, appealing to the eye, the ear, the feelings, the imagination, the intellect, and the heart — by means of all these, the Church reminds me that everything that is in me: _os, lingua, mens, sensus, vigor_, 278 all must be directed to God. All the means used by the Church to show me what are God’s rights and his claims to the worship of my filial homage and to the total ownership of my being develop in me the virtue of religion, and, by that very fact, the supernatural spirit. Everything in the Liturgy speaks to me of God, of His perfections, His mercies. Everything takes me back to God. Everything tells me how His Providence is ever holding out to my soul means of sanctification in every trial, every assistance from on high, every warning, encouragement, promise, light, yes, even in His threats. Also, the Liturgy keeps me ceaselessly talking to God and expressing my religion under the most varied forms. If, with an earnest desire to profit by it, I submit to this liturgical formation, how is it possible that the virtue of religion should not strike deeper and deeper roots into my being, after all the manifold exercises that follow, each day, from my functions as a minister of the Church? I am bound to form a habit, a mental state, and that means a genuine inner life. The Liturgy is _a school of the presence of God_; and teaches us to stay in the presence of our God as He was manifested to us in the Incarnation! Call it rather _a school of the_ _presence of Jesus, and of love!_ Love is fed by the knowledge of the attractions of the One loved, by the proofs He has given us of His love, but above all, says St. Thomas, by His presence. Now the Liturgy reproduces, explains, and applies these various manifestations of the life of Jesus among us. _It keeps us permanently in a supernatural and divine atmosphere_, by prolonging, so to speak, the life of Our Lord, and by displaying to us, in all His mysteries, how kind and lovable is His Heart. 277 I make a good meditation in order to be able to say Mass well; and I say Mass and my Office with devotion in order that I may make a good meditation the following morning." (Fr. Olivaint.) 278 The mouth, the tongue, the mind, the senses, and all our strength. (From the Hymn sung daily at Tierce.) \-119 --- Dear Lord, it is You Yourself Who continue to teach us, through the Liturgy, Your great lesson, and to show us the great revelation of Your love. I see you clearer and clearer: not through the eyes of a historian, that is, behind the veil of centuries, nor in the way You are so often known by the theologian, as the object of laborious speculations. You are right close to me. You are ever Emmanuel, God with us, with Your Church, and so, with me. You are someone that every member of Your Church lives with, and Whom the Liturgy shows me at all times in the forefront of my life, as the model and object of my love. By the cycle of Your Feasts, by the lessons chosen from Your Gospel and from the writings of Your Apostles, and by the splendour with which she causes Your Sacraments to shine forth especially the Blessed Eucharist, the Church makes You live among us, and lets us hear the beating of Your Heart. To believe that Jesus lives in me; that He wants to work in me if only I do not stand in His way! When prayer has filled me with the conviction of this truth, what a mighty source of strength I possess, in my supernatural life! But when frequently throughout the course of the day, using all the varied and sensible means offered by the Liturgy, I nourish my mind and heart with the dogma of grace, of Christ praying and acting with everyone of the members whose life He is supplying for their deficiencies, and, hence, for mine; then I am really maintaining myself under the permanent influence of the supernatural, I am getting to live in union with Jesus, and to find an established place in His love. Love of complacency, of benevolence, of preference, of hope — all these forms of love shine forth in the wonderful collects, in the psalms, the ceremonies, the prayers. And they penetrate my soul. How strong and generous the interior life becomes, with this method of contemplating Jesus as living and ever present! And when some act of detachment or of abnegation may be required to keep my life supernatural when some difficult task is to be performed, some pain or insult to be endured, how quickly the spiritual battle, the virtue, the trial will lose their painful and repugnant aspect of instead of looking at the bare Cross, I look at You nailed there, O my Saviour; and if I hear You ask me, as You show me Your wounds, for this sacrifice as a proof of love. Then, too, the Liturgy gives me strong support in another way by repeatedly reminding me that my love is not acting in isolation. I am not alone in the fight against these natural impulses that are ever threatening to engulf me. The Church is alive to the fact of my incorporation in Christ and follows me like a mother, giving me a share in all the merits of the millions of souls “with whom I am in communion, and who speak the same official language of love as I do; and she renews my powers of endurance by assuring me that heaven and purgatory are here with me, for my encouragement and assistance. Nothing is so effective as the mindfulness of eternity in keeping the soul directed to God in all its acts. Now everything in the Liturgy reminds me of my last end. The expressions _vita_ _aeterna, coelum, infernum, mors, saeculum saeculi_, and others like them are of frequent recurrence. Prayers and offices for the dead, funerals bring before my mind death, judgment, rewards and unending punishments, the value of time and the purifications that have to be gone through, willy-nilly, either here below or in purgatory, if I am going to get in to heaven. The feasts of the saints speak to me of the glory of those who were before me here on earth, and show me the crown which is in store for me if I follow in their footsteps and conform to their example. \-120 --- By these lessons the Church is ceaselessly crying out to me: “Beloved soul, consider the eternal years, and you will remain faithful to your motto, ‘God in all things, all the time, everywhere!’” O divine Liturgy: if I want to acknowledge all the benefits you bring us, I must enumerate all the virtues! Thanks to the chosen Scripture texts which you place before me at all times, thanks to the rites and symbols which express the divine Mysteries to me, my soul is constantly raised above this earth and directed now towards the theological virtues, now towards the fear of God, the horror for sin and for the spirit of this world, with detachment, compunction, confidence, or spiritual joy. #### B. It Is a Most Powerful Aid in Conforming My Interior Life to That of Jesus Christ O my adorable Master, there are three sentiments which hold sway in Your Sacred Heart: complete dependence upon Your Father, and therefore perfect humility; then secondly a burning and universal love for men; and finally the spirit of sacrifice. PERFECT HUMILITY When You came into the world, You said, “Father, behold, I come to do Thy will.”279 You often remind us that Your whole inner life may be summed up as a continual desire to do always the things that please Your Father.280 O Jesus, You are obedience itself, “obedient unto death, even to the death on the Cross.”281 Even now, You obey Your priests. At the sound of their voice, You come back to the earth: “The Lord obeying the voice of a man.”282 What a school the Liturgy is, in which to learn to imitate Your subjection, if my heart will only become supple and responsive to the smallest rites with a desire of forming a spirit of dependence upon God, and of unflinchingly taming this “ego” of mine, so thirsty for liberty, and of bending my judgment and my will, so quick to refuse allegiance, Lord, to the fundamental spirit which You came to teach by Your example: the Worship of the Will of God! Every time I thrust my own personality into the background in order that I may obey the Church as I would obey You Yourself, and act in her name, and unite myself with her, hence unite myself to You, I am receiving a priceless training that shapes my soul. This fidelity to the smallest prescriptions and rubrics will bear fruit in an immensely increased self-mastery when it comes to putting down my pride on more difficult occasions!283 What is more, since the Liturgy constantly reminds me of the infallible truth that You are living within me, and of the necessity of Your grace if I am to draw fruit from even the simplest thought, it is at war with all presumption and with that self-satisfaction which, between them, would be enough to ravage every vestige of interior life. The _Per Dominum_ _Nostrum_ that comes at the end of almost every prayer in the Liturgy, would be enough to recall to my mind, were I able to forget it, that by myself I can do nothing, absolutely nothing, except sin or perform acts that have no merit. Everything convinces me of the necessity to run to You for help at all times. Everything keeps telling me that You demand this suppliant dependence, that my life may not wander off the track in pursuit of a lying mirage. Through her Liturgy, the Church insists with great solicitude on this question of supplication, in order to convince her children of its necessity. She makes this Liturgy a true school of prayer, and therefore of humility. By her formulas, by the Sacraments and 279 Heb. x: 5-7. 280 Joan. viii: 29; Joan. iv: 34; Joan. vi: 38. 281 Philipp. ii: 8. 282 Jos. x: 14. 283 Luc. xvi: 10. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in that which is greater. \-121 --- Sacramentals, she teaches me that everything comes to me through Your Precious Blood, and that the great means of reaping Its fruit is to unite myself, by humble prayer, to Your desire to apply them to us. Let me profit, then, O Jesus, by these continual lessons, in order to increase the vivid awareness of my own littleness and to convince myself that I am nothing but a tiny particle in the Host which is Your Mystical Body, and that in the immense chorus of praise conducted by You, I am nothing but a thin and feeble voice. Let me, thanks to the Liturgy, see more and more clearly that humility can make that voice more and more pure and clear, and that particle whiter and ever whiter. UNIVERSAL CHARITY Your Heart, Lord Jesus, embraced all men in Its mission of Redemption. At Your death, You cried out upon the world, “I thirst,” and You do still, upon our altars and in the Tabernacle and in the very depths of Your glory. In all our souls, yes, even that of the plain Christian, that cry must be answered by a similar thirst: the strong desire to spend ourselves for our brothers; the burning thirst for the salvation of all men, and for the diffusion of the Gospel; a mighty zeal for the encouragement of priestly and religious vocations; and finally, tireless prayers that the faithful may come to comprehend the extent of their duties, and that souls consecrated to God may realise how necessary, for them, is the interior life. How much more powerful an effect these desires should have, then, upon Your priests, constantly reminded, by their rites, that You have given them a special place in Your Mystical Body in order that they may incorporate as many souls as possible into You, and that they are co-redeemers, mediators, whose function it is to weep, _“inter vestibulum et_ _altare,”_ 284 for the sins of the world, and sanctify themselves, not only for their own sake, but in order to be able to sanctify others, to form, and instruct and guide souls and make Your life course through their veins. “And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.”285 Holy Church of the Redeemer, Mother of all my brethren, your children, how can I live your Liturgy without sharing the strong desire in the Heart of your Divine Spouse for the salvation of His creatures and for the deliverance of the souls that groan in purgatory? Of course, I share in the fruits of my Mass, my Office. But it is your intent that the first share should go, before all else, to the whole group of souls which are in your care: _in_ _primus quae tibi offerimus pro Ecclesia sancta tua Catholica_. 286 You take a thousand means to ensure that my heart will expand with love and my interior life will grow like to that of Jesus. O my beloved liturgical life, increase in me the filial love for Holy Church and for the common Father of all the faithful. Make me more devoted, more submissive to my superiors in the hierarchy, and more united to them in all their cares and desires. Help me never to forget that Jesus lives in every person with whom I come in daily contact, and that He carries them all in His heart. Make me radiate, among them, a spirit of indulgence, of support, of patience, and of service, that I may thus reflect the meekness of the sweet Saviour. Keep me firmly rooted in the conviction that the only way I can get to heaven is by the Cross, and that my praises, adoration, sacrifices, and all my other acts have no value, for heaven, except through the Blood of Christ, and it is in union with all the other Christians that I must gain heaven, since it is with all the elect that I am to enjoy it, and to continue, with them, through Christ, for all eternity, the chorus of praises in which I have part here on earth. 284 Joel ii: 17. 285 Joan. xvii: 19. 286 Which we offer Thee first of all for Thy Holy Catholic Church. (Canon of the Mass.) \-122 ##### A Spirit of Sacrifice Lord Jesus, You knew that mankind could only be saved by sacrifice, and You made Your whole life on earth a perpetual immolation. Identified with You, acting as Priest with You, when I celebrate Mass, O my Crucified God, I desire to be a victim with You. Everything in You revolves around Your Cross. Everything in me has to revolve around my Mass. It will be the centre, the sun of my days, just as Your Sacrifice is the central act of the Liturgy. And the Liturgy will become, to me, a school of the spirit of sacrifice, because the altar and the Tabernacle will ever be taking me back to Calvary. By making me share in the thoughts and aspirations of Your Church, the Liturgy will communicate Your own sentiments to me, O Jesus, and thus will the words of St. Paul be fulfilled in me: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,”287 along with those other words that were spoken to me at my ordination: _Imitamini quod tractatis_. 288 The Missal, Ritual, and Breviary constantly recall to me in many different ways, were it only by the countless signs of the Cross, that sacrifice has become, since the fall, the law of the human race, and that it has no value except insofar as it is united with Your Sacrifice. Hence, I shall render unto You victim for victim, O my divine Redeemer. I will offer up to You a total immolation of my whole self, an immolation that shall MERGE with the Sacrifice once consummated by You on Golgotha and renewed many times, every second by the Masses which are said in unending succession all around the world. The Liturgy will render this obligation of myself much easier and will enable me to make a greater contribution towards filling up those things that are wanting of Your sufferings for Your Body, which is the Church.289 I will thus bring my share and join it to that great Host made up of the sacrifices of all Christians.290 And this Host will rise up to heaven to expiate the sins of the world and bring down upon the Church militant and suffering the fruits of Your Redemption. In this way, I will lead a true liturgical life. For when I “put You on,” O my crucified Jesus, and unite myself in a practical way with Your Sacrifice by carrying out Your counsel to deny myself, thus making of myself a holocaust; is not that, O my Saviour, the end to which Your Church would lead me in filling me with Your thoughts by her prayers and holy ceremonies, and bringing into my heart that which in You dominated everything: the Spirit of Sacrifice?291 Thus will I become one of those carefully chosen living stones, polished by tribulations, “by the blows of the life-giving chisel, by ceaseless, relentless work of the mason’s hammer, ”292 and destined to enter into the construction of the heavenly Jerusalem. 287 Philipp. ii: 5. 288 Imitate what you perform. (_Roman Pontifical_.) 289 Coloss. i: 24. 290 “All the whole redeemed city, that is the congregation and society of the saints is offered to God as a universal Sacrifice by that High Priest, Who even offered it in His Passion for us, that we might become the body of so noble a Head... Now therefore the Apostle, having exhorted us to give up our bodies as a living sacrifice.... This is the Christian Sacrifice: we are one Body with Christ, as the Church celebrates in the Sacrament of the Altar, so well known to the faithful, wherein it is shown to the Church that she herself is offered in the Victim which she offers." (St. Augustine, City of God, Bk. ix, c. vi.) 291 Then alone will the Mass be of profit to the priest if, making of himself a host, he is willing to imitate in a most humble and practical manner the Sacrifice he performs. (Petr. Blesens. _Epist_. cxxiii.) We who celebrate the mysteries of the Lord's Passion ought to imitate what we perform. And then will it truly be an offering to God that will make us pleasing to Him, if we make of ourselves victims also. (St. Gregory the Great, Dialogues, iv, c. 59.) 292 Roman Brev. Hymn at Vespers, from the _Common of the Dedication of a Church_. \-123 #### C. The Liturgical Life Makes Me Live the Life of the Saints and Blessed in Heaven _Conversatio nostra in coelis est_, said St. Paul.293 And where will I find a better way to carry out what he here expresses, than in the Liturgy? This Liturgy we have here on earth is simply an imitation of the celestial Liturgy which the Beloved Disciple, John, describes for us in his Apocalypse. When I sing or recite my Office, what else am I doing but carrying out the same function upon which the angels pride themselves, before the Throne of the Almighty? More than that, does not the doxology of every Psalm and hymn, the conclusion of every prayer cast me down prostrate in adoration before the Most Holy Trinity? The countless feasts of the Saints make me live, as it were, intimate companionship with my brothers in Paradise who are my protectors and who pray for me. The Feasts of Our Blessed Lady remind me that I possess, in heaven above, a most loving and powerful Mother who will never rest until she beholds me safe at her feet in the Kingdom of Her Son. Is it possible that all these feasts, that all the mysteries of my sweet Saviour — Christmas, Easter, and especially the Ascension — should not make me HOMESICK FOR HEAVEN, which St. Gregory considered as a token of predestination? ### V. The Practice of the Liturgical Life Good Master, You have deigned to give me some understanding of what the liturgical life is. Am I going to try and offer the duties of my ministry as a pretext for avoiding the effort which You demand, in order that I may put all this into practice? Surely You would answer that it will take no more time to fulfil my liturgical functions in the way You desire me to, than it does already to get through them mechanically. You would tell me to consider the example of so many of Your servants, like Bl. Fr. Perboyre, among others294 who charged by You with unceasing and deeply absorbing occupations to a degree of the highest intensity, was nevertheless a most perfect example of a “liturgical soul.” #### A. Remote Preparation Dear Saviour, turn my desire for a liturgical life into a powerful SPIRIT OF FAITH with respect to everything that has to do with divine worship. Your angels and saints see You face to face. Nothing can distract their minds from the august functions which go to make up one of the elements of their incomparable bliss. But I, on the other hand, still a prey to all the weaknesses of human nature, simply cannot keep myself in Your presence, when I unite with the Church in addressing You, unless You develop in me the gift of Faith which I received at Baptism. May I never come to regard my liturgical functions as a burdensome duty, to get over and done with as soon as possible or something to be put up with for the sake of the fee! Never, I hope, will I dare to speak of the Thrice Holy God or carry out His rites with careless familiarity and insulting negligence which I would be ashamed to manifest to His most humble servant. May I never give scandal in those things which were expressly designed to edify! And yet, can I foresee how far I will fall if I once cease to watch myself in this matter of the spirit of Faith? O my God, if I am already sliding down this perilous incline, have mercy, pull me back! Or rather, give me so lively a Faith that I will be gripped by the importance that all liturgical acts really possess in Your sight, and will rejoice to feel their sublime wonders flood my will with an ever-growing enthusiasm. Can it be said that I have the slightest spirit of Faith if I take no trouble to know the RUBRICS and to observe them? This is a neglect for which not even the most lofty and 293 Philipp. iii: 20. 294 Cf. his “Life”, Bk. iii, ch. 8 and 9. (Paris 1890.) \-124 --- appreciative intuitions about the Liturgy can compensate in Your sight, O my God! What difference does it make if I feel no natural attraction for this task? It is enough for me to know that my obedience is pleasing to You, and that it will gain me great merit. On my retreats, I must never fail to examine myself on this point, with regard to the Missal, Ritual, and Breviary. Your Church, O Jesus, has chiefly drawn upon the treasures of the PSALMS for her cult. If I have any liturgical spirit, my soul will be able to see You, in passages from the Psalter, especially in Your life of suffering. And I will be able to realise that the words, the deep thoughts which came forth from the secret depths of Your Heart and rose up to God during Your mortal life, are to be found written down in very many of the prophetic verses with which You inspired Your Psalmist. And there I will be able to discern gathered together in a most marvellous synthesis, a forecast of the chief teachings of Your Gospel. Under these same veils, I will detect the voice of the Church as she carries on Your life of trials and expresses to God, in the midst of all her sufferings and triumphs, sentiments that echo those of her Divine Spouse; sentiments which may also be appropriated in all temptations, reverses, combats, sorrows, discouragement, deceptions, as well as in victory and consolation, by every soul in whom Your life can be manifested. If I set aside part of my reading time for Holy Scripture exclusively, I shall develop my taste for the Liturgy and make it easier to keep my mind on its words.295 Reflective observation will show that every liturgical composition has a central idea about which the various teachings are grouped. Oh, what weapons, my soul, will you thus forge, against thy ever roving imagination, especially if you know how to learn from SYMBOLS. The Church makes use of symbols to speak to the senses a language which captivates them, making the truths that are represented sensible. _Agnoscite quod agitis_ (realise what you are doing), she told me at my ordination. Ceremonies, sacred linen, holy objects, vestments, all speak with a meaningful voice, given them by the Church, my Mother. How am I ever going to enlighten the understandings and reach the hearts of the faithful that the Church wants to capture by her naive and grandiose speech if I myself do not possess the key to such instruction? #### B. Immediate Preparation “Before prayer, prepare thy soul.”296 Just before Mass, and every time I take up the Breviary, I should make a firm, calm act of recollection, in order to free myself from all that has no connection with God, and to fix my attention upon Him. The One I am about to talk to is God. But He is also my Father. Therefore, I shall unite that reverence and awe which even the Queen of Angels herself retains, when she speaks to her Divine Son, with the ingenuous candour which gives even an old man, when he talks to God’s infinite Majesty, the soul of a little child. This simple and childlike attitude before my Father will artlessly reflect my conviction that I am united to Jesus Christ, that no matter how unworthy I may be, I represent the Church, and that I am certain beyond a doubt that the soldiers of the celestial army are standing at my side as I pray: “I will sing praise to Thee in the sight of the angels.”297 295 St. Thomas Aquinas, _in. I Cor_. xiv: 14. One who prays with understanding profits more than one who prays with the tongue alone. For he who understands receives nourishment as to the intellect and the will. 296 Eccli. xviii: 23. 297 Ps. cxxxvii. \-125 --- As for you, my soul: this is no longer the time to be reasoning, meditating. Become, once again, the soul of a child,. When you arrived at the age of reason, you accepted, as the expression of absolute truth everything that mother told you. So must you also with the same simplicity and artlessness receive from your Mother the Church all that she is about to give you to nourish your faith. This renewal of youth is indispensable to the soul! The more I make myself the soul of a child the more I will profit by the riches of the Liturgy, and will allow myself to be possessed by the poetry that lives in it. And that will be the measure of my progress in the liturgical spirit. Then it will be easy for my soul to enter into adoration, and stay there all through whatever function (ceremony, Office, Mass, Sacraments, etc.,) engages me, whether as member of the Church or as her ambassador, as the minister of God. The way I enter into adoration will determine, to a great extent, not only the profit and merit of my liturgical act, but also the consolations which God makes contingent upon its perfect accomplishment and which will give me strength to carry on my apostolic labours. And so I am going to adore. I desire, by an act of my will, to spring up even unto union with the adorations of the Man-God, that I may offer His prayer together with mine to God. This must be a swift upward flight of the heart: not an effort of the mind. I will and desire this with Your grace, Lord Jesus! And I will ask this grace for instance, in my Office, by saying with purpose and recollection my Deus in adjutorium, or, in the same manner, the _Introibo_ of my Mass. I will it. It is this filial and loving will, strong and humble, united with an earnest desire for Your help, that You demand of me. If it should happen that my intellect opens up some fine expansive vista to my faith, or if my sensibilities contribute some holy emotion, well and good; my will shall take advantage of them to make adoration easier. But I will always remember the principle that in the last analysis union with God dwells in the summit of the soul, in the will, and even though darkness and aridity fall to its lot, the will, though dry and cold, will take her flight on the wings of pure faith. #### C. Doing My Liturgical Work To do well my liturgical work is a gift of Your bounty, O my God! _Omnipotens et_ _misericors Deus, de cujus munere venit ut tibi a fidelibus tuis digne et laudabiliter_ _serviatur_. 298 (Almighty and most merciful God, Whose gift it is that Thy faithful should pay Thee fit and laudable service. (Collect, 12th Sunday after Pentecost)). O Lord, please grant me this gift. I want to remain in adoration all during my liturgical function. That sums up all the methods in one word. My will casts down my heart at the feet of the Majesty of God, and keeps it there. All its work is now contained in the three words, _digne, attente, devote_... from the prayer Aperi, and they most aptly express what must be the attitude of my body, of my mind, and of my heart. DIGNE. A respectful position and bearing, the precise pronunciation of the words, slowing down over the more important parts. Careful observance of the rubrics. My tone of voice, the way in which I make signs of the Cross, genuflections, etc.; my body itself: all will go to show not only that I know Whom I-am addressing, and what I am saying, but also that my heart is in what I am doing. What an APOSTOLATE I can sometimes exercise!299 298 Almighty and most merciful God, Whose gift it is that Thy faithful should pay Thee fit and laudable service. (Collect for the 12th Sun. after Pent.) 299 Apostolate or Scandal. There are many souls who look at religion through a hazy intellectualism or ritualism, and to such persons, a whole sermon by a second-rate priest has far less meaning than the apostolate of a \-126 --- In the courts of earthly kings, a simple servant considers the least function to be something great, and unconsciously takes on a majestic and solemn air in performing it. Cannot I acquire some of that distinctive bearing which will show itself by my state of mind and by the dignity of my bearing when I carry out my duties in my capacity as member of the guard of honour of the King of Kings and of the God of all Majesty? ATTENTE. My mind will be eager to go foraging through the sacred words and rites in order to get everything that will nourish my heart. Sometimes my attention will consider the literal sense of the texts, whether I follow every phase or whether, while going on with my recitation of the prayers, I take time to meditate on some word that has struck my attention, until such time as I feel the need to seek the honey of devotion in some other flower: in either case, I am fulfilling the precept _Mens_ _concordet voci_. 300 At other times, my intellect may occupy itself with the mystery of the day or the principal idea of the liturgical season. But the part played by the mind will remain in the background compared to the role of the will. The mind will serve only as the will’s source of supply, helping it to remain in adoration or to return to that state. As soon as distractions arise it shall be my will to return to the act of adoration; but I shall make this movement of the will without irritation or harshness, without a sudden violent jerk, but peacefully (since everything that is done with Your aid, Lord Jesus, is peaceful and quiet), yet powerfully (since every genuine desire to cooperate with Your aid, Lord, is powerful and strong). DEVOTE. This is the most important point. Everything comes back to the need of making our Office and all our liturgical functions acts of piety, and, consequently, acts that come from the heart. “Haste kills all devotion.” Such is the principle laid down by St. Francis de Sales in talking of the Breviary, and it applies a fortiori to the Mass, Hence. I shall make it a hard and fast rule to devote around half an hour to my MASS in order to ensure a devout recitation not only of the Canon but of all the other parts as well. I shall reject without pity all PRETEXTS for getting through this, the principal act of my day, in a hurry. If I have the habit of genuine priest whose great faith, piety, and compunction shine forth in his ministrations at a Baptism, Funeral, or, above all, at Mass. Words and rites are arrows that strike deep into such hearts. When the Liturgy is thus lived, they see in it the certitude of the mystery expressed. The invisible begins to exist for them, and they are prompted to invoke Jesus, Whom they hardly know at all, but with Whom they sense that the priest is in close communication. But only weakening or total loss of their faith follows when the spectacle before them merely turns their stomach, and moves them to cry out: "Why, you can't tell me that priest believes in a God or fears Him! Look at the way he says Mass, administers Baptism, recites his prayers, and performs his ceremonies!" What responsibilities! Who would dare to maintain that such scandals will not be visited with the strictest of judgment? How the faithful are influenced by the way a priest acts; whether it be that he displays deeply reverential fear, or an insolent nonchalance in his sacred functions! Once when studying in a university graduate school, into which no clerical influence entered at all, I chanced to observe a priest reciting his Breviary, he being unaware that he was the object of my attention. His bearing, full of respect and religion, was a revelation to me, and produced in me an urgent need to pray from then on, and to pray in the way this priest was praying. The Church appeared to me, concretized, so to speak, in this worthy minister, in communion with his God. But a faithful Catholic soul recently admitted to me: "When I saw the way my parish priest rushed through his Mass at high speed, I was completely upset, and found it hard to believe that he had any faith. Soon I lost all power to pray, el/en to believe, and a kind of disgust, caused by the fear that I would have to continue to see this priest say Mass, caused me, from then on, to avoid the parish Church." ##### Footnotes 300 Let mind and voice agree. (Rule of St. Benedict.) \-127 --- mutilating certain words or ceremonies, I shall apply myself, and go over these faulty places very slowly and carefully, even exaggerating my exactitude for a while.301 With all due proportion, I shall also apply this resolution to all my other liturgical functions: ad-ministrations of the Sacraments, Benediction, Burials, and so on. As far as the Breviary is concerned, I shall carefully decide in advance when I am to say my Office. When that time comes, I shall compel myself, cost what it may, to drop everything else. At any price, I want my recitation of the Office to be a real prayer from the heart. O my Divine Mediator! Fill my heart with detestation for all haste in those things where I stand in Your place, or act in the name of the Church! Fill me with the conviction that haste paralyzes that great Sacramental, the Liturgy, and makes impossible that spirit of prayer without which, no matter how zealous a priest I may appear to be on the outside, I would be lukewarm, or perhaps worse, in Your estimation. Burn into my inmost heart those words so full of terror: “Cursed be he that doth the work of God deceitfully.”302 Sometimes I will let my heart soar, and take in by a panoramic synthesis of Faith, the general meaning of the mystery which the liturgical Cycle calls to mind; and I will feed my soul with this broad view. At other times, I will make my Office a long, lingering act of Faith or Hope, Desire or Regret, Oblation or Love. Then again, just to remain, in simplicity, LOOKING at God will be enough. By this I mean a loving and continuous contemplation of a mystery, of a perfection of God, of one of Your titles, my Jesus, of Your Church, my own nothingness, my faults, my needs, or else my dignity as a Christian, as a priest, as a religious. Vastly different is this simple “looking” from an act of the intellect in the course of theological studies. This “look” will increase Faith, but will give even greater and more rapid growth to Love. It is a reflection, no doubt a pale one, but still a reflection of the beatific vision, this “looking” and it is the fulfilment of what You promised even here below to pure and fervent souls: “Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God.”303 And thus every ceremony will become a restful change because it will bring my soul a real breathing spell and relieve it from the stifling press of occupations. Holy Liturgy, what sweet fragrance you will bring into my soul by your various “functions.” Far from being a slavish burden these functions will become one of the greatest consolations of my life. How could it be otherwise when thanks to your constant reminders I am ever coming back to the fact of my dignity as a child and ambassador of the Church, as member and minister of Jesus Christ, and am ever being more and more closely united to Him Who is the “Joy of the elect.” By my union with Him I shall learn to get profit out of the crosses of this mortal life, and to sow the seeds of my eternal happiness and by my liturgical life, which is far more effective than any apostolate, I will see that other souls have been drawn to follow after me in the ways of salvation and sanctity. 301 A certain author of the nineteenth century, as notorious for his impiety as he was famous for the realism of his descriptions, once found no better simile by which to give a caricature of a person speaking very volubly without knowing what he was saying, than to describe that person as talking "like a priest gabbling his Mass." ##### Footnotes 302 Jer. xlviii: 10. 303 Matt. v: 8. \-128 ### 4. Custody of the Heart Is the Keystone of the Interior Life: Hence It Is Essential in the Apostolate #### Resolution on Custody of the Heart Oh Jesus, it is my desire that my heart acquire a habitual solicitude to PRESERVE ITSELF from every stain and to BECOME MORE AND MORE UNITED to Your Heart in all my occupations conversations, recreations, and so on. The negative, but essential element of this resolution demands that I absolutely refuse to contract any stain in my motives and in the way my acts are carried out.304 The positive element drives my ambition on to the point of seeking to intensify the Faith, Hope, and Love with which the action was begun. This resolution is going to be the real barometer by which to measure the practical value of my morning mental prayer and my liturgical life. For my interior life will be what my custody of the heart is. “With all watchfulness keep thy heart, because life issueth out from it. ”305 Mental prayer gives me back the verve with which I run on towards divine union. But it is custody of the heart which is going to enable the traveller to gain strength from the nourishment he took before his journey began, or takes along the way, so that he will always maintain the same lively pace with which he started out. This custody of the heart means nothing else but the HABITUAL, or at least frequent solicitude to preserve all our acts, as we perform them, from everything that might corrupt their MOTIVE or their ACCOMPLISHMENT. This solicitude will be calm, peaceful, free of all strain, at once humble and strong, because its basis is filial recourse to God and trust in that recourse. Here my heart and my will do much more work than my mind, which must remain free to carry out my various obligations. Far from impeding my activity, custody of the heart will make it all the more perfect by bringing it into line with the Spirit of God, and adjusting it to the duties of my state. Now this exercise is something that I want to practice at every moment of the day. It will consist in a glance from the heart, upon the present action, and a moderate attentiveness to all the various parts of the action as I perform them. It amounts to carrying out, with all 304 PURITY OF INTENTION Q: How is purity of intention to be acquired? A: It is acquired by close attention to ourselves at the beginning and above all during the course of our actions. Q: Why it this attention necessary at the beginning of our actions? A: Because if these actions are pleasing, useful, or in harmony with our natural attractions, nature at once moves to perform them of its own accord, attracted by pleasure and self-interest alone. But we must pay great attention to ourselves, indeed we must have great command over ourselves, if we are to prevent the will from being rushed off its feet, so to speak, by the appeals, of natural motives with their flattery, solicitations, and attractions. Q: Why do you add that this attention is above all necessary during the course of our actions? A: Because even when a person has the strength to repudiate, at the outset, every seductive appeal of sense and self-love, in order to follow in all things nothing but the direction of faith, in all purity of intention; nevertheless if he forgets, later on, to keep a close watch on himself, the actual enjoyment of the pleasure that makes itself felt, or of the advantages that accrue during the course of certain actions keep piling up new impressions and appeals, and the heart yields little by little, so that nature, although mortified by the first refusals, comes to life again and regains its ascendancy. Pretty soon, self-love subtly and almost without our being aware of it, begins to insinuate its selfish motives, and substitutes them for the good motives with which our actions were taken up and begun. From this fact, it many times happens, as St. Paul says, that what began in the spirit ends up in the flesh, that is in low and worldly and selfish views. Fr. de Caussade, SJ. (Prov. iv:23.) ‘ 305 Prov. iv: 23. \-129 --- exactitude, the precept: _Age quod agis_. 306 My soul, like an alert sentinel, will keep a vigilant watch over all the movements of my heart, over everything that goes on within me, all my impressions, intentions, passions, inclinations, and, in a word, over all my interior and exterior acts, all my thoughts, actions, and words. Obviously this custody of the heart demands a certain amount of recollection, and it cannot be practiced if my soul is dissipated. However, the frequent practice of this exercise will help me to acquire the habit that will make self-custody easy. _Quo vadam et ad quid_?307 What would Jesus do; how would He act in my place? What would He advise? What does He ask of me at this moment? Such are the questions that will come spontaneously to my mind, hungry for interior life. When I feel myself drawn to Jesus through Mary, this custody of the heart will quickly become far more effective. My heart will soon feel, as it were, an incessant need for recourse to so good a Mother. And this is how we actualise the precept, “ABIDE in Me and I in you.”308 which sums up all the other principles of the interior life. What You have declared, O Jesus, to be the fruit of the Eucharist, “he abideth in Me and I in him,” is what my soul is out to get, by means of custody of the heart, which will unite me with You. He abideth in Me. Yes, I shall see myself as truly in my home, in Your divine Heart; with every right to dispose of all Your wealth, by using the unlimited treasures of sanctifying Grace, and the inexhaustible mine of Your actual Graces. And I in him. But, thanks to my self-custody, You also, My Lord, will be truly at home in my heart. For, bending every effort to ensure the continual exercise of Your sovereignty over the operation of all my faculties, not only will I be careful never to do anything without You, but my ambition will go so far as to desire to put into everyone of my actions an ever increasing power of love. The habit of interior recollection, of spiritual combat, of a busy and well regulated life, and the incalculable increase of my merits will all result from my self-custody. And thus, O Jesus, my indirect union with You through my works, that is my relations, according to Your will, with creatures, will become the sequel to my direct union with You through mental prayer, the liturgical life, and the Sacraments. In both these cases, this union will proceed from Faith and from Charity and will be formed under the influence of Grace. In the direct union, it is You Yourself, O My God, and You alone, that I have in view. In the indirect union I apply myself to other things. But since it is in obedience to You that I do so these objects to which I have to give my attention become the means willed by You to achieve my union with You. I leave You in order to find You. It is always You that I am seeking, and with just as much love, but now I seek You in Your Will. And this divine Will of Yours is the one and only beacon light upon which self-custody fixes my constant gaze, that I may direct all that I do to Your service. And so in either case I am able to say: “It is good for me to adhere to my God.”309 It is therefore a great MISTAKE to imagine that in order to become united to You I must put off my active work or else wait for it to get done. It is a, mistake to imagine that certain kinds of work, because of their very nature, or because of the time they involve, might so dominate my life or cramp my freedom that it would become impossible for me to be 306 Do what you are doing—that is to say: apply yourself totally to the matter in hand. 307 Where am I going, and for what? St. Ignatius of Loyola used frequently to ask himself this, and it is alluded to in the Spiritual Exercises. 308 Joan. xv: 4. 309 Ps. lxxii: 28. \-130 --- united to You. Not at all: You want me to be free. You do not want activities to imprison me beneath their weight. You want me to be the master and not the slave of activity. And to that end You offer me Your grace, on condition that I am faithful in the custody of my heart. And so, from the moment a supernatural practical sense tells me, through the many events and circumstances and details arranged by Your Providence, that such and such activity is really bound up with Your will, I have the twofold duty of not trying to get out of it but also of not doing it merely for the pleasure it may give me. I must take on the job, and carry it out solely in order to do Your Will. Otherwise self-love might step in and corrupt its worth, and diminish my merit.310 And if I find out what it is You will, Dear Lord, and see how You want it done, Quod, et quomodo Deus vult, and then go ahead and do it simply because it is Your Will, Et quia Deus vult, then my union with You, far from diminishing, will only be intensified. ### I. The Need for Self-custody My God, You are Holiness itself, and here on earth You only admit a soul to intimacy with You in the measure in which it applies itself to destroy or to avoid everything that can soil or stain it in any way. And yet I can find myself SWARMING LIKE AN ANT-HILL WITH VENIAL SINS or deliberate imperfections, which deprive my soul of all the abounding graces which You held in store for me from all eternity. Consider a few of these sins — like the failure through spiritual laziness, to raise up my soul to God; an inordinate love of creatures; hasty temper and impatience; nursing a grudge; being capricious and changeable; getting soft, loving whatever is easy and gives pleasure; always talking without any cause about the faults of other people; dissipation, and a lot of curiosity about things that have nothing whatever to do with the glory of God; spreading scandal, gossiping, and making rash and stupid judgments of others; vain self-complacency; contempt of others, and constant criticism of their conduct; always looking for admiration and praise, and doing things with these in view; showing off anything that is to my credit; presumption, stubbornness, jealousy, lack of respect for superiors, murmuring; no mortification in eating, drinking, and so on. Can my mental prayer and my liturgical life be any good if they do not bring me, bit by bit, to such a state of recollection that my soul will be wakeful against even faults of plain weakness; if they do not help me to pick myself up again right away as soon as my will begins to give in; and even if they do not, in certain cases, lead me to impose certain sanctions upon myself? What a thought, Dear Lord! If I do not watch myself, I can paralyze Your activity in me! Masses, Communions, Confessions, my other pious exercises, the special protection of Divine Providence with my eternal salvation in view, the tender concern of my Guardian Angel, and, worse still, even your motherly watchfulness over me, Sweet Immaculate Mother, all this can be paralyzed, cancelled out, by my fault! 310 "Good actions," says Fr. Desurmont, C. SS. R., “conceal within themselves delights, honours, glory, and a certain indefinable something which human nature finds extremely tasty, and which it often likes far more than sinful pleasure. And the soul is not on its guard against this gnawing worm, this refined egoism which kills actual grace. The Lord, out of kindness towards us as well as out of jealousy; for His glory, declares Himself to be, as far as He is concerned, indifferent to all particular goods. And He has decided that one thing alone shall be pleasing to Him, namely His own Will. In such a way that a mere nothing, performed in conformity with His Will, can merit Heaven, while wonders worked without it remain unrewarded. And consequently what we have to do is to aim, in all things, not only at what is simply good, but at the good that is willed by God, that is, His Will." (_Le Retour Continual à Dieu_.) \-131 --- If I am lacking in good will to impose upon myself that constraint which You were talking about, Dear Lord, when You said: “the violent bear it away,”311 Satan will ever be trying to catch me by surprise and lead me astray, and weaken me, and he will even go so far as to pervert my whole conscience with his illusions. O my soul! Some of those falls which you think are mere weakness are perhaps already much more than that in the eyes of God If you do not practice custody of the heart and if you do not forge ahead in carrying out the program of keeping all the motives of my actions purely for Jesus alone, how can you escape from that conclusion? If I do not resolve upon custody of the heart, not only will I pile up a long and fearsome debt for purgatory, but even though I may yet avoid mortal sin, I will be on the incline that inevitably leads to it. Have you thought of that, O my soul? ### II. Self-custody Begins with the Practice of the Presence of God O Holy Trinity, if I am in the state of Grace, and I hope I am, then You are dwelling in my heart, with all Your glory and all Your infinite perfections, just as You dwell in Heaven; but here You are hidden by the veils of Faith. There is not a single moment when Your eyes are not upon me, seeing all that I do. Your Justice and Your Mercy are always at work in me. In response to my infidelities, You take away Your special graces, or else You no longer dispose events with maternal care in such a way that they turn out to my advantage: at other times, to bring me back to Yourself, You load me down with fresh kindness. If I really looked upon this indwelling in me as the most wonderful of all facts and the most worthy of my attention, would I be so often and for such long periods oblivious of it? Is it not this failure to attend to the fundamental fact of my existence that is the reason for such poor success up to the present in all my attempts to practice self-custody? A constant succession of ejaculatory prayers all through the day ought to be keeping this loving indwelling of God ever in my conscious thoughts. Up until now, my soul, have you really taken the trouble to fill your life with these little landmarks as you go along; have you even remembered to make these aspirations ONCE IN AN HOUR? Have you drawn enough profit from your daily meditation and from your liturgical life to enter from time to time, even if it is only a few seconds, into the inner sanctuary of your heart, there to adore the infinite Beauty, the Immensity, the All-powerful, the Sanctity, the Life, and the Love, in a word, the Supreme and Perfect Good Who deigns to dwell there and Who is your Beginning and your End? How about Spiritual Communions? What kind of a part do they play in my daily life? And yet they are right at hand, not only to remind me of the indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity within me, but also to increase that indwelling by a new inpouring of the Precious Blood into my soul. Up to now, how much importance have I attached to these riches that I find all along my road? All I needed to do was bend down and pick up diamonds and place them in my diadem. What a far call it is from me to those souls who, in the thick of their work or their conversations return a thousand times a day to their Divine Guest! They have acquired this habit, and their hearts are fixed where their treasure is. ### III. Self-custody Aided by Devotion to Our Lady O my Immaculate Mother, when, on Calvary, the words of Your Son made me also a child of yours, it was in order that you might then aid me to keep my heart united, through Jesus, to the Holy Trinity. 311 Matt. xi: 12. \-132 --- I want my ever more frequent invocations to you, to aim above all at this custody of my heart, so that I may purify all its tendencies, intentions, affections, and desires. I desire no longer to close my ears to your sweet voice that urges me: “Stop that, my child! Get your heart back on the right path again! Do not think that, in what you are now doing, you are seeking only God’s glory, and nothing else.” How often have you not interrupted my dissipation, my somewhat questionable occupations, with this motherly appeal! And how often, alas, have I drowned out the sound of your voice! Sweet Mother, from now on I am going to hear YOUR HEART REMINDING ME OF THE TRUTH, and my fidelity will correspond to it by firmly and decisively putting on the brakes. Maybe it will only be a momentary halt, like a lightning flash in the course of my activity, but it will be all I shall need to ask myself one of these questions: For whom am I doing this? How would Jesus be acting in my place? Now when I acquire the habit of always putting to myself this question in the depths of mv heart, I am practicing custody of the heart. And this is what is going to enable me even in the smallest details, to keep my faculties and all their impulses in an ever more perfect habit of dependence upon God living within me. ### IV. Learning Self-custody It is a torment to me, to remain out of the presence of God for long intervals during the course of my work. I am filled with sorrow by the realisation that all during this time when I am pouring myself out in activities, numerous faults escape me, irrespective of the state of my soul, whether I display a mixture of fervour and imperfections, or whether I am frankly tepid. And hence I want to start to remedy matters today by practicing custody of the heart. In the morning, when I am making my meditation, I shall determine very precisely and firmly upon a certain moment in my work when I shall attempt, even while carrying on busily the work willed by God, to live as perfect an interior life as I can, to practice selfcustody, that is, to be in Your presence, dear Lord, and at the same time keep an eye on myself, always having recourse to You, acting just as if I had made the vow always to do what is most perfect. I shall begin by doing this for five minutes, or even less, morning and evening,312 and shall concern myself much more with making it perfect than with making it long. I shall also try to make it better and better all the time, and strive to have the purity of intention, the custody of my heart and of all my faculties, and the generosity, that you would expect to find in a saint, in a word: to act in all things as Christ Himself would have acted in doing the same work, and to do all this in the midst of my work, EVEN, or rather ABOVE ALL if it is very ABSORBING. This will prove an apprenticeship for a practical interior life. It will be a protest against my habits of dissipation and my wandering mind. I want Jesus. I want His Kingdom. And when the time for external work arrives I want His Kingdom to go on just the same in myself. I do not want my soul to go on being a public hallway open to every wind, in which it becomes impossible to live united to Jesus, vigilant, suppliant, and generous. 312 This is practically the same as what Bossuet called the "moment of loving solitude which we should at all costs set aside during the day." It is also what St. Francis de Sales so strongly recommended under the name of spiritual retreats. “Devotion's principal work lies in this exercise of the spiritual retreat and in ejaculatory prayers. Here is an exercise that can make up for the lack of all the other forms of prayer, but the lack of this one is practically irreparable by any other means. Without it, it is impossible to lead the active life otherwise than badly... and work will always be an obstacle to us." (_Intro. to the Dev. Life_, Pt. ii, ch. 3.) \-133 --- During this brief moment, I shall keep my eyes directed, without strain, upon all the motives of my soul’s acts, and I shall forgive no fault. My good will, too, will be fervently determined to let nothing slip through that might make my living less perfect during this interval, brief as it is! And then my heart also, will be resolved to have frequent recourse to Our Lord, to keep going in this WORKOUT IN SANCTITY. This practice is going to be hearty, and happy, and done with great expansion of soul. Of Course vigilance and mortification will be necessary if I am going to keep in the presence of God and deny my faculties and senses everything that smacks of nature. But I am not going to be satisfied with this merely negative side. I shall try above all to put into this exercise that intensity of love which, by making me more careful in the practice of Age quod agis, first of all the purity of intention and then with an ever increasing ardour and impersonality and generosity, will give my works all their perfection and value. In the evening, at my general examination of conscience (or at the particular examen, if I make this exercise its subject), I shall make a rigorously close analysis of the way these few minutes of strict and unreserved self-custody before Jesus turned out. Then I will impose a sanction, some little penance (cut out a few cigarettes or take a little less dessert, unnoticed by anyone else, or else pray a little while with the arms out in the form of a cross, or give myself a few smart blows on the fingers with a ruler or some hard object), if I observe that I have not been sufficiently vigilant, or fervent, or suppliant, or loving during this try-out in self-custody, that is, in the union of interior and active life. What wonderful results can be obtained from this practice! What a school of selfcustody! What new light it will throw on sins and imperfections of whose existence I was not even aware! These blessed moments will come gradually to exercise a VIRTUAL influence on the moments that come after. Nevertheless, I shall not prolong them until I have just about gone as far in them as I can, in holiness and perfection of execution, and intensity of love. I am going to aim at quality rather than extent. My thirst to take more than just a few minutes at this practice will grow stronger in proportion as I see more correctly what I am and what You expect of me, Dear Lord. And thus gradually getting familiar with this salutary exercise I shall contract a real need for it, and it will become a habit, and then You will make known to my soul, thus purified, the secrets of the life of union with You. ### V. Self-custody: Under What Conditions? The whole trend of my life is almost all more or less imperfect. This CONVICTION, which Satan tries to keep out of my mind, is going to be the basis of mistrust of myself and of creatures. And this element, united to my desire to belong to Jesus will necessarily produce: Vigilance, loyal and exact, gentle, peaceful, confident in grace, and based on the repression of dissipation and of the excesses of natural enthusiasm. A frequent renewal of my resolution. Tireless new beginnings, ever full of confidence in the mercy of Christ for the soul that really puts up a fight to acquire self-custody. An ever increasing certitude that I am not fighting alone but united to Jesus living in me, to Mary His Mother, to my guardian angel, and to the saints. A conviction that these powerful allies are helping me at every moment as long as I keep striving for self-custody: as long as I do not put myself out of reach of their assistance. Finally, a cordial and frequent recourse to all these divine helps, that I may be able with their aid to do _quod Deus vult and do it quomodo Deus vult and quia Deus vult._ 313 Oh! what a transformation will take place in my life, Dear Lord, if I keep my heart united to You! 313 What God wants... The way God wants it... because God wants it. \-134 --- My mind may be completely absorbed in the business at hand, and: yet there is something I have observed in souls that are extremely busy, and who yet never cease to live and breathe in You: and that is what I want to arrive at, in the course of even my most absorbing work. If I have well understood what self-custody means, far from diminishing the freedom of action required by my faculties if they are to carry out all the duties of my state, my soul, breathing in the atmosphere of love which is Yourself, Jesus, will increase that liberty and make my life serene, joyful, powerful, and full of fruit. Instead of being the slave of my pride, of my selfishness or of my laziness; instead of groaning beneath the yoke of my passions and feelings, I shall become more and more free. And with this increase in my liberty I shall be able, O my God, to give You more and more frequent homage of dependence. Thus I shall be strengthened in true humility, the foundation without which the interior life would simply be an illusion. And so I shall develop in myself that basic spirit of submission: _Submissio ad Deum_, 314 which sums up the whole inner life of Our Saviour. Participating in the flame of love which made You always so attentive and docile to Your Father’s good pleasure, Jesus, I shall merit a share, in heaven, of the glory which Your Humanity enjoys as a reward for its wonderful dependence of humility and love: “Becoming obedient … for which God also hath exalted Him...”315 ### 5. The Apostle Must Have an Ardent Devotion to Mary Immaculate As a member of the Cistercian Order, so completely consecrated to Mary, and as a child of that great saint who was, for half a century, the apostle of Europe, St. Bernard, how can we forget that the holy abbot of Clairvaux attributed to Mary all his progress in union with Jesus, and all his success in the apostolate? Everybody knows what tremendous effects were produced by the apostolate of this saint, who remains the most illustrious of the sons of St. Benedict: an apostolate that embraced nations and kings, Councils and even Popes. On all sides we hear the praises of the sanctity, the genius, the deep knowledge of Holy Scripture, and the penetrating unction of the writings of this the last of the Fathers of the Church. But one title above all others sums up all the admiration of the ages for this holy doctor: _Cytharista Mariae_, “the Harpist of Mary.” This “Bard of Mary” has never been surpassed by any of those who have proclaimed the glories of the Mother of God. St. Bernardine of Siena and St. Francis of Sales, as well as Bossuet, St. Alphonsus, St. Grignon de Monfort, and so on, all draw largely upon the treasures of St. Bernard when they want to speak of her, and find arguments to support that great truth which the holy Doctor so emphasised: “Everything comes to us through Mary.” “See, my brethren, with what sentiments of devotion God has desired us to honour Mary, He Who has placed in her the fullness of all good. If there is in us any hope, any grace, any pledge of salvation, let us admit that all this overflows upon us from her who is flowing with delights.... Suppose you were to take away the sun, which enlightens the world: what would become of the day? Take away Mary, that star of the sea, of our huge, vast sea, what is left but deep obscurity, the shadow of death, pitchy blackness? Therefore it is from the depths of our hearts, from the very vitals of our being, and with all our mind and will that we must honour the Virgin Mary: for such is the will of Him Who willed us to have all through Mary.”316 314 Humility consists chiefly in the submission of man to God. (St. Thomas Aquinas.) 315 Phil. ii: 9. 316 Sermon on the Nativity of Our Lady, called “_de Aquaeductu_.” (St. Bernard.) \-135 --- Strong with the strength of this doctrine we will not hesitate to lay down as a principle that no matter what the apostle may do to ensure salvation and spiritual progress and the fruitfulness of his apostolate, he runs the risk of finding that he has built on sand if his activity does not rest on a very special devotion to Our Lady. #### A. for His Personal Interior Life The apostle cannot claim to have a sufficient devotion to Our Lady if his confidence in her is not enthusiastic, and if his homage to her is almost entirely external. Like her Son, intuetur cor, she only looks at our hearts, and judges us to be her true children only by the power with which our love corresponds to hers. She looks to find a heart that is firmly convinced of the glories and privileges and offices of her who is at the same time the Mother of God and the Mother of men: A heart that is convinced of this truth: that the fight against faults, the acquisition of virtues, the Kingdom of Christ in souls, and consequently all guarantee of salvation and sanctity, are in proportion to the degree of our devotion to Mary;317 A heart that is gripped with the thought that everything is easier, more delightful, and progresses more rapidly in the interior life when we act in union with Mary;318 A heart full to overflowing of filial confidence, come what may, in her whose gentle tact, and wise anticipation of our needs, and whose tenderness and mercy and generosity we know by experience. 319 A heart ever more and more on fire with love for her who is associated with all our joys, united with us in all our trials, and through whom all our affections pass. All these sentiments give us a good picture of St. Bernard, who may be taken as the model for active workers. Who does not know the words that leaped forth from the soul of this holy abbot when, in his exposition of the Gospel “_Missus est_,” for the benefit of his monks, he cries out: “O you who in the ebb and flow of this age are aware that you are tossed in the midst of storms and tempests rather than walking upon the earth, keep your eyes fixed on this star, so that you may not perish in the gale. If the winds of temptations are let loose, if you are striking on the rocks of tribulation, look to the star, call upon Mary. If you are flung about by the waves of pride, of ambition, of scandal, of jealousy, look on the star, call upon Mary. If anger or avarice or evil desires attack the frail bark of your soul lift up your eyes to Mary. If, crushed under the enormity of your sins, in confusion at the horrible wounds of your conscience, alarmed by the horror of the judgment, you begin to be drawn into the whirlpool of sadness and despair, think of Mary. In dangers, in anguish, in doubt, think of Mary, invoke Mary. Let Mary never be far from your lips, never far from your heart; and to obtain the support of her prayers, do not forget the example of her life. In following her you shall not go astray; by praying to her you shall not des-pair; in contemplating her you shall not go wrong. With her support you fall not; under her protection you fear not; under her guidance, you do not grow weary; if she is propitious to you, you will reach the port.” Obliged to limit this work, and yet desirous of offering our confreres in the apostolate a sort of summary of the advice St. Bernard gives to those who would like to become true children of Mary, we believe there is no better course for us to take than to offer the 317 No one is saved except through thee, Mother of God. No one receives the gift of God except through thee, O full of grace! (St. Germain.) Holiness increases in proportion to the devotion that one professes for Mary. (Fr. Faber.) 318 With Mary, we make more progress in the love of Jesus in one month than we could in years of living less united to this good Mother. (St. Grignon de Montfort.) 319 My little children, she it is who is the foundation of all my trust and the whole reason for all my hope. (St. Bernard.) \-136 --- suggestion that they read with attention the solid and valuable little book of Fr. Lhomeau, “The Spiritual Life as Taught by Bl. Grignon de Montfort.”320 Along with the words of St. Alphonsus and Fr. Desurmont’s commentaries, the writings of Fr. Faber and of Fr. Giraud of La Salette, this book of Fr. Lhomeau gives an unusually complete exposition of the teaching of St. Bernard, whom it quotes at every turn. It has that strong foundation of dogma, that unction and practical character, and everything else that goes to achieve the result which the abbot of Clairvaux was always striving to obtain: namely to form the hearts of his children after the image of his own and give them what was the outstanding characteristic of all the great Cistercian writers: the need for habitual recourse to Mary and to lead a life of union with her. Let us bring this to a close with the consoling words which the great Cistercian, St. Gertrude, whom Dom Gueranger calls Gertrude the Great, heard from the lips of the Most Blessed Virgin: “They ought not to call my sweetest Jesus my only Son, but rather my first-born Son. I conceived Him first in my womb, but after Him, or rather, through Him, I conceived every one of you to be His brothers and to be my children, adopting you in the womb of my maternal charity.” Everything in the writings of this saint, the patroness of the Trappistine nuns, reflects the spirit of her Holy Father St. Bernard, with regard to the life of union with Mary. #### B. for an Effective Apostolate Whether it be the task of the active worker to rescue souls from sin or to make virtues put forth flowers in their souls, his first objective must always be, as was St. Paul’s, to bring forth Our Lord in them. Now Bossuet says that God, having once willed to give us Jesus through the Most Blessed Virgin, there is no further change in that order. It was she who brought forth the Head, and so it is she too who is to bring forth the members. To isolate Mary from the apostolate would be to misconstrue one of the most vital parts of the divine Plan. “All the elect,” says St. Augustine, “are, in this world, hidden in the womb of the Most Blessed Virgin, where they are cherished and nourished and fostered and reared by this good Mother until such time as she brings them forth to glory after their death.” And St. Bernardine of Siena justly concludes that, since the Incarnation, Mary has acquired a sort of jurisdiction over every temporal mission of the Holy Spirit, in such a way that no creature receives any graces but through her hands. But the man with true devotion to Mary becomes all-powerful over the Heart of his Mother. And so, what apostle can doubt the efficacy of his Apostolate when, by his devotions, he can control the all-powerful mediation of Mary in the distribution of the merits of the Precious Blood? Hence we observe that all great converters of souls are filled with an unusually powerful devotion for the Blessed Virgin. Are they out to free a soul from sin? What persuasive warmth is theirs, identified as they are by their horror for evil and their love of purity, with her who has applied to herself the name of the Immaculate Conception! It was by the voice of Mary that the Precursor recognised the presence of Jesus, and leaped in the womb of his mother. What persuasive accents will Mary give to her true children, that they may open to Jesus hearts hitherto locked! What words come to the minds of those who are intimately united to the Mother of Mercies when they want to prevent souls that have long abused grace, from falling into despair! 320 _La Vie Spirituelle à l’Ecole du Bienheureux Grignon de Montfort_, Librairie Oudin. Fr. Lhomeau was Superior General of the congregation which St. G. de Montfort founded. \-137 --- Some unfortunate man does not know Mary. The assurance with which the apostle shows her to be a true Mother and Refuge of sinners will open out new horizons to such a one! The Holy Curé of Ars sometimes ran across sinners, blinded by delusions, who relied on some external practice of devotion to the Blessed Virgin to quiet their consciences, and let them sin with greater freedom, without fear of the everlasting flames of hell. In such cases, his words were of tremendous effect, both in bringing the guilty one to realise the monstrosity of this presumption, so insulting to the Mother of Mercy, and to make him use that act of devotion to implore the grace to get free from the crushing coils of the infernal snake. But in a similar situation an apostle without much devotion to Mary will only succeed, by his wounding, frigid words, in making the poor drowning wretch let go of the last straw that might have turned into a force strong enough to keep him afloat until he reached safety. When Mary is living in the heart of her apostle, he will be guaranteed the use of the persuasive eloquence of Our Blessed Mother herself, speaking in him, and moving souls with whom all else has failed. It is apparent that Our Lord, in a most beautiful delicacy of feeling, has left to the mediation of His Mother the most difficult conquests of the apostolate desiring that they should be accorded to no one but those who live in intimate union with her. “Through thee He has reduced our enemies to nought”: Per te ad nihilum redegit inimicos nostros. Never will the true son of Mary run out of arguments, of means or even of expedients when it becomes necessary, in almost hopeless cases, to strengthen the helpless and give consolation to those who cannot be consoled. The Decree that added the invocation _Mater Boni Consilii_ (Mother of Good Counsel) to Our Lady’s Litany, goes back to the titles of “Treasuress of Heavenly Graces,” and “Universal Consoler” (_Coelestium gratiarum Thesauraria, Consolatrix universalis_), which are Mary’s due. “Mother of Good Counsel,” she only gives to those who are truly devoted to her, as she did at Cana, the secret of obtaining from God the wine of strength and of joy to distribute to men. But it is above all when the time comes to speak to souls of the love of God that this Ravisher of Hearts, _Raptrix Cordium_, as St. Bernard called her, the Spouse of Substantial Love, places upon the lips of her intimates the words of fire that enkindle love of Christ, and bring into being, through that love, every other virtue. We apostles are bound to have a passionate love for her whom Pius IX calls _Virgo_ _Sacerdos_, the Priestly Virgin, and whose dignity, in every respect, outstrips that of any priest or pontiff. And this love gives us the right never to give up any work as fruitless if we have once begun it with Mary, and are ready to keep on going, in it, with her. For Mary, as a matter of fact, is at the base and at the final peak of perfection of all things that have to do with the Kingdom of God through her Son. But let us be careful never to delude ourselves that we are working with her if all we do is to erect altars and have a few hymns sung in her honour. What she is looking for, from us, is a devotion that will allow us to affirm, in all sincerity, that we live habitually united to her, that we have recourse to her counsel, that our affections pass through her Heart and that our petitions are frequently made through her. But the thing that Mary most of all expects of our devotion is the imitation of all the virtues that we admire in her and the unreserved abandonment of ourselves into her hands that she may clothe us with her Divine Son. On this condition of habitual recourse to Mary, we will imitate that general of the army of the people of God, who, before marching against the enemy told Deborah: “If thou wilt come with me, I will go; if thou wilt not come with me, I will not go.” Not only will she \-138 --- be concerned in the principal decisions of our lives, but also with every detail of their execution, even the most unforeseen. United with her whose invocation Our Lady of the Sacred Heart sums up all her titles, we will never run the risk of ruining our works by allowing them to obstruct our interior life, to become a danger to our souls, and serve more for our own glory than for that of our God. On the contrary, we will go through our works to the interior life, and hence to an ever more and more intimate union with her who will guarantee us the possession of her Son for all eternity. --- ![[maps/bibliography#^biblio-soa]] > [[part-four-chau-soul|← Previous]] | [[chau-soul-apostolate-toc|TOC]] | [[epilogue-chau-soul|Next →]]