> [[part-two-chau-soul|← Previous]] | [[chau-soul-apostolate-toc|TOC]] | [[part-four-chau-soul|Next →]] # Part Three – The Soul of the Apostolate ## Without the Interior Life the Active Life Is Full of Danger: with It, It Will Guarantee Progress in Virtue ### 1. Active Works, a Means of Sanctification for Interior Souls, Become, for Others, a Menace to Their Salvation #### A. Means of Sanctification Our Lord categorically demands that those whom He associates with His apostolate should not only persevere in their virtue, but make progress in it. Proof will be found on any page of St. Paul’s epistles to Titus and Timothy, and the words addressed in the Apocalypse to the Bishops of Asia. At the same time, as we proved at the outset, God wants active works. Consequently, if we were to view works, considered in themselves, as an obstacle to sanctification, and assert that, although springing from the Divine Will, they necessarily slow down our advance towards perfection, it would be an insult, a blasphemy against the Wisdom and Goodness and Providence of God. Hence, the following dilemma is inescapable: either the apostolate, no matter what form it takes, if it is God’s will, not only does not bring about in itself as its effect any alteration in the atmosphere of solid virtue which ought to surround a soul that has a care for salvation and for spiritual progress, but it must also, and always, provide the apostle with a means of sanctification, so long as his apostolic work keeps within the due conditions, Or else the person whom God has chosen to work with Him, and who is therefore obliged to answer the divine call, will have every right to offer the activity, the troubles and cares undergone for the sake of the work commanded by Him, as legitimate excuses for his failure to sanctify himself. Now it is a consequence of the economy of the divine plan that God owes it to Himself to provide his chosen apostle with graces necessary to make distracting business compatible not only with the assurance of salvation but even with the acquisition of virtues which can lead as high as sanctity itself. God owes the kind of help He gave to His St. Bernards and St. Francis Xaviers to the humblest of his preachers of the Gospel, to the lowest teaching brother, to the most obscure nursing sister, in the measure required by each of them. Such aid is a real Debt of the Sacred Heart, owed by Him to His chosen instruments. Let us not fear to repeat it over and over again. And every apostle, provided he fulfils the due conditions, should have an absolute confidence in his inviolable right to the graces demanded by a work whose very nature gives him a mortgage on the infinite treasure of divine aid. “A man who devotes himself to works of charity,” says Alvarez de Paz, “must not imagine that they will close the door of contemplation in his face, nor make him any less capable of practicing it. On the contrary, he must hold it as certain that they will even serve as an excellent preparation for it. This truth is vouched for not only by reason and the authority of the Fathers, but also by daily experience, for we may see certain souls engaged in works of charity for their neighbour, like hearing confessions, preaching, teaching catechism, visiting the sick, and so on, raised by God to so high a degree of contemplation that one may fairly compare them with the anchorites of old.”88 By the use of his term “degree of contemplation” the eminent Jesuit, like all the other masters of the spiritual life, is talking of the gift of the spirit of prayer which is a sign of the superabundance of charity in a soul. 88 Vol. III, bk. 4. \-41 --- The sacrifices exacted from us by active works draw so much supernatural value from the glory they give to God and from their effects in the sanctification of souls, and acquire from these sources such great wealth of merits, that a man vowed to the active life can, if he wills, rise himself each day a further degree in charity and union with God, that is to say, in sanctity. Of course, in certain cases, where there is a grave and proximate danger of formal sin, particularly against faith and the angelic virtue, God absolutely wills that a man give up works of charity. But apart from such a case, He gives to all His workers, the interior life as a means of becoming immune to danger and of making progress in virtue. However, let us clearly define in what this progress consists. A paradox of the prudent and spiritual St. Theresa will help us to make our meaning clear: “Since I have been prioress, burdened with many duties and obliged to travel a great deal, I commit very many more faults. And yet, as I struggle generously and spend myself for God alone, I feel that I am getting closer and closer to Him.” Her weakness shows itself much more than it did in the peace and quiet of the cloister. The saint is aware of this, but does not let it cause her any worry. The completely supernatural generosity of her devotion to duty and her greatly increased efforts in the spiritual combat make up for everything by providing an opportunity for victories which largely outweigh the surprise faults of a weakness that was always there, but formerly only in a latent state. Our union with God, says St. John of the Cross, resides in the union of our will with His, and is measured entirely by that union. Instead of taking the mistaken view of spirituality which would see no possibility of progress in divine union except in tranquillity and solitude, St. Theresa judges that it is rather an activity truly imposed on us by God and carried out under the conditions laid down by His will, which, by nourishing her spirit of sacrifice, her humility, her abnegation, her ardour and devotion for the Kingdom of God, serves to increase the intimate union of her soul with Our Lord, who lives in her and gives life to her work; and it is thus that she advances on the road to sanctity. Sanctity, as a matter of fact, consists above all in charity, and any apostolic work that is worthy of the name is simply charity in action. _Probatio amoris_, says St. Gregory, _exbibitio_ _est operis_. The proof of love is in works of self-denial, and this proof of devotion is something God demands of all His workers. “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep,” is the form of charity which Our Lord demands of the apostle as a proof of the sincerity of his repeated protestations of love. St. Francis of Assisi did not believe he could be a friend of Christ unless his charity devoted itself to the salvation of souls. _Non se amicum Christi reputabat nisi animas foveret quas ille redemit_. 89 And if Our Lord looks upon all works of mercy even corporal, as done to Himself, it is because He sees in each one of them the radiated light of the very same charity90 which animates the missionary or sustains the hermit in the privations, the struggles, and the prayers of the desert. The active life is concerned with the care of others. It treads the path of sacrifice, following Jesus, the worker and pastor, the missionary and wonderworker, the healer and physician of all, the tireless and tender provider for all the needy here below. The active life remembers and is sustained by this word of the Master: “I am in the midst of you as he that serveth.”91 “The Son of Man did not come to be ministered unto, but to minister.”92 89 He did not consider himself a friend of Christ unless he cared for the souls redeemed by him. (St. Bonaventure, _Life of St. Francis_, c. ix.) 90 As long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me. (Matt. xxv: 40.) 91 Luc. xxii: 27. 92 Matt. xx: 28. \-42 --- It goes out into the byways of human misery speaking the word that enlightens, and sowing all about it a harvest of graces that will grow up into benefits of every sort. Thanks to the clear vision of its faith, thanks to the intuitions of its love, it discovers in the lowest of the wretched, in the most pitiful of sufferers. God naked, sorrowful, despised by all, the great leper, the mysterious condemned criminal, pursued and beaten to the ground by the blows of eternal justice, the Man of Sorrows whom Isaias saw rising up in the frightful wealth of His wounds, in the tragic purple of His Blood, so smashed and ravaged by the nails and by the whips of the scourging that He twisted like a worm under the heel that stamps out its life. “Thus we have seen Him,” cries the prophet, “and we have not recognised Him.”93 Yes, but thou, O active life, dost recognise Him: and falling on thy knees, with eyes full of tears, thou servest Him in the poor. The active life improves mankind. Enriching the world with its acts of generosity, with its work and with its toil and sacrifices, it sows merits for heaven. It is a holy life, rewarded by God, for He gives Paradise in return for a cup of cold water given by one poor man to another, just as well as for the doctor’s learned tomes or for the labours of the apostle. At the last day, He will canonise all the works of charity before the face of heaven and earth together.94 #### B. a Menace to Salvation How often, alas, in private retreats which we have directed, have we noticed that active works, which ought to have been, for their organisers, a means of progress had turned into forces that undermined the whole edifice of their spiritual life. A very active and energetic man, invited by us, at the beginning of a retreat, to look into his conscience and seek out the principal cause of his unhappiness, gave a perfect diagnosis in this answer which may seem at first sight incomprehensible: “My self-sacrifice is what has ruined me! My nature and temperament make it a joy for me to spend myself, and a pleasure to serve. What with the apparent success of my enterprises, the devil has contrived, for long years, to make everything work together for my deception, stirring me up to furious activity, filling me with disgust for all interior life, and finally leading me over the edge of the abyss.” This abnormal, not to say monstrous state of mind can be explained in one word. The worker for God, carried away by the pleasure of giving free rein to his natural energy, had let the divine life fade out, and thus lost the supernatural heat which had been stored up in him to make his apostolate effective and which would have helped his soul to resist the encroachments of the numbing ice of natural motives. He had worked, indeed, but far from the rays of the life-giving sun. _Magnae vires et cursus celerrimus, sed praeter viam_. 95 At the same time, his works, in them-selves very holy, had turned against the apostle like a weapon dangerous to wield, a two-edged sword which wounds the man who does not know how to use it. St. Bernard was warning Pope Bl. Eugenius III against just such a danger as this when he wrote: “I fear, lest in the midst of your occupations without number, you may lose hope of ever getting through with them, and allow your heart to harden. It would be very prudent of you to withdraw from such occupations, even if it be only for a little while, rather than let 93 And we have seen Him and there was no sightliness that we should be desirous of Him: despised and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity: and His look was, as it were, hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed Him not. 94 _Lumière et Flamme_, P. Léon, O. M. Cap. Notice that in this quotation the author is speaking of an active life full of the spirit of faith, made fruitful by charity, and, consequently, springing from an intense interior life. 95 Much strength and great speed, but all off the track. \-43 --- them get the better of you, and, little by little, lead you where you do not want to go. And where, you will ask, is that? To indifference. “Such is the end to which these accursed tasks (_hae occupations maledictae_) will lead you; that is, if you keep on as you have begun, giving yourself entirely to them, keeping nothing of yourself, for yourself.”96 Is there anything more lofty and more sacred than the government of the Church? Is there anything more useful for the glory of God and for the good of souls? And yet “accursed task,” St. Bernard calls them, if they are going to stand in the way of the interior life of the one who gives himself to them. What an expression, “accursed tasks”! It calls for a whole book, so terrifying is it, and so powerfully does it force one to think! It might arouse protest did it not flow from the pen of one so precise as a Doctor of the Church, a St. Bernard. ### 2. The Active Worker Who Has No Interior Life To sum up such a one in a word; perhaps he is not yet tepid, but he is bound to become so. However, when a man is tepid, with a tepidity that is not merely in the feelings, or due to weakness, but residing in the will, that man has resigned himself to consent habitually to levity and neglect, or at any rate to cease fighting them. He has come to terms with deliberate venial sin, and by that very fact, he has robbed his soul of its assurance of eternal salvation. Indeed, he is disposing and even leading it on to mortal sin.97 Such also is St. Alphonsus’ teaching on tepidity, so well expounded by his disciple, Fr. Desurmont.98 Now how is it that, without an interior life, the active worker inevitably slides into tepidity? Inevitably, we say; and the only proof we need for this is the statement of a missionary bishop to his priests, a statement all the more terrifying by its truth, since it comes straight from a heart consumed with zeal for good works and filled with a spirit that goes clean contrary to anything that smacks of quietism. “There is one thing,” said Cardinal Lavigerie, “one thing of which you must be fully persuaded, and it is that for an apostle there is no halfway between total sanctity, at least faithfully and courageously desired and sought after, and absolute perversion.” First let us go back to the seed of corruption fostered in our nature by concupiscence, and the fight to the death that is ever waged against us by your enemies, within as well as without. Let us go back to the dangers that threaten us on every side. With this in mind, let us consider what happens to a soul that enters upon the apostolate without being sufficiently forewarned and forearmed against its dangers. 96 St. Bernard, _De Consideratione_, II, 2. 97 It follows from St. Thomas’ teaching on habits (la 2ae, qq. lii, liii) that when a soul in the state of grace places an act that is good in itself, but below the degree of fervour which God has a right to expect from it in its present state, that act, in a sense, tends to diminish its degree of charity. The texts, "Cursed be he who does the work of God with negligence" and "Because thou are lukewarm I will commence to vomit thee from my mouth," are explained in this sense. Furthermore, every venial sin, although it does not diminish the state of grace, does, as a matter of fact, diminish its fervour. And it is thus that it disposes us to mortal sin. But where there is not an intense interior life, deliberate venial sin will abound, and there will be many venial sins that are not even recognized as such, although they will be imputed to the lax and careless soul which has ceased to “watch and pray." Thus we may find in St. Thomas an explanation for the phrase "accursed occupations” used above, and of all that is to be developed in the present chapter. Cf. la 2ae, q. lii, a. 3: _Si vero intensio actus proportionaliter deficiat ab intensione habitus, talis actus_ _non disponit ad augmentum habitus sed magis ad diminutionem ipsius_. 98 See note on tepidity, Part I, No. 3, “sixth truth,” page 18. Cf. “_Le Retour Continuel à Dieu_.” \-44 --- Fr. (or Mr.) So-and-So feels within himself a growing desire to consecrate himself to good works. He has no experience whatever. But his liking for the apostolate gives us the right to suppose that he has a certain amount of fire, some impetuosity of character, is fond of action, and also perhaps, inclined to relish a bit of a fight. Let us imagine him to be correct in his conduct, a man of piety and even to devotion; but his piety is more in the feelings than in the will, and his devotion is not the light reflected by a soul resolute in seeking nothing but the good pleasure of God, but a pious routine, the result of praiseworthy habits. Mental prayer, if indeed he practices it at all, is for him a species of day-dreaming, and his spiritual reading is governed by curiosity, without any real influence on his conduct. Perhaps the devil even eggs him on by reason of an illusory artistic sense, which the poor soul mistakes for an “inner life,” to dabble in treatises on the lofty and extraordinary paths of union with God, and these fill him with admiration and enthusiasm. All in all, there is little genuine inner life, if any at all, in this soul which still has, we grant, a certain number of good habits, many natural assets and a certain loyal desire to be faithful to God; but that desire is altogether too vague. There you have our apostle, filled with his desire to throw himself into active works, and on the point of entering upon this ministry which is so completely new to him. It is not long before circumstances that inevitably arise from these works (as will readily be understood by anyone who has led the active life) produce a thousand-and-one occasions to draw him more and more out of himself; there are countless appeals to his naive curiosity, unnumbered occasions of falling into sin from which we may suppose he has hitherto been protected by the peaceful atmosphere of his home, his seminary, his community, or his novitiate — or at least by the guidance of an experienced director. Not only is there an increasing dissipation-, or the ever growing danger of a curiosity that has to find out all about everything; not only more and more displays of impatience or injured feelings, of vanity or jealousy, presumption or dejection, partiality or detraction, but there is also a progressive development of the weaknesses of his soul and of all the more or less subtle forms of sensuality. And all these foes are preparing to force an unrelenting battle upon this soul so ill-prepared for such violent and unceasing attacks. And it therefore falls victim to frequent wounds! Indeed, it is a wonder when there is any resistance at all on the part of a soul whose piety is so superficial — a soul already captivated by the too natural satisfaction it takes in pouring out its energies and exercising all its talents upon a worthy cause! Besides, the devil is wide awake, on the look-out for his anticipated prey. And far from disturbing this sense of satisfaction, he does all in his power to encourage it. Yet a day comes when the soul scents danger. The guardian angel has had something to say: conscience has registered a protest. Now would be the time to take hold of himself, to examine himself in the calm atmosphere of a retreat, to resolve to draw up a schedule and follow it rigorously, even at the cost of neglecting the occasions of trouble to which he has become so attached. Alas! It is already late in the day! He has already tasted the pleasure of seeing his efforts crowned with the most encouraging success. “Tomorrow! tomorrow!” he mumbles. “Today, it is out of the question. There simply is no time. I have got to go on with this series of sermons, write this article, organise this committee, or that ‘charity,’ put on this play, go on that trip — or catch up with my mail.” How happy he is to reassure himself with all these pretexts! For the mere thought of being left alone, face to face with his own conscience, has become unbearable to him. The time has come when the devil can have a free hand to encompass the ruin of a soul that has shown itself disposed to be such a willing accomplice. The ground is prepared. Since activity has become a passion in his victim, he now fans it into a raging fever. Since it has become intolerable for him to even think of forgetting his urgent affairs and recollecting himself, the demon increases that loathing into sheer horror, and takes \-45 --- care at the same time to intoxicate the soul with fresh enterprises, skilfully coloured with the attractive motives of God’s glory and the greater good of souls. And now our friend, up to so recently a man of virtuous habits, is going from weakness to ever greater weakness, and will soon place his foot upon an incline so slippery that he will be utterly unable to keep himself from falling. Deep in his heart he is miserable, and vaguely realises that all this agitation is not according to the Heart of God, but the only result is that he hurls himself even more blindly into the whirlpool in order to drown his remorse. His faults are piled up to a fatal degree. Things that used to trouble the upright conscience of this man are now despised as vain scruples. He is fond of proclaiming that a man ought to live with the times, meet the enemy on equal terms, and so he praises the active virtues to the skies, expressing nothing but scorn for what he disdainfully calls “the piety of a bygone day.” Anyway, his enterprises prosper more than ever. Everybody is talking about them. Each day witnesses some new success. “God is blessing our work,” exclaims the deluded man, over whom, tomorrow, perhaps the angels will be weeping for a mortal sin. How did this soul fall into so lamentable a state? Inexperience, presumption, vanity, carelessness, and cowardice are the answer. Haphazardly, without stopping to reflect on his inadequate spiritual resources, he threw himself into the midst of dangers. When his reserves of the interior life ran out, he found himself in the position of an incautious swimmer who has no longer the strength to fight against the current, and is being swept away to the abyss. Let us pause a moment to look back over the road that has been travelled, and to estimate the depth of the fall. FIRST STAGE. The soul began by progressively losing the clarity and power (if ever it had any at all) of its convictions about the supernatural life, the supernatural world, and the economy of the plan and of the action of Our Lord with regard to the relation between the inner life of the apostle and his works. He ceases to see these works except through a delusive mirage. In a subtle way, vanity comes to act as a pedestal to his supposed good intentions. “What else can I do? God has given me the gift of oratory, and I thank Him for it,” was the reply made by a certain preacher, puffed up with vain complacency, and totally extroverted, to those who are flattering him. The soul seeks itself more than it seeks God. The foreground is completely taken up by reputation, glory, and personal interests. The text, “If I pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ,” 99 becomes, to him, something altogether without meaning. Besides ignorance of principles, the lack of supernatural foundations which characterises this stage has sometimes as its cause and sometimes as its immediate result, dissipation, forgetfulness of God’s presence, giving up ejaculatory prayers and custody of the heart, want of delicacy of conscience and of regularity of life. Tepidity is close at hand, if it has not already begun. SECOND STAGE. If the worker were a supernatural soul, being a slave of duty he would be greedy of his time, and regulate its use, living by a schedule. He would well realise that otherwise he would be living purely from morning to night. But if he has no supernatural basis, he will soon find out about it. Since there is no spirit of faith governing his use of his time, he gives up his spiritual reading. Or else, if he still reads anything at all, he makes no studies. It was all right for the Fathers of the Church to spend the whole week preparing their Sunday sermons! For him, unless his vanity is at stake, he prefers to improvise. Yet his improvisations always hit it off with singular aptness — at least that is what be thinks! He likes to read magazines rather than books. He has no method. He flutters about from one thing to another like a butterfly. The law of work, that great law of 99 _Si adhuc hominibus placerem, Christi servus non essem_. (Gal. i: 10.) \-46 --- preservation, of morality and of penance, is something he manages to escape by wasting his free time, and by the extreme pains he takes to provide himself with amusements. Anything that would interfere with his free and easy ways, he considers tiresome, and a mere matter of theory — nothing practical. He does not have nearly enough time for all his works and social obligations, or even for what he deems the necessary care of his health, or his recreations. “Really,” says the devil to him, “you are giving too much time to pious exercises: meditation, office, Mass, work of the ministry. Something has to be cut out!” Invariably he begins by shortening the meditation, by making it only irregularly, or perhaps he even gets to the point where, bit by bit, he drops it altogether. The one indispensable requisite for remaining faithful to his meditation — namely, getting up at the right time — is all the more logically abandoned since he has so many good reasons for having gone to bed late the night before. Now for a man in the active life to give up his meditation is tantamount to throwing down his arms at the feet of the enemy. “Short of a miracle,” says St. Alphonsus, “a man who does not practice mental prayer will end up in mortal sin.” And St. Vincent de Paul tells us: “A man without mental prayer is not good for anything; he cannot even renounce the slightest thing. “It is merely the life of an animal.’” Some authors quote St. Theresa as having said: “Without mental prayer a person soon becomes either a brute or a devil. If you do not practice mental prayer, you don’t need any devil to throw you into hell, you throw yourself in there of your own accord. On the contrary, give me the greatest of all sinners; if he practices mental prayer, be it only for fifteen minutes every day, he will be converted. If he perseveres in it, his eternal salvation is assured.” The experience of priests and religious vowed to active works is enough to establish that an apostolic worker who, under pretext of being too busy or too tired, or else out of repugnance, or laziness, or some illusion, is too easily brought to cut down his meditation to ten or fifteen minutes instead of binding himself to half an hour’s serious mental prayer from which he might draw plenty of energy and drive for his day’s work, will inevitably fall into tepidity of the will. In this stage, it is no longer a matter of avoiding imperfections. His soul is crawling with venial sins. The ever growing impossibility of vigilance over his heart makes most of these faults pass unnoticed by his conscience. The soul has disposed itself in such a manner that it cannot and will not see. How will such a one fight against things which he no longer regards as defects? His lingering disease is already far advanced. Such is the consequence of the second stage, which is characterised by the giving up of mental prayer and of a daily schedule. Everything is now ripe for the THIRD STAGE, of which the symptom is neglect in the recitation of the BREVIARY. The prayer of the Church, which ought to give the soldier of Christ joy and strength to lift himself up, from time to time, and let God carry him in a flight high above the visible world, has now become a very tiring duty to be borne with patience. The liturgical life, source of light, joy, strength, merit and grace for himself and for the faithful, is now nothing more than the occasion of a distasteful task, grudgingly discharged. The interior virtue of religion is more than affected by the disease. The fever for active works is beginning to dry it up altogether. The soul no longer sees the worship of God except insofar as it can be tied up with striking exterior display. The obscure and personal but heartfelt sacrifice of praise, of supplication, of thanksgiving, of reparation, no longer means anything to such a man. In the old days, when he was reciting his vocal prayers, he used to say with legitimate pride, as though to enter into rivalry with a choir of monks: I too “shall sing to Thee in the sight of angels.” _In conspectu angelorum psallam tibi_. 100 The sanctuary of this soul, once 100 Ps. cxxxvii: 2. \-47 --- fragrant with the liturgical life, has become a public thoroughfare where noise and disorder reign. Exaggerated worry over business and habitual dissipation are enough to multiply his distractions tenfold. And, for the rest, he fights these distractions with less and less vigour. “The Lord is not in noise.”101 Genuine prayer is no longer to be found in this soul. He prays in a rush, with interruptions that have not the slightest justification; all is done neglectfully, sleepily, with many delays, putting it off until the last minute, at the risk of being finally overcome by sleep. And, perhaps, now and again, he skips parts of the office and leaves them out. All of this transforms what should be a medicine into a poison. The sacrifice of praise becomes a long litany of sins, and sins which may end up by being more than venial. FOURTH STAGE. Everything links up. Deep calls to deep. Now it is the SACRAMENTS. They are received and administered, no doubt, as something worthy of respect; but there is no longer any sense of the vital energy contained in them. The presence of Jesus in the tabernacle or in the holy tribunal of Penance is no longer able to make the springs of faith shudder even to the depths of his soul. Even the Mass, the Sacrifice of Calvary, has become a closed garden. Of course, the soul is still far from sacrilege— let us at least believe that much! But there is no longer any reaction to the warmth of the Precious Blood. His Consecrations are cold; his Communions tepid, distracted, superficial. A familiarity without respect, routine, maybe even repugnance, are lying in wait for him now. Thus deformed, the apostle lives outside of Christ, and as for the confidential words spoken by Jesus to His true friends: they are no longer for him. And yet, at long intervals, the heavenly Friend manages to reach him with a movement of remorse, a light, an appeal. He waits. He knocks. He asks to be let in. “Come to Me, poor wounded soul, won’t you come to Me? I will heal you.” _Venite ad me omnes... et_ _ego reficiam vos_. 102 For I am your salvation: _solus tua ego sum_. 103 I came to save that which was lost: ‘_Venit Filius hominis quaerere et salvum facere quod perierat_. 104 So gentle, so kind, so discreet, so urgent, this voice brings moments of emotion, and sentimental, evanescent urges to do better. But the door of the heart is only slightly ajar. Jesus cannot get in. These good movements in the tepid soul come to nothing at all. Grace goes by in vain, and will turn against the soul. Perhaps Jesus, in His mercy, to avoid piling up a huge store of wrath, will even cease His appeals. “Fear Jesus passing by, and never returning.”105 Now, let us go further and penetrate even into the depths of this soul whose features we are sketching. Thoughts play a most important part in the supernatural, as well as in the moral and intellectual life. Now what are the thoughts that occupy this man, and what direction do they take? Human, earthly, vain, superficial, and egotistical, they converge more and more upon self or upon creatures, and that, sometimes, with every appearance of devotion to duty and of sacrifice. This disorder in the mind brings with it a corresponding unruliness in the imagination. Of all our powers, this one is the most in need of being repressed at this stage. And yet it never even occurs to him to put on the brakes! Therefore, having free rein, it runs wild. No exaggeration, no madness, is too much for it. And the progressive suppression of all mortification of the eyes soon gives this crazy tenant of his soul opportunities to forage wherever it wills, in lush pastures! The disorder pursues its course. From the mind and the imagination it gets down into the affections. The heart is filled with nothing but will-o’-the-wisps. What is going to become 101 “_Non in commotion Dominus_.” (3 Reg. xix: 11.) 102 Matt. xi: 28. 103 Psalm XXXIV: 3. 104 Luc. xix: 10. 105 _Time Jesum transeuntem et non revertentem_. \-48 --- of this dissipated heart, scarcely concerned anymore with the Kingdom of God within itself? It has become insensible to the joys of intimacy with Christ, to the marvellous poetry of the Mysteries, to the severe beauty of the Liturgy, to the appeals and attractions of God in the Blessed Eucharist. It is, in a word, insensible to the influences of the supernatural world. What will become of it? Shall it concentrate upon itself? Suicide! No. It must have affection. No longer finding happiness in God, it will love creatures. It is at the mercy of the first occasion for such love. It flings itself without prudence or control into the breach, without a care perhaps even for the most sacred of vows, nor for the highest interests of the Church, nor even for its own reputation. Let us suppose that such a heart would still be upset by the thought of apostasy—and profoundly so. But still, it feels far less fear at the thought of scandalizing souls. Thanks be to God, it is doubtless the exception for anyone to follow this course to the very limit. But is there anyone incapable of seeing that this getting tired of God, and accepting forbidden pleasures, can drag the heart down to the worst of disasters? Starting from the fact that “the sensual man perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit of God,”106 we must necessarily end up with: “He who was reared in the purple has embraced dung.”107 Obstinate clinging to illusion, blindness of mind, hardness of heart all follow one another in progressive stages. We can expect anything. To crown his misfortunes, the will is now found to be, though not destroyed, reduced to’ such a state of weakness and flabbiness that it is practically impotent. Do not ask him to fight back with vigour; that would make a simple effort, and all you will get will be the despairing answer, “I can’t.” Now a man who is no longer capable of making any effort, at this stage, is on the way to dreadful calamities. A well-known enemy of the Church dared to say that he was unable to believe in the fidelity of certain persons to their vows and obligations, since they were forced by their works to mix freely in the life of the world. “They are walking a tightrope,” he said, “they are bound to fall.” We must answer this insult to God and His Church by replying, without hesitation, these falls can be MOST CERTAINLY avoided when one knows how to use the precious balancing pole of the interior life. It is only the abandonment of this INFALLIBLE instrument that brings dizziness and the fatal false step into space. That admirable Jesuit, Fr. Lallemant, takes us right back to the first cause of these disasters when he says: “There are many apostolic workers who never do anything purely for God. In all things, they seek themselves, and they are always secretly mingling their own interests with the glory of God in the best of their work. And so they spend their life in this intermingling of nature and grace. Finally death comes along, and then alone do they open their eyes, behold their deception, and tremble at the approach of the formidable judgment of God.”108 Far be it from us, of course, to include among these self-preaching apostles so zealous and powerful a missionary as was the famous Fr. Combalot. But surely it is not out of place at this point to quote what he said at the approach of death. The priest who had just administered the last Sacraments said to him: “Have confidence, dear friend. You have preserved all your priestly integrity, and your thousands of sermons will argue in your behalf before God, to excuse this lack of inner life of which you speak.” “My sermons!” cried the dying man, “Oh what a light I see them in now! My sermons! If Our Lord is not the first in bringing up the subject of them, you can be sure that I won’t mention it!” In the light of eternity, this venerable priest saw, in the very best of his good works, imperfections that filled his conscience with alarm, and which he attributed to a lack of interior life. 106 I Cor. ii: 14. 107 Lam. Jerem. iv: 15. 108 P. Lallemant, _Doct. Spirit_. \-49 --- Cardinal du Perron, at the hour of his death, expressed his sorrow at having been more devoted, during his life, to perfecting his intellect by science than his will by the exercises of the interior life. O Jesus, Thou Apostle above all others, did anyone ever spend himself as much as Thou, when Thou didst live among us? Today Thou dost give Thyself more generously still by Thy Eucharistic life, without, for all that, ever leaving the bosom of Thy Father. Would we were unable to forget that Thou dost not want to know our works unless they be animated by a truly supernatural principle; unless they be rooted deep in Thy adorable Heart. ### 3. The Interior Life: Basis of the Holiness of the Apostolic Worker Since holiness is nothing but the interior life carried to such a point that the will is in close union with the will of God, ordinarily, and short of a miracle of grace, the soul will not arrive at this point without travelling through all the stages of the purgative and illuminative lives — and that with many and gruelling efforts. Let us take note of a law of the spiritual life, that all through the course of the sanctification of a soul, the activity of God and that of the soul are in inverse proportion to one another. From day to day God does more and more of the work, and the soul does less and less. The activity of God in the souls of the perfect is something quite different from His activity in the souls of beginners. In the latter, being less obvious, it consists mostly in inciting and sustaining vigilance and suppliant prayer, thus offering them a means of obtaining grace for new efforts. But, the perfect God acts in a much more complete fashion, and sometimes all He asks is a simple consent, that will unite the soul to His supreme action. Beginners, even the tepid soul and the sinner, whom the Lord wants to draw close to Himself, feel themselves first of all moved to seek God, then to prove to Him more and more their desire of pleasing Him, and finally to rejoice in all providential opportunities that permit them to dislodge self-love from its throne and set up, in its place, the reign of Christ alone. In such cases, the action of God is confined to stimulation and to help. In the saint this action is far more powerful and far more entire. In the midst of weariness and suffering, satiated with humiliations or crushed by illness, the saint has nothing to do but abandon himself to the divine action; otherwise he would be unable to bear the torments which, according to the designs of God, are intended to bring his perfection to full maturity. In him is fully realised the text: “God put all things under Him that God may be all in all.”109 He depends so completely upon Christ for all things that he seems no longer to live by himself. Such was the testimony of the apostle, with regard to himself: “I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.”110 It is the spirit of Christ alone that does the thinking and the acting, and makes all the decisions. No doubt this divinisation is far from achieving the intensity that it will have in glory, and yet this state already reflects the characteristics of the beatific union. Is there any need to point out that all this is far from being the case with a beginner, or a tepid soul, or with one that is merely fervent? There exists a whole series of means adapted to their states, means which, as a matter of fact, can serve one of these types just as well as the other. But the beginner, like an apprentice, will have much trouble, will advance slowly; and, in short, will not accomplish very much. The fervent man, already a skilled workman, will do his job fast and well, and, with little difficulty, will gain much more profit. But no matter what class of apostles we may be discussing, the intentions of Providence in regard to them are always the same. God desires that always, and in all these souls, active work should be a means of sanctification. But whereas for the soul that has arrived at sanctity the apostolate offers no serious danger, does not exhaust his strength and 109 I Cor. xv: 28. 110 Gal. ii: 20. \-50 --- provides him with abundant opportunities to grow in virtue and in merit, we have seen how rapidly it brings on spiritual anemia, and consequently regression on the road to perfection, in souls only feebly united with God — souls in whom the love of prayer, the spirit of sacrifice, and above all habitual watchfulness over the heart are but poorly developed. This habit of vigilance will never be refused by God when He sees insistent prayer and repeated proofs of fidelity. He pours it without measure upon a generous soul who, by unceasing new-beginnings, has managed to transform its power and make them supple in responding to the inspirations from above, and capable of joyfully accepting contradiction and failure, loss and deception. Let us consider six main features of the way the interior life filters into a soul to establish it in genuine virtue. ### A. It Protects the Soul Against the Dangers of the Exterior Ministry “It is more difficult to live well, when one has care of souls, on account of the dangers from without,” says St. Thomas.111 We have spoken of these dangers in the preceding chapter. While the active worker who has no interior spirit is unaware of the dangers arising from his work, and thus resembles an unarmed traveller passing through a forest infested with brigands, the genuine apostle, for his part, dreads them and each day he takes precautions against them by a serious examination of conscience which reveals to him his weak points. If the interior life did nothing more than procure for us the advantage of realizing our incessant danger, it would already be contributing very much to our protection against surprises along our way; for to foresee a danger is half the battle in avoiding it. And yet the inner life has an even greater utility than merely this. It becomes, for the man engaged in the ministry, a complete set of armour. “Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil.”112 It is a divine armour which permits him not only to resist the temptations and avoid the snares set before him by the devil (that you may be able to resist in the evil day), but also to sanctify his every act (and stand in all things perfect). It girds him with purity of intention, which concentrates all his thoughts, desires, and affections upon God and keeps him from going astray and seeking his own comfort, pleasures, and distractions: “having your loins girt about with truth.” It puts on him the breastplate of charity, which gives him a manly heart and defends him against the seductions of creatures and of the spirit of the world, as well as against the assaults of the demon: “having on the breastplate of justice.” He is shod with discretion and reserve in order that in all that he does he may know how to combine the simplicity of the dove and the prudence of the serpent: “And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.” Satan and the world will try to deceive his intellect with the sophisms of false doctrine, and to sap his energies with the enticements of lax principles. But the interior life faces all these lies with the shield of faith, which keeps ever before our eyes the splendour of the divine ideal: “In all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one.” 111 _Summa Theologiae_, 2a 2ae, q. 184, a. 8. 112 Put you on the armour of God that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil... that you may be able to resist in the evil day and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice. And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace; in all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians vi: 11-17.) \-51 --- The soul will find, in the knowledge of its own nothingness, in care for its own salvation, in the conviction that we can do absolutely nothing without grace, and consequently need at all times insistent, suppliant, and frequent prayer (all the more efficacious in proportion to its confidence) — in all this the soul will find a brazen helmet against which all the blows of pride are dulled: “take unto you the helmet of salvation.” Thus armed from head to foot, the apostle can give himself without fear to good works, and his zeal, enkindled by meditation on the Gospel and fortified by the Bread of the **rist**, will become a sword that will serve him both in combat against the enemies of his own soul and in conquest of a host of souls for Christ: “the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.” ### B. It Renews the Strength of the Apostle Only a saint, as we have said, is able to keep intact the interior spirit and always direct all his thoughts and intentions to God alone, in the midst of a welter of occupations, and in habitual contact with the world. In such a one, every outlay of external activity is so supernaturalised and inflamed with charity that, far from diminishing his strength, it brings with it, necessarily, an increase of grace. In other people, even fervent souls, the supernatural life seems to suffer loss after more or less time spent in exterior occupations. Their less perfect hearts, too preoccupied with the good to be done to their neighbour, too absorbed with a compassion (for the woes to be alleviated) that is not nearly supernatural enough, seem to send up to God flames less pure, darkened with the smoke of numerous imperfections. God does not punish this weakness by a decrease of His grace, and does not demand a strict account of these failings, provided there is a serious attempt at vigilance and prayer in the midst of action, and that the soul is ready, when its work is done, to return to Him and rest and regain its strength. This habit of constantly beginning over again, which is necessitated by the combination of the active with the interior life, gives joy to His paternal Heart. Besides, in those who really put up a fight, these imperfections become less and less serious and frequent in proportion as the soul learns to return, tirelessly, to Christ, whom we will always find ready to say to us: “Come back to Me, poor panting heart, athirst with the length of the course. Come and find in these living waters the secret of new energy for other journeys. Withdraw thyself a little from the crowd that is unable to offer thee the nourishment required by thy exhausted strength. Come apart and rest a little.113 In the peace and quiet thou shalt enjoy being with Me, not only wilt thou soon recapture thy first vigour, but also wilt thou learn how to do more work with less expense of strength. Elias, disheartened, discouraged, found his strength renewed in an instant by a certain mysterious bread. Even so, My apostle, in this enviable task of co-redeemer that it has pleased Me to impose upon thee, I offer thee the chance, both by My word, which is all life, and by My grace, that is, by My Blood, to direct thy spirit once again towards the horizons of eternity and to renew the pact of friendship between thy heart and Mine. Come, I will console thee for the sorrows and deceptions of the journey. And thou shalt temper once again the steel of thy resolutions in the furnace of My love.” “Come to Me all you that labour and are heavily burdened and I will refresh you.”114 113 Marc. vi:31. 114 (Matt. ix:28.) In connection with these appeals of our Lord to souls of good will, we call their attention in a special manner to what is said further on page 122 about learning custody of the heart. \-52 --- ### C. It Multiplies His Energies and His Merits “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace which is Christ Jesus.”115 Grace is a participation in the life of the man-God. The creature possesses a certain measure of strength and can, in a certain sense, be qualified and defined as a force. But Christ is power in its very essence. In Him dwells in all its fullness the power of the Father, the omnipotence of divine action, and His Spirit is called the Spirit of Power. “O Jesus,” cries St. Gregory Nazianzen, “in Thee alone dwells all my strength.” “Outside of Christ,” says St. Jerome, in his turn, “I am powerlessness itself.” The Seraphic Doctor, in the fourth book of his Compendium Theologiae, enumerates the five chief characteristics which the power of Christ takes on in us. The first is that it undertakes difficult things and confronts obstacles with courage: “Have courage and let your heart be strong.”116 The second is contempt for the things of this earth: “I have suffered the loss of all things and counted them but as dung that I may gain Christ.”117 The third is patience under trial: “Love is strong as death.”118 The fourth is resistance to temptation: “As a roaring lion he goeth about... whom resist ye, strong in faith.”119 The fifth is interior martyrdom, that is, the testimony not of blood but of one’s very life, crying out to Christ: “I want to belong to Thee alone.” It consists in fighting the concupiscences, in overcoming vice and in working manfully for the acquisition of virtues: “I have fought a good fight.”120 While the exterior man counts on his own natural powers, the man of interior life, on the other hand, sees them as nothing but helps; useful helps, no doubt, but far from being everything that he needs. The sense of his weakness and his faith in the power of God give him, as they did to St. Paul, the exact limit of his strength. When he sees the obstacles that rise up one after another before him, he cries out in humble pride: “When I am weak, then am I powerful.”121 “Without interior life,” says Pius X, “we will never have strength to persevere in sustaining all the difficulties inseparable from any apostolate, the coldness and lack of cooperation even on the part of virtuous men, the calumnies of our adversaries, and at times even the jealousy of friends and comrades in arms... Only a patient virtue, unshakably based upon the good, and at the same time smooth and tactful, is able to move these difficulties to one side and diminish their power.”122 By the life of prayer, comparable to the sap flowing from the vine into the branches, the divine power comes down upon the apostle to strengthen the understanding by giving it a firmer footing in faith. The apostle makes progress because this virtue lights his path with its clear brilliance. He goes forward with resolution because he knows where he wants to go, and how to arrive at his goal. This enlightenment is accompanied by such great supernatural energy in the will that even a weak and vacillating character becomes capable of heroic acts. Thus it is that the principle, “abide in Me,”123 union with the Immutable, with Him who is the Lion of Juda and the Bread of the strong, explains the miracle of invincible 115 II Tim. ii: 1. 116 Ps. xxx: 25. 117 Philipp. iii: 8. 118 Cant. iii: 8. 119 I Pet. v: 8-9. 120 II Tim. iv: 7. 121 II Cor. xii: 10. 122 Encyclical of Pius X, June 11, 1905, to the Priests of Italy. 123 Jn. xv:4 \-53 --- constancy and perfect firmness, which were united, in so marvellous an apostle as was St. Francis de Sales, with a humility and tact beyond compare. The mind and the will are strengthened by the interior life, because love is strengthened. Christ purifies our love and directs and increases it as we go on. He allows us to share in the movements of compassion, devotion, abnegation, and selflessness of His adorable Heart. If this love increases until it becomes a passion, then Jesus takes all the natural and supernatural powers of man, and exalts them to the limit, and uses them for Himself. Thus it is easy to judge what an increase of merit will flow from the multiplication of energies given by the interior life, when one remembers that merit depends less upon the difficulty that may be entailed by an action, than upon the intensity of charity with which it is carried out. ### D. It Gives Him Joy and Consolation Only a burning and unchangeable love is capable of filling a whole life with sunlight, for it is love that possesses the secret of gladdening the heart even in the midst of great sorrows and crushing fatigue. The life of an apostolic worker is a tissue of sufferings and hard work. What hours of sadness, anxiety, and gloom await the apostle who has not the conviction that he is loved by Christ — no matter how buoyant his character may be — unless perhaps the demon fowlers make the mirror of human consolations and of apparent success glitter Before this simple bird, to draw him into their inextricable nets. Only the man-God can draw from a soul this superhuman cry: “I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulation.”124 In the midst of my inmost trials, the Apostle is saying, the summit of my being, like that of Jesus at Gethsemani, tastes a joy that, though it has nothing sensible about it, is so real that, in spite of the agony suffered by my interior self, I would not exchange it for all the joys of the world. When trials come, or contradiction, humiliation, suffering, the loss of possessions, even the loss of those we love, the soul will accept all these crosses in a far different manner than would have been the case at the beginning of his conversion. From day to day he grows in charity. His love has nothing spectacular about it, perhaps; the Master may give him the treatment accorded to strong souls and lead him through the ways of an ever more and more profound annihilation or by the path of expiation for himself and for the world. It matters little. Protected by his recollection, nourished by the Holy Eucharist, his love grows without ceasing, and the proof of this growth is to be found in the generosity with which he sacrifices and abandons himself; in the devotedness which urges him to press forward, care-less of the difficulty, to find those souls upon whom he is to exercise his apostolate with such patience, prudence, tact, compassion, and ardour as can only be explained by the penetration of the life of Christ in him. _Vivit vero in me Christus_. The Sacrament of love must be the Sacrament of Joy. There is no interior soul that is not at the same time a Eucharistic soul, and consequently, one who enjoys inwardly the gift of God, delights in His presence, and tastes the sweetness of the Beloved possessed within the soul and there adored. The life of the apostolic man is a life of prayer. And the Saint of Ars says: “The life of prayer is the one big happiness on this earth. O marvellous life! The wonder of the union of a soul with God! Eternity will not be long enough to understand this happiness …. The interior life is a bath of love, into which the soul may plunge entirely…. And there the soul is, as it were, drowned in love.... God holds the interior soul the way a mother holds her baby’s head in her hand, to cover him with kisses and caresses.” 124 II Cor. vii: 4. \-54 --- Further, our joy is nourished when we contribute to cause the object of our love to be served and honoured. The apostle will know all these joys. Using active works to increase his love, he feels, at the same time, an increase of joy and consolation. A “hunter of souls” — _venator animarum_ — he has the joy of contributing to the salvation of beings that would have been damned, and thus he has the joy of consoling God by giving His souls from whom He would have been separated for eternity. And finally he has the joy of knowing that he thus obtains for himself one of the firmest guarantees of progress in virtue and of eternal glory. ### E. It Refines His Purity of Intention The man of faith judges active works by quite a different light from the man who lives in outward things. What he looks at is not so much the outward appearance of things, as their place in the divine plan and their supernatural results. And so, considering himself as a simple instrument, his soul is all the more filled with horror at any self-satisfaction in his own endowments, because he places his sole hope of success in the conviction of his own helplessness and confidence in God alone. Thus he is confirmed in a state of abandonment. And as he passes through his various difficulties, how different is his attitude from that of the apostle who knows nothing of intimacy with Christ! Furthermore, this abandonment does not in the least diminish his zeal for action. He acts as though success depended entirely on his own activity, but in point of fact he expects it from God alone.125 He has no trouble subordinating all his projects and hopes to the unfathomable designs of a God who often uses failure even better than success to bring about the good of souls. Consequently this soul will remain in a state of holy indifference with respect to success or failure. He is always ready to say: “O my God, Thou dost not will that the work I have begun should be completed. It pleases Thee that I confine myself acting valiantly, yet ever peacefully, to making efforts to achieve results, but that I leave to Thee alone the task of deciding whether Thou wilt receive more glory from my success, or from the act of virtue that failure will give me the opportunity to perform. Blessed a thousand times be Thy holy and adorable Will, and may I, with the help of Thy grace, know just as well how to repel the slightest symptoms of vain complacency, if Thou shouldst bless my work, as to humble myself and adore Thee if Thy Providence sees fit to wipe out everything that my labours have produced.” The heart of the apostle bleeds, in very truth, when he beholds the sufferings of the Church, but his manner of suffering has nothing in common with that of the man animated by no supernatural spirit. This is easily seen when we consider the behaviour and the feverish activity of the latter as soon as difficulties arise, and when we look at his fits of impatience and of dejection, his despair sometimes, his complete collapse in the presence of ruins beyond repair. The genuine apostle makes use of everything, success as well as failure, to increase his hope and expand his soul in confident abandonment to Providence. There is not the slightest detail of his apostolate that does not serve as the occasion for an act of faith. There is not a moment of his persevering toil that does not give him a chance to prove his love, for by practicing custody of the heart he manages to do everything with more and more perfect purity of heart, and by his abandonment he makes his ministry day by day more selfless. Thus, every one of his acts takes on ever more and more of the character of sanctity, and his love of souls, which at the outset was mixed with many imperfections, gets purer and 125 St. Ignatius Loyola. \-55 --- purer all the time; he ends up by only seeing these souls in Christ and loving them only in Christ, and thus, through Christ, he brings them forth to God. “My children, of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed in you.”126 ### F. It Is a Firm Defence Against Discouragement Bossuet has a sentence which is beyond the comprehension of an apostle who does not realise what must be the soul of his apostolate. It runs: “When God desires a work to be wholly from His hand, he reduces all to impotence and nothingness, and then He acts.” Nothing wounds God so much as pride. And yet when we go out for success, we can get to such a point, by our lack of purity of intention, that we set ourselves up as a sort of divinity, the principle and end of our own works. This idolatry is an abomination in the sight of God. And so when He sees that the activities of the apostle lack that selflessness which His glory demands from a creature, he sometimes leaves the field clear for secondary causes to go to work, and the building soon comes crashing down. The workman faces his task with all the fire of his nature — active, intelligent, loyal. Perhaps he realises brilliant success. He even rejoices in them. He takes complacency in them. It is his work. All his! _Veni, vidi, vici_. He has just about appropriated this famous saying to himself. But wait a little. Something happens, with the permission of God; a direct attack by Satan or the world is inflicted upon the work or even the person of the apostle; result, total ruin. But far more tragic is the interior upheaval in this ex-champion — the product of his sorrow and discouragement. The greater was his joy, the more profound his present state of dejection. Only Our Lord is capable of raising up this wreck. “Get up,” He says to the discouraged apostle, “and instead of acting alone, take to your work again, but with Me, in Me, and by Me.” But the miserable man no longer hears this voice. He has become so lost in externals that it would take a real miracle of grace for him to hear it — a miracle upon which his repeated infidelities give him no right to count. Only a vague conviction of the Power of God and of His Providence hovers over the desolation of this benighted failure, and it is not enough to drive away the clouds of sadness which continue to envelop him. What a different sight is the real priest, whose ideal it is to reproduce Our Lord! For him, prayer and holiness of life remain the two chief ways of acting upon the Heart of God and on the hearts of men. Yes, he has spent himself, and generously too. But the mirage of success seemed to him to be something unworthy of the undivided attention of a real apostle. Let storms come if they will, the secondary cause that produced them is of no importance. In the midst of a heap of ruins, since he has worked only with Our Lord, he hears clearly in the depths of his heart the “Fear not” — _noli timere_ — which gave back to the disciples, in the storm, their peace and confidence. He runs to renew his love of the Blessed Sacrament, his deep, personal devotion to the Sorrows of Our Lady; and that is the first result of the trial. His soul, instead of being crushed by failure, comes out of the wine press with its youth renewed. His youth will be renewed like an eagle.127 Where does he get this attitude of humble triumph in the midst of defeat? Seek the secret of it nowhere else but in that union with Christ and in that unshakable confidence in His omnipotence which made St. Ignatius say: “If the Company were to be suppressed, without any fault on my part, a quarter of an hour alone with God would be enough to give me back my calm and peace.” “The heart of an interior soul,” says the Curé d’Ars, “stands in the middle of humiliations and sufferings like a rock in the midst of the sea.” 126 Gal. iv: 19. 127 Psalm cii. \-56 --- We wonder if most active workers are capable of applying to their own lives the idea expressed by General de Sonis in this wonderful daily prayer related by the author of his life? “My God, here I am before You, poor, little, stripped of everything. “Here I am at Your feet, sunk in the depths of my own nothingness. “I wish I had something to offer You, but I am nothing but wretchedness! You, You are everything. You are my wealth. “My God, I thank You for having willed that I should be nothing in Your sight. I love my humiliation and my nothingness. I thank You for having taken away from me a few satisfactions of self-love, a few consolations of the heart. I thank You for every deception that has befallen me, every ingratitude, every humiliation. I see that they were necessary: the goods of which they deprived me might have kept me far from You. “O my God, I bless You when You give me trials. I love to be used up, broken to pieces, destroyed by You. Crush me more and more. Let me be in the building not as a stone worked and polished by the hand of the mason, but like an insignificant grain of sand, gathered from the dust of the road. “My God, I thank You for having let me catch a glimpse of the sweetness of Your consolations, and I thank You for having taken that glimpse away. Everything that You do is just and good. I bless You in my abject poverty, I regret nothing except that I have not loved You enough. I desire nothing but that Your will be done. “You are my Owner, I am Your property. Turn me this way or that way. Break me up, work on me however You like. I want to be reduced to nothing for love of You. “O Jesus, how good is Your hand, even at the most terrible intensity of my trial. Let me be crucified, but crucified by You. Amen.” The apostle does indeed suffer. Perhaps the event that has just frustrated his efforts and ruined his work will result in the loss of several of his flock. A bitter sorrow for this true pastor — but it will not be able to dampen the ardour that will make him start over again. He knows that all redemption, be it merely that of a single soul, is a great work, accomplished above all by suffering. He is certain that generosity in supporting trial increases his progress in virtue, and procures greater glory for God; and this certainty is enough to sustain him. Besides, he knows that often God wants from him nothing more than the seeds of success. Others will come, who will reap rich harvests, and perhaps they will think themselves entitled to all the credit. But heaven will be able to see the cause of it all in the thankless and seemingly sterile work that went before “I have sent you to reap that which you did not labour; others have laboured and you have entered into their labours.”128 Our Lord, Author of the success of the Apostles after Pentecost, willed that, in the course of His public life, He should only sow the seed of that success by teaching and example, and He predicted to His apostles that it would be given them to do works greater than His own: “The works I do, he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do.”129 What! A true apostle lose courage! He allowing himself to be shaken by the words of cowards! He condemning himself to go into retirement just because of some failure! To say such a thing is to lack all understanding either of his interior life or his faith in Christ. A tireless bee, he sets about joyfully building up new honeycombs in his plundered hive. 128 Joan. iv: 38. 129 Joan. xiv: 12. \-57 --- ![[maps/bibliography#^biblio-soa]] > [[part-two-chau-soul|← Previous]] | [[chau-soul-apostolate-toc|TOC]] | [[part-four-chau-soul|Next →]]