p. 344The Love of God Demands and Merits That We Practise Solid Virtue

‘Love is strong as death.’¹1Cant. viii. 6. Death, this inexorable executor of divine justice, severs with a single stroke all the links which bind us to earth; when the hour has arrived it relentlessly rends all that prevents our arriving at the term of the great voyage of eternity. So in like manner the love of God breaks the bonds in which the flesh, a new Dalila, has enchained us, and stronger than Samson, it removes and carries off all the obstacles which are to be met with in the practice of virtue. So that we know no more powerful incentive for labouring to attain perfection than the love of a God who merits and demands that we practise solid virtue. God wishes that we should become holy, He merits that we should become so. This twofold truth, well understood and sustained by a lively and active charity, exercises an irresistible attraction over our hearts, and elevates them to the summit of perfection. It is the prerogative of charity, therefore, to decide a victory which faith, hope, and fear, have not yet been able fully to achieve.

Article I

God wishes that we should become holy

First proof.—The testimony of Scripture: ‘God wills that we be holy,’²21 Thess. iv. 3. holy in our entire life. He desires that all men be perfect in Jesus Christ. The testimonies of the two first Princes of the Church, St. p. 345Peter and St. Paul, are so explicit on this point that it would be an excess of temerity to deny the designs of God for our sanctification.

Not alone this, but the only Son of the Eternal Father, ‘the brightness of His glory and the figure of His substance,’³3Heb. i. 3. the Master, Legislator, and Judge of the whole human race, clothed in our flesh, has, in virtue of ‘the supreme power which has been given to Him in heaven and on earth,’⁴4Matt. xxviii. 18. intimated to His disciples, and to us through their ministry, this great commandment: ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect;’⁵5Matt. v. 48. ‘for it is written: you shall be holy for I am holy.’⁶61 Pet. i. 16. Could He speak to us more clearly or give us more express and positive orders? He explains to us the motive through which we should tend to perfection: ‘you shall be holy because I am holy.’ He marks the degree of sanctity to which we must attain: ‘be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,’ at least in so far as human weakness is capable of it.

Be not astonished at such a commandment; for says the apostle, it is for this end that ‘God hath delivered us and called us by His holy calling;’⁷71 Tim. i. 9. it is for this ‘that He chose us in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity.’⁸8Ephes. i. 4. Yes; it is for this end that God, who stands in need of no one and who is amply sufficient for Himself, ‘has called us’ to the Catholic faith in preference to so many infidels, heretics, and worldlings: it is for this that He has exalted us to the priesthood, and to the religious state, ‘in order that we may be holy:’ it is for this that He has chosen us in preference to so many others whom He has left in their nothingness and their sin: it is for this, in fine, that He has rescued us from so many dangers and misfortunes, ‘that we should be unspotted’ in His sight, and holy by charity, whose works are made manifest by the practice of solid virtue. Behold the divine will in our regard, behold the end of our vocation and election, an end towards which we are bound to devote ourselves with our whole strength. In a word, the will of God is that man sanctify himself: ‘God wills our sanctification.’ This truth is clearly demonstrated by the testimonies we have just given.

The work of our sanctification is not only a counsel but a precept, which is obligatory on seculars as well as on religious. ‘Both the one and the other,’ says St. Thomas, ‘should equally strive to practise the virtues proper to their state; the only difference between them being that religious are bound to aspire to a higher perfection than seculars. The practice of virtue, according to the condition of each one, is as essential to a disciple of Jesus Christ as light is to the sun: all men are bound to it, not even excepting those who must spend their lives immersed in worldly concerns. This we have already demonstrated by texts of Scripture; and St. Paul, far from endeavouring to prove it, supposes it as an evident truth. Many of his letters written to the primitive Christians, all of whom were living in the world, bear these significant titles: ‘To the Saints of the Church of God at Corinth;’⁹9Cor. i. 2. ‘to the Saints at Rome,’¹⁰10Rom. i. 7. ‘to the Saints at Ephesus,’¹¹11Ephes. i. 1. ‘to the Saints at Philippi.’¹²12Philip. i. 1. The great Doctor of the nations laid it down as an axiom, therefore, that the quality of saint and of Christian is inseparable, and consequently that all who have the p. 346happiness to belong to the law of grace should constantly practise solid virtue.

This apostle likewise tells us that all Christians, without exception: ‘are the temple of God where the Holy Spirit dwelleth;’ he adds and declares at the same time, that ‘this temple should be holy.’¹³131 Cor. iii. 16, 17. Conformably to this doctrine we should all then, seculars included, perform those good works proper to our state. And those living temples, founded and begun in baptism, we should elevate day after day, by incessantly increasing in justice, and advance the building of them by the grace of Him ‘in whom all the building, being framed together, groweth up into a holy temple in the Lord: into an habitation of God in the Spirit.’¹⁴14Ephes. ii. 21, 22. ‘All Christians,’ continues the same apostle, ‘even seculars, are members of the body of the Church of which Jesus Christ is the Head.’¹⁵151 Cor. xii. 20. But if, according to St. Bernard, it is a shame to be a delicate member under a Head crowned with thorns, how much more ignominious is it to be a degenerate, vicious, indifferent member under a holy Head. The doctrine of St. Thomas, therefore, which we have already explained, is quite true; and we must thence conclude that, not only religious but also seculars, are bound to tend to the perfection suitable to their state, since both the one and the other are members of the Church, the temple of God, ‘the children of the saints.’¹⁶16Eccli. xlvi. 15. Yes; it is incontestable that these words of Jesus Christ, ‘be holy,’ are for all men not merely a counsel, but a positive precept.

For, those whose condition retains them amid the embarrassments of the world, must likewise lead an innocent life, full of good works. On them also the Gospel p. 347imposes the obligation to repress their anger, combat their pride, subdue their flesh, love their enemies, assist the poor, in a word, to fulfil their duties conscientiously. The apostle desires that they live in the world ‘soberly, and justly, and godly;’¹⁷17Tit. ii. 12. God exacts, therefore, that they as well as religious become holy, though we must admit at the same time that the latter must endeavour to attain to a higher sanctity, owing to the excellence of their state and the copiousness of the graces they receive.

‘Hear, O ye heavens, let the earth give ear to the words of’¹⁸18Deut. xxxii. 1. the mouth of God, and receive with respect the command He is about to issue. Behold what this Creator Almighty, ‘and greatly to be feared,’¹⁹19Eccli. i. 8. ‘under whom they stoop that bear up the world,’²⁰20Job ix. 13. says: ‘Be holy,’²¹21Levit. xix. 2. ‘Be ye holy, because I am the Lord your God,’²²22Ibid. xx. 7. be ‘perfect and without spot.’²³23Deut. xviii. 13. Who will presume to dispute such a precept? It is intimated to us by Him who ‘has no equal amongst legislators,’²⁴24Job xxxvi. 10. ‘all whose ordinances are equity’²⁵25Ps. cxviii. 172. itself, and who never exacts impossibilities, but who assists us in the accomplishment of His will. Yes; He who ‘commands us to be holy,’ is ‘the Most High, the most high Creator,’²⁶26Eccli. i. 8. ‘whose hands have made us and fashioned us wholly, who has clothed us with skin and flesh and put us together with bones and sinews;’²⁷27Job x. 8, 11. who consequently has a right, since we are ‘the work of His hands,’²⁸28Ps. xviii. 1. to enjoin on us whatever He pleases. He who wills that we be perfect is the ‘infinitely wise King,’²⁹292 Kings xxiii. 8. ‘from whose eyes nothing is hid,’³⁰30Eccli. xxxix. 24. ‘who remembereth that we are dust,’³¹31Ps. cii. 14. who beholds all human infirmities, who is not ignorant either of our p. 348disposition, state of life, or the difficulties we have to overcome, and who, notwithstanding all this, requires that we exert ourselves to the utmost to become saints. Finally, He who commands us to be irreprehensible is ‘the God of dominion who sitteth upon His throne,’³²32Eccli. i. 8. the ‘Mighty in strength,’³³33Job ix. 4. ‘in whose hand is the soul of every living thing,’³⁴34Ibid. xii. 10. who consequently can punish us at any moment should we neglect to obey Him. And yet there are men who delude themselves, and who, confiding in frivolous pretexts, refuse to submit to such just orders: who represent solid virtue to themselves as superior to their strength and impracticable to human weakness: who cast the blame of the transgression of the precept on its difficulty: and who dare to aver that God commands more than their frailty is equal to.

And yet, God says to Abraham: ‘Take thy only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him in holocaust upon one of the mountains which I will show thee.’ Immediately this holy Patriarch, ‘rising up in the night, went to the place which God had shown him, and he put forth his hand and took the sword to sacrifice his son,’³⁵35Gen. xxii. 2, 10. although he foresaw that the same stroke which imparted death to Isaac deprived him of all hope of posterity.

Scarcely has Abimelech said to his companions: ‘What you see me do, do it promptly,’ when instantly ‘they hasten to cut down branches and follow their leader’³⁶36Judges ix. 48. to set fire to the enemy’s citadel, though the undertaking was almost certain death. These and many similar acts of obedience which we might adduce were accomplished without demur at the first order given, and notwithstanding their difficulty: and we Christians, we refuse to obey our Sovereign Master despite His reiterated entreaties and even the facility of His commands.

God commands us to immolate to Him, after the example of Abraham, such or such an attachment which opposes the greatest obstacle to His grace, and we answer His ordinance by a refusal. Jesus Christ earnestly repeats to us these words of Abimelech: ‘What you see me do, do it promptly; for I have given you the example that you do as I have done;’ and we close our ear to His invitation. The Holy Ghost ardently desires our perfection, He incites, He urges us by His continual inspirations to labour fervently for its attainment, and yet, up to this, during so long a period His solicitations have been fruitless. Shall we then be so imprudent as to despise only the commandments of God, whose sole end is our happiness? Shall we, on the contrary, pay so much care and attention to the execution of the orders of a man, which are generally so difficult of execution, and which have no other object than the interests of him who imposes his will upon us? A monarch issues a command, and forthwith from all parts of his empire the troops assemble to march against the enemy, to attack fortresses, to mount the breach, to overthrow ramparts. A mighty potentate makes a proclamation, and fleets are equipped, sails spread, the sea is furrowed in all directions, men despise tempests and shipwreck, and hasten to land on the enemy’s coasts.

Represent to these men the resistance they shall have to encounter in the execution of their sovereign’s orders, endeavour to depict to them the countless dangers which await them; point out to them the uncertainty of success, the emptiness of the glory, the worthlessness of the guerdon they ambition, the peril to which they expose p. 349their lives; all your remonstrances will be useless; they will reply to you by this unanswerable reasoning: ‘The king commands it, the emperor desires it, the prince ordains it;’ such are the talismanic words which enable them to conquer, overcome, and shatter all obstacles.

On His side God asks us—God—what a name! God, I say, asks us to renounce such a creature, to abandon such a desire, to commence the practice of holiness by a decisive determination, a real victory over ourselves, and yet, oh, the shame! we continue tepid and slothful, we close our ear, we procrastinate day after day, and at length, without having completed anything, we often relinquish with indifference and disgust the duty which we had begun reluctantly. Answer, you holy angels. At which are you more astounded, the insolence of man, thus oblivious of what he owes his Maker, or the goodness of God, who so patiently bears this insult? Ah! let us be ashamed to see ‘worldlings more eager for what may cause their ruin than we are for life,’³⁷37Imit. b. iii. ch. 3. more assiduous in serving the world for a vile metal than we are to serve God or obtain His grace.

The authority of the Almighty is not less binding in His commands than in His words. If we believe His words, why disobey His precepts? And since He exacts, as we have demonstrated by texts of Scripture, that we become holy, why do we not strive to acquire sanctity? The reason is that we do not love Him; because, if we ardently loved this sovereignly amiable Being, we should speedily overcome all obstacles in order to tend perseveringly to solid virtue.

Second proof.—The succours God grants us: The numberless helps which God bestows on us are another convincing proof that this Sovereign Master desires that we apply ourselves to sanctity; for since His infinite love supplies us so liberally with the means to acquire perfection, certainly we must thence conclude that this is the end which divine providence proposes to itself. Even as he who desires to attain an end must adopt the means which conduce thereto, so in like manner He who by His power bestows on us abundant helps for attaining sanctity, clearly testifies that He proposes to Himself, and that He requires that we become holy. We have already shown in the second part of this treatise how numerous and efficacious are the means which God gives us. But besides, is it not evident that the lights and good inspirations, the frequent participation in the sacraments, the practice of meditation, the examen of conscience, the vocation to the priesthood or religious state, and numberless other graces, are so many powerful helps to the acquisition of perfection?

Without entering into a detail of all the graces dispensed to us, we shall content ourselves with recalling one, the concession of which is more than sufficient to teach us how ardently the adorable Trinity desires our sanctification. This grace is the gift of His only Son, whom the Eternal Father sent upon earth ‘to serve us as an example of virtue.’³⁸38Ruth iv. 11.

For the Word of God has not clothed Himself with our flesh merely to become our Saviour, but likewise to be our Divine Exemplar. For this reason it was that He performed all His actions, not only that they might merit salvation for us, but also that they might be a lesson of piety for men. In the Old Law the Almighty had commanded us to be imitators of His sanctity; but while this pure and incomprehensible Spirit continued concealed in the depths of His essence, He could not be the model of our life; ‘Wherefore, it was,’ says St. Augustine, ‘that this infinitely good Master “became man that He might be a guide to man.”’

Thus Jesus Christ, wishing to show us that He was really come into the world to be our model, commences to act in the first moment of His mortal life, and ‘He teaches afterwards that His example, at least, may stimulate us if we have been deaf to His precepts.’³⁹39St. Gregory. For this loving Saviour, burning with zeal for our perfection, was not ignorant that ‘example is more powerful than words, and that works are a more profitable lesson than the mere sound of the voice.’⁴⁰40St. Leo. Consequently He did not begin ‘to teach until the latter years of His life,’ while He had ‘begun to act’ the moment he appeared on earth. Behold why it was that the heavenly Father said, ‘This is my beloved Son;’⁴¹41Matt. iii. 17. ‘I have given Him as an example,’ that as He has done so you do also,⁴²42John xiii. 15. tread therefore in His footsteps, for ‘He is the way;’ listen to Him, for ‘He is the truth;’ cling to Him, for ‘He is the life.’⁴³43Ibid. xiv. 6. The better to understand how calculated the example of Jesus Christ is to excite us to perfection, let us image to ourselves His life as the very reverse of what it really was. If our Saviour, surrounded with all the insignia of royalty, the crown on His head, the sceptre in His hand, exhorted us to a love of contempt, voluntary poverty, renunciation of our p. 351desires; if remaining at the foot of the holy and painful summits of virtue, He should verbally indicate to us the road which leads to the pinnacle of perfection, and smooth the hardships of the rugged path by His words alone, then the disgust which we entertain for sanctity might, perhaps, admit of some excuse.

But since Jesus Christ is Himself poor, despised, afflicted, and thus gives us in His own person a brilliant example of patience; since He Himself as our Chief walks at our head, since He does not ask us to do or suffer anything that we shall not see Him do and suffer before us, all our excuses vanish, and our confusion cannot but be increased by the generosity of the example He has left us. For to see Him walk before us laden with His Cross, and not to be emulous of following Him; to see Him reduced to such a state of poverty that ‘He has not where to lay His head,’⁴⁴44Luke ix. 58. and still to desire riches; to know that ‘He has emptied Himself,’⁴⁵45Philip. ii. 7. ‘that He has been a worm, and no man: the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people,’⁴⁶46Ps. xxi. 7. and to ambition honours; to behold Him nailed to an infamous gibbet, scourged, crowned with thorns, become ‘a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity,’⁴⁷47Isaias liii. 3. and to flatter our senses; to believe that Jesus Christ is our God, our King, our Lord, on whom our salvation and eternal felicity depend; that He has performed all His actions and endured all His sufferings to encourage us to follow in His footsteps, to inspire us with the love of contempt, poverty, penance, the renunciation of pleasures, honours, and riches: to believe these truths, to adore these mysteries, and yet to live attached to riches, the world, and the flesh; to love p. 352what Jesus hates, to hate what He loves, and not even to entertain a thought of endeavouring to imitate Him: ‘to observe this conduct, and to be a Christian, obliged in consequence,’ says Tertullian, ‘to become another Jesus Christ by the imitation of His virtues and His life, this is so humiliating, so monstrous a contradiction between our lives and our faith, that it is impossible to palliate it.’ This shameful opposition suffices so to confound our sloth, that if one drop of generous blood still remains in our veins, it will not be possible for us to resist our yearning desire to imitate our Model and Chief. Let us therefore acknowledge and appreciate the powerful aids afforded by the example of Jesus Christ for the practice of virtue.

In effect, should the example of our Saviour exercise less influence on us than that of a captain on his soldiers? See a general beloved by his army, foremost to spring on the hostile walls: all his troops simultaneously rush forward to follow him. And Christians alone would have the cowardice to shrink from following Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ, ‘to whom all power is given in heaven and in earth;’⁴⁸48Matt. xxviii. 18. Jesus Christ ‘at whose name every knee bows in heaven, on earth, and in hell;’⁴⁹49Philip. ii. 10. who promises us ‘for the momentary and light tribulations of the present life an eternal weight of sublime and incomparable glory,’⁵⁰502 Cor. iv. 17. and who will, should we desire it, empower us ‘to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one!’⁵¹51Ephes. vi. 16. Where is the Christian so weak and dastardly as to refuse to serve under so great a king, to tread in His footsteps, to practise virtue, and ‘fight the battles of the Lord?’ Above all, when this good Master by the unction of His grace sweetens the arduousness of the labour, soothes suffering, ‘makes the crooked straight, and the rough ways plain.’⁵²52Luke iii. 5.

Assuredly they are altogether inexcusable who remain insensible to so moving an example, who hear what Jesus Christ has done without ‘hungering and thirsting after justice.’⁵³53Matt. v. 6. It is of them that the Divine Master shall be able to say: ‘had I not come, had I not spoken to them,’ had I not preceded them myself on the road to sanctity, ‘they would not be culpable.’ But now that they have so often read the history of my life and death in the Gospel; that they have seen me fastened naked to the Cross, overwhelmed with opprobrium and satiated with sufferings, ‘they have no excuse for their sin.’⁵⁴54John xv. 22. Yes, since Jesus Christ Himself has been the first to confront all kinds of misery and contempt; since He has been the first to drink of the torrent of afflictions; since ‘He has trodden the bloody wine-press alone;’ all those who refuse to imitate Him are destitute of excuse.

Let us go then, ingrates that we are, who live reckless of our sanctification: let us behold our God fastened to the frightful instrument of His torture. Let us listen to Him saying to us with an expiring voice: ‘All is consummated;’ and addressing Himself to His Father: ‘My Father, I have finished the work that Thou hast given me to do.’ I have accomplished Thy designs of mercy towards men. I have spared neither sufferings nor my own blood to inspire them with a love of solid virtue, with the desire of sanctity. That this soul might cease to walk in the way of tepidity, that it might refrain from the flesh-pots of Egypt, I have permitted my feet and hands to be pierced with nails; that it might learn to blush at being a delicate member under a head crowned with thorns, a cruel p. 353circlet has ensanguined my brows; that it might not flatter its flesh to the detriment of its spiritual interests, I have delivered up my whole body to blows and scourges, and yet, oh, heavens, be astonished! and yet, ‘of what profit has been my blood’ which I have shed?

Alas! I have laboured in vain, in vain have I been born in poverty, have spent my life in perpetual abjection, and died in the midst of the most cruel torments. This soul, oblivious of all my sacrifices, has not on that account been less avaricious of riches, honours, and worldly pleasures: it has not been less a slave to its bad passions. There has not been a drop of blood in my veins, a respiration of my chest, a vestige of strength in my limbs, or of life in my heart, which I have not willingly sacrificed, solely that that soul might devote its whole being to the acquisition of sanctity; and yet, notwithstanding all these helps, it has remained plunged in the slime of tepidity, without even an effort to emerge from it, because it has invariably assigned its perfection the last place in its esteem. Unfortunate that we are! what shall we one day reply to Jesus Christ when He reminds us of the example He has left us? What shall be our thoughts when we see ourselves compelled to own that we have rendered useless the powerful assistance given us for our sanctification? That all His sufferings have been useless, though He has done and endured so much for our perfection? That we have continued to give scandal by our pride, notwithstanding all the efforts of this Divine Model and the authority of His example? What sad remembrances! when we shall find that the sight of this loving Saviour fastened to the cross, which should be the foundation of our hope at the hour of death, does but increase our confusion and terror at this awful p. 354moment. When instead of ‘drawing waters with joy out of the Saviour’s fountains,’⁵⁵55Isaias xii. 3. we shall find there only fear and mortal anguish? Once more, what sentiments should not these considerations awaken in us?

Alas! we shall then participate in the sentiments of the Royal Prophet when he uttered this sad lamentation, ‘All the day long my shame is before me; and the confusion of my face covered me;’⁵⁶56Ps. xliii. 16. for God wishes that we become holy: His commandment, the example of Jesus Christ, the authority of Scripture, all the graces that we receive, but above all others the graces of the divine example left us by our Redeemer, place this truth beyond all doubt. And yet, far from devoting ourselves as much as we ought to the acquisition of sanctity, our whole life has been but a continual neglect of this duty.

The Omnipotent God could not give us more effectual aid for the practice of virtue than that which we find in His only Son: He has granted Him to us through His infinite charity: He has sent this adorable Model from the highest heavens for our imitation; justly, therefore, may He say: ‘What is there that I ought to do more to thee that I have not done?’⁵⁷57Isaias v. 4. What is there more precious that I could bestow on Thee? and yet, of what avail have been my largesses? Notwithstanding the authority of a precept so solemnly promulgated, God has been unable to induce us to follow the example of Jesus Christ or to tread in the paths of virtue.

What is the cause of so great an evil? What the source of so deplorable a tepidity? It is that we do not love either God or Jesus Christ with sufficient fervour: it is that we do not hearken to the ordinances of our heavenly Father, and that we have not the courage to walk in the footsteps of His Son. Did we love them both, that love would give us wings to follow the Saviour: love would give us strength to obey God: it would sweeten all that is painful in the command, and difficult in the imitation. In a word, the love of God which exacts of us a solid piety, would enable us by its strength and sweetness to triumph over all the difficulties of virtue. ‘For,’ says Thomas à Kempis, ‘love lightens all that is heavy, and supports with equanimity all the trials of life. It bears its burden without feeling its weight, it renders sweet and pleasing all that is bitter, it incites to noble actions, and it always urges to what is most perfect; it counts the labour as nothing; it attempts more than it can effect: never does it allege impossibility, because it believes that everything is possible and lawful to it.’⁵⁸58Imit. b. iii. ch. v.

Oh! who will give me to wing my flight to the thrones of the heavenly spirits? who will thaw the ice of my heart by inflaming it with the ardent love of these holy Intelligences. O Seraphim! cause one spark of this divine flame which rendered perfection so easy to the saints to fall upon me.