“There are many other good things besides that,” said the father; “but we must waive them, and say a little about those more important maxims, which facilitate the practice of holy things—the manner of attending mass, for example. On this subject our great divines, Gaspard Hurtado, and Coninck, have taught ‘that it is quite sufficient to be present at mass in body, though we may be absent in spirit, provided we maintain an outwardly respectful deportment.’ Vasquez goes a step further, maintaining ‘that one fulfils the precept of hearing mass, even though one should go with no such intention at all.’ All this is repeatedly laid down by Escobar, who, in one passage, illustrates the point by the example of those who are dragged to mass by force, and who put on a fixed resolution not to listen to it.”
“Truly, sir,” said I, “had any other person told me that, I would not have believed it.”
“In good sooth,” he replied, “it requires all the support which the authority of these great names can lend it; and so does the following maxim by the same Escobar, ‘that even a wicked intention, such as that of ogling the women joined to that of hearing mass rightly, does not hinder a man from fulfilling the service.’[[201]] But another very convenient device, suggested by our learned brother Turrian,[[202]] is, that ‘one may hear the half of a mass from one priest, and the other half from another; and that it makes no difference though he should hear first the conclusion of the one, and then the commencement of the other.’ I might also mention that it has been decided by several of our doctors, to be lawful ‘to hear the two halves of a mass at the same time, from the lips of two different priests, one of whom is commencing the mass, while the other is at the elevation; it being quite possible to attend to both parties at once, and two halves of a mass making a whole—duœ medietates unam missam constituunt.’[[203]] ‘From all which,’ says Escobar, ‘I conclude, that you may hear mass in a very short period of time; if, for example, you should happen to hear four masses going on at the same time, so arranged that when the first is at the commencement, the second is at the gospel, the third at the consecration, and the last at the communion.’”
“Certainly, father, according to that plan, one may hear mass any day at Notre Dame in a twinkling.”
“Well,” replied he, “that just shows how admirably we have succeeded in facilitating the hearing of mass. But I am anxious now to show you how we have softened the use of the sacraments, and particularly that of penance. It is here that the benignity of our fathers shines in its truest splendor; and you will be really astonished to find that devotion, a thing which the world is so much afraid of, should have been treated by our doctors with such consummate skill, that, to use the words of Father Le Moine, in his Devotion made Easy, ‘demolishing the bugbear which the devil had placed at its threshold, they have rendered it easier than vice, and more agreeable than pleasure; so that, in fact, simply to live is incomparably more irksome than to live well.’ Is that not a marvellous change, now?”
“Indeed, father, I cannot help telling you a bit of my mind: I am sadly afraid that you have overshot the mark, and that this indulgence of yours will shock more people than it will attract. The mass, for example, is a thing so grand and so holy, that, in the eyes of a great many, it would be enough to blast the credit of your doctors forever, to show them how you have spoken of it.”
“With a certain class,” replied the monk, “I allow that may be the case; but do you not know that we accommodate ourselves to all sorts of persons? You seem to have lost all recollection of what I have repeatedly told you on this point. The first time you are at leisure, therefore, I propose that we make this the theme of our conversation, deferring till then the lenitives we have introduced into the confessional. I promise to make you understand it so well that you will never forget it.”
With these words we parted, so that our next conversation, I presume, will, turn on the policy of the Society.—I am, &c.
P. S.—Since writing the above, I have seen “Paradise Opened by a Hundred Devotions easily Practised,” by Father Barry; and also the “Mark of Predestination,” by Father Binet; both of them pieces well worth the seeing.