Piety, should, by its divine influence, penetrate all the faculties of the soul and take possession of your whole being; it ought, as we have said above, to make its presence especially felt in your heart, by purifying all its affections; but its principal abode should be in the will, through which it may reach all the other faculties in order to elevate and vivify them.
The will is, indeed, if I may so speak, the organ or the instrument of sacrifice and duty; and since piety properly consists in sacrifice and duty, in suppressing the inordinate appetites of the human heart, and elevating nature above herself, the will is the faculty in which piety should reside.
It is not an easy matter to be truly pious, for, in order to attain to a superior order of spiritual perfection, we must lay aside self which paralyzes all the generous movements of the soul,— we must also faithfully correspond to divine grace. All this entails much difficulty, many struggles, and, consequently, great and constant efforts.
Every being has a tendency, founded on an imperious instinct, to dwell in its natural sphere, which it can not leave even to enter a superior one without making a great effort. Hence, the Holy Ghost warns him who desires to serve God to prepare for temptation and struggle. Now, among all the faculties of the soul, the will is the best disposed for the combat, because pleasure has a smaller share in its movements than in those of the heart and imagination; it is able, when necessary, to rise superior to the most alluring charms, preferring fidelity to duty with all its difficulties and bitterness.
To be pious implies the faithful observance of God's commandments, "If you love me," says Christ, "keep my commandments;" it consists in being resigned to the will of God, ready to be disposed of at His good pleasure. To do this you must place all your faculties, and especially your will at His disposal. God has reserved to Himself the right of acting in an intimate and profound manner upon the will. This faculty is His sanctuary, in which He delights to dwell, and operate the prodigies of His grace and love, which He communicates with unbounded prodigality to His elect.
This is the throne upon which He silently engraves the image of His divine Son, the essential characteristic of predestination. It is in this power of the human soul that He plants in the depth of Christian humility the foundation of solid virtue, in defiance to the disorders of the mind, the agitations of the heart and the incoherencies of the memory.
From the bosom of the Divinity our Blessed Lord brought with Him two special favors, one of which was for His eternal Father, and the other to be given persons of good-will. He charged His angels to announce them to the world in the person of the shepherds. They were, glory for His Father and peace for men, but only for men of good- will. This heavenly peace is a foretaste of the never-ending joys of Paradise. It is a prize worth striving for, and easy to secure, at least for you, since it is promised to all persons of good-will.
CHAPTER XII.
VOCATION.
God, who has created all things by His own power, conserves them by an act of His divine love; and by His providence leads them to their appointed destiny through ways conformable to their own nature. He did not create man to live a solitary being, and, consequently, implanted in his heart an instinctive need of society; desiring that the latter should effectively contribute to the development of the faculties of soul and body. And, as society cannot subsist without a certain variety of conditions, and functions, which lend each other mutual aid, He has planted in our souls certain dispositions in harmony with the particular state of life to which He has destined us. This is what is called vocation.