"'Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips: but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.'"[44]
These, and similar lessons, did I give to my companions in profession, and as I perceived truths myself, so did I endeavour to impart them to others.
Towards the end of my residence at Viterbo, I was made superior of the monastery di Gradi, and also of two convents of Dominican Nuns. I had for some time seen things in a new light, with a view to reform; I saw not much, or clearly, as yet, but sufficient, nevertheless, to place me far out of the common sphere. In Lent, 1833, certain friars came to me to ask permission to eat meat, on account of slight indisposition; and I was very lenient with them. The nuns came with the same request, and I willingly granted them all they required. The rumour got abroad that I allowed everybody to eat meat. Amongst the monks was a good old man, the Padre maestro Linares, who moreover was the confessor to the nuns. One evening he came to my rooms, and said, that he ought to address me with every respect; but that, as the oldest of the house, a master of theology, and not to fail in his duty, he felt compelled to represent to me the complaints of certain religious monks and nuns, subject to my jurisdiction, which complaints were chiefly touching the numerous dispensations I had granted for eating meat that Lent. "At this rate," said the worthy father, "the precept of fasting would be rendered null and void, were liberty accorded to every one not to observe it;" (which was true enough.) "I think," added he, "that many of those to whom you have granted the dispensation to eat meat, might have abstained without much inconvenience."
"I think so too;" I replied, "but I wished to save them even this little inconvenience. In short, they asked for what they wished, and I granted it to them: I did not feel their pulse, or look at their tongue, like a physician; I supposed they wished to eat meat, and I gave the permission, precisely in the same manner as I should have wished it to be granted to me, had I asked it of my superiors."
"Ah! you must not be so indulgent. This is a question of an observance of a divine institution—Lent!"
"I think, on the contrary, I ought to be as indulgent on this point as possible, bearing in mind the words of our Lord, 'And he called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand: not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.'[45]
"Strive as you can, my good Father, to prove that Lent is of divine institution, with all due deference, I cannot agree with you. I find no ordinance of the kind instituted by the Lord; of Him indeed it is written, that He fasted 'forty days and forty nights;' and it appears that He took nothing during that time; but He has not taught us to do it now. Our Lent is not therefore an imitation of Christ's fasting; with us it principally consists in abstaining from certain meats, and eating less of others. Both one and the other are human institutions in Christianity; they are precepts of the Church, and articles of tradition. To eat somewhat less at certain times, for us, who generally live quite well enough, I consider a very good sanitary principle, and as such I recommend it occasionally; but not so the abstaining from meat altogether; which is often prejudicial to health; and, moreover, what is substituted for it by the Roman regime is unwholesome, and to many very injurious."
"But we are commanded to keep Lent."
"Granted; and I am authorized to dispense with the keeping of it, by those who require it of me; and I do so with pleasure, and without much importunity."