UPON THE SAME SUBJECT.
Our Blessed Father always insisted on the necessity of discretion as well as charity in our devotion, and warned us against that want of self-restraint and calmness, which he called eagerness. This, he said, is, indeed, the remora of true devotion, and its worst enemy, the more so because it decks itself in the livery of devotion, in order more easily to entrap the unwary and to make them mistake zeal without knowledge for genuine fervour.
He was very fond of that saying of an ancient Emperor: "Make haste slowly," and of another: "Soon enough, if well enough." He would rather have a little done thoroughly well, than a great deal undertaken with over-eagerness. One of his favourite maxims was "Little and good." In order to persuade us that he was right, he used to warn us against thinking that perfection depends on the number of our good works, exterior or interior. When asked what then became of that insatiable love of which the masters of the spiritual life speak, that love which never thinks that it has reached the goal, but is always pressing on farther and farther, spanning the whole extent of heaven with giant strides, he answered: "The tree of that love must grow at the roots, rather than by the branches." He explained his meaning thus: To grow by the branches is to wish to perform a great number of good works, of which many are imperfect, others superfluous like the useless leaves which overload the vine, and have to be nipped off before the grapes can grow to any proper size. On the other hand we grow at the roots when we do only a few good works, but those few most perfectly, that is to say, with a great love of God, in which all the perfection of the Christian consists. It is to this that the Apostle exhorts us when he bids us be rooted and grounded in charity if we would comprehend the surpassing charity of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. True devotion, he used to say, should be gentle, tranquil, and discreet, whereas eagerness is indiscreet, tempestuous, and turbulent.
Especially he found fault with the eagerness which attempts to do several things at once. He said it was like trying to thread more than one needle at a time. One of his favourite mottos was: "Sufficient to the day is the labour thereof."
When he was reproached, as he sometimes was, with bestowing such earnest and undivided attention on the most trivial concerns of the people who came to him for sympathy and advice, he answered: "These troubles appear great to them, and, therefore, they must be consoled, as if they really were so. God knows, too, that I do not want any great employment. It is perfectly indifferent to me what my occupation is so long as it is a serving of Him. To do these small works is all that is, at the time being, asked of me. Is not doing the will of God a work great enough for anyone? We turn little actions into great ones when we perform them with a supreme desire to please God, who measures our services, not by the excellence of the work we do, but by the love which accompanies it, and that love by its purity, and that purity by the singleness of its intention."
UPON LIBERTY OF SPIRIT.
He was a great enemy to every sort of spiritual restriction and constraint, and was fond of quoting the words of St. Paul: Where the spirit of God is, there is liberty.[1] And again: You are redeemed with a great price, do not make yourselves slaves again.[2] He had advised a lady of rank to work with her own hands, in order to avoid sloth, and, as she was well to do, he suggested to her to devote her manual labour to the adornment of altars or to the service of the poor, following the advice of the Apostle, who counsels us to labour with our hands to provide for the wants of the needy. This lady, who always followed his suggestions to the very letter as if they were commands, having done some little piece of work for herself, felt a scruple about the matter, as though she had failed in the exact obedience which she had resolved to yield, not only to the commands of the holy Prelate, but even to his opinions. She therefore, asked him if she ought to give in alms exactly what a piece of work she had done for herself was worth. Moreover, having been advised to fast on Fridays she wished, she said, in order to gain more merit to make a vow that she would always practise this mortification.
Here is his reply: "I approve of your Friday fasts, but not that you should make any vow to keep them, nor that you should tie yourself down, tightly in such matters. Still more do I approve of your working with your hands, spinning and so forth, at times when nothing greater or more important claims your attention, and that what you make should be destined either for the altar or for the poor, I should not, however, like you to keep to this so strictly, that if it should happen that you do something for yourself or for your family you should feel obliged to give the poor the value of your work. For, holy liberty and freedom must reign, and we must have no other law than love, which, when it bids us to do some kind of work for our own family or friends, must not be looked upon as if it had led us to do wrong. Still less does it require us to make amends, as you wished to do seeing that whatever it invites us to take in hand, whether for the rich or for the poor, is equally pleasing to our Lord." What do you think of this doctrine, you who go by rule and measure in valuing an act of virtue? Is liberality displayed towards the rich, in your opinion, worth as much as alms given to the poor? See now, this holy Bishop follows a very different rule, and measuring the one action and the other by the golden standard of charity, esteems them as equal, provided both be done with equal charity.
[Footnote 1: II. Cor. iii. 17.]
[Footnote 2: Cor. vii. 23]