[Footnote 1: The Saint is here speaking of fasts of devotion, not of
those of obligation.—[Ed.]
[Footnote 2: Heb. xiii. 2, 16.]
[Footnote 3: Matt. vi. 6.]
[Footnote 4: Psalm lii. 6.]
[Footnote 5: 1 Cor. ix. 27.]
DOUBTS SOLVED AS TO SOLDIERS FASTING.
I was so young when called to the episcopate that I lived in a state of continual mistrust and uncertainty; doubtful about this, scrupulous about that; ignorance being the grandmother of scruples, as servile fear is their mother.
At the time of which I am going to speak, the residences of our Blessed Father and myself were only eight leagues apart, and in all my perplexities and difficulties I had recourse to his judgment and counsel. I kept a little foot-boy in my service, almost entirely employed in running to and fro between Belley and Annecy, carrying my letters to him and bringing back his replies. These replies were to me absolute decrees; nay, I should rather say oracles, so manifestly did God speak by the mouth and pen of that holy man.
On one occasion it happened that the captains of some troops—then stationed in garrison on the borders of Savoy and France, on account of a misunderstanding which had arisen between the two countries—came to me at the beginning of Lent to ask permission for their men to eat eggs and cheese during that season. This was a permission which I had never given except to the weak and sickly. I learned from the men themselves that they were exceedingly robust and hearty, and only weak and reduced as regarded their purses, their pay being so small that it barely supplied them with food. Nevertheless, I did not consider this poor pay a sufficient reason for granting a dispensation, especially in a district where Lent is so strictly kept that the peasants are scandalized when told that on certain days they may eat butter.
In my difficulty I despatched a letter at once to our Blessed Father, whose reply was full of sweetness and kindness. He said that he honoured the faith and piety of the good centurions, who had presented this request, which, indeed, deserved to be granted, seeing that it edified, not the Synagogue, but the Church. He added that I ought not only to grant it, but to extend it, and instead of eggs, to permit them to eat oxen, and instead of cheese, the cows of whose milk it is made.
"Truly," he went on to say, "you are a wise person to consult me as to what soldiers shall eat in Lent, as if the laws of war and necessity did not over-ride all others without exception! Is it not a great thing that these good men submit themselves to the Church, and so defer to her as to ask her permission and blessing? God grant that they may do nothing worse than eat eggs, cheese, or beef; if they were guilty of nothing more heinous than that, there would not be so many complaints against them."
THE GOLDEN MEAN IN DISPENSATIONS.
"It is quite true," said our Blessed Father, on one occasion, "that there are certain matters in which we are meant to use our own judgment, and in which, if we judge ourselves, we shall not be chastised by God. But there are others in which, with the eye of our soul, that is, with our judgment, it is as with the eye of the body, which sees all things excepting itself. We need a mirror. Now, this mirror, as regards interior things, is the person to whom we manifest our conscience, and who is its judge in the place of God."
He went on to say that in the matter of granting dispensations to his flock, he had told a certain Prelate, who had consulted him on the subject, that the best rule to give to others, or to take for oneself in such questions, is to love one's neighbour as oneself, and oneself as others, in God and for God. "If," he continued, addressing the Prelate, "you now take more trouble about granting these necessary dispensations to others than in getting them for yourself, the time will come when you will be generous, easy, and indulgent towards others, and severe and rigorous towards yourself. Perhaps you imagine that this second line of conduct is better than the other. It is not, and you will find the repose and peace of your soul only in the golden mean, which is the one wholesome atmosphere for the nourishing of virtue."