CHAPTER X.
MOLINOS' GUIDE;—THE PART PLAYED IN IT BY THE DIRECTOR;—HYPOCRITICAL AUSTERITY;—IMMORAL DOCTRINE.—MOLINOS APPROVED OF AT ROME, 1675.—MOLINOS CONDEMNED AT ROME, 1687.—HIS MANNERS CONFORMABLE TO HIS DOCTRINE.—SPANISH MOLINOSISTS.—MOTHER AGUEDA.
The greatest danger for the poor paralytic, who can no longer move by himself, is, not that he may remain inactive, but that he may become the sport of the active influence of others. The theories which speak the most of immobility are not always disinterested. Be on your guard, and take care.
Molinos' book, with its artful and premeditated composition, has a character entirely its own, which distinguishes it from the natural and inspired writings of the great mystics. The latter, such as Sta. Theresa, often recommend obedience and entire submission to the director, and dissuade from self-confidence. They thus give themselves a guide, but in their enthusiastic efforts they hurry their guide away with them; they think they follow him, but they lead him. The director has nothing else to do with them but to sanction their inspiration.
The originality of Molinos' book is quite the contrary. There, internal activity has actually no longer any existence; no action but what is occasioned by an exterior impulse. The director is the pivot of the whole book; he appears every moment, and even when he disappears, we perceive he is close at hand. He is the guide, or rather the support, without which the powerless soul could not move a step. He is the ever-present physician, who decides whether the sick patient may taste this or that. Sick? Yes; and seriously ill; since it is necessary that another should, every moment, think, feel, and act for her; in a word, live in her place.
As for the soul, can we say it lives? Is this not rather actual death? The great mystics sought for death, and could not find it: the living activity remained even in the sepulchre. To die, singly, in God, to die with one's own will and energy, this is not dying completely. But slothfully to allow your soul to enter the mad vortex of another soul, and suffer, half-asleep, the strange transformation in which your personality is absorbed in his; this is, indeed, real moral death; we need not look for any other.
"To act, is the deed of the novice; to suffer, is immediate gain; to die, is perfection. Let us go forward in darkness, and we shall go well; the horse that goes round blind-folded grinds corn so much the better. Let us neither think nor read. A practical master will tell us, better than any book, what we must do at the very moment. It is a great security to have an experienced guide to govern and direct us, according to his actual intelligence, and prevent our being deceived by the demon or our own senses."[[1]]
Molinos, in leading us gently by this road, seems to me to know very well whither he is conducting us. I judge so by the infinite precautions he takes to re-assure us; by his crying up everywhere humility, austerity, excessive scrupulousness, and prudence carried to a ridiculous extreme. The saints are not so wise. In a very humble preface, he believes that this little book, devoid of ornament and style, and without a protector, cannot have any success; "he will, no doubt, be criticised; everybody will find him insipid." In the last page, his humility is still greater, he lays his work prostrate, and submits it to the correction of the Holy Roman Church.
He gives us to understand, that the real director directs without any inclination for the task: "He is a man who would gladly dispense with the care of souls, who sighs and pants for solitude. He is, especially, very far from wishing to get the direction of women, they being, generally, too little prepared. He must take especial care not to call his penitent his daughter; the word is too tender, and God is jealous of it. Self-love united with passion, that hydra-headed monster, sometimes assumes the form of gratitude and filial affection for the confessor. He must not visit his penitents at their homes, not even in cases of sickness, unless he be called."
This is, indeed, an astounding severity: these are excessive precautions, unheard of before the days of Molinos! What holy man have we here? It is true, if the director ought not to go of his own accord to visit the patient, he may, if she call him. And I say, she will call him. With such a direction, is she not always ill, embarrassed, fearful, and too infirm to do anything of herself? She will wish to have him every hour. Every impulse that is not from him might possibly proceed from the devil; even the pang of remorse, that she occasionally feels within her, may be occasioned by the devil's agency.