Salesian Literature

Conference 3  :  On Constancy

On the Flight of Our Lord into Egypt. And which treats of the constancy which we ought to maintain amid the accidents of this world.[1]

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we are keeping the Octave of the Feast of the Holy Innocents, on which day holy Church makes us read the Gospel [Mt. 2:13, 18] which describes how the Angel of the Lord told the glorious St. Joseph in a dream, that is to say when sleeping, that he must take the Child and the Mother and flee into Egypt, since Herod, jealous of his royalty, and fearing that He would take it away, was seeking Our Lord to put Him to death. Full of wrath because the three Kings had not returned to him in Jerusalem, he had commanded that all the little children under two years of age should be put to death, believing that Our Lord was among them, and hoping by that means to ensure the possession of his kingdom. This gospel is full of beautiful thoughts; I will content myself with a few, which will furnish us with material for a conference as interesting as it will be profitable[2].

 

I will begin with the first consideration made by the great St. John Chrysostom, which is on the inconstancy, variety, and instability of the accidents of this mortal life.  Oh! How useful is this consideration! And the absence of this consideration it is which leads us to discouragement and inconsistency, to disquiet and changeableness, to inconstancy and instability in our resolutions.  We would desire not to meet with any difficulties, any contradiction, any trouble in our path; we would always have consolations without dryness of distaste, advantages without any drawback, health without sickness, repose without labour, peace without any trouble.  Ah! Who does not see our folly! For we desire what cannot be.  Unmixed good or unmixed evil is only to be found in paradise or in hell.  In paradise, happiness, repose, and consolation exist in all their perfection, with no admixture of evil, trouble, or affliction; while in hell, on the contrary, are found utter evil, despair, trouble, and disquietude, without any admixture of good, of hope, tranquility, or peace.  But in this perishable life, good is never to be found without evil following in its train; there is no wealth without anxiety, no repose without labour, no consolation without affliction, no health without sickness.  In short, good and evil are, in all things here below, mingled and commingled; this life presents a continued variety of diverse accidents.  Thus God has willed that the seasons should be diversified, and that summer should be followed by autumn, winter by spring, to teach us that in this world nothing is lasting [Eccl. 2:11], and that temporal things are perpetually mutable, inconstant, and subject to change.  Our want of recognition of this truth is, as I have said, what makes us unstable and changeable in our humours, inasmuch as we do not make use of the reason which God has given us, which reason renders us unchanging, firm, and steadfast, and hence like unto God.

 

When God said: Let us make man to our likeness [Gen. 1:26], He thereby bestowed on him reason and the use thereof, in order to be able to discuss and consider good and evil, to discern the one from the other, and to know which things should be chosen and which rejected.  It is reason which makes us superior to all the animals, and masters over them. When God had created our first parents, He gave them an absolute dominion over the fishes of the sea and the beasts of the earth [Gen. 5:28,30] and consequently Ho gave them the knowledge of each species, and the means of dominating them, and rendering themselves their lord and master. God has not only bestowed this favour upon man, that he should be lord over the animals by means of this gift of reason, by which He has made him like to Himself, but He has also given him full power over all sorts of accidents and events. It is said that the wise man, that is, the man who is guided by reason, will render himself absolute master of the stars. What does this mean but that by the use of reason ho will remain firm and constant amid all the various events and accidents of this mortal life. Let the weather be fine or let it rain, let the air be calm or let the wind blow, the wise man pays no attention to it, knowing well that nothing in this life is lasting, and that this is not a place of rest. In affliction ho does not despond but waits for consolation; in sickness he does not torment himself but waits for health, or if he sees that his hurt is such that death must follow, he thanks God, hoping for the repose of that life immortal, to which this life is but a prelude. If poverty overtakes him he does not distress himself, for he knows very well that riches do not exist in this life without poverty; if he is despised he knows well that, honour here below has no permanence, but is generally followed by dishonour or contempt. In short, in all kinds of events, in prosperity or adversity, he remains firm, steadfast, and constant in his resolution to aspire and to strain after the enjoyment of eternal blessings.

 

But we must not only consider this variety, changeableness, and instability in the transitory and material things of this mortal life; we must also consider them in their relation to the events of our spiritual life, in which firmness and constancy are as much more necessary as the spiritual life is raised above the mortal and bodily life.  It is a very great error to be unwilling to suffer or to feel variations and changes in our humours, not governing ourselves by reason and refusing to allow ourselves to be governed by it.  It is often said: “Look at this child, he is very young, but still he has already the use of reason”; conversely, there are many who have the use of reason and yet, like children, do not guide themselves by the dictates of reason.  God has given reason to man to guide him, but yet there are very few who allow it to rule in them; on the contrary, they let themselves be governed by their passions, which ought to be subject and obedient to reason, according to the order which God requires of us.

 

To make myself understood I will speak more familiarly. Most people in the world allow themselves to be governed by their passions and not by reason; therefore they are, generally speaking, inconsistent, variable, and changeable in their humours. If they have a fancy to go to bed early or very late, they do just whichever they please; if they want to get up early to go to the country, they do so; if they prefer to sleep, they do that.  If they want to dine or sup early or very late, they arrange so; and not only are they inconsistent and changeable in these matters, but they are the same in their intercourse with others.  They wish people to accommodate themselves to their humours and will not accommodate themselves to those of others.  They allow themselves to be carried away by their inclinations and private affections and passions, without being on that account considered faulty by the world; and provided that they do not interfere much with their neighbours’ tastes and ways, they are not looked upon as unreasonable or capricious.  And why? Simply because this is an ordinary defect among people of the world.  But in Religion we cannot, of course, allow ourselves to be carried away by our passions.  As regards external things there are the Rules to keep us regular in our prayer, our eating, our sleeping, and the same with other exercises, which are always at the same hour, when obedience or the bell summons us; and then our mutual intercourse is always the same, for we cannot separate ourselves from one another.

 

In what, then, can we display caprice and fickleness?  It is in the changes of our tempers, wills, and desires.  At present I am joyous, because all things are succeeding as I wished; very soon I shall be sad, because a little unexpected contradiction will have arisen.  But did you not know that this is not the place where pleasure pure and unalloyed is to be found, and that this life is full of such troubles?  Today, because you have consolations in your prayer, you feel encouraged and thoroughly resolved to serve God; but tomorrow, when dryness comes upon you, you will have no heart for the service of God: “Alas!” you say, “I am so languid and dejected!”  But come now, tell me: if you governed yourself by reason, would you not see that if it was good to serve God yesterday, it is still very good to serve Him today, and will equally be very good to do so tomorrow?  He is always the same God, as worthy to be loved in dryness as in consolation.  Today we desire one thing and tomorrow another; what I see done by so-and-so at this moment pleases me, but presently it will displease me so greatly that I might even conceive an aversion for that person.  Just now I love some one very much, and take great delight in his conversation; tomorrow I shall scarcely be able to endure him.  And why? Is he not as worthy of being loved today as he was yesterday? If we attended to the dictates of reason, we should see that this person ought to be loved because he is a creature who bears the image of the divine Majesty; and thus we should take as much pleasure in his conversation now as we did formerly.

 

But all this proceeds simply from the fact that we allow ourselves to be guided by our inclinations, our passions, or our affections, thus perverting the order placed in us by God, that all should be subject to reason.  For if reason does not dominate all our powers, our faculties, our passions, inclinations, affections, and indeed all that makes up our being, what will be the result, if not a continual state of vicissitude, inconstancy, variety, changeableness, and inconsistency which will make us sometimes fervent and full of courage, but as often slothful, careless and idle; at one moment joyous, at the next melancholy? We shall be calm for an hour, and then uneasy for two days: in short, our life will pass away in idleness and waste of time.

 

By this first remark, then, we are urged and invited to consider the inconstancy and uncertainly of success both in temporal and spiritual things, in order that in the event of sudden occurrences, which from being quite new and unforeseen might give a shock to our minds, we may not lose courage, nor suffer ourselves to be carried away by unevenness of temper amid the unevennesses of life; but that, submitting to the guidance of the reason which God has implanted in us, and to His Providence, we may remain firm, constant, and unchangeable in our resolution to serve God with constancy, bravely boldly, fervently, without any interruption whatever.

 

If I were speaking to people who did not understand me, I should try to inculcate upon them, as well as ever I could, what I have just been saying; but you know very well that I have always tried to bring before you this most holy evenness of mind, as being the special and most necessary virtue of Religion. All the ancient fathers of Religious Orders have done their utmost to make this evenness and steadfastness of mind and temper reign in their monasteries. For this end they established Statutes, Constitutions, and Rules, in order that the Religious might make use of them as a bridge, by which to pass from the constant uniformity of the exercises marked out in them and which they have embraced, to this most lovable and desirable evenness of spirit, amid all the changes and contraries which are to be met with on the path of our mortal as well as of our spiritual life.

 

The great St. Chrysostom says: O man, you who are so much disquieted because all things do not succeed according to your wishes, are you not ashamed to see that what you want was not to be found in the family of Our Lord?  Consider, I pray you, the vicissitudes and changes, and alternations of joy and sorrow, which are to be met with there.  Our Lady received the tidings that she should conceive of the Holy Ghost a Son, Who should be Our Lord and Saviour. What joy, what jubilation for her in that sacred hour of the Incarnation of the Eternal Word!  Shortly afterwards St. Joseph, seeing that she was with child and knowing that it was not by him, Alas! into what affliction, into what distress was he not plunged!  And our Lady, what an extremity of grief and pain did she not feel in her soul, seeing her dear husband on the point of quitting her, her modesty not permitting her to reveal to St. Joseph the honour and the grace with which God had favoured her!  Then a little later, this storm having passed over, because the angel had discovered to St. Joseph the secret of this mystery, what a consolation did they not receive!

 

When Our Lady brought forth her Son, the Angels announced His birth, the Shepherds and the Magi came to adore Him.  I leave you to imagine what rejoicing and consolation of spirit was theirs, amid all this!    But wait, for that is not all. A little later, the Angel of the Lord said to St. Joseph in a dream: Take the Child and His Mother and flee into Egypt, because Herod wishes to put the Child to death [Mt. 2:13].    Oh, how great a subject of grief must not this have been to Our Lady and St. Joseph! How exactly the   Angel treats St. Joseph as a true Religious! Take the Child, he says, and His Mother and flee into Egypt, and be there until I tell thee. What is all this?  Might not St. Joseph have said: “You tell me to go; will it not be time enough to go tomorrow morning? Whither would you have me go by night? My preparations are not made; how would you have me carry the Child? Will my arms be strong enough to carry Him all through so long a journey?  Or perhaps you mean the Mother to carry Him in her turn?  Alas! do you not see that she is but a young girl, weak and tender?  I have neither horse nor money for this journey.  And do you not know that the Egyptians are enemies to the Israelites?  Who will receive us?”  Had we been in St. Joseph’s place, should we not have urged a thousand such pleas to excuse ourselves from obeying the command?  Whereas he without a word set out directly on his journey, and did all that the Angel had told him to do.

 

There are many useful remarks to be made on this command. In the first place, we are taught that, as regards matters of obedience, there must be no putting off, no delay. It is the act of the slothful to delay, as St. Augustine said of himself[3]: By-and-by, "yet a little," and then I will be converted. The Holy Ghost will have no putting off, but desires great promptitude in obeying His inspirations; our slothfulness, which makes us say: " I will begin presently," is our destruction. Why not now, at this very moment, when he is inspiring and urging us? Because we are so tender over ourselves that we are afraid of all that seems likely to interfere with our repose, which is really nothing but our slothfulness and indolence.  We do not wish to be roused by any external objects which would draw us out of ourselves, and we imitate the sluggard, who, when his friends tried to induce him to come out of his house, thus complained: "How can I? There is a lion in the way, and bears are round about, who will certainly devour me" [Prov. 22: 13; 26:13].

 

Oh, how much are we to blame in suffering God to press and knock again and again at the door of our hearts, before we will open to Him and permit Him to enter in and dwell there! Alas! it is much to be feared that we shall excite His anger and constrain Him to abandon us.

 

Further, we must consider the great peace and serenity of mind of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, shown in their constancy amid all the unexpected events which, as we have said, befell them.  Now consider whether we are justified in being surprised and troubled when we meet with similar accidents in the house of God, which is holy Religion, seeing that they occurred even in the family of Our Lord, in which abode constancy and steadfastness itself in the person of Our Lord. We must repeat over and over again to ourselves, so as the better to impress the truth upon our minds, that no inequality of  events must ever carry away our hearts and minds into inequalities of temper; for unevenness of temper proceeds from no other source than our passions, inclinations, or unmortified affections. These must have no power with us whenever they incite us to do, to omit, or to desire anything however small, which is contrary to what the dic­tates of reason urge us to do or leave undone in order to please God.

 

I pass on to my second consideration on those words spoken by the Angel of the Lord to St. Joseph: Take the Child, and what follows. I dwell on this expression: the Angel of the Lord, and I ask you to observe how highly we ought to esteem the care, the succour, the assistance and the direction of those with whom God encompasses us in order to help us to walk surely in the path of perfection. You must notice, in the first place, that when we say the Angel of the Lord, it must not be understood in the same sense as when we say our Angel, in speaking of ourselves, for that means our Angel Guardian, appointed by God to take care of us. Our Lord, Who is the King and Conductor of the very Angels themselves, has no need, that is, never in His mortal life had need of an Angel Guardian. When, therefore, we say the Angel of the Lord, we mean the Angel appointed to the care of the house­hold and family of Our Lord, and more especially devoted to His service and to that of the Blessed Virgin.

 

To explain this in a familiar manner: during the last few days, offices and aids have been changed. Now what is the meaning of these aids being given to you? Why are they so given? St. Gregory[4] says that in this miserable world, if we wish to keep firm and steadfast in the work we have undertaken of saving or perfecting ourselves, we should behave like people who walk on ice. For these, says he, take each other by the hand or under the arms, so that, if one of them slips, the other may hold him up, and that other, when he in his turn is on the point of falling, may be held up by his friend. We in this life are walking as it were on the ice, exposed at each moment to the danger of meeting with occasions of slipping and of falling, now into vexa­tion, now into murmurings, anon into a certain perversity, which makes us dissatisfied with everything that our neighbour does. Then follows disgust for our vocation; melancholy suggesting to us that we shall never do any good in it, and so on through all those accidents which are to be met with in our little spiritual world. For man is an epitome of the world, or rather, he is a little world in himself, in which all that is to be found in the great world of the universe is found. The passions represent the brute beasts and unreasoning creatures. The senses, inclinations, affections, powers, faculties of our soul, all have their special significance. I will not, however, dwell upon this, as I wish to continue my previous discourse.

 

The aids, then, who are given to us, are intended to help us to keep steadily on our way, to prevent our falling, or, if we fall, to aid us in getting up again. Oh! with what openness, cordiality, sincerity, simplicity, and faithful confidence ought we not to hold intercourse with these aids, who are given to us by God to help us in our spiritual progress. Certainly we should act with them as with regard to our good Angels. We ought to look upon them in the same way, since our good Angels are called our Angel Guardians because they are commissioned to help us by their inspirations, to defend us in perils, to reprove us when we err, to stimulate us in the pursuit of virtue; they are charged to carry our prayers before the throne of the majesty, goodness, and mercy of Our Lord, and to bring back to us the answers to our petitions. The graces, too, which God bestows upon us, He gives through the intervention or intercession of our good Angels. Now our aids are our visible good angels, just as our holy Angel Guardians are our invisible ones. Our aids do visibly what our good Angels do inwardly; for they warn us of our faults; they encourage us when we are weak and languid; they stimulate us in our endeavours to attain perfection; they prevent us from falling by their good counsels, and they help us to rise up again, when we have fallen over some precipice of imperfection or fault. If we are overwhelmed with weariness and disgust they help us to bear our trouble patiently, and they pray God to give us strength so to bear it as not to be overcome by temptation [Mt. 6:13]. See, then, how much we ought to value their assistance and their tender care for us.

 

We will now consider why it was that Our Lord, Who is the Eternal Wisdom, did not take care of His family, I mean, did not inform St. Joseph or His sweetest Mother of all that was going to happen to them. Could He not have whispered to His foster-father St. Joseph: " Let us go down into Egypt, to stay there for such a time"? since it is quite certain that He had the use of reason from the moment of His conception in the womb of the Blessed Virgin; 'but He would not work this miracle of speaking before the time had come. Could He not have breathed His inspiration in the heart of His most Mother, or of His beloved reputed Father, St. Joseph, her spouse? Why, then, did He not do this instead of leaving the charge to the Angel, who was greatly inferior to Our Lady? There is a mystery in it all. Our Lord would not in any way interfere with the office of St. Gabriel, who, having been commissioned by the Eternal Father to announce the   mystery of the Incarnation to the glorious Virgin, was henceforth in a manner the steward of the household and family of Our Lord, to watch over them in all that might befall them of good or ill, and especially to prevent anything from happening which might shorten the mortal life of our little new-born Child; and for this reason he warned St. Joseph to carry Him quickly away into Egypt, to escape the tyranny of Herod, who intended to destroy Him.  Our Lord would not govern Himself, but suffered  Himself to  be carried  by whoever wished to carry Him, and wherever they wished to carry Him.  It seemed as if He did not consider Himself wise enough to guide Himself or His Family, but allowed the Angel to arrange all things just as he pleased, although he had no wisdom or knowledge to compare with that of His divine Majesty.

 

And now, as regards ourselves, shall we dare to lay that we can very well govern ourselves, and that we have no need of the help and direction of those whom God has given to us for our guidance, not esteeming them, indeed, capable enough for us? Tell me, was the Angel in any way superior to Our Lord or to Our Lady? had he a better intellect or more judgment ? By no means. Was he more qualified for the work of guidance? was he endowed with any special or peculiar grace ? That could not be, seeing that Our Lord is both God and man, and that Our Lady, being His Mother, had, in consequence, more grace and perfection than all the Angels together; nevertheless the Angel commands and is obeyed. But more than this, see what rank is observed in the Holy Family! No doubt it was the same as it is among sparrow-hawks, where the hen-bird rules and is superior to the male. Who could doubt for a moment that Our Lady was much superior to St. Joseph, and that she had more discretion and qualities more fit for ruling than her spouse? Yet the Angel never addresses himself to her as regards anything that has to be done, either as to going or coming, or whatever it might be. Does it not seem to you that the Angel commits a great indiscretion in addressing himself to St. Joseph rather than to Our Lady, who is the head of the house, as possessing the treasure of the Eternal Father? Had she not just reason to be offended by this proceeding and by this mode of treatment? Doubtless she might have said to her spouse: "Why should I go into Egypt, since my Son has not revealed to me that I must go, still less has the Angel spoken to me on the subject?" Yet Our Lady makes no such remark; she is not in the least offended because the Angel addresses himself to St. Joseph; she obeys quite simply, knowing that God has so ordained it.  She does not ask: “Why?” It is sufficient for her that He wills it, so, and that it is His pleasure that we should submit without hesitation.  “But I am more than the Angel,” she might have said, “and more than St. Joseph.”  NO such thought occurs to her.

 

Do you not see that God delights to deal thus with men, in order to teach them holy and loving submission? St. Peter was an old man, rough and uncultured; St. John, on the contrary, was young, gentle, and sweet in manners; yet God willed that St. Peter should guide the others and be their universal superior, and that St. John should be one of those who were ruled by him, and obeyed him. What a lesson for the proud human intellect, which will not bow down to adore the secret mysteries of God and His most holy will unless it has some sort of knowledge why this or that is so! "I have a superior mind," we say, "I have more experience," and so on, giving specious reasons which are really only calculated to produce disquietude, variableness of temper, and murmuring. Why is this order given? To what end was that said? Why was such a thing done for this person rather than for the other ? Ah! What a pity it is, to start to inquire so closely into what we see done! Why take so much pains to destroy our peace of heart? We really need no other reason than that God wills it, and that ought to suffice. But who will assure me that it is the will of God? We would have God reveal all things to us by secret inspirations. Would we wait until He sends Angels to announce His will? He did not do this even to Our Lady (at least not on this matter), but wished it to be made known to her by the intervention of St. Joseph, to whom she was subject as to her superior. Perhaps we should like to be told and informed by God Himself, through ecstasies, raptures, visions, and what not! Such are the follies which we weave in our brains, rather than submit ourselves to follow the ordinary and most sweet method of holy submission to the guidance of those whom God has given us, and to the direction of the Rules and of Superiors.

 

Let it, then, be enough to know that God wishes us to obey, without occupying ourselves with con­sidering the capability of those whom we are called upon to obey. In this way we shall bring down our minds to walk simply in the happy path of a holy and tranquil humility which will render us infinitely pleasing to God.

 

We must now pass on to the third consideration, which I have made on the command given by the Angel to St. Joseph to take the Child and His Mother, and to go into the land of Egypt and remain there until he should bid him return. Truly the Angel spoke very briefly, and treated St. Joseph in every way like a good Religious: Go, and do not return until I tell thee. By this conduct of the Angel to St. Joseph we are taught, in the third place, how we should embark on the sea of divine Providence without store of biscuit, without oars or sculls, without sails, in a word without preparing anything at all, leaving to Our Lord all the care of ourselves and the result of our affairs, without doubts or questionings or fears as to what may happen.  For the angel simply says: Take the Child and His Mother and fly into Egypt; without telling St. Joseph either by what route to journey, or what preparations they must make for the way, or into what part of Egypt they should go, or how they should be fed when they arrived there, or who should receive them.  Would not poor St. Joseph have had some reason to reply: “You tell me to depart, must it be at once?”  “Instantly.”  This shows us the promptitude which the Holy Ghost requires of us when He says: “Arise, come forth out of thyself and such an imperfection.”  How great an enemy is the Holy Ghost to all procrastination and delay!

 

Consider, I entreat you, the great patron and model of all perfect Religious, holy Abraham.  See how God deals with him: Abraham, go forth out of thy country and from thy kindred; and go to the mountain which I shall show thee.  “Thou sayest, O Lord, that I must go forth from the city; but tell me, then, in what direction I must go, to the east or to the west?”  The Patriarch makes no such reply, but instantly sets forth, and goes whither the Spirit of God leads him, till he reaches a mountain which was afterwards called the Vision of God, because there he received great and marvelous graces, to prove how pleasing promptness in obedience is to Him.  Might not St. Joseph have said to the angel: “”Thou hast told me to take the Child and His Mother; tell me then, please, how I am to feed them on the journey; for Thou knowest well, my Lord, that we have no money.”  Nothing of all this did he say, but was absolutely confident that God would provide for everything, as indeed He did, though sparsely, giving them the means of subsisting in a simple way, either by St. Joseph's trade, or the alms be­stowed upon them. Certainly all those old Reli­gious were admirable in their confidence that God would always provide what they might need for their support, leaving the whole care of themselves to divine Providence.

 

I consider, however, that it is not only requisite to rest on divine Providence in all that concerns temporal matters, but still more in all that belongs to our spiritual life and to our perfection. It is certainly only the too great care which we take of ourselves which makes us lose our tranquillity of mind and ruffles our unsteady temper; for as soon as any contradiction arises, or if we only notice in ourselves some small sign of an unmortified spirit, or if we commit the most trifling fault, it seems to us that all is lost. Is it so great a wonder that we sometimes find ourselves stumbling on the path of our perfection? "But I am so miserable, so full of imperfections!" Do you really recognise that? Then thank God for having given you such knowledge, and do not lament so much: you are most happy indeed in knowing your own absolute misery. After having thanked God for this knowledge, cut off at once the useless softness which makes you complain of your infirmity.

 

We are far too tender over our bodies, but incomparably more so as regards our souls, and this tenderness in both cases is very contrary to perfection. "Alas! I am not faithful to Our Lord, and therefore I have no consolation in prayer." What a pity, to be sure! "But I am so often dry and cold that I think I cannot be in God's favour, since He is so full of consolation." Truly, that is a wise speech! As if God always gave consolation to His friends.  Were there ever creatures more worthy of being loved, or more actually loved by God, than Our Lady and St. Joseph, and had they always consolations? Could a greater affliction be imagined than that experienced by St. Joseph when he knew that the glorious Virgin was with child, and not by him? His grief and affliction were as much greater, as the passion of love is more vehement than the other passions of the soul; and, moreover, in love, jealousy is the extremity of its pain, as the Bride in the Canticle of Canticles declares: Love is strong as death [Cant. 6], for love produces the same effects on the soul as death does on the body; but jealousy is hard as hell. I leave you, then, to imagine what was the grief of St. Joseph and of Our Lady also when she saw how he whom she loved so dearly, and by whom she knew herself to be so dearly loved, must regard her. Jealousy made St. Joseph full of irresolution. Not knowing what course to take, he determined, rather than blame her whom he had always honoured and loved so much, to quit her and depart without saying a word.

 

"But," you will say, "I feel so strongly the trouble which this temptation or my imperfection causes me."  Very likely, but is it to be compared to that of which we have just been speaking? It is impossible.  Consider, then, I pray you, if we are justified in complaining or lamenting, when St. Joseph never complains at all, nor gives the slightest outward sign of disturbance: there is no bitterness of speech, no severity of look or behaviour towards Our Lady; he simply bears his trouble, and will not take any other step except that of leaving her: what, indeed, could he do in this matter! But some one may say: " I have such an antipathy towards this particular person that it is all I can do to speak to her; so displeasing is her conduct to me." Never mind, you must disregard your antipathy and not be cross with her, as if she could help it. Your conduct must resemble that of Our Lady and St. Joseph; you must be calm in the midst of your annoyance, and leave Our Lord to remove it when it pleases Him. It was in Our Lady's power to appease that tempest, but she would not do it, leaving the issue of the affair wholly to divine Providence. In play­ing the lute the two strings which are the most different from one another, and yet the most neces­sary to harmonise, are the treble and the bass. The high and the low are the most opposed, yet unless these two strings are in perfect tune the music of the lute cannot be agreeable. In the same way, in our spiritual lute there are two things equally opposed, and yet equally necessary to be brought into harmony; to be very careful about perfecting ourselves, and yet to have no care at all about our perfection, but to leave it entirely to God. By this I mean that we must take all the care which God wishes us to take about perfecting ourselves, and yet leave the care of arriving at perfection entirely to Him. God wishes our care to be a calm and peaceful one, which shall make us do whatever is judged to be fitting by those who guide us, and always proceed faithfully along the road marked out for us by the Rules and Directory given to us; and for the rest, that we should repose in His fatherly care, trying as far as is possible to keep our soul at peace, for the place of God is in peace [Ps. 75:2] and in the peaceful and restful heart.  You know that when the lake is very calm, and when the winds do not agitate its waters, on a very serene night, the sky with all its stars is so perfectly reflected in it, that looking down into its depths the beauty of the heavens is as clearly visible as if we looked up on high. So when our soul is perfectly calm, unstirred, and untroubled by the winds of superfluous cares, unevenness of spirit and inconstancy, it is very capable of reflecting in itself the image of Our Lord. But when the soul is troubled, tossed and agitated by the tempests of the passions, and when we allow ourselves to be governed by them, and not by that reason which makes us like to God, then we are wholly incapable of reflecting the lovely and beloved image of our crucified Lord, or the variety of His incomparable virtues; neither can our soul be fit to serve as His nuptial couch. We must therefore leave the care of ourselves to the mercy of divine Providence, and yet at the same time do simply and cheerfully all that is in our power to amend and perfect ourselves, taking always careful heed not to allow our minds to be troubled and disquieted. I remark further that the Angel told St. Joseph to remain in Egypt until he should bid him return, and that this glorious saint never replied: " At what time, Lord, wilt Thou bid me do so?" This was to teach us that when we are desired to take up some duty, we must not say " Will it be for a long time?" but must take it up quite simply, imitating the perfect obedience of Abraham when God commanded him to sacrifice his son[Gen. 22. 1-13].  He made no reply, no complaint, no delay in fulfilling God's command: therefore God, being satisfied with Abraham's good will, showed him great favour, directing him to find a ram, which he sacrificed on the mountain instead of his son. I will conclude by calling your attention to the simplicity practised by St. Joseph when, at the command of the Angel, he went down into Egypt, a country in which he well knew that he would find as many enemies as there were inhabitants. Might he not have said: "Thou commandest me to take the Child away from here, but in fleeing from one enemy Thou dost put us into the hands of thousands whom we shall meet with in Egypt, seeing that we are Israelites." But no, he makes no re­flection of any sort upon the command, and so sets forth on his way full of peace and of confidence in God. In like manner, my daughters, when any charge is given to us, let us not say: "Alas! I am so impulsive; if this charge is given to me I shall commit innumerable acts of impatience; I am already so distracted, if I am put in such a post as that I shall be still more so. If I were only left in my cell I should be so modest, so quiet, so re­collected." Go down quite simply into Egypt, into the midst of all the enemies whom you will find there; for God, Who sends you thither, will also preserve you, and you will not die in that land; but if, on the contrary, you remain in Israel, where there is also an enemy, namely your self-will, it will doubtless take your life. To take upon ourselves charges and offices would not be well, for fear we should not do our duty in them; but when it is a matter of obedience let us never make any excuse, for God is on our side, and He will make us advance further in perfection than if we had nothing to do. Besides, do you not know what I have already told you many times,[5] and what there is no harm in repeating once more, that virtue does not require that we should be deprived of the occasion of falling into the imperfection which is its opposite? "It is not enough," says Cassian,[6] " in order to be very gentle and patient in ourselves, that we should be shut out from intercourse with men, for, being quite alone in my cell, I have on occasion fallen into such impatience when I could not strike a light, that I have actually thrown away my flint and steel in anger!"

 

But it is time to leave off speaking, and so to leave you in Egypt with Our Lord, Who, as I believe, and many others hold, began from this time forth to make little crosses, when He had time left after helping St. Joseph in his work, showing thus early His fervent longing for the work of our redemption.

 

 

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[1] Sermon for the Octave of Holy Innocents.

[2] I  doubt  not that you have discovered many of  these thoughts in the meditation which you made on the Feast of tin; Holy Innocents, but so great is their number that I believe you may have overlooked some which would be of profit to you.   At the same time I do not mean to try and hunt out those which you may have passed over, nor to enlarge upon those which you did discover, but simply to tell you what God has suggested to my mind.   For as in a picture in which a grown man, or it may be a giant, is represented as fighting, or performing some other action, it is much easier to remark the traits of the painting, than in one which represents some small figure, or several small figures (for more time is needed to observe the little details of the latter picture, than the larger lines of the former), so in those great Mysteries in which figure Our Lord, Our Lady, St. Joseph, the Shepherds and the Three Kings, it seems easy at once to discover the signification, but it is not so easy to do it in this little picture, which like a little anthill represents so great a number of little children assembled together.  However long a time, then, we devote to considering what this Mystery represents, and however often we contemplate it, we shall always find that there is something fresh for us to discover.   (Variant)

[3] Confessions, Book VIII, chapter 5.

[4] St. Gregory, Thaum., Paraphr. in Eccles. 4:10-12.

[5] See, for instance, Conference 15, which is anterior in date to the present conference.

[6] Instit., lib. Viii. Chapter 18.

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