Salesian Literature

Conference 8  :  On Self-Renouncement

On Self-renouncement and the despoiling of ourselves of all things.

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The little affections of thine and mine are remnants of “the world,” in which there is nothing so precious; for it is the world’s highest felicity to have many things of its own, and of which it can say: “This is mine.”  Now, what makes us so fond of anything which is our own is that high esteem in which we hold ourselves, for we consider ourselves so excellent that as soon as a thing belongs to us we think much more of it, and the small esteem in which we hold others makes us feel a repugnance to anything that they have used.  If, on the contrary, we were truly humble and detached from ourselves, regarding ourselves as a mere nothing before God, we should think very little of our own special belongings, and consider that we were highly honoured by being allowed to make use of what others had had for their use.  Still, in this as in all other things, we must discriminate between inclinations and affections, for when it is only a matter of inclination and not of affection, we need not be concerned, because to have no bad inclinations does not depend on ourselves, while to have bad affections does.  If, then, it happens that a sister who has had her habit changed for a shabbier one, feels some annoyance in the inferior part of her soul, this is not a sin, if with her reason she cheerfully accepts it for the love of God; and the same with all the other feelings which arise within us.[1]  Now, these emotions proceed from the fact that we have not made a community of wills; a thing which, on entering Religion, ought to be established, for every sister ought to leave her own private will outside the door, so as to have none but God’s.

 

Most happy indeed is he who has no other will than that of the Community, and who each day takes as he requires, from the common stock.    This is how we should understand that sacred saying of Our Lord: Be not solicitous for tomorrow [Mt. 6:34]; it refers not so much to food and clothing as to spiritual exercises.    For if you were asked: "What will you do tomorrow?" you should answer: "I do not know; today, I shall do such a thing, which is commanded; tomorrow, I do not know what I shall do, because I cannot tell what will be commanded." He who acts in this way will never feel vexation or anxiety, for where there is true indifference there can be no trouble or sadness.[2]

 

If anyone wishes to have any mine or thine, she must go outside the house for it, as inside there is never question of it.  Now, we must not be satisfied with willing to have self-renunciation in general; we must come to particulars.  There is nothing easier than to lay down the principle: we must renounce ourselves and give up our own will, but when it comes to practise the difficulty begins.[3]  This is why we must consider carefully what renunciation really is, and, in detail, all the things which follow from it.  Thereupon we must, in particular, renounce now one point of our own will, now another, until we are absolutely stripped of it, and this is done in three gradations: the first is an affection for the despoiling of ourselves because of its excellence; the second is the resolution which follows our affection, for we soon resolve to embrace a good which we love; the third is the actual practice, which is the most difficult.

 

The goods of which we must despoil ourselves are of three kinds: external goods, bodily goods, and goods of the soul.  External goods are all the things which we left behind us on entering Religion: houses, possessions, relations, friends, and so on.  The way to divest ourselves of these is to yield them all up into the hands of Our Lord, and then[4] to ask Him to give us just such affections as He wishes us to feel for them; for we must not live without affection, or love everyone equally and in an indifferent manner; we must love each individual in his degree; charity puts the affections in the right order.  The second division of goods are those which related to the body: beauty, health, and similar things, which must be renounced; and then we must no longer go to a mirror to see if we are beautiful, nor care any more for health than for sickness, at lest as far as our higher nature is concerned, for nature always feels and sometimes cries out, particularly when we are not very perfect.  We must, then, be as contented in sickness as in health, and take remedies or food just as it comes; I mean, of course, in our reason, for it is not worth while talking about our inclinations.  The goods of the heart are those consolations and sweetnesses which are to be found in the spiritual life; these goods are indeed very good.  “Why, then,” you will say, “must we give them up?”  It must be done all the same: you must yield them all up into the hands of Our Lord, to dispose of them as He pleases, and serve Him without them as with them.

 

There is another kind of goods, neither interior nor exterior, neither of the body nor of the heart: imaginary goods, which depend on the opinion of others; they are called honour, esteem, reputation.  Now, we must strip ourselves entirely of these; desiring no other honour than the honour of the Congregation, which consists in seeking in all things the glory of God; no other esteem or reputation than that of the community, which is to give edification in allthings.  All these abandonings and renunciations of the above-mentioned things must be made not out of contempt, but solely out of abnegation, for the pure love of God.

 

Here we must remark that the satisfaction which we feel in meeting with those whom we love, and the signs of affection which we show on seeing them, are not at all contrary to this virtue of renunciation, provided that they are not excessive, and that our hearts do not run after absent friends; for how is it possible that in the presence of the objects the corresponding faculties should not be stirred?  You might as well say to a person who met a lion or a bear: “Have no fear.”  It is not in our power.  So, in the same way, when we meet those whom we love, it would be impossible for us not to be moved by feelings of joy and satisfaction; hence it is not contrary to virtue.  More than this, I say that if I am desirous to see some one about a useful matter, the success of which would redound to the glory of God, if his intention of coming is thwarted, and I feel rather pained about it, and am even somewhat eager in removing the obstacles in the way of his coming, I am doing nothing contrary to the virtue of detachment, provided always that I do not lose my quiet of mind.

 

Thus you see that virtue is not so terrible a thing as people imagine.  Many fall into an error here: they form false ideals in their mind, and think that the way to heaven is extraordinarily difficult.  In so doing they are deceived and make a great mistake, for David tells Our Lord [Ps. 138:4. 96, 167] that His Law is most sweet, and while the wicked proclaim it to be hard and difficult, that good king declared that it is sweeter than honey [Ps. 18:11; 138:103].  We ought to say the same of our vocation, esteeming it not only good and excellent, but also sweet, pleasing, and desirable; if we do this, we shall take great delight in observing all that it includes.

 

It is true, my dear sisters, that we can never attain to perfection while we have an affection for any imperfection, however small it may be, even nothing more than the harbouring of an idle thought.  Indeed, you would hardly believe how much evil that does to the soul; for if once you give your mind liberty to stay and dwell upon a useless thing, it will begin to think upon harmful things; we must therefore cut short the evil as soon as we see it, however small it may be.  We must also examine in good faith whether it is true, as it sometimes seems to us, that in our affections we are really detached.  For example, if when you are praised you say some little word which will serve to swell the praise already given; or, again, when you seek praise by artfully saying that your memory or your intellect is not what it used to be, and therefore you cannot speak so well s you used to do – alas! Who does not see that you trying to make them say that you still speak extremely well?  Probe your conscience thoroughly, then, and see if you do not find there some affection to vanity.  You can also easily find out whether you are attached to a thing or not, when you are deprived of the power of doing what you had proposed to do; for if you have no clinging to it, you will be just as contented to abstain from doing it as to have done it; but if, on the contrary, you are disturbed at not being able to do it, that is a sign that you have set your affection upon it.  Now, our affections are so precious, seeing that they ought all to be employed in loving God, that we must take care not to fix them upon useless things; and one fault, however small it may be, for which we keep an affection, is more contrary to perfection than a hundred others committed inadvertently and without affection.

 

You ask how we should love creatures.  I tell you briefly that there are certain kinds of love which appear very great and perfect in the eyes of creatures, but which in the sight of God will be found small and of no value, because these friendships are not based on true charity, which is God [1 Jn. 4:8, 6], but only on certain natural inclinations and connections, and on considerations which are worthy and acceptable only from a human point of view.  On the other hand, there are friendships which in the eyes of the world appear mean and empty, but in the sight of God are full of all that is excellent, because they are built up solely in God and for God, without any admixture of our own private interests.  Now, the acts of charity which we perform for those whom we love in this way are a thousand times more perfect, inasmuch as they all tend purely to God, while the services which we render to those whom we love from inclination are very inferior in merit, on account of the great delight and satisfaction which we feel in rendering them, and because, generally speaking, we do them more from this motive than for the love of God.  There is another reason which makes this first class of friendships of which we have spoken inferior to the second: it is that they are not lasting.  The motive of them is so weak, that as soon as anything goes contrary with them, they grow cold and change; but this does not happen to those which have their foundation in God, because their motive-power is solid and abiding.

 

St. Catherine of Sienna makes a beautiful simile on this subject.[5]  “If,” she says, “you take a glass and fill it in a fountain, and if you drink from this glass without taking it out of the fountain, you may drink as much as you like, the glass will never become empty; but if you take it out of the fountain, when you have drunk the glass will be empty.”  So it is with friendships; if we never withdraw them from their source, they never dry up.  Even the caresses and signs of friendship which we bestow against our inclination upon people for whom we have an aversion, are better and more pleasing to God than those which are drawn from us by sensible affection.  And they ought not to be regarded as proceeding from duplicity or simulation, for though I may have a feeling contrary to what I seem to express, it is only in my lower nature, and the acts which I perform are done by force of reason, which is the highest part of my soul.  So that even if those whom I caress were to know that I did so because I have an aversion from them, they ought not to be offended, but rather value and cherish it more than if it were given from sensible affection; for aversions are natural, and not in themselves bad so long as we do not follow them.  On the contrary, they are a mean of practising a thousand different virtues, and Our Lord Himself is better pleased with us when we draw near to kiss His feet with extreme reluctance than when we approach Him with great sweetness.  Thus, those who have nothing amiable about them are very fortunate, for they are well assured that the love which one bears them is excellent, being all for God’s sake.

 

Very often we think that we love person for God when we really love them for ourselves.  We make use of this pretext (of their virtues), and say that is why we love them, but in reality we love them for the consolation which they give us.  For is it not much pleasanter to see a soul coming to you full of good dispositions, following your advice exactly, faithfully and quietly pursuing the way marked out by you, than to see another, restless, hesitating, and weak in following the right path, and who must be told the same thing a thousand times?  It is easy to see where the satisfaction is greater.  It is not, then, for God that you love this person, because the latter belongs just as much to God as the former, and ought indeed to be loved more, because herein there is more for God. It is true that, wherever there is more of God — that is to say, more virtue, which is a participation of the divine qualities—there we owe more affection; as, for example, if there are souls more perfect than that of your Superior, you ought to love them more on that ground. Nevertheless, we must always love our Superiors more still on the ground that they are our fathers and our directors.

 

With regard to your question as to whether we ought to be glad when one sister practises virtue at the expense of another, I reply that we ought to love the good in our neighbour as in ourselves, and especially in Religion, where all things should be absolutely in common, and we must never be grieved when a sister practises some virtue at our expense.  For example, I find myself waiting at a door with a sister younger than myself, and I draw back to give her precedence.  As it is for me to practise this humility, it is for her to practise sweet simplicity, and try to be ready for some other occasion to forestall me.  In the same way, if I hand her a seat, or leave my place for her, she ought to be pleased that I gain this little merit, and by this means she will share it; as if she said: "Since I could not perform that act of virtue, I am glad that this sister has done it." And not only must we not be grieved, but we must be ready thus to contribute all that we can, even what is most intimate to us if necessary.  Provided that God be glorified, we must not care by whom; so much so that if an occasion presented itself of doing some work, and if Our Lord were to ask us whom we should like best to do it, we ought to answer: “Lord, whoever will do it most to Thy glory.”  But as the choice is not left to us, we should wish to do it ourselves, for charity begins at home; but if we are unable to do it, we should rejoice, be pleased, and exceedingly glad that another should do it; thus perfectly arriving at having all things in common [Acts. 2:44; 4:32].  This applies quite as much to temporal matters, for if the house gains an advantage, we need not trouble ourselves as to whether it comes from us or from another.  If this goes a little against the grain, it s a sign that we still cling to the “thine” and “mine.

 

Lastly, you ask whether we can know if we are advancing towards perfection or not.[6]  I reply that we ourselves shall never know of our own perfection, for we are like those who are at sea; they do not know whether they are making progress or not, but the master pilot knows, knowing the course.  So we cannot estimate our own advancement, though we may that of others, for we dare not assure ourselves when we have done a good action that we have done it perfectly; humility forbids us to do so. Now, even if we are able to judge of the virtues of others, we must never determine in our minds that one person is better than another, because appearances are deceitful, and those who seem very virtuous outwardly and in the eyes of creatures may be less so in the sight of God than others who appear much more imperfect. Beyond all other perfections, I desire that you should have that of humility, which is not only charitable, but gentle and yielding; for charity is an ascending humility, and humility is a descending charity. I love you better with more humility and less of other perfections, than with more of other perfections and less humility[7].

 

 

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[1] For, if I am told that some one has spoken ill of me, or that I am being opposed in some way, in an instant anger flames up, and every vein swells as the hot blood mounts; but if amidst all this I turn to God, making an act of charity for the person who has offended me, there is no sin.  I say, even if a thousand kind of thoughts should rise up against this person, and not for the space of one day but of several, provided that from time to time I disavow them, there is nothing wrong at all, for it is not in my power to check these feelings.  But if that sister consented to the annoyance which she felt about that change of habit, undoubtedly she would do very wrong, and would commit great infidelity towards God and her own perfection.  (Addition).

[2] But this is a virtue which cannot be acquired in five years; ten at least are necessary.  We must not, therefore, be disappointed, since all our sisters have a good will to get it, if they have not yet succeeded. (Addition).

[3] nothing easier – than to say: We must go to the Visitation.  There the general principle is laid down: You must renounce yourselves and give up your own will.  “Oh! We will easily do all that.”  But it is when we come to practise and to the details that the difficulty begins.  (Part of Variant).

[4] Having thus yielded them up, we must return to Our Lord. (Addition).

[5] Dialogues. Chapter 64.

[6] When [by the bell] we hear the sign for obedience, we must believe that it is the voice of Our Lord which calls us, and go instantly, even though we may be already working for God; so a young bride, hearing the voice of her husband, although she may be doing something for him at the moment, leaves all to go when he calls her.  And although a little delay would not be an infidelity, yet it is an act of great fidelity, and a virtue most pleasing to God, not to delay for an instant.  In the same way, there are a thousand things which not to do is no sin, yet to do them is a great virtue; such as speaking softly, walking quietly, keeping our eyes cast down, passing the time of recreation well, and so on – things, nevertheless, most necessary for religious modesty and recollection.  (Addition).

[7] Humility will have reached the highest step of its perfection when we have no more self-will; by humility all justice is fulfilled. (Addition).

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