Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori CSsR (1696 -1787)
The following article is an extract from Chapter 4, 'The Holy Eucharist' by St Alphonsus de Liguori.
Charity dealeth not perversely
He that loves Jesus Christ avoids Lukewarmness, and seeks Perfection; the Means of which are; 1.Desire; 2.Resolution; 3. Mental Prayer; 4. Communion; 5. Prayer.
St Gregory in his explanation of these words, “dealeth not perversely,” says that charity giving herself up more and more to the love of God, ignores whatever is not right and holy. The Apostle had already written to the same effect, when he calls charity a bond that unites the most perfect virtues together in the soul. Have charity which is the bond of perfection. And whereas charity delights in perfection, she consequently abhors that lukewarmness with which some persons serve God, to the great risk of losing charity, divine grace, their very soul, and their all.
Lukewarmness
It must be observed that there are two kinds of tepidity or lukewarmness: the one unavoidable, the other avoidable.
From the lukewarmness that is unavoidable, the saints themselves are not exempt; and this comprises all the failings that are committed by us without full consent, but merely from our natural frailty. Such are, for example, distractions at prayers, interior disquietudes, useless words, vain curiousity, the wish to appear, tastes in eating and drinking, the movements of concupiscence not instantly repressed, and such like. We ought to avoid these defects as much as we possibly can; but owing to the weakness of our nature, caused by the infection of sin, it is impossible to avoid them altogether. We ought, indeed, to detest them after committing them, because they are displeasing to God: but as we remarked in the preceding chapter, we ought to beware of making them a subject of alarm or disquietude. St Francis de Sales writes as follows: “All such thoughts as create disquietude are not from God Who is the Prince of Peace; but they proceed always from the devil, or from self-love, or from the good opinion we have of ourselves.” Such thoughts, therefore, as disturb us, must be straightway rejected, and made no account of.
It was said also, by the same saint, with regard to indeliberate faults, that as they were involuntarily committed, so are they cancelled involuntarily. An act of sorrow, an act of love, is sufficient to cancel them. The Venerable Sister Mary Crucified, a Benedictine nun, saw once a globe of fire, on which a number of straws were cast, and were all forthwith reduced to ashes. She was given to understand by this figure that one act of divine love made with fervour, destroys all the defects that we may have in our soul. The same effect is produced by the Holy Communion; according to what we find in the Council of Trent, where the Eucharist is called “an antidote by which we are freed from daily faults”. Thus the like faults, although they are indeed faults, do not hinder perfection – that is, our advancing toward perfection; because in the present life no-one attains perfection before he arrives at the kingdom of the blessed.
The tepidity then, that does hinder perfection is that tepidity which is avoidable when a person commits deliberate venial faults; because all these faults committed with open eyes can effectually be avoided by the divine grace,even in the present life. Wherefore St Teresa said “May God deliver you from deliberate sin, however small it may be.” Such, for example, are wilful untruths, little detractions, imprecations, expressions of anger, derisions of one’s neighbour, cutting words, speeches of self-esteem, animosities nourished in the heart, inordinate attachments to persons of a different sex. These are a sort of worm” (wrote the same saint) “which is not detected before it has eaten into the virtues.” Hence in another place, the Saint gave this admonition: “By means of small things the devil goes about making holes for great things to enter.”
`We should therefore tremble at such deliberate faults; since they cause God to close His hands from bestowing upon us His clearer lights and stronger helps, and they deprive us of spiritual sweetnesses: and the result of them is to make the soul perform all spiritual exercises with great weariness and pain; and so, in course of time, she begins to leave off prayer, Communions, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and novenas; and in time, she will probably leave off all, as has not unfrequently been the case with many unhappy souls.
This is the meaning of that threat which Our Lord makes to the torpid: Thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot: but because thou art luke-warm …… I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth. How wonderful! He says, I would thou wert cold! What! And is it better to be cold, that is, deprived of grace, than to be tepid? Yes, in a certain sense it is better to be cold; because a person who is cold may more easily change his life, being stung by the reproaches of conscience; whereas a tepid person contracts the habit of slumbering on in his faults, without bestowing a thought, or taking any trouble to correct himself; and thus he makes his cure, as it were, desperate. St. Gregory says, “Tepidity, which has cooled down from fervour, is a hopeless state.” The Ven. Father Louis da Ponte said that he had committed many defects in the course of his life; but that he had never made a truce with his faults. Some there are who shake hands with their faults, and from that springs their ruin; especially when the fault is accompanied with some passionate attachment of self-esteem, of ambition, of liking to be seen, of heaping up money, of resentment against a neighbour, or of inordinate affection for a person of different sex. In such cases there is great danger of those hairs, as it were, becoming chains, as St Francis of Assisi said, which will drag down the soul to hell. At all events such a soul will never become a saint, and will forfeit that beautiful crown, which God had prepared for her, had she faithfully corresponded to grace. The bird no sooner feels itself loosed from the snare than it immediately flies; the soul, as soon as she is loosed from earthly attachments, immediately flies to God; but while she is bound, though it be but by the slightest thread, it is enough to prevent her from flying to God. Oh, how many spiritual persons there are who do not become saints, because they will not do themselves the violence to break away from certain little attachments!
All the evil arises from the little love they have for Jesus Christ. Those who are puffed up with self-esteem: those who frequently take to heart occurrences that fall out contrary to their wishes: who practise great indulgence towards themselves on account of their health: who keep their heart open to external objects, and the mind always distracted, with an eagerness to listen to, and to know, so many things that have nothing to do with the service of God, but merely serve to gratify private curiosity; who are ready to resent every little inattention from others, and consequently are often troubled, and grow remiss in prayer and recollection. One moment they are all devotion and joy, the next all impatience and melancholy, just as things happen, according to or against their humour: all such persons do not love Jesus Christ, or love Him very little, and cast discredit on true devotion.
But suppose any one should find himself sunk in this unhappy state of tepidity, what has he to do? Certainly it is a hard thing for a soul grown lukewarm to resume her ancient fervour; but Our Lord has said, that what man cannot do, God can very well do. The things that are impossible with me are possible with God. Whoever prays and employs the means is sure to accomplish his desire.
Remedies against Lukewarmness
The means to cast off tepidity, and
to tread in the path of perfection, are five in number:
1. The
desire of perfection: 2. The resolution to attain it: 3.Mental prayer: 4.
Frequent Holy Communion: 5. Prayer.
Desire of Perfection
The first means then,
is the desire of perfection. Pious
desires are the wings which lift us up from earth; for, as St Laurence
Justinian says, desire “supplies strength, and renders pain more light.” : on
the one hand it gives strength to walk towards perfection, and on the other
hand it lightens the fatigue of the journey.
He who has a real desire of perfection fails not to advance continually
towards it; and so advancing he must finally arrive at it. On the contrary, he who has not the desire of
perfection will always go backwards, and always find himself more imperfect than
before. St Augustine says, that “not to
go forward in the way of God is to go backward.
He that makes no efforts to advance will find himself carried backward
by the current of his corrupt nature.”
They then, who say “God does not wish us all to be saints” make
a great mistake. Yes, for St Paul says, This is the Will of God, your sanctification. God wishes all to be saints, and each one
according to his state of life: the religious as a religious; the secular as a
secular; the priest as a priest; the married as married; the man of business as
a man of business; the soldier as a soldier; and so of every other state of
life.
Most beautiful indeed, are the instructions which my great
patroness St Teresa gives on this subject.
She says, in one place, “Let us enlarge our thoughts; for hence we shall
derive immense good.” Elsewhere she says: “We must beware of having poor
desires; but rather put our confidence in God, in order that, by forcing
ourselves continually onwards, we may by degrees arrive where, by the divine grace,
so many saints have arrived.” And in confirmation of this she quoted
her own experience, having known how courageous souls make considerable
progress in a short period of time. Because
said she, “the Lord takes as much delight in our desires, as if they were put
into execution.” In another place she
says: “Almighty God does not confer extraordinary favours, except where his
love has been earnestly sought after.” Again, in another passage, she remarks: “God
does not fail to repay every good desire even in this life, for He is the
friend of generous souls, provided only they do not trust in themselves.” This saint herself was endowed with just such
a spirit of generosity; so that she once even said to Our Lord, that were she
to behold others in paradise enjoying Him more than herself, she should not
care; but were she to behold anyone loving Him more than she should love Him,
this she declared she knew not how she could endure.
We must therefore have a great courage: The Lord is good to the soul
that seeketh Him. God is
surprisingly good and liberal towards a soul that heartily seeks him. Neither
can past sins become a hindrance to our becoming saints, if we only have the
sincere desire to become so. St Teresa remarks: “The devil strives to make us
think it pride to entertain lofty desires, and to wish to imitate the saints;
but it is of great service to encourage ourselves with the desire of great
things, because, although the soul has not all at once the necessary strength,
yet she nevertheless makes a bold fight, and rapidly advances.”
The Apostle writes: To
them that love God, all things work together unto good. And the gloss or ancient commentary adds “even
sins”; even past sins can contribute to our sanctification, inasmuch as the
recollection of them keeps us more humble, and more grateful, when we witness
the favours which God lavishes upon us, after all our outrages against Him. I
am capable of nothing (the sinner should say), nor do I deserve anything; I
deserve nothing but hell, but I have to deal with a God of infinite bounty, who
has promised to listen to all that pray to Him. Now, as He has rescued me from
a state of damnation, and wishes me to become holy, and now proffers me his
help, I can certainly become a saint, not by my own strength but by the grace
of my God, who strengthens me: I can do
all things in Him that strengtheneth
me. When therefore we have once good desires, we
must take courage, and trusting in God, endeavour to put them in execution; but
if afterwards we encounter any obstacle in our spiritual enterprises, let us
repose quiely on the will of God. God’s
will must be preferred before every good desire of our own. St Mary Magdalene
of Pazzi would sooner have remained void of all perfection than possess it
without the will of God.
(To be continued -
the second, third, fourth, and fifth remedies against lukewarmness will
be dealt with in a later post.)
