Part 2

WE must pardon and do good for evil, as God has pardoned us and rendered good for evil in Jesus Christ. It is vain to trample the violet, as it never resists, and he who crushes it only becomes aware of the fact by the sweetness of its perfume. This is the image of charity. It always strives to throw its mantle over the evil doings of others, persuading itself that they were the effects of surprise, inadvertence, or at most very slight malice. If an explanation is necessary, it is the first to accuse itself. Never does it permit the keeping of a painful thought against any of the brethren, and does all in its power to hinder them from the same; and, moreover, excuses all signs of contempt, ingratitude, rudeness, peculiarities, etc.

Cassian makes mention of a religious who, having received a box on the ear from his abbot in presence of more than two hundred brethren, made no complaint, nor even changed colour. St. Gregory praises another religious, who, having been struck several times with a stool by his abbot, attributed it not to the passion of the abbot, but to his own fault. He adds that the humility and patience of the disciple was a lesson for the master. This charity will have no small weight in the balance of Him Who weighs merit so exactly.

Charity gives no occasion to others to suffer, but suffers all patiently, not once, but all through life, every day and almost every hour. It is most necessary for religious, as, not being able to seek comfort abroad, they are obliged to live in the same house, often in the same employment with characters less sympathetic than their own. These little acts of charity count for little here below, and they are rather exacted than admired. Hence there is less danger of vainglory, and all their merit is preserved in the sight of God.

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EIGHTH CHARACTERISTIC

_To practise moderation and consideration_

TELL-TALES, nasty names, cold answers, lies, mockery, harsh words, etc., are all contrary to charity. St. John Chrysostom says: "When anyone loads you with injuries, close your mouth, because if you open it you will only cause a tempest. When in a room between two open doors through which a violent wind rushes and throws things in disorder, if you close one door the violence of the wind is checked and order is restored. So it is when you are attacked by anyone with a bad tongue. Your mouth and his are open doors. Close yours, and the storm ceases. If, unfortunately, you open yours, the storm will become furious, and no one can tell what the damage may be." If we have been guilty in this respect, let us humble ourselves before God.

"The tongue," says St. Gertrude, "is privileged above the other members of the body, as on it reposes the sacred body and precious blood of Jesus Christ. Those, then, who receive the Holy of Holies without doing penance for the sins of the tongue are like those who would keep a heap of stones at their doors to stone a friend on arrival."

In order to keep ourselves and others in a state of moderation, we must remember that all persons have some fad, mania, or fixed ideas which they permit no one to gainsay. If we touch them on these points, it will be like playing an accompaniment to an instrument with one string out of tune.

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NINTH CHARACTERISTIC

_Care of the sick and infirm_

CHARITY lavishes care on the sick and infirm, on the old, on guests and new-comers. It requires that we visit those who are ill, to cheer and console them, to foresee their wants, and thereby to spare them the pain or humiliation of asking for anything.

Bossuet says: "Esteem the sick, love them, respect and honour them, as being consecrated by the unction of the Cross and marked with the character of a suffering Jesus."

Charity pays honour to the aged in every respect, coincides with their sentiments, consults them, forestalls their desires, and attempts not to reform in them what cannot be reformed. Charity receives fraternally all guests and new-comers, and makes us treat them as we would wish to be treated under similar circumstances. It also causes us to lavish testimonies of affection on those who are setting out, and warns us to be very careful of saying or doing anything that may in the least degree offend even the most susceptible.

Religious must ever feel that they can bless, love, and thank religion as a good mother. But religion is not an abstract matter; it is made up of individuals reciprocally bound together in and for each other.

Alas! how many times are the sick and the old made to consider themselves as an inconvenient burden, or like a useless piece of furniture! In reality what are they doing? They pray and do penance for the community, turn away the scourge of God, draw down His graces and blessings, merit, perhaps, the grace of perseverance for several whose vocation is shaking, hand down to the younger members the traditions and spirit of the institute, and finally practise, and cause to be practised, a thousand acts of virtue.

Did our Divine Lord work less efficaciously for the Church when He hung on the Cross than when He preached? We must, then, do for the sick and the old who are now bearing their cross what we would have wished to do for Jesus in His suffering.

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TENTH CHARACTERISTIC

_Prayer for living and deceased brethren_

"WE do not remember often enough our dear dead, our departed brethren," says St. Francis de Sales, "and the proof of it is that we speak so little of them. We try to change the discourse as if it were hurtful. We let the dead bury their dead. Their memory perishes with us like the sound of the funeral knell, without thinking that a friendship which perishes with death is not true. It is a sign of piety to speak of their virtues as it urges us to imitate them."

In communities distinguished for fraternal charity and the family spirit the conversation frequently turns on the dead. One talks of their virtues, another of their services, a third quotes some of their sayings, while a fourth adds some other edifying fact; and who is the religious that will not on such occasions breathe a silent prayer to God and apply some indulgence or other satisfactory work for the happy repose of their souls?

Charity also prays for those who want help most, and who are often known to God alone--those whose constancy is wavering, those who are led by violent temptations to the edge of the precipice. It expands pent-up souls by consolations or advice; it dissipates prejudices which tend to weaken the spirit of obedience; it is, in fine, a sort of instinct which embraces all those things suggested by zeal and devotion. Can there be anything more agreeable to God, more useful to the Church, or more meritorious, than to foster thus amongst the well-beloved children of God peace, joy, love of vocation, together with union amongst themselves and with their superiors? It is one of the most substantial advantages we have in religion to know that we are never forsaken in life or death; to find always a heart that can compassionate our pains, a hand which sustains us in danger and lifts us when we fall.

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ELEVENTH CHARACTERISTIC

_To have a lively interest in the whole Order, in its works, its success, and its failures_

RELIGIOUS who have the family spirit wish to know everything which concerns the well-being of the different houses. They willingly take their pens to contribute to the edification and satisfy the lawful curiosity of their brethren. They bless God when they hear good news, and grieve at bad news, losses by death, and, above all, scandalous losses of vocation.

Those who would concentrate all their thoughts on their own work, as if all other work counted for nothing or merited no attention, who would speak feebly or perhaps jealously of it, as if they alone wished to do good, or that others wished to deprive them of some glory, would show that they only sought themselves, and that to little love of the Church they joined much indifference for their Order.

Charity, by uniting its good wishes and interest to the deeds of others, becomes associated at the same time in the merit. It shares in a certain manner in the gifts and labours of others. It is, at the same time, the eye, the hand, the tongue, and the foot, since it rejoices at what is done by the eye, the hand, the tongue, etc., or, rather, it is as the soul which presides over all, and to whom nothing is a stranger in the body over which it presides.

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TWELFTH CHARACTERISTIC

_Mutual Edification_

BE edified at the sight of your brethren's virtues, and edify them by your own. In other words, be alternately disciple and master.

Profit by the labours of others, and make them profit by your own. Receive from all, in order to be able to give to all. Borrow humility from one, obedience from another, union with God, and the practice of mortification from others.

By charity we store up in ourselves the gifts of grace enjoyed by every member of the community, in order to dispense them to all by a happy commerce and admirable exchange.

As the bee draws honey from the sweetest juices contained in each flower; as the artist studies the masterpieces to reproduce their marvellous tints in pictures which, in their turn, become models; as a mirror placed in a focus receives the rays of brilliancy from a thousand others placed around it to re-invest them with a dazzling brilliancy, so happy is the community whose members multiply themselves, so to say, by mutually esteeming, loving, admiring, and imitating each other in what is good.

This spontaneity of virtues exercises on all the members a constant and sublime ministry of mutual edification and reciprocal sanctification.

XVIII

EXTENT AND DELICACY OF GOD'S CHARITY FOR MEN

IN order to excite ourselves to fraternal charity, let us try and picture that of God for us. After having had us present in His thoughts from all eternity, He has called us from nothingness to life.

He Himself formed man's body, and, animating it with a breath, enclosed in it an immortal soul, created to His own image. Scarcely arrived on the threshold of life, we found an officer from His court an angel deputed to protect, accompany, and conduct us in triumph to our heavenly inheritance.

What a superb palace He has prepared for us in this world, supplied with a prodigious variety of flowers, fruits, and animals which He has placed at our disposal!

We were a fallen race, and He sent His Son to raise us and save us from hell, which we merited. The Word was made flesh. He took a body and soul like ours, thus ennobling and deifying, so to speak, our human nature. Before ascending to His heavenly Father, after having been immolated for us on the Cross, for fear of leaving us orphans, He wished to remain amongst us in the Holy Eucharist, to nourish us with His flesh, and to infuse into our hearts His Divine Spirit as the living promise and the delicious foretaste of the felicity and glory which He went to prepare for us in His kingdom.

Truly, O God, You treat us not only with a paternal love, but with an infinite respect and honour; and cannot I love and honour those whom You have thus honoured and loved Yourself? Why do not these thoughts inflame my charity in the fire of your Divine love? My brethren and myself are children of God and members of Jesus Christ. My brethren have their angels, who are companions of my angel. One day my brethren will be my companions in glory, chanting eternally the Divine praises. It is but a short time since, with them, I partook of the heavenly banquet of the Most Holy Sacrament, and to-morrow shall do so again.

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EXTENT AND DELICACY OF THE CHARITY OF JESUS CHRIST DURING HIS MORTAL LIFE

LET us now admire the charity of our Divine Saviour while on earth.

If wine was wanting at a feast; if fishermen laboured in vain during the night; if a vast crowd knew not where to procure food in the desert; if unfortunate persons were possessed by devils or deprived of the use of their limbs; if death deprived a father of his daughter, or a widow of an only son, Jesus was there to supply what was wanting, to give back what was lost, or to sweeten all their griefs. Sometimes He forestalled the petition by curing before being asked, or by exciting the wavering faith. He generally went beyond the demands of the petitioners. He was always ready to interrupt His meal, to go to a distance, or to quit His solitude. Nicodemus, as yet trembling and timid, came to find Jesus during the night, and He did not hesitate to sacrifice His sleep by prolonging the conversation. The Samaritan woman was not beneath His notice, although He was fatigued after a long journey. He lavished with prodigality His caresses on the children who pressed around Him. When the crowd was so great that the poor woman with the flow of blood could not come within reach of His hand, He caused an all-powerful virtue to set out from Him, and a simple touch of the hem of His garment supplied instead.

With what charming grace His benefits were accompanied! "Zacheus, come down quickly, for I will abide this day in thy house." Who more than He excelled in the art of making agreeable surprises? In His apparitions to Magdalen, to the holy women, to the disciples at Emmaus, did He not pay well for the ointment, the tears, and the perfumes, and the hospitality He received from them? Who is not moved with emotion when he sees his Lord preparing a meal for the Apostles on the lake-shore, or asking Peter thrice to give him an opportunity of publicly repairing his triple denial, "Lovest thou Me?"

Who would not be moved when he hears what St. Clement relates having heard it from St. Peter that our Lord was accustomed to watch like a mother with her children near His disciples during their sleep to render them any little service?

O Jesus! the sweetest, the most amiable, the most charitable of the children of men, make me a sharer in Your mildness, Your love, and Your charity.

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FIRST PRESERVATIVE

_How to fortify ourselves against uncharitable conversations, the principal danger to fraternal charity_

TO meditate on what the Holy Scripture says of it: "Place, O Lord, a guard before my mouth" (Ps. cxl.)--a vigilant sentinel, well armed, to watch, and, if necessary, to arrest in the passing out any unbecoming word--"and a door before my lips," which, being tightly closed, will never let an un charitable dart escape.

"Shut in your ears with a hedge of thorns," to counteract the tongue, which would pour into them the poison of uncharitableness, "and refuse to listen to the wicked tongue."

"Put before your mouth several doors and on your ears several locks"--_i.e._, put doors upon doors and locks upon locks, because the tongue is capable, in its fury, to force open the first door and break the first lock. "Melt your gold and silver, and make for your words a balance"--weighing them all before uttering them--"and have for your mouth solid bridles which are tightly held," for fear that the tongue, getting the better of your vigilance, will break loose and do mischief in all directions.

Considering these many barriers and formidable checks, must we not see the necessity of burying in a well-fortified prison that most dangerous monster, the tongue? "Ah! truly death and life are in the power of the tongue" (Prov. xviii.). "And although the sword has been the instrument of innumerable murders, the tongue has at all times beaten it in producing death" (Ecclus. xxviii.). "It forms but a small part of the body, and has done mighty evil: as the helm badly directed causes the wreck of a fine ship, and as a spark may enkindle a forest. . . . Unquiet evil, inflamed firebrand, source of deadly poison, world of iniquity" (St. James iii.).

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SECOND PRESERVATIVE

_To meditate on what the Saints say_

ST. BONAVENTURE relates that St. Francis of Assisi said to his religious one day: "Uncharitable conversation is worse than the assassin, because it kills souls and becomes intoxicated with their blood. It is worse than the mad dog, because it tears out and drags on all sides the living entrails of the neighbour. It is worse than the unclean animal, because it wallows in the filth of vices and makes its favourite pasture there. It is worse than Cham, because it exposes everywhere the nasty spots which soil the face of religion--its mother."

St. Bernard goes further: "Do not hesitate to regard the tongue of the backbiter as more cruel than the iron of the lance which pierced our Saviour's side, because it not only pierces His sacred side, but one of His living members also, to whom by its wound it gives death. It is more cruel than the thorns with which His venerable head was crowned and torn, and even than the nails with which the wicked Jews fastened His sacred hands and feet to the Cross, because if our Divine Saviour did not esteem more highly the member of His mystic body (which is pierced by the foul tongue of the slanderer) than His own natural body formed by the operation of the Holy Ghost in the chaste womb of the Virgin Mary, He would never have consented to deliver the latter to ignominies and outrages to spare the former."

Now St. Francis and St. Bernard are here speaking to religious. Is it possible, then, for backbiting to glide into religious communities? Yes, certainly. And it is by this snare that Satan catches souls which have escaped all others.

St. Jerome says: "There are few who avoid this fault. Amongst those even who pride themselves on leading an irreproachable life, you will scarcely find any who do not criticize their brethren."

Rarely, without doubt, but too often, nevertheless, we calumniate at first secretly or with one or two friends, afterwards openly and in public. We speak of the mistakes, shortcomings, and defects, great and small, and sometimes transmit them as a legacy. Sometimes we use a moderate hypocrisy by purposely letting ourselves be questioned, and sometimes brutally attack our victim without shame.

"Have I, then," may the religious thus attacked say, "in making my vows renounced my honour and delivered my character to pillage? Has my position as religious, has the majesty of the King of Kings, of whom I have become the intimate friend, in place of ennobling me, degraded me? You call yourselves my brethren, and yet there are none who esteem me less! You would not steal my money, and yet you make no scruple of stealing my character, a thousand times more precious. You pay court to your Saviour and persecute His child! The same tongue on which reposes the Holy of Holies spreads poison and death! Is this to be the result of your study and practice of virtue? Has not Jesus Christ, by so many Communions, placed a little sweetness on your tongue and a little charity in your heart? By eating the Lamb have you become wolves? as St. John Chrysostom reproached the clergy of Antioch. And you, who fly so carefully the gross vices of the world, have you no care or anxiety about damning yourself by slander?"

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THIRD PRESERVATIVE

_To guard the tongue_

THIS must be done especially in five circumstances: (1) At the change of Superiors. Do not criticize the outgoing Superior nor flatter the new one. (2) When you replace another religious. Never by word or act cast any blame on him. Inexperience, or a desire to introduce new customs, sometimes causes this to be done. (3) When you are getting old. Because then we are apt to think-- erroneously, of course--that the young members growing up are incapable of fulfilling duties once accomplished by ourselves. (4) When religious come from another house do not ask questions which they ought not to answer, and do not tell them anything which might prejudice or disgust them with the house or anyone in it. Lastly, in our interviews with our particular friends we must be very cautious. There are some who, when anything goes amiss with them, always seek the company of their confidants. These should seriously examine before God whether it is a necessary comfort in affliction or a support in weakness, or the too human satisfaction of justifying themselves, giving vent to their feelings, or getting blame and criticism for the Superior or some one else. They should also examine whether on such occasions they speak the exact truth, and whether they seek a friend, who knows how to take the arrow sweetly from the wound rather than to bury it deeper.

The way to find out the gravity of the sin of detraction is--(1) To consider the position of him who speaks and the weight which is attached to his words; (2) the position of him who is spoken about, and the need he has of his reputation; (3) the evil thing said; (4) the number of the hearers; (5) the result of the detraction; and, lastly, the intention of the speaker, and the passion which was the cause of it.

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FOURTH PRESERVATIVE

_To be on our guard with certain persons_

THERE are six sorts of religious who wound fraternal charity more or less fatally, (1) Those who say to you, "Such a one said so-and-so about you." These are the sowers of discord, whom God Almighty declares He has in abomination. Their tongues have three fangs more terrible than a viper. "With one blow," says St. Bernard, "they kill three persons--themselves, the listeners, and the absent." (2) Those who, obscuring and perverting this amiable virtue, possess the infernal secret of transforming it into vice. Is not this to sin against the Holy Ghost? (3) Those who skilfully turn the conversation on those brethren of whom they are jealous, in order to have all put in a bad word. They thus double the fault they apparently wish to avoid. (4) Those who constantly have their ears cocked to hear domestic news, who are skilful in finding out secrets and picking up stories, whose trade seems to be to take note of all little bits of scandalous news going, and to take them from ear to ear, or, worse, from house to house. Oh, what an occupation! What a recreation for a spouse of Christ! (5) Those who, under pretext of enlivening the conversation, sacrifice their brethren to the vain and cruel wantonness of witticism by relating something funny in order to give a lash of their tongue or to expose some weakness. Alas! they forget that they ruin themselves in the esteem and opinion of the hearers. (6) Critics of intellectual work. On this point jealousy betrays itself very easily on one side, and susceptibility is stirred on the other. The heart is never insensible nor the mouth silent when we are wounded in so delicate a part. It is evident, besides, that in this case the blame supposes a desire of praise, and that in proportion as we endeavour to lower our brethren we try to raise ourselves. All these religious ought to be regarded as pests in the community.

If we call those who maintain fraternal charity the children of God, should not those who disturb it be called the children of Satan? Do they not endeavour to turn the abode of peace into a den of discord, and the sanctuary of prayer into a porch of hell?

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FIFTH PRESERVATIVE

_To be cautious in letter-writing and visiting_

GREAT care must be taken never to repeat anything at visits or in letters which might compromise the honour of the community or any of its members.

Never utter a word or write a syllable which might in the least degree diminish the esteem or lower the merit of anyone. Every well-reared person knows that little family secrets must be kept under lock and key.