Volume I, Treatise II, Chapter VII

That Tt Is Exceeding Advantageous to Accustom Ourselves to Do All Our Actions Very Well

PyrHacoras, in his excellent advice to his friends and disciples, pointed out to them how they could become virtuous, and make the practice of virtue easy and sweet. Let every one, rays he, choose an honest state of life; and in the beginning, let him regard not whether it is hard or painful, because custom will afterwards render it easy and agreeable. Behold here a very important means whereby we ought to help ourselves; not only because it comes from a very great philosopher, but because the Holy Ghost himself suggests the same, as we shall see afterwards; and because it is most proper to attain our end. We have already chosen an excellent way of living; or to say better, our Saviour has chosen one for us: “Because it is not we that have made choice of him, but it is he that has made choice of us (John 15:16); and we ought to bless and praise him continually for this particular grace. However, you may advance more or less in this state of life in which God has placed you; for according to your conduct therein you may become either a good, or a tepid religious. But if you desire to acquire perfection, accustom yourself to perform all your duties well, to obey punctually, to observe your rules exactly, and to set an high value on even the smallest things. Accustom yourself to recollection, mortification, penance, modesty, and silence; and be not dismayed at the difficulties you shall find in the beginning; for afterwards custom will render these things not only easy, but delightful; and you will not cease to give God thanks for the habit and facility you will have gained by the practice of them. This doctrine is taught us by the Holy Ghost in divers places of Scripture. “I will show you,” says he in the Proverbs, «the way of wisdom (Proverbs 4:11); that is to say, according to St. Bernard’s explanation, who interprets this holy word wisdom to be ‘a delicious knowledge of God,” I will shew you the way in which you will come to take delight in the knowledge, love, and service of God; “I will lead you by the path of equity, and when you have once entered therein, thy steps shall not be straitened, and when thou runnest thou shalt not meet a stumbling-block. (Proverbs 4:12) The Holy Ghost calls the way of virtue a path; because our inclinations, naturally bad, make it so very hard in the beginning, that we seem to enter into it by very strait and narrow passages. But when we are once advanced, we find the way more large, and we walk with more ease, and even run therein without meeting any stumbling-block or even the least difficulty. Thus by a most elegant metaphor he teaches us, that though the practice of virtue seems hard in the beginning, yet we ought not to lose courage on this account; because afterwards we shall not only find no difficulty therein, but even an abundance of pleasure, so as to be able to say with the Wise Man: “I have laboured a little, and I have found very great repose;”—-and again, “You have scarce taken any pains to gain wisdom, but you begin to taste the fruits it carries along with it” (Ecclesiasticus 51:35); vi. 20):—and St. Paul tells us the same thing, when he says, ‘“All discipline in the beginning seems rather to give trouble than joy; but they who are accustomed VoL. I. H to it, will reap in peace the fruits of justice.” (Hebrews 12:11) We daily experience this in all sorts of arts and sciences. What difficulty, for example, do we not find in the beginning of our studies? So that oftentimes it happens, that we must be drawn to them by force, and kept to our duty by punishment; whence comes the proverb, “That knowledge makes a bloody entrance.” But afterwards when we get a habit, and begin to make progress, and have already gained some knowledge, we often take so much delight therein, that our studies become our chief pleasure and delight. ‘The same happiness in the way of virtue and perfection.

This is perfectly well explained unto us by St. Bernard, writing upon these words of Job: ‘‘I am reduced to such an extremity that the very things I had a horror to touch are at present become my ordinary food.” (Job 6:7) ‘ Would you know,” says he, ‘“what power practice or habit has over us? At first a thing will appear to you insupportable; but if you accustom yourself to it, in time it will seem less hard, afterwards you will find it easy, and in the end it will give you no pain at all, but a great deal of joy and delight” (De consid. ad Eug.); so that you may say with Job—‘“I now take pleasure in feeding upon those things, which before I had a difficulty to touch.”

All then depends upon the habit, ‘which renders very easy the things that we perform often; so that if you feel a difficulty in observing the circumstances which are necessary to make your prayer and examen well, it is because you are not accustomed thereunto, Ifin the morning when you awake, or in the time of prayer, you cannot call home your imagination, and hinder it from wandering here and there, it is because you have never used violence, nor accustomed yourself to restrain it from expatiating upon whatever occurs besides the subject of your meditation. If silence and retirement give you any pain, it is because you have not habituated yourself to them. ‘“We find our chamber sweet and pleasant,” says Thomas-a-Kempis, “when we stay a long time in it, but we find it very tedious and irksome when we are not accustomed to keep it.” Make retirement familiar to you and it will become very pleasant and agreeable. Prayer and fasting seem hard to seculars, because they do not sufficiently practise them. Saul: put his own armour upon David (1 Kings 17:38), when he sent him to fight with the Philistines; but because David was not accustomed to carry such a weight, he found it troublesome, and cast it away. Yet afterwards he became so used to it, that it did not at all hinder him from fighting. What I say of virtue ought to be understood in like manner of vice; for if you let yourself be carried away with any bad habit, the evil will augment, and from day to day gain new strength; and in fine, it will at last become so hard to apply a remedy, that you will be in danger of never being able to obtain a cure whilst you live. But if from the beginning you had accustomed yourself to do things well, how happy would you be at present, and how would you rejoice to see the practice of virtue become so very sweet and easy? Begin therefore at present to accustom yourself thereunto: “It is better to begin late than never.” - Undertake to do your ordinary actions well, since this is of so great consequence; and if it be necessary, make this the matter of your particular examen, since you can never choose a better or a more profitable one: and thus you will gain a great facility, and will feel very great delight in performing

all your actions well.

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