Volume I, Treatise IV, Chapter IV

What This Union Is, Which We Ought to Have with Our Brethren

Sr. Basix and St. Austin, in order to explain what that union is which ought to be amongst religious, makes use of what St. Paul says, on the union and correspondence there is between the members of a man’s body. Behold, say they, how they serve and help one another. The eyes direct the feet, the hands defend the head, and all jointly endeavour to succour and help the weakest part, as experience sufficiently teaches us, when we have received a wound or any other hurt. In the distribution that is made of nourishment, each member receiyes so much as is necessary for it, and, leaves the remainder for the other members. Besides, there is such a sympathy between them, that the stomach, for example, cannot be out of order, but also the head suffers and feels for it. “All the members interest themselves one for another. The pain of one communicates itself to all the rest, and is no sooner cured but all the others are eased and comforted.” (1 Corinthians 12:25,26) St. Austin explains this admirably well. It happens, says he, that the foot treads upon a thorn: what is more remote from the eyes than the feet? It is indeed, by situation, very far off, but it is’very near by the mutual and charitable correspondence with all the rest of the members. Wherefore, as soon then as the foot is pricked with the thorn, the eyes presently go to find it out, the body stoops to facilitate their approach, the tongue asks where it is, and the hands endeavour to pull it out. Yet the eyes, the hand, the body, the head, and the tongue are all well, nothing ails them, and the foot itself is hurt only in one place. It is therefore because all the members are in pain one for another, and feel the pain the others suffer. See how we ought to conduct ourselves towards our brethren; we ought to have as great a care of them as we have of ourselves: that is, we must rejoice as much at their good fortune as at our own, and we must feel as much for their misfortunes and sufferings, as we do for our own.

St. Basil says that the two chief marks of the love of charity are, to be sorry, as well for the spiritual, as for the corporal sui> ferings of our neighbour; and to feel joy when anything fortunate happens to him, according to the words of the apostle: “Rejoice with those that rejoice, and weep with those that weep.” (Romans 12:15) In like manner, St. John Climacus says, that in order to try whether we truly love our neighbour, we must see whether or not we deplore the faults he commits, and rejoice at the grace and favours he receives from God, and at the progress we perceive he makes by corresponding with them. St. Angela was wont to say, that God had rewarded her with more and greater favours, after she had lamented the sins of her neighbour, than after she had deplored herown. But we are not hence to understand, that we ought in reality be touched with more sorrow for the sins of our neighbour, than for our own; but this exaggeration should convince us that charity towards the neighbour is most agreeable to Almighty God. The two effects it produces are,in St. Bernard’s opinion, the two breasts of the spouse, between which her beloved reposed: “And the one and the other,” says he, “have a proper and particular milk; the one of joy and congratulation, the other of sweetness and consolation.” (Ser. x. sup. (Canticle of Canticles 1:12))

But what is still to be considered in St. Paul’s comparison is, on the one hand, the diversity of members, their congruities, qualities, and different functions; and, on the other, their strict union, mutual correspondence, and the satisfaction which each one takes in its distinct use and employment, not at all envying the higher employments the other has. ‘Thus we ought to do— each of us ought to be content with the charge and employment we are in, without envying those that are in greater and more honourable offices. Moreover, as in the body, a superior or more noble member despises not the inferior, but, on the contrary, esteems, conserves, and helps it as much as it can, so those that are established in the chief employments of religion ought not to contemn, or to have a meaner opinion of those in inferior offices; but, on the contrary, they ought to esteem, and carefully assist them in their necessities, and consider them as members absolutely necessary. For ‘the eye cannot say to the hand, I ‘want not your help; nor the head, in like manner, say to the feet, I have no need of you; but those members that to us seem the most contemptible and the weakest, are in effect those that we stand most in need of.” Take notice, for example, how necessary our feet are, and to what distress we should be reduced, should we want them! And God, in his infinite wisdom, has disposed things in this-manner, “to the end,” says St. Paul, “‘ that there be no division nor disunion in the body.” (1 Corinthians 12:25) Itis the same in a religious body or community; one is ‘the head, another the eyes, and the head cannot say that it stands not in need of the hands, nor the eyes that they stand not in need of the feet. But it appears, on the contrary, that each one properly seems to be that we stand most in need of in religion; and without doubt the providence of God would have things disposed and ordered in this manner, that there might be no schism or division amongst us, and that we might always live in a strict union of minds, and in a perfect charity of hearts.

Behold here the model of a holy union and true fraternal charity; and hence we ought to learn to assist and serve one another, because there is no means more proper than this to conserve and augment this union; it being what the apostle St. Paul so earnestly recommends to us, when he says: “By charity of spirit serve one another.” (Galatians 5:13) Moreover, it is a most commendable thing in religious to be condescending, kind, and always ready to oblige every one, because by this we shew that we have the spirit of charity, humility, and mortification. But we shew quite the contrary when, through an unwillingness to mortify ourselves, or to suffer the least pain, or to lose a sin- _ gle moment of our pleasure, we cannot find in our heart to please our brethren, or accommodate ourselves to them. It is most certain, that in the action our Saviour did in washing his disciples’ feet, he would give us an example of humility; nay, even of such an active humility as applies itself to the exercise of charity towards our neighbour: “If then I have washed your feet,” says he, “I, who am your Lord and Master, you ought also to wash the feet of one another; forI have given you this example, that you do to one another as I have done unto you.” (John 13:14)

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