Volume II, Treatise I, Chapter V

That Our Advancement in Perfection Depends Upon Mortification

THE knowledge of this truth, now proposed, has caused the masters of a spiritual life to affirm, that our advancement in perfection. depends upon mortification. ‘You will not be able to make any progress in virtue,” says St. Jerom, “‘ without using violence to yourself.” —(Imit. Christ. i. 3. c. 23. Hier. in illud.) And explaining that passage in Job, “wisdom is not found in the land of those that live at ease and repose,” (Job 28:18) that is to say, of | those who live according to their own will—he declares, that as we ordinarily say arable land rests when we let it bear what it will, which is commonly nothing else but thorns and thistles; and, on the contrary, when we make it bear corn, we say that it labours; so when a man lives after his own will and fancy, we say he leads an easy and idle life. Bute it is not in fallow ground of this sort that wisdom grows. No! it is in land which is highly cultivated—in the land of such as mortify themselves, and renounce their sensual appetites. It is this mortification, this renouncing of ourselves, which the saints look upon as the rule and measure of our spiritual advancement. Would you therefore know what progress you have made in virtue? Examine what you have done to mortify yourself—what victory you have gained over your ‘passions—how you are disposed, in point of patience and humility; whether you have an aversion to things of this world; whether the affections of flesh and blood are mortified and dead in you. It is in this, and not in sweetness and consolation in prayer, that you will see whether you have advanced or not. St. Ignatius was of this sentiment; he made greater account of mortification than of prayer; and it was from their mortification that he framed his judgment of every man’s advancement. And St. Francis Borgia, when any one extolled or commended another to him as a saint— “he will be so indeed,” says he, “if he be truly mortified.” Blosius compares a mortified servant of God to a ripe bunch of grapes, which is sweet and pleasing to the taste; and he that is not mortified, to a bunch of wild grapes, which is sharp and sour, according to the words of the prophet Isaias: ‘I expected from my vine that it should yield me good grapes, to make wine, and it has given me only wild grapes.”—(Isa. v. 4). The difference there is between the children of God, and the children of the world, is, that these follow the motions of their passions, and think not of mortifying their bodies: “but those that are of Jesus Christ, have crucified their flesh, with their vicious desires and inclinations, and are not guided but by the spirit which gives them life.” —(Galat. v. 24.

It 2 true that Christian perfection does not essentially consist in mortification, but in the love of God: and man is not perfect till he ’ is united to God by the bond of love. But as a stone which is raised from the ground falls back again to its centre, as soon as that is taken away which hinders it from its natural inclination of falling back; so, no sooner is our soul, which is a spiritual substance and created for God, freed from the impediment of its passions, and from all other things that miserably fasten it to the earth, but it presently raises itself unto God as to its end and centre, and by the assistance of his grace unites itself unto him by charity. “All things,” says St. Austin, “move according to their bias; light things move upwards, and heavy things downwards.”—(Confess. lib. 13. cap. 9. But what bias causes in natural bodies, love occasions in reasonable creatures. “My love is my moving principle, and I am carried to that to which it carries me.”—-(S. Aug. Ibid.) And, as natural things move according to the natural principle that moves them, so rational creatures move according to that love and passion that is predominant in them. So that if the love of earthly things, if the desire of being honoured and esteemed, - if the desire of doing our own will, and of enjoying our ease, predominates in us, all our motions and desires will become sensual, and will carry us towards the earth. But, if by mortification, we free ourselves from sensual things, the love of our Creator will prevail within us, it will be our moving principle; and then our heart will, with a far swifter motion, elevate itself to God, than a stone falls to its centre. ‘ You have made us for yourself, O God, and our heart can never enjoy any repose but in you.”—(Aug. Cod. c. 5). Behold, therefore, the reason why the saints affirm that mortification is the measure of our advancement in Christian perfection. For he who is very much mortified, is also very much touched and inflamed with the love of God, and will consequently become perfect.

St. Austin, upon those words of the Psalmist:—“As the hart pants and seeks after the fountains of water, so does my soul seek after thee, O Lord,” (Psalms 41:2), says, that the hart tramples under foot and kills all the serpents he meets with, when he seeks after water; but having killed them, he finds his thirst augmented, and runs so much the swifter to seek water. Still applying the simile, he says, Would you know why you thirst not very much after your perfection, and after the love of God? it is because you do not, like the hart, destroy those serpents that standin your way. Your vices are the serpents—you must destroy these serpents of iniquity; and then you will ran with fervour to the fountain of truth and life. We cannot advance in perfection and the love of God, but in proportion to our advancement in mortification. The diminution of concupiscence, says he, in another place, is the increase of charity, and the greatest perfection consists in having our concupiscence quite extinguished. As gold is purified and refined, according as the bad alloy of other metals is consumed; so0 charity and the love of God grows more perfect in us, and is augmented, as the love or the world and of ourselves is diminished. And when this inordinate love shall quite be extinguished and destroyed, then the love of God will be wholly perfected in us.

Cassian relates, “that John, the abbot, being upon his death bed, which was surrounded by his disciples, as by children about the bed of their dying father, they earnestly begged of him to give them the comfort of some short document for their spiritual advancement, to leave behind him as a spiritual legacy, that might help them with greater facility to ascend to the height of perfection. ‘I have never,’ says hesmiling, ‘done my own will, nor ever taught anything to another, that I have not first practised myself’”—(Lib. 5 de renunt. c. 28).

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