Volume II, Treatise II, Chapter II

How Necessary Modesty Is for Our Own Particular Advancement

Ir is the common opinion of holy men, that modesty and a guard over our senses, are among the chief means left us to advance in virtue, inasmuch as they highly contribute to interior recollection, For our senses are the gates by which all evil enters our into hearta, and therefore ought to be well guarded, that our hearts may be in greater security. St. Jerom upon the words of Job: “Are not the gates of death open to you, and have you not seen the doors of darkness?” (Job 38:17), says, that our senses are the gates of death, and that sin, which is the death of the soul, enters by them, ag the prophet Jeremias affirms: “Death ascends by our windows” (Jerem. ix. 21); and he moreover adds, that they are called the doors of darkness, because they give entrance to the night of sin. St. Gregory is of the same opinion, and this axiom in philosophy, “there is nothing in the understanding which has not first passed through the senses,” is frequently quoted by holy men for a proof of this. When the gates of a house are shut and well guarded, all within doors is secure; but if they are left open and no one appointed to look to them, so that all people may go in and out at pleasure, it is unsafe to be in that house; at least, no one can be secure or quiet, while so many go in and out every moment, Wherefore we see that those who take care to secure the gates of their senses, live devoutly, and enjoy the blessings of an interior peace; but on the contrary, such as are negligent in this affair, never enjoy true peace and quiet in their souls. Hence the wise man advises us “to use all possible diligence in defending our heart, because it ig the fountain of life.”—{(Proverbs 4:23)) St. Gregory is of opinion, that a guard upon our senses is the best defence of our heart; for, says he, “We must not give leave to our senses to sally out, if we desire to preserve purity of heart.”’—- (In Job. lib. ii.) St. Dorotheus bids us “never to accustom our eyes to look here and there upon vain and unprofitable objects, which only serve to divert our thoughts from being better employed, and to render them unprofitable.”—(Ser. xxii.) If we are not diligent in watching our senses, we shall easily lose all the stock we have spent s0 much time and pains in treasuring up, and in the end find our hands empty; as a short negligence destroys both God’s grace and our own painful endeavours. “Avoid much. speaking,” says St. Dorotheus, “as the very bane of pious thoughts and divine inspirations.”—(Ser. xxx.) ‘Silence and quiet,” says St. Bernard, “do with a very sweet kind of necessity force us to meditate upon heavenly things after, we are once freed from the noise and bustle of the busy world.” —(Ep. 378.) The same saint says in another place, that modest and downcast eyes make the heart look up to God; and we find by daily experience that the more we guard our eyes, the more we improve in devotion, and the greater is our interior recollection.

It was for this reason, as Cassian assures us, that the fathers of the desert said, that one should be blind, deaf, and dumb, to acquire true perfection, to keep a pure heart, and to live interiorly recollected; for in this case nothing could be able to sully or defile the soul, which would hereby be disengaged and more free to converse with God. Here you will ask me, how can blindness, deafness, or dumbness suit us, who being so much engaged in conversing with our neighbour, are consequently obliged to hear and see many more things than we desire? The remedy is, that we are to see them as if we did not see them; and to hear as if we did not hear; nothing that is either heard or seen must be permitted to dwell one moment in our hearts, but must be immediately chased away. On this subject, St. Ephrem relates, that a monk asked an old father what he should do, as his abbot appointed him to go every day to the bake-house, to assist the baker; where he met with some young people, whose conversation was disedifying and licentious? The old father answered him thus; have you not seen a great many boys in a school, and observed the noise they made in getting their lessons by heart, which they were to say to their master? Every one there only minds his ownlesson, that being what he is to give an account of, and troubles not himself with another’s. Do you the same; do not be in pain for what others do or say, but mind your own duty; since Almighty God will call you to account for that only.

It is said, that St. Bernard was so strongly united to God, that he saw without seeing, and heard without hearing. Nay, he seemed even to have lost the use of his senses; since he did not know whether the floor of his cell, in which he had lived the year of his noviceship, was made of boards or of bricks, There were three glass windows in the church, yet he never perceived more than one. He had walked almost a whole day by the side of a lake with some other religious, who speaking to him of it, he asked them what lake they meant, for he had seen none that day? The same is related of Abbot Palladius, who lived twenty years in the same cell, without ever looking up to the roof of it. In the same manner, whilst we converse with the world, in order to procure the neighbour’s salvation, we should be blind, deaf, and dumb; and thus ° whatsoever should offer itself to our eyes or ears, would not in the least hinder our spiritual advancement.

About ReligiousBookshelf.com · A Supernerd Media project