Volume II, Treatise V, Chapter II

That a Religious Ought to Avoid, Far as in His Power, Visits from His Relations, and Correspondence with Them by Letters

A qaoop religious, who truly takes to heart the service of God, and - his spiritual] advancement, and thinks, as he ought to do, why he entered into religion, must not only abstain from visiting his relations, but must also, as much as he can, deprive himself of their conversation, hindering them from visiting him. St. Ephraim says, we must try to oblige them to reducé their visits to one or two at most in the year. And adds, moreover, “if you can quite free yourself from so unprofitable a conversation, you will still do much better.”—-(Tract. de van. Doctr. c. 35.) He calls this conversation unprofitable not without reason, and St. Ignatius, in his Constitution, calls it so too; and it is not only unprofitable but dangerous also, as we have already said; whereas, God has been pleased to shew, by the examples of his saints and miracles, how pleasing to him the refusal to see our relations, and our coldness toward them in the like occasions, have been to his Divine Majesty.

It is related in the Spiritual Meadow, that a holy Anchoret, called Syriacus, hearing a knock at the door of his cell, and knowing they were his parents that came to visit him, betook himself presently to prayer, to beg of God that they might not be able to see him; which being done, he opens the door, passes through the midst of them, without their seeing him, and retired a great way farther into the desert; nor would he return home till he understood they were gone. Surius relates of St. Pacomius, that his sister coming to visit him, to know how he did; he bade the porter of the monastery tell her he was very well, and that she might return home in peace; and this refusal of his touching her no less than that of Theodore did his mother, she shut herself up in a convent not far from her brother, as the other did; and there spent the rest of her days in a most holy manner.

But a good religious ought not only to avoid seeing his relations, but must, as much as he can, abstain from having any communication with them by letters; since this commerce is only calculated to give him disquiet and trouble. Now, as by paying no visits to them, he receives none from them: so by not writing to them, he will receive no letters from them. “If you understand,’’ says Thomas-4-Kempis, “how to leave men to do their own business, they will leave you at liberty to do yours.” All consists in your will to do this; because if you have a mind to do it, you will find means enough. We have already left our country, our home, and our relations, for the love of God; let us accomplish the work—let us endeavour to forget them, that being thus disengaged from all earthly things, we may think of nothing else but of loving and serving God.

Cassian makes mention of a hermit, who was very much devoted to prayer and contemplation, andthe better to attend to it, he endeavoured to keep his heart continually withdrawn from all worldly thoughts. At the end of fifteen years’ retreat, there came a great packet of letters to him from home. As soon as he had the letters in his hand, he began to think, and say within himself, if I open these letters what thoughts will they not give. me? How many different emotions will they excite in my heart, either of joy, if my parents be in prosperity; or of sadness, if I find any misfortune has happened to them? How long will my imagination be filled with the thoughts of those that write to me? What trouble, what distraction will they cause in the time of prayer and meditation? Their features, the things which they have heretofore told me, and those which they now write, will continually come into my mind. How long will it be, before I shall be able to efface these images, which they will cause in my imagination? What pain shall I have to regain that tranquillity and peace of mind I now enjoy, together with that profound forgetfulness I now have, of all worldly objects? Lastly, what will it avail me to have quitted my parents, if my heart and imagination be still with them, and if I begin again to feel satisfaction in their conversation? Whilst he was thus agitated, and disturbed in mind, he takes the packet just as he had received it, and cast it into the fire, saying, “begone ye thoughts and tenderness for my home and relations, go and be consumed with my letters in the fire, that ye may never be able to prevail with me, to return any more to those things I have already forsaken.”—(Cas, L. v. de inst. renunt. c. 32.) Nay, he would not only forbear, reading the letters that were sent him, but would not so much as open the packet, to see the superscriptions, lest coming to know their hands, “that” might give him such remembrance of them, as would disturb his interior peace and tranquillity. They relate the same thing of St. Ignatius; and those who do not content themselves with once reading the letters they receive, but keep them to read them over again, to call to mind their parenta, and entertain themselves with the thoughts of them, ought to profit by this example. But if we have not so much courage as to burn them before we read them, let us at least do so after we have read them, in order to free ourselves from those thoughts of flesh and blood, which serve only to diquiet us.

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