Volume III, Treatise I, Chapter VIII

Of the Means to Produce Fruit in Souls. —of Sanctity of Life, Which Is the First Means

I sHALL speak at present of some general means which may help “us to produce fruit in souls, and which are set down in the seventh part of our constitutions; and I shall not touch on the other particular means which are mentioned in the fourth part, and which properly regard such religious as are already priests. But though what I propose here to speak of, seems chiefly to regard the salvation and spiritual advancement of our neighbour, yet it fails not also to regard our own advancement and salvation. For these two things, as I have already said in the beginning of this

+ treatise, are so linked together, that what serves for the spiritual. advancement of our neighbour serves also for our own; and what serves for our own, serves also for that of our neighbour: so that — what I shall say on this subject may be of equal profit to all persons. The first means that St. Ignatius recommends to us to make use of for the advancement of souls, is that of good example and sanctity of life.. “In the first place”, says he, “the good example which we give by leading a most holy and Christian life, has great power over the minds of men; wherefore we ought to take care to edify our neighbour as much or more by our actions than by our words” —4 P. Constit. c. 8. In effect the most efficacious and most proper means to produce much fruit in souls, is to lead a holy and irreproachable life, and to be such ourselves as we would have others to be; for, as a tree, the larger it grows, the more fruit and profit it brings to its master; so the more progress a preacher or a confessor makes in virtue, the more he renders himself profitable to those of whom God has given him {He care and direction.

Now the importance and necessity of this means is easily perceived, inasmuch as it is certain that example has more power over men than all the words in-the world; and it was for this reason that the Saviour of souls taught us the way to Heaven by ’ his actions, before he taught it us by his words. Jesus Christ, says St. Luke, “began to do and to teach” (Acts 1:1) He vouchsafed to practise for thirty years together what he was to teach in three. St. John Baptist, says St. Jerom, made choice of a retreat in the desert to make known the kingdom of God, and calls himself “the voice of him that cries in the desert”- (John 1:23) But how comes it to pass, says this father, that the. preacher and precursor of Jesus Christ made choice of the desert to preach in? for the desert seems a place more proper for being neither seen nor heard in than a place wherein to instruct others. It is, answers the saint, because he knew very well that example moves more than words, and therefore he would, by the example of the austerity of his life, move men to bring forth fruits worthy of penance, and to imitate what he practised. “He was”, says the gospel, “a shining light that burned and enlightened” (John 5:85): he burned within himself with the love of God, and he enlightened others by the example of his holy and penitential life.

It is a saying of Seneca, which is repeated by all people, s6 “that the way to virtue is shorter by example than by precept;

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because men more easily believe what’ they see’ than’ what ‘they hear”. St. Bernard gives us another-reesonfor it: “Example”, says he, “is a very efficacious and a very proper lesson te yersuade, because it shows that what it teaches is feasible, and this is what has most influence on us”. Man’s weakness is so great, says St. Austin, that one is very hardly moved to do what is good, unless he sees others do it; and hence it extremely imports preachers of the gospel to be holy men, that their auditors may have in them a model to imitate. The apostle knew very well this truth, and how great the power of example was, when he said to the Corinthians, ‘be ye imitators of me, as I am of Jesus Christ”—I. Cor., iv. 16.

Add to this, that when the life of a preacher is conformable to his doctrine, what he says has more weight, because they perceive he himself is the first who is convinced of it; whereas when his actions do not correspond to his words, these can never make any impression. |

St. Basil and St. Chrysostom, speaking of those who preach only by their words, say that they are not true preachers, but only comedians, who act their parts upon the stage, and who possess nothing of what they represent. You represent humility very well in the exterior; you represent also very well the vanity of the things of the world, and the contempt that ought to be had of them; but if you are not really humble, if you do not truly contemn whatsoever may any way separate you from God, you are not a preacher of the gospel, you are a comedian who only act your part. St. Basil compares them also to, painters, who, — though they are ugly: themselves, yet fail not to make and paint very beautiful pictures; so these, says he, paint humility in its true shape and colours, but they themselves are filled with vanity and pride; they make beautiful pictures of patience, but impatience and anger transport them every moment; they make beautiful pictures of modesty, recollection, and silence, but they are continually dissipated and distracted by a thousand~-frivolous objects. St. Austin compares them to finger-posts, which are set to show the road, and which always remain in the same place. And this, says he, is what the scribes and pharisees did; they showed the sages the way to Bethlehem, but they themselves went not thither with them. St. Jerom, writing upon these words of the Proverbs: “The slothful man hides his hand under his arm-pit, and it is’a pain to him to raise it to his mouth”’— Prov.; d xkvict5 bdays that the slothful of whom the wise man speaks, | wa ¢ eure of-@ preacher that practises not what he 8a z, aod whe se aptions ‘agnep not with his words. St. Gregory anzen sdys that those who preach not by their actions as well as by their words, draw souls to them with one hand, and drive them away with the other; they build with one hand, and pull down with the other, as the scribes and pharisees did, whom the Son of God severely reprehends in the gospel. Woe be to those who practise not what they preach; they touch not the heart, they produce no fruit at all by their discourse: “But he who does and teaches, he”, says our Saviour, “shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:19) It is only apostolical preachers, who practise what they teach, that touch and move the heart, and produce great fruit in souls. It is only the sanctity of their lives, attracting to them the veneration of all the world, that makes them be considered rather as angels than as men, and hence all they say is received as coming from Heaven, and consequently makes a deeper and more lively impression upon the heart. Thus the apostle orders the labourers in our Lord’s vineyard to lead an irreproachable life; to be irreprehensible in their words and actions, and to be an example of all sorts of virtue to the whole world, that by this means their doctrine may more deeply penetrate the hearts of men, and destroy whatsoever it finds there contrary to Jesus Christ.

We must begin, then, with sanctity of life, in order to render ourselves useful in saving souls. First, because good example has great influence; and secondly, because if we wish to be fit instruments in bringing forth much fruit in our neighbour, we must beforehand have brought forth much fruit in ourselves, and have made great progress in virtue. St, Ignatius, in the tenth part of his constitutions, speaking of the means of attaining the end for which the society was instituted, which is the help of souls, says, that the means which dispose us for this effect in regard to God, and whereby we put ourselves into his hands that he may do with us what he pleases—such as piety and all other Christian virtues—are means far more proper than those which dispose us in regard to the world, such as sciences and other natural means, and therefore it is upon the first that we ought chiefly insist. Let all, says he, give themselves to spiritual things and solid virtue, and rely chiefly thereupon, because these are the interior gifts of grace which give force and efficacy to.

sciences and natural talents, and render them useful for the end’ we have proposed to ourselves. The reason of this is very plain, it is that if indeed we have only human views, human prudence and other human means may suffice for success; but the conversion and sanctification of souls, which is the end we propose to ourselves, being a divine and supernatural end, which has no proportion or relation to any human means we can make use of, and which can only be the work of God, it is certain that we cannot compass this end but by divine and supernatural means, | He who said in the beginning of the creation of the world, “Let there be light, and there was light” (Genesis 1:3); ‘whose words are like fire, and who has the words of everlasting life’ (Jeremias 23:29); he only can give such efficacy to our words and discourses as is able to give new life to souls. Hence the more we shall be united to him, the fitter instruments we shall become to convert and sanctify them, because then we shall be in a better state to draw his graces unto us, and consequently to communicate them to others.

St. Denis, speaking of the sanctity and perfection which priests and ministers of the Gospel pught to have, whom God has chosen to be the dispensers both of his blood and of his word, says, “that they ought to be saints to sanctify others; perfect, that they may render others so; and enlightened, that they may illuminate the faithful by their light”. They ought to be inflamed with the love of God, that they may inflame others, because, as St. Gregory says, ““he who burns not cannot set another on fire”; which is conformable to the words that St. Thomas of Villanova was wont to repeat very often: How is it possible that from a congealed heart inflamed words should proceed? Would you have your words inflame your neighbour? Endeavour that they proceed from a heart inflamed with divine love, and then it will happen that you shall communicate to all the world that fire which the Son of God came to bring upon Earth. ‘TI came to set the Earth on fire, and what do I desire but that it should burn?”— (Luke 12:49) Then it will happen that one word of yours shall have greater effect than all that you could be able to say at another time.

Plato, speaking of the virtue of the loadstone, makes a comparison in which he exceeded the bounds of his knowledge. He says that, as iron touched with the loadstone attracts iron to it, s0 a man touched by God draws other men to him; but if your words be not those of a man touched by God, how can they be able to draw other men to God? And how can you be able to inflame others with the love of God, if you be not first inflamed yourself? Does not rhetoric itself teach us that there is not a better means to excite any passion in the heart of others than first to excite it in our own? For how can an orator draw tears from his audience, if he sheds not a tear himself? It is the same here. How can you inspire the contempt of the world into “your auditors, if you do not truly contemn it yourself? How can you move them to ‘mortification and penance, if you are not yourself moved thereunto? And how can you render them humble, if you are not so yourself? We can never communicate that to another which we have not in ourselves, according to the common saying, “nobody gives what he has not”. How can you inspire into others those sentiments you have not yourself? Preachers who have nothing else but words are like pieces of cannon which are discharged without a bullet, the whole effect of which ends in making a great deal of noise with their words: “but this is only as it were to beat the air’—I. Cor., ix. 26. For in reality they touch the heart of no one, because they have not that within themselves with which they ought to touch others, and they have not the spirit of God, which alone can give weight and force to what they say.. The talent of preaching consists not in knowing how to use the arts of eloquence, and to speak of things that are very spiritual and very high; for it was not in this manner the vessel of election preached, whom God made choice of for the conversion of the gentiles. ‘And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not in loftiness of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of Christ. For I judged not myself to know any thing among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling: and my speech and my preaching was not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the showing of the spirit and power: that your faith might not stand on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel: not with wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ should be made void”—I. Cor., ii. 1—5; i.17. Ecclesiastical history praises-very much the ancient fathers, who, contemning the vain ornaments of eloquence, contented themselves to give holy instructions to the people, and to.apply such remedies to the spiritual maladies of their hearers as would be most proper for them. We ought to do the same in our sermons; ‘‘ because we preach not ourselves”, says the apostle, “but Jesus Christ our Lord’—II. Cor., iv. 5. And without doubt such preachers as wish to display their erudition and eloquence, will for two reasons produce very little fruit. First, for the reason I have already spoken of, which is, that those few or their hearers who have sense, know very well that he who preaches in this manner admires himself in all that he says, and seeks more to make his eloquence appear, and to gain their applause, than to instruct and procure their salvation. “In the second place, because this very eloquence and selection of words will hinder what they say from producing fruit; and thus the more care will appear to be taken in selecting their language, the less persuasive will it be. Besfdes, do not even professors-of rhetoric say, that the sense languishes in a discourse wherein too much care is bestowed on the words? By this, they mean that too great application to the choice of words cools the imagination and renders it less lively for the production of things; and hereby they would have us likewise understand that affectation in words diverts the auditors from that attention they ought to have to the truths that are said, and causes them, instead of attending to what a preacher says, to think of she manner in which he says it. If masters of rhetoric look upon this affectation as a great fault in an orator, with how far greater reason ought it not to be blamed in a preacher of the gospel, who ought to think only of the spiritual profit of his auditors? ‘It is for profit”, says.the apostle, “that the manifestation of the spirit of God is given to every one’—I. Cor., xii. 7; and therefore a preacher ought never regard any thing else but the profit and advantage of souls. ‘ Preach”, says St. Jerom, “after such a manner that the church may reécho with the sighs and sobs of the audience, rather than with their acclamations, and that their tears may become your praises’”—Zp. ii. ad Nep. A man is not a good preacher because he is applauded, nor because on leaving the church the people say of him: “No man ever spoke like him—what fine things he said—how elegantly he said them”. _ No; but he preaches well, who excites in his audience a sincere compunction—who makes them weep for their sins, and who makes them change their lives. The talents of a preacher consist chiefly in touching the heart; in showing his hearers the vanities of the world; in making them comprehend the misery of their disorders, and in moving them to turn to God with all their hearts. It is not to preach, said Father Avila, to be an hour speaking of God in public. It is not to do this alone that a man ascends the pulpit; but it is to convert his auditors, and to change into angels those who were before devils; behold here in what consists the talent of a good preacher. Another servant of God said, that when we go from a sermon with our eyes cast upon the ground, without speaking to any one, it is a sign the sermon was good and profitable, because it is a mark that each one fouhd in it what was adapted and advantageous to himself.

We read in the life of St. Francis of Borgia, that when he preached in Biscay, the greatest part of his audience heard not what he said; and this happened because the multitude of people was so great, that very few could come near the pulpit, as also because very few understood Castilian. Yet it was a wonderful thing to see the attention with which they listened to him, and the tears which they shed at his sermons; and when some were asked why they wept at his sermon,- since they understood not what he said, they answered that they wept, because they beheld so great a person that was become so great a saint, and because they felt within themselves @# divine inspiration that made them understand the sense of what the preacher spoke. At another time, when he was at Lisbon, he was no sooner arrived in town, than the Cardinal Don Henry, who was afterwards king of Portugal, sent to beg of him to preach: and the saint having excused himself, because he was extremely tired from his journey; I do not ask him to preach, says the cardinal, but only to go into the pulpit, and show himself to the people, that they may see him who has renounced all for God. Behold here in effect what produces fruit in souls, and what preaches most eloquently to the people—example and sanctity of life; and therefore it is to this that confessors, preachers, and all those whose employments have any relation.to their neighbour, ought chiefly to apply themselves, in order that God may make choice of them to be fit instruments for the salvation of souls.

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