Volume III, Treatise VII, Chapter II

That Great Comfort and Repose of Mind Is Produced by Keeping Nothing Hid from Our Superior or Ghostly Father: of Several Other Advantages Derived from This Practice

St. Amprose, St. Austin, and St. Bernard say, that one of the greatest comforts a man can have in this life, is to have a faithful friend, in whose bosom we can securely repose whatsoever

gives him any trouble, and in general all the secrets of his heart. “A faithful friend”, says the wise man, “is a remedy against all the evils of this life’ (Ecclesiasticus 6:16) And St. Austin says, there is nothing equal to a friend, who can comfort us in our afflictions, give us counsel in our doubts, rejoice with us in our prosperity, and relieve us in our necessities. ‘ Whoever has found such a one”, says the wise man, “has found a treasure” (Ecclesiasticus 6:14) But shall I call it only a treasure? ‘There is nothing”, adds he, “comparable to a faithful friend, the excellency of whose fidelity exceeds all the gold and silver in the world” (Ecclesiasticus 6:15) Now this advantage, which is above all the riches of the Earth, God has bestowed upon the society, by giving each of us a friend of this nature im the person of our superior, who is at once our spiritual father, our master, our physician, our brother, and our mother, and who has greater tenderness for us than a mother can have for her child, for our © superior makes our business his own. Endeavour then to avail yourself of such a friend in faithfully laying open your heart unto him, according to the counsel of the wise man—“If thou seest a prudent man, have recourse to him, and let thy feet wear out the steps of his gates”’ (Ecclesiasticus 6:36) Communicate to him all your affairs and all your thoughts, and you will find in him all the comfort, all the counsel, and all the aid you stand in need of. As it is a very great ease to the minds of all persons to have given a good account of their disease to the physician who is in care of them, so it is a great satisfaction to the afflicted to be able freely to discover their pains to him from whom they expect comfort and assistance.

One of the means pointed out by moral philosophy for finding comfort in affliction is to discover our pain to some person or other. St. Thomas proposes this when speaking of sadness; and the reason he gives for it is, that when we wish to keep all our, © grief within ourselves, it draws our attention more violently to it, and thereby the sense of our grief becomes more lively, whereas when we discover it, it becomes less, because then our attention is divided and our heart is eased by dilating itself. Experience daily teaches us this truth; for do we not daily meet with people who tell us they find ease in relating their afflictions? The holy abbot Nilus, disciple of St. Chrysostom, says, that this remedy was very much in use amongst the ancient fathers, who made use of the following comparison the better to authorise its practice: Have you not taken notice, say they, that when the clouds are full of water, they are black and obscure, and the more water falls from them, and the more they discharge themselves, the clearer also they become? The same also happens in those disquiets of mind and temptations which a religious suffers. The more he keeps them to himself, the more pensive, troubled, and melancholy he is. But when he frees himself from them by discovering them to his superior, he feels, according to the measure that he discovers them, the black vapours of sadness and disquiet to be dissipated; and in fine, in freeing himself from that which put him into so melancholy a humour, he resumes his former joy and tranquillity.

St. Dorotheus relates of himself, that when he had given an account of the state of his soul to his ghostly father, he felt within himself such peace of mind that sometimes he was afraid it was a bad sign; ‘ because”, as the Scripture says, “we must enter into the kingdom of Heaven by many tribulations” (Acts 14:21),—and finding nothing but joy and sweetness, he feared that he had reason to doubt whether he were in the right way to Heaven. But he was relieved from his anxiety by the abbot John, whom he consulted in this affair, and who told him that the peace and interior satisfaction he enjoyed was promised to those that hide nothing from their ghostly father.

This point is of so great importance that St. Ignatius, not content with earnestly recommending it to us, as I have already said, expressed his wish that superiors should accustom themselves to speak often to their religious; because, besides many other good effects produced by such conversation, it would give their subjects confidence to accost them more freely and to open their hearts unto them. Moreover, for the greater satisfaction of all his religious, he ordered that in every college of his society there should be a prefect of spiritual things, to whom each one for his comfort and direction of conscience might address himself in his necessities. We see, says Cassian, that human sciences, having in view no other object than temporal advantages, and in which nothing but sensible and palpable things are treated of, can never be well understood if we put not ourselves under some master to learn them. How then can any one imagine that there is no necessity of a master in the science of salvation and of spiritual advancement, since it is so hidden and spiritual a science, that the means of obtaining it are not exposed to corporal eyes, and that even those of our soul cannot discover them without great purity of heart? In other sciences we risk only some temporal advantage if we succeed not therein, and it is a thing that otherwise may be easily repaired, but here salvation or damnation depends upon the good or bad success. Here we are not to fight against visible but invisible enemies— not against one or two, but against legions of devils, who cease neither day nor night to make war upon us. And hence, continues Cassian, we cannot do better than to have recourse to our ghostly fathers, by discovering to them whatsoever passes in our souls, that they may assist and conduct us by their counsels, But, setting all this apart, the very subjects for which we usually address ourselves to the prefect of spiritual things show of how great profit it is that in each house there should be one to whom we may have recourse. For when we address ourselves to him it is to give him an account, for example, how we make our prayer, the method we observe in it, the fruit we reap from it, and with what care we observe the additions and other rules prescribed about prayer. It is to consult him about the subject we should choose for our particular examen, and about the number of faults we have set down therein—the difference we find between the number we have marked in the morning and that of the afternoon; it is to inform him of our spiritual reading and of the profit we make thereby; and, in fine, it is to discover to him the temptations we have, and how we behave therein, the penances, the public or private mortifications we practise, and how we behave with respect to obedience, resignation, humility, observance of rules, and all other things of the like nature. And our knowing that we must give this account, is a means without doubt to help us to keep ourselves in a better disposition to give a good one. It is certain also that the esteem which we perceive is had of anything, ordinarily moves us to make a greater account of it; and consequently when I perceive that I must be asked and examined on matters, they become more considerable to me, which is the reason that if I have once committed a fault herein, I take care not to commit the like for the future. Moreover, according to the opinion of saints and divines, as confession is a great bridle to hinder men from falling into sin, so it is a great bridle to a religious person to hinder him from falling into many faults and imperfections, to reflect upon the obligation of his giving an account of them to his ghostly father. This advantage of confession has been moreover so apparent even to heretics themselves, that perceiving that in those places in Germany which had left it off, they were all filled with disorder, and that no one was in security, they begged of Charles — the Fifth that he would issue an edict to oblige all to go to confession. The emperor could not but smile at this petition, yet remarked at the same time the necessity people had of confession, and the ignorance of those who had recourse to him upon this subject, as if it had been in his power to make a law about this matter.

But to continue the comparison I have before mentioned, it is certain that frequent confession is the best means we can furnish a Christian with in order to save his soul. For besides the grace which is annexed to this sacrament, and the remission of sins obtained thereby, it is certain that it comprehends all the remedies and all the counsels of a Christian life. Hence, when we would move a worldly person to take care of his spiritual advancement, we counsel him to say his beads often, to hear mass every day, to hear the word of God, to examine his conscience, to practise penance, and to let no day pass without doing some one or other of these things; but to affix the seal to all, we propose to him to go often to confession, and to an able confessor; and we believe that hereby we have given him all spiritual remedies together, and that we have said all that can be said, and all that is necessary for him to be told; for if he does what we have counselled him, his confessor will not fail every eighth or fifteenth day, or at least every month, to furnish him with several spiritual remedies which we shall either not be able to give him, or at least not be able to persuade him to practise on a sudden, and he will also take care to exact an account of the use he makes of his counsels; it is this good confessors ought to perform; they ought always: take care that their penitents continually increase in virtue. And it is for this reason that masters of a spiritual life counsel to have always one constant and fixed confessor; because, to confess this day to one, and to-morrow to another, is not the way to make progress in perfection. Now, as all the remedies of a Christian life are comprised in confession, so all the means that can be given to a religious for his spiritual advancement, are comprised in the obligation of rendering an account of his conscience, because the superior or the prefect of spirit, who is appointed to hear you, sees thereby the profit you make in prayer, examens, and spiritual reading. He sees how you resist temptations, how you overcome your passions and bad habits; he sees how you are disposed to the observing of silence, humility, and resignation, and whether you advance or recede in virtue, and regulates his remedies and instructions according to the necessity you are in and to the disposition of your soul, reprehending you for your defects in your duties, and encouraging you in the performance of them. When all this is done with a due spirit of sweetness and charity, and as it is effectually practised amongst us, and when you perceive that they seek nothing herein but your good and spiritual advancement, it is impossible but this means should be of wonderful profit and advantage.

About ReligiousBookshelf.com · A Supernerd Media project