1. The consideration on the end of man serves as a commencement to the Exercises. It is called the foundation, because it is the basis of the whole spiritual edifice. It will be seen in the sequel that the other meditations are only a consequence of this and that it is upon this that all the success of the retreat depends.

It is necessary in this Exercise to know thoroughly the end for which God created us, to resolve generously to make sacrifice of everything that can divert us from this end, to look with indifference on everything but that which leads to it and even to carry our heroism so far as to choose whatever brings us to it most surely and rapidly, be the cost ever so great.

1. The object of this study is not precisely to excite gratitude toward God by recalling the benefits of creation; it is rather to show us the end for which we were created and to teach us to look upon the benefits of God as so many means for obtaining that end. Thus, even in this first meditation, the mind must concentrate its thoughts on itself and inquire what conduct has hitherto been observed, either with regard to the end or the means, the wanderings and errors into which we have been betrayed and how those creatures that should have been the means of raising us up to God, have been abused so as to separate us from Him. But the principal point is to impress well upon our minds the truth of our final end; for as the foundation of an edifice supports the whole building, so this first truth may be said to support all the others, in such manner that the success of the other meditations will be in proportion to the success of this.

2. The time to be given to this consideration has not been determined; but to render the beginning easier, each one is at liberty to devote the time most suited to his strength and his devotion, unless his director should have laid down some rule for him.

Man was created for a certain end. This end is to praise, to reverence and to serve the Lord his God and by this means to arrive at eternal salvation.

All the other beings and objects that surround us on the earth were created for the benefit of man and to be useful to him, as means to his final end; hence his obligation to use, or to abstain from the use of, these creatures,By the word creatures, St. Ignatius here means, in general, all things that are distinct from God and ourselves; all we find in nature, in society, as well as in the supernatural order; all events, all states of life, all the situations in which man finds himself from time to time. according as they bring him nearer to that end, or tend to separate him from it.

Hence we must above all endeavor to establish in ourselves a complete indifference toward all created things, though the use of them may not be otherwise forbidden; not giving, as far as depends on us, any preference to health over sickness, riches over poverty, honor over humiliation, a long life over a short. But we must desire and choose definitively in everything what will lead us to the end of our creation.

First Part of the Text: The End of Man

Text of St. Ignatius: Man was created for this end: to praise, reverence and serve the Lord his God and by this means to arrive at eternal salvation.

This meditation comprises three great truths that are the foundation of all the Exercises: I come from God; I belong to God; I am destined for God. That is to say, God is my first principle, my sovereign Master, my last end.

First Truth / I come from God

CONSIDERATIONS

1. Where was I a hundred years ago? I was nothing. If I look back a hundred years, I see the world with its empires, its cities, its inhabitants; I see the sun that shines today, the earth on which I dwell, the land that gave me birth, the family from which I sprung, the name by which I am known: but I—what was I and where was I? I was nothing, and it is amid nothingness I must be sought. Oh, how many ages passed during which no one thought of me! For how can nothing be the subject of thought? How many ages when even an insect or an atom was greater than I! For they possessed at least an existence.

2. But now I exist. I possess an intellect capable of knowing, a heart formed for loving, a body endowed with wonderful senses. And this existence, who gave it me? Chance?—Senseless word!—My parents? They answer in the words of the mother of the Machabees: “No, it was not I who gave you mind and soul; it was the Creator of the world” (2 Mach. 7:22). Lastly, was I the author of my own existence? But nothingness cannot be the cause of existence. It is to God, then, that I must turn as my first beginning. “Thy hands, O Lord, have made me and formed me” (Ps. 118:73). “Thou hast laid Thy hand upon me” (Ps. 138:5). Thou hast taken me from the abyss of nothing.

3. Consider, O my soul, the circumstances of thy creation.

(1) God created me out of His pure love. Had He any need of my existence, or could I be necessary to His happiness? “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” ( Jer. 31:3).

(2) God created me, and the decree of my creation is eternal like Himself. From eternity, then, God thought of me. I was yet in the abyss of nothingness, and God gave me a place in His thoughts! I was in His mind and in His heart. “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”

(3) God created me and in creating me preferred me to an infinite number of creatures who were equally possible to Him and who will forever remain in nothingness. O God, how have I deserved this preference! “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.”

(4) God created me and by creation made me the most noble of the creatures of the visible world. My soul is in His image, and all my being bears the stamp, the living stamp of His attributes.

(5) Lastly, God created me, and He has continued His creation during every moment of my existence. As many as are the hours and moments of my life, so often does He make me a fresh present of life.

AFFECTIONS

Sentiments of humility at the sight of our nothingness. “My substance is as nothing before Thee” (Ps. 38:6).

Sentiments of admiration. “What is man, that Thou shouldst magnify him? or why dost Thou set Thy heart upon him?” ( Job 8:17).

Sentiments of gratitude. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all He hath done for thee” (Ps. 102:1, 2).

Second Truth / I belong to God

CONSIDERATIONS

1. I come from God; hence, I belong to God. God is my creator; hence, He is my Lord and my Master. To deny this consequence would be to deny my reason.

2. The Lord enters into judgment with me and deigns to argue His rights at the bar of His creature. Is it not true that the master has a right to the services of his servants or of his slaves? Is it not true that the king has a right to the obedience of his subjects and the father to the submission as well as the respect of his children? Is it not true that the workman has a right to dispose of his work as he chooses? And I, the creature of God, do I not belong more to God than the slave to his master, than the subject to his sovereign, the child to his father, the picture to him who painted it, or the tree to him who planted it? Does not God possess over me all the rights of men over the creatures and in a higher degree and by more sacred titles? What is there in me that does not belong to Him and is not the fruit, so to say, of His own capital and therefore His property? “What have you that you have not received?” (1 Cor. 4:7). What would remain to me if God took back all that He has given me? If God took back my mind, what should I be?—On a level with the brute animals. If He deprived me of life and motion, what should I be?—A little dust and ashes. If He took away my substance and my whole being, what should I be?—A simple nothing. O my God! All I have comes from Thee; it is just that all in me should belong to Thee. “O Lord, just art Thou, and glorious in Thy power, and no one can overcome Thee. Let all creatures serve Thee: for Thou hast spoken, and they were made; Thou didst send forth Thy Spirit, and they were created” ( Jdth. 16:16, 17).

3. Consider, O my soul, the characteristics of the dominion of God.

(1) Essential dominion. It was not necessary that God should draw me from nothing. But since God has created me, it is necessary that I should be His. He would cease to be God if, being my creator, He ceased to be my sovereign and my master.

(2) Supreme dominion. I belong to God before everything and above everything. Properly speaking, I belong to God alone, and men have no other rights over me except such as God has given them. Their rights, then, are subordinate to the rights of God; and their authority must be always subjected to the authority of God.

(3) Absolute dominion. God can dispose of me according to His pleasure; He can give or take from me fortune, health, honor, life; my duty is to receive everything from His hand with submission and without complaint.

(4) Universal dominion. Everything in me is from God; therefore all in me belongs to God. The dominion of the Lord extends to all the stages of my life, to all the situations in which I may be placed, to all the faculties of my soul, all the senses of my body, to every hour and moment of my existence.

(5) Eternal dominion. The dominion of God is immortal, like myself; it begins with time and continues through eternity; death, which deprives men of all their rights, is unable to do anything against the rights of God.

(6) Irresistible dominion. We may escape the dominion of men; but how escape the dominion of God? Willing or unwilling, we must submit to it; we must either live under the empire of His love, or under that of His justice; either glorify His power by free obedience, or glorify it by inevitable punishment.

“O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, why hast thou made me thus?” (Rom. 9:20).

AFFECTIONS

1. Adoration. “Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honour and power; for Thou hast created all things” (Apoc. 4:11). “Come, let us adore and fall down before the Lord that made us; for He is the Lord our God” (Ps. 54:6, 7).

2. Regret. “Is this the return thou makest to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is not He thy father, that hath possessed thee, and made thee, and created thee? Thou hast forsaken the God that made thee, and hast forgotten the Lord that created thee” (Deut. 32:6, 18).

3. Submission. “O Lord, for I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant, and the son of Thy handmaid” (Ps. 115:16).

Third Truth / I am destined for God

CONSIDERATIONS

1. God is not only my creator and my master; He is also my last end. A God infinitely wise must have proposed to Himself an end in creating me; a God infinitely perfect could only have created me for His glory; that is to say, to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him.

2. O my soul! dost thou wish for a proof of this great truth?

(1) Ask thy faith; it will tell thee that God made all for Himself: “The Lord hath made all things for Himself” (Prov. 16:4). That He is the beginning and the end of all things: “I am the beginning and the end” (Apoc. 1:8). That the greatest of the commandments is to adore, to love and to serve God. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God”; “Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve” (Matt. 22:37, 4:10).

(2) Ask thy reason; it will tell thee that there must be some proportion between the faculties of man and their object. Hence there is nothing but the infinite perfections of God that can be the objects of a mind and heart craving with an intense desire to know and to love.

(3) Ask the creatures; they will tell thee, by their imperfection, their inconstancy, their weakness, in a word, by their nothingness, that they are far too insignificant to be the end of thy being. “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity, except to love God and to serve Him alone” (Imit. of Christ, bk. 1 ch. 1).

(4) Ask thy heart; it will tell thee that thou art formed for happiness and that thou requirest happiness without alloy, happiness without limits, an eternal happiness; that is, that thou requirest nothing less than God Himself.

(5) Ask thy own experience; it will tell thee why it is that, when thou hast been faithful in serving God, peace hast dwelt within thy breast; why it is that, when thou hast separated thyself from Him, thou hast felt nothing but disgust, emptiness, and remorse. Peace of heart is the fruit of order faithfully kept, faithfully observed. “We were made, O Lord, for Thee, and our heart is restless until it finds peace in Thee” (St. Augustine).

1. Thus my end is to know God, to love God, to serve God; this, therefore, is all my duty, all my greatness, all my happiness.

(1) All my duty. Yes, I must know, love and serve God. I must understand well this word, O my soul. I must be convinced that it is a real necessity. It is not necessary that I should possess talents, fortune, pleasures, an honorable position in society; it is not necessary that I should have a long life; it is not necessary that I should exist; but, supposing that I do exist, it is necessary that I should serve God. An intelligent creature that does not serve God is, in the world, what the sun would be if it ceased to shine, what our body would be if it ceased to move. It would be in the order of intelligence what a monster would be in the order of the bodily frame.

(2) All my greatness. I am not made for a mortal man; I am not made for myself; I am not made for an angel. An intelligent and immortal being, I am too great for a creature, however noble, to be my end. My end is that of the angel; is that of Jesus Christ; is that of God Himself. God does not exist, could not exist, except to know Himself and to love Himself; and I only exist, or could exist, to know and to love God.

(3) All my happiness. I cannot serve God in time without possessing Him in eternity. I cannot give myself wholly to God without His giving Himself wholly to me. “I am thy exceeding great reward” (Gen. 15:1). His glory and my happiness are inseparable. It is, then, a question of my eternal destiny, and I myself am the arbiter of it. O my soul! Picture to thyself on one side Heaven, with its ineffable delights; on the other Hell, with its fires and its despair; one or other will be thy eternal heritage, according as thou shalt have served or offended the Lord on earth. It is for thee to choose. “I call heaven and earth to witness this day that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose, therefore, life… that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and obey His voice, and adhere to Him, for He is thy life” (Deut. 30:19, 20).

AFFECTIONS

1. Sorrow for the past. “O God, Thou knowest my foolishness, and my offences are not hidden from Thee” (Ps. 68:6).

2. Contempt for creatures. “All those that go far from Thee shall perish: Thou hast destroyed all those that were disloyal to Thee. But it is good for me to adhere to my God” (Ps. 72:27, 28).

3. Love of God. “What have I in heaven? and beside Thee what do I desire upon earth? Thou art the God of my heart, and my portion for ever” (Ibid., 25, 26).

Continuation of the Development of the Principle of the Exercises

Second Part of the Text: End of Creatures

Text of St. Ignatius: All other beings or objects placed around man on earth have been created for him, to serve as means to assist him in the pursuit of the end for which he was created.

First Consideration / Creatures are from God

Creatures have the same origin as myself. They, like me, have been taken from nothing, and He who drew them from nothing was God; but what difference between their creation and that of man!

1. Like me, they occupied from all eternity the thoughts and heart of God; but they held only the second place. God loved me for Himself, because I was destined for His glory; He loved creatures for the sake of man, because they were destined for the use of man and because they only have reference to God distantly and through the medium of man.

2. Like me, creatures have received a being that is in some sort the efflux of His august perfections; but they have not, like me, the honor of being the living image of God and made in His likeness.

3. Like me, they were created for the glory of God: but they have neither the understanding to know Him nor the heart to love Him; they are incapable of possessing Him; they can only glorify Him in a very inferior and imperfect manner, that is, by the services that they render to His servants. “Know, O man, thy dignity” (St. Leo).

Second Consideration / Creatures belong to God

Creatures cannot have the same origin as myself without having the same master. They come, then, from God and belong to Him. God has the same dominion over them as over me. Hence conclude:

1. I must, then, make use of creatures with a spirit of dependence, according to the order of the Divine will, not as a master who disposes at his pleasure, but as a steward who must render an account to his lawful superior.

2. I must make use of creatures with a spirit of gratitude, like a poor man who of himself has no right to the use of the things of this world and who holds everything from the liberality of God to whom all belongs.

3. I must also make use of creatures with a spirit of fear; for on one side my corrupt nature constantly inclines me to the abuse of created things, and on the other, God will rigorously punish this abuse, which overthrows all the economy of creation.

Let me look back at the past. In what spirit have I made use of creatures up to this day? Has it not been in a spirit of independence? Almost always without consulting the will of God; often even contrary to the order of His adorable will. Has it not been with a spirit of ingratitude? O my God, when have I thought of raising my heart to Thee and thanking Thee for Thy gifts? Has it not been with a spirit of sensuality and of selfishness, only seeking myself and my pleasure in creatures, without thinking of the Divine justice, which will not fail to ask of me an account of so criminal an abuse? Let us accustom ourselves hence-forward to read on every creature these three words—“Receive, give, fear”; as if it should say, “Receive the blessing I offer you; give thanks to thy Creator for it; fear the judgment which will be passed upon you according to the use you have made of me” (Richard de St. Victor).

Third Consideration / Creatures are for God through the medium of man

Creatures were formed for an end as well as myself, and this end is the glory of God; for God could only create for His Glory. Creatures deprived of understanding are not made to glorify the Lord directly; they are made to serve man, who, in exchange for their services, must lend his intelligence and heart to praise and love God and thus make them to conduce to the glory of their common Creator. This, then, according to the light of faith and reason, is the order of my relations with God and with creatures. I am for God, and creatures for me. From this follows that I cannot, like worldlings, make creatures my end without making myself guilty and miserable.

To place my affections on creatures would be to render myself guilty—

1. Guilty toward myself, for it would be to degrade myself. “Such as the love of man is, such is he himself. Dost thou love the earth? thou art earth. Dost thou love God? What shall I say? thou art God” (St. Augustine).

2. Guilty toward creatures, for it would be to turn them away from their end and do violence to their nature. The Apostle tells us that they groan and suffer because sinners make use of them against God (Rom. 8:22); and a holy doctor represents them as raising their voices against the sinner and demanding vengeance. “All created things cry out, each according to their manner, and say: This is he who abused us. The earth says, Why must I bear upon me this monster? The water says, Why may I not instantly suffocate him? The air says, Why do I not deprive him of my benefits? Hell says, Why do not my flames devour and inflict on him a thousand tortures?” (St. Bonaventure).

3. Guilty toward God. Guilty of injustice, because I should thus use the beings that belong to Him contrary to His will; guilty of a species of idolatry, for I should take from Him the first place in my homage and substitute the creature in my thoughts and heart; guilty of a kind of impiety, for it would be to attack all His attributes: His goodness, which I should abuse; His wisdom, the plans of which I should derange; His power, which I should turn against Him.

To place my end in creatures would be to render myself miserable—miserable for eternity; I should lose at once both God, from whom I should be forever separated, and creatures, who would become my everlasting torment; miserable in time, for how can creatures constitute my happiness? Creatures whose being is so limited—what a void they would leave in my heart! Creatures so full of imperfections—what a source of disappointment and disgust! Creatures so fragile and perishable—what a source of regret! Creatures so inconstant, so unfaithful—what a source of distrust and fear! Creatures become my end, made the enemies of God—what a source of remorse!

Fourth Consideration / How creatures glorify God in leading man to God

I was made to know, to love, to serve and possess God: this is my end; now creatures teach me—

1. To know God. The order of the world reveals to me His wisdom: the stars announce His power—“The heavens show forth the glory of God” (Ps. 18:1); the ocean declares His immensity; the fertility of the earth praises His providence; the flowers of the field recall His beauty; the existence of the wicked even is a homage to His patience and His mercy. “Thou hast given me, O Lord, a delight in Thy doings: and in the works of Thy hands I shall rejoice. O Lord, how great are Thy works! The senseless man shall not know, nor will the fool understand these things” (Ps. 91:5–7).

2. To love God. It is the goodness of God that has bestowed them upon me; it is His love that works for me through each of His creatures; it is He who warms me by the light of the sun; it is He who nourishes me by the fruits of the earth; it is He who clothes me by the garments that cover me. A God who serves me by means of His creatures and serves me with so much constancy and so much goodness—what a motive to love Him! “The eyes of all hope in Thee, O Lord. All wait upon Thee that Thou give them their food in season. What Thou givest them, they gather up; when Thou openest Thy hand, they shall be filled with good” (Ps. 144:15, 103:27, 28).

3. To serve God. Consider, O my soul, how they do the will of their Creator. They do it with pleasure, says the Holy Spirit. “The stars have given light in their watches, and rejoiced: they were called, and they said, Here we are; and with cheerfulness they have shined forth to Him that made them” (Bar. 3:34, 35).

They do it with respect. “He sendeth forth light, and it goeth; it obeyeth Him with trembling” (Bar. 3:33).

They do it with promptitude. “Who walkest upon the wings of the wind; who makest His angels spirits, and His ministers a flaming fire” (Ps. 103:3, 4).

They do it with an immutable constancy. “By Thy ordinance the day goeth on, for all things serve Thee” (Ps. 118:91).

Thus, O my soul, every creature serves the Lord. Shall I be the only one that refuses to serve Him? Shall I be the least faithful of His servants, because I am of all others under the strongest obligation?

1. All creatures assist me in meriting the possession of God; for there is not one that may not be the occasion of some virtue, and therefore the subject of some merit. Thus—

There are some creatures the use of which is indispensably necessary—those, for example, that are destined to sustain my existence. What occasions for practicing moderation and detachment!

There are some things to which we must submit, though nature shrinks from them—for instance, sickness, poverty, humiliation, mortification and so on. What opportunities of practicing patience, humility, charity! There are some things that from their nature lead us to God—such as assistances of the supernatural order. What opportunities of exercising faith and piety! There are some things that withdraw our heart from God. What an opportunity of sacrifice! Is it in this light that I have considered creatures? Is it in this way that I have used them?

AFFECTIONS

Bless God in the name of all His creatures. “Bless the Lord, O all ye works of the Lord” (Dan. 3:57).

Grieve for having sought happiness from creatures. “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity.… I have seen everything under the sun, and all is vanity and affliction of spirit” (Eccles. 1:2, 14).

Resolve to love God alone. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or persecution, or the sword?… I am sure that neither death, nor life… nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord” (Rom. 8:35, 38, 39).

Continuation of the Development of the Principle of the Exercises

Third Part of the Text: Indifference with Regard to Creatures

Text of St. Ignatius: We must, then, above all things, endeavour to establish in ourselves a complete indifference with regard to all created things, even that of which the use is not forbidden us—not preferring, as far as depends on us, health to sickness, riches to poverty, honour to humilation, a long life to a short one; since order requires that we wish for and choose in everything what will lead us most surely to the end for which we were created.

All creatures were given to man to lead him to this his proper end. How is it, then, that they so frequently draw him away from God and are the cause and instruments of his eternal ruin? “The creatures of God are turned to an abomination, and a temptation to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the unwise” (Wis. 14:11). This arises from the irregularity of our affections as regards creatures. It is because nature, degraded by original sin, seeks them or avoids them, according as they flatter or mortify our corrupt passions. The purpose of this meditation is to reform the disorder of our attachments or aversions and to establish in us a perfect indifference. This indifference consists in neither seeking nor avoiding, with a free and deliberate will, any created thing for itself but solely as it may bring us near to or separate us from God.

First Consideration / Motives for this indifference as regards God

1. The sovereign dominion of God requires this indifference. Is it not true that I belong to God and that He has an absolute and universal dominion over me? Is it not true that He created me for an end and that He wills that I should tend to and arrive at this end? Without this indifference, it is evident that I am acting contrary to the will of God and that I withdraw myself from His dominion. I dispose of my affections according to my own will, not according to His adorable will. Amid the various situations in which I may be, I choose not that which He destines for me but the one that pleases me. I make myself the arbiter and proprietor of myself. Is not this to usurp the right of God?

2. The sovereign perfection of God requires this indifference. God is so perfect and so amiable that He ought to be loved above all things and that nothing ought to be loved except for Him. Faith and reason proclaim this truth. And without this indifference how should I love God? How should I love creatures? I should love the latter for themselves, for the pleasures they procure for me; soon perhaps I should love them above God Himself. Is not this, O my God, the great disorder of my past life? And is it not the want of this indifference that has enfeebled and often almost destroyed Thy love in my heart?

3. The providence of God requires this indifference. Not only did God create me for Himself, but also His providence never ceases to conduct me toward my end. I am in the hands of this providence so infinitely good, infinitely wise, infinitely powerful. Can I fear that this providence is unable or unwilling to procure my greatest good? Surely no. Without this indifference, then, in regard to creatures, I derange the whole plan of this providence. Perhaps God has deprived me of health, honor, fortune, pleasure; perhaps He has tried me by sickness, poverty or tribulation. Of these two paths the first would lead to my eternal loss and the second secure my everlasting happiness. If, then, by my own will I depart from the way in which He has placed me for my salvation, am I not guilty as regards His providence?

Second Consideration / Motives for this indifference as regards myself

1. This indifference is requisite to acquire solid virtue. Virtue is at bottom but the spirit of sacrifice; in abnegation consists Christian sanctity. “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). Where there is not indifference, can there be a spirit of sacrifice? Thus there will not be any virtues or at least only natural virtues without merit for eternity—virtues mixed with imperfections, sullied by self-love and natural desires—virtues, fragile and inconstant, which will give way before the first breath of temptation?

2. This indifference is requisite to ensure peace of heart. Without this indifference, what fears, what disappointments, what remorse! On the contrary, with this indifference, what sweet assurance! “The Lord ruleth me; I shall want nothing” (Ps. 22:1). “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” (Ps. 26:1) With this indifference, what joy even in the midst of tribulation! “I exceedingly abound with joy in all my tribulations” (2 Cor. 7:4). With this indifference, what fullness of peace in the depths of the heart! “Oh, that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments; thy peace had been as a river, and thy justice as the waves of the sea” (Is. 48:18).

3. This indifference is necessary to ensure my salvation. How many perils threaten thy salvation, O my soul!—perils from the world, perils from the devil, perils within thyself—from the imagination, the heart, the memory, the senses; perils without—from friends, from business, from pleasure, from occupation, from solitude, from society. “Lord, when wilt Thou look upon me? Deliver my soul from this malice: my only one from the lions” (Ps. 34:17). O my soul, all these perils are reduced to one—to the making a bad use of creatures. Force thyself, then, to arrive at a perfect indifference; thou hast no other danger to fear, and thy salvation is secured. Take example from the clay that allows itself to be formed at the will of the workman, which does not say to him, “Why dost thou form me into an ignominious vessel, and not into a glorious vase?” Raise thy thoughts still higher. Learn from the angels who with the same submission and the same tranquility stand before the throne of God to sing, without ending, the canticle of Sion: “Holy, holy, holy”; or to watch over an obscure mortal to conduct him through the pilgrimage of this life. Look still higher. Take example by Jesus Christ, who had no other food or life on this earth than the will of Him that sent Him: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me” ( John 4:34).

Rules for the Practice of Indifference

Rule 1. In the use of creatures, only esteem and desire what leads to God. All the rest is useless for His glory and man’s salvation.

Rule 2. In the use of creatures, firmly resolve to fly from all that God forbids—mortal sin, venial sin and the occasions of both. “Fear God and keep His commandments; for this is the whole of man” (Eccles. 12:13). “Without this,” says St. Bernard, “man, whatever he may be, is nothing.”

Rule 3. In the case of indifferent creatures, that is to say, of things that in themselves neither bring us nearer nor lead us farther from God, we must cease to feel indifference toward them only as it accords with the rule of the will of God and His good pleasure.

End by reciting the Pater.

Preparatory prayer. Ask of God the grace to devote to His glory and service all the powers and operations of your soul.

First prelude. Represent to yourself the flames of hell and in the midst of the flames an innumerable multitude of fallen angels.

Second prelude. Ask of God sentiments of shame and repentance, at the sight of these victims of sin. The angels only sinned once; but you, how often have you not committed even mortal sins?

First Consideration / The state of the rebel angels before their sin

Consider—

1. The excellence of their being. They were pure spirits, free from the bonds of a mortal body; the living images of the perfections of God; the first fruits and most perfect work of the creation.

2. Their intelligence. What lights respecting God, creatures, their own dignity! What wisdom, what breadth and depth of knowledge!

3. Their will. What innocence! What uprightness! What a powerful inclination toward good! What natural movements of heart toward God their sovereign beatitude!

4. Their dwelling place. It is Heaven, where they do not yet see the Lord face to face but where their life is to think of Him and to love Him.

5. Their future destiny. A few moments of trial, and God reveals Himself to their eyes without a cloud. They will be, through all eternity, at the foot of His throne, enjoying the happiness of seeing Him, of loving Him and of possessing Him with all the powers of their being. “They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy house; Thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of Thy pleasures” (Ps. 32:9).

6. Their chief. Lucifer, the prince of the celestial hierarchy, whose perfections are described by the Holy Spirit in Ezechiel: “Thou wast the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise of God: precious stones were thy covering, gold was the work of thy beauty. I set thee on the mountain of God, and thou didst walk in the midst of stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day of thy creation until iniquity was found in thee” (Ezech. 28:12, 13, 14, 15). O my God, what couldst Thou have added to the magnificence of Thy gifts to these sublime intelligences? And what was wanting to them except to remain faithful to Thee?

Second Consideration / The sin of the rebel angels

These noble spirits were in possession of their liberty and it was their ruin. God had given it to them that it might be a merit; they abused it and were lost. According to St. Bonaventure and some other doctors of the Church, they became dazzled by their own perfections and their sin was a guilty complaisance and a kind of idolatry of themselves. According to St. Thomas, God had revealed to them the future grandeur of the Incarnation and had commanded them to adore the Man-God; and their crime was a resistance to this command of the Lord. Lucifer first raised the standard of rebellion; he dared to declare himself the rival of God, and he drew a third of the angels into his rebellion. “Thou saidst in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit in the mountain of the covenant; I will ascend above the height of the clouds; I will be like to the Most High” (Is. 4:13, 14).

Consider attentively all the circumstances of this sin in order to understand its motive.

1. A sin of revolt against God. “Thou hast broken My yoke, thou hast burst My bands, and thou saidst, I will not serve” ( Jer. 2:20). Is not this the character of your sins? Are they not revolts against God?

2. A sin committed in Heaven. “Thou wert in the delights of paradise, and thou didst sin” (Ezech. 28:, 13, 16). And you, placed in the land of saints, in the heaven on earth, in the Church of God, how many times have you not committed mortal sin?

3. A sin committed amid great lights. “Thou wert full of wisdom, perfect in beauty, and thou didst sin” (Ibid.). And you too have sinned amid the brightest lights of faith.

4. A sin committed after great benefits received. “Thou wert the seal, the image of God, and thou didst sin” (Ibid.). And you, loaded with all the gifts of nature and grace, have sinned. You have offended your benefactor by the abuse even of His own benefits.

5. A sin of scandal. “And behold a great dragon; and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven” (Apoc. 12:3, 4). And how many souls have not your sins drawn down? Count the victims of your scandals.

Third Consideration / The chastisement of the rebel angels

No interval exists between the crime and its punishment; the justice of God strikes them like the thunderbolt. They are cast into the depths of hell and in the midst of flames expiate through an eternity the crime of a moment. What a terrible revolution in their whole being—in their intelligence, no thoughts but of crime! In their will, no love but for evil! In their abode, no other palace but hell! In the ministry, no other occupation than to pervert or torment souls! In their destiny, their end, supreme misery, and that for eternity! O, terrible fall! “How art thou fallen, O Lucifer!” (Is. 14:12). O my soul, tremble for thyself! If an angel is so treated, what will it be with man! “Howl, thou fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen, for the mighty are laid waste” (Zach. 11:20).

Reflect on this terrible vengeance of God. (1) His justice has no regard to the number of the guilty; do not assure yourself by the number who sin like you. (2) His justice has no regard for the dignity or excellence of the victims; do not trust to your dignity of rank in the world or the Church. (3) His justice pays no regard to the services that the angels might render to His glory, if repentant and restored to grace; do not therefore comfort yourself by the thought of the services you might render to Jesus Christ and His Church. (4) His justice has no regard to the place that the angels had occupied until then in His friendship and in His heart; do not therefore assure yourself by the past mercies of Our Lord. (5) His justice strikes without pity, and yet it is the first sin of the angels, and their only sin. What, then, will become of you who can and ought to say with the prophet, “My iniquities are gone over my head?” (Ps. 37:5).

AFFECTIONS

End, at the foot of the crucifix, by the sentiments of humility, confession and repentance, which a great saint and doctor suggests to you. “My God, Thou hast imprinted upon me Thy own adorable image and for it I have substituted the frightful image of Satan. I see myself more horrible than Lucifer. He fell proudly, having no example of divine vengeance before him; I, after beholding his chastisement, have sinned contemptuously. He was once established in innocence; I have often been restored. He rose up against Him who had bestowed upon him his being; I against Him who has repaired mine. He remains forever, fixed in his malice, under eternal reprobation; I a sinner, am ever fleeing from the mercy of God, who calls me back. He abandoned a God who lets him depart from Him. I fly from a God who comes to seek me. And if both have sinned, he yet sinned against a God who did not call him to repentance; I, on the contrary, against a God who died to save me” (St. Bonaventure).

Colloquy with Jesus crucified. Pater.

Preparatory prayer. As before.

First prelude. Represent to yourself Adam driven from Paradise by an angel armed with a fiery sword and not knowing where to hide his shame and his remorse.

Second prelude. The same as last.

First Consideration / Adam before his sin

Consider—

1. The excellence of his being. Adam is not made from nothing by a single word, like other creatures: “He spoke, and they were made” (Ps. 68:5). The Three Persons of the adorable Trinity deliberated, as it were: “Let us make man” (Gen. 1:26). God gave him a soul made in His image: “And God created man to His own image” (Gen. 1:27). He formed his body with His hands and animates it with the breath of His mouth: “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7).

2. Consider the happiness and glory of his state. The lights of his mind: “He created in them the science of the spirit” (Ecclus. 17:6). The innocence of his heart: “He filled their heart with wisdom” (Ibid.). His empire over his passions and over all the senses of his body, the profound peace of his soul: “What was wanting to him who was guarded by mercy, taught by truth, governed by justice, borne in the arms of peace?” (St. Bernard).

3. Consider the place of his abode. God had placed him amid the delights of the terrestrial paradise: “God took man and put him into the paradise of pleasure” (Gen. 2:15). He made him the king over all nature: “And gave him power over all things that are upon the earth; He put the fear of Him upon all flesh” (Ecclus. 17:3, 4).

4. Consider his relations with God. The Lord had deigned to make an eternal alliance with him. He Himself revealed to him His commands and His greatness. Adam was honored to hear His voice: “He made an everlasting covenant with them: and their eye saw the majesty of His glory, and their ears heard His glorious voice” (Ecclus. 17:10, 11).

5. Consider his future destiny. After a few years of happy life in the earthly paradise, he was to enjoy for an eternity the sight and possession of God.

O God, how great was man in the days of his innocence! “Thou hast made him a little less than the angels; Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour, and hast set him over the works of Thy hands” (Ps. 8:6, 7). Why was it that he forgot his greatness? “Man, when he was in honour, did not understand; he hath been compared to senseless beasts, and made like unto them” (Ps. 48:21).

Second Consideration / Adam’s sin

God had forbidden Adam to touch the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He exacted obedience from the first man as a homage to His supreme dominion, and He exacted it under pain of death: “But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death” (Gen. 2:17). Adam did not obey. Eve, tempted by the serpent, tempted her husband, who, by his fatal complaisance, betrayed his trust: “And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold; and she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave to her husband, who did eat” (Gen. 3:6).

Consider attentively the characteristics of this first sin and in the history of Adam’s fall, recognize the history of all others.

1. Imprudence. Eve listened to the perfidious counsels of Satan; Adam listened to the insinuations of his spouse. And you? What has been the cause of your falls? Has it not been a temptation imprudently listened to?

2. Sensuality. The beauty, the apparent sweetness of the forbidden fruit, seduced our first parents; “they saw it was good to eat and fair to the eyes.” And have not all your faults, at least your more grave ones, been sins of the senses?

3. Cowardice. With the lights of his intelligence, with the rectitude and good inclinations of his heart, with a conscience so upright and delicate, it was easy for Adam to remain faithful. And you, formed by religion, by a Christian education, what resources against temptation have you not found in your faith, in your conscience, in your heart, where grace has planted such holy inclinations?

4. Contempt of God. Nothing arrests Adam—neither the bounty of God, which has surrounded him with benefits; nor the authority of God, of which his reason loudly proclaimed the rights; nor His justice, of which the threats were so express and so formidable. And have not you, when you committed sin, had as little regard to the benefits, the authority or the threatened judgments of the Lord?

5. Blindness. Our first parents believed the word of the tempter, and they did not believe that of God. On the faith of Satan they persuaded themselves that they should not die, that they should be like gods: “You shall not die the death, you shall be as gods” (Gen. 3:4, 5). And their eyes were only opened when the sin was committed: “And the eyes of them both were opened” (Gen. 3:7). Is not this the exact picture of your past blindness? In the moment of temptation have you not sought to deceive yourself by foolish reasonings on the justice of God and on His mercy? Have you not sought to persuade yourself that sin is not so great an evil—that God is too good to punish you? And is it not true that it was only after the sin that your blindness ceased and that your eyes were opened to the light?

Third Consideration / Adam after his sin

1. Meditate well on the terrible sentence of God on guilty Adam. Because thou hast eaten of the forbidden fruit, the earth shall be cursed; it shall only bring forth thorns; thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy brow until thou returnest to the earth from which thou didst come out; for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return (Gen. 3:19).

2. Consider the accomplishment of the Divine sentence. A German prince, wishing to inspire his son with a great horror of war, ordered a painter to represent the different scenes of a bloody battle and to write these words at the bottom of the picture: “Behold the fruits of war!” Imitate this prince, you who meditate at this moment on the fall of our first parents; represent to yourself all the evils that have followed it and say to yourself: Behold the fruits of sin.

Consider the soul of Adam deprived of grace and original justice and disfigured by sin: Behold the fruits of sin.

Consider his faculties wounded, as it were, wounded mortally; his mind given up to doubt, ignorance, error; his heart, without inclination for good, the sport of a thousand passions; his conscience, which has lost its peace and is tormented by remorse: Behold the fruits of sin.

Consider the revolution that took place in nature: the inclemency of the seasons, the revolt of the animals, the sterility of the earth, which of itself only produces thorns and thistles: Behold the fruits of sin.

Consider the tribulations of Adam: the sweat of his daily work; the sorrows of sickness and infirmity; his desolation at the death of the innocent Abel; all the troubles of his heart and spirit; and after nine hundred years of penitence, the final trial of death: Behold the fruits of sin.

Consider the anger of God in pouring vengeance for this first sin on all the descendants of the first culprit; represent to yourself the miseries of men in all ages—contagions, wars, disasters, violent deaths; so many tears shed, so many crimes committed, so many children forever deprived of the sight of God, so many souls cast into hell. See here the consequences of one sin: Behold the fruits of sin.

1. End by turning back on yourself and comparing the sin of Adam with your own personal sins. On the side of Adam a single sin, a sin committed before the Incarnation, a sin committed before he had any experience of Divine justice; above all, a sin that he repented of immediately and that he expiated by nine centuries of penitence; and on your part so many sins, sins committed in a nature sanctified by Jesus Christ; sins committed in the face of the Cross and in the sight of hell; sins, perhaps, which you have never expiated; sins, perhaps, of which you have scarcely repented. “O God, what have I not to fear from Thy justice?”

AFFECTIONS

Fear. “Who knoweth the power of Thy anger, and for Thy fear can number Thy wrath?” (Ps. 89:11).

Confusion. “All the day long my shame is before me, and the confusion of my face hath covered me” (Ps. 43:16).

Regret. “There is no health in my flesh because of Thy wrath: there is no peace for my bones because of my sins” (Ps. 37:4).

Beg the mercy of God. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy” (Ps. 1:1).

Colloquy with Jesus crucified. Pater.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself the flames of hell in which thousands of condemned souls are burning.

Second prelude. The same as last.

CONSIDERATIONS

Consider that at this very moment, when you on earth are meditating on the malice of sin, there is perhaps in the depths of hell a soul that God has forever condemned for one single mortal sin.

1. Consider what this soul was before its sin.

For a long time, perhaps, it had received much less grace than you who now meditate on its misery; and yet it may have persevered in virtue through many years; its childhood may have been sanctified by innocence and piety; in youth it may have remained pure in the midst of the strongest passions and most violent temptations. It had preserved its baptismal innocence, perhaps, up to the fatal moment that witnessed at once its fall, its death and its reprobation. It may have lived many years in the friendship of God; practiced great virtues and given great examples of piety. Perhaps it received the spirit of prayer, like St. Louis Gonzaga; the spirit of mortification, like St. John of the Cross; the spirit of zeal, like St. Francis Xavier. Perhaps it had received a great gift of prayer, like St. Theresa; perhaps the gift of miracles, like Judas before his crime. Think what acts of virtue, what victories, what sacrifices, what merit in such a life, what titles to eternal glory! What are you in comparison with this soul? Compare your faults with its virtues; the corruption of your heart with its innocence; your sensual life with its mortifications; your dissipation and forgetfulness of God with its habits of prayer. And yet you may, if you choose, be one of the elect; and this is a reprobate soul and will remain so through all eternity. “How is the gold become dim, the finest colour is changed!” (Lam. 4:1).

1. Consider what this soul has become since its sin.

It committed but one single mortal sin—one mortal sin after ten, perhaps twenty years of a holy life, full of good works. A single mortal sin! And if this unhappy man fell with the knowledge and consent necessary to constitute a mortal sin, yet he perhaps only sinned from weakness; perhaps was carried away by some strong passion; perhaps after long temptation, perhaps after long resistance. Are your faults of this kind? And if, during your life, you have only committed one such sin, do you not believe yourself almost innocent?

Yet the justice of God overtook this unhappy soul, without leaving any interval between the mortal sin and death.

All is over with it after the first crime; no grace, no repentance, no pardon; it is lost for all eternity. “How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!” (Rom. 11:33).

If God had struck this soul a few hours earlier, death would have found it in a state of grace; this soul would have been saved; it would have possessed God. And now that it has entered eternity with mortal sin, it is forever deprived of the sight and the possession of God, who is its end and its whole felicity. It would have been in the highest heavens and in the society of angels; and now it is in the depths of hell and in the company of demons. It would have been clothed with glory: and now it is surrounded with flames. It would have been inundated with peace and the joys of paradise; and now it is torn with remorse and condemned to never-ending tears and despair. It would have lived in heaven forever, to love and bless God; and now it lives in hell but to blaspheme Him, to curse Him, to hate Him, through all eternity. O God, what a fearful catastrophe! And this is the work of one single sin!

1. Consider what this soul might have been if God had allowed it time to acknowledge and expiate its sin.

After the first burst of passion, who knows if it would not have returned to itself; if reason would not have regained its empire, conscience made its reproaches heard, faith shown the depth of the abyss into which it had fallen, grace solicited the heart, the habit of prayer brought it back to the foot of the cross? The goodness of its heart could not have resisted the voice of Jesus Christ: “Why persecutest thou Me?” (Acts 4:4). For is not this what passes within you after each of your falls? Who knows whether a few hours after his sin, absolution—or perhaps even before absolution, perfect contrition—might not have restored him to the friendship of God, to his innocence, and to all his merit? Perhaps he might have spent the rest of his life in weeping over this one fault; perhaps he might have made this one sin the subject of constant repentance; he might, like Magdalen, like Augustine, have made the memory of this fault a motive for more fervent love. Now his mortal career would be ended, he would be at the feet of Jesus and Mary in heaven; and we might perhaps be invoking him on earth as a model of penitence and holiness, as an illustrious example of the power of grace and Divine mercy. But this time for repentance, which might have been so well employed, was refused by God; and this soul is lost forever. O the depth!

To inspire yourself with a still greater horror of sin, ask yourself what this God is who thus punishes a single mortal sin. Has He ceased to be a God of wisdom? No; in punishing in this manner He always acts according to the immutable rules of His infinite wisdom: “O the depth of the wisdom of God!” (Rom. 11:33). Has He ceased to be a God of goodness and mercy? No. At the moment that His vengeance overtook this soul, He had no hatred but for the sin; and guilty as that soul was, He loved it as His creature, as the price of His blood, better than you love the work of your hands, better than a mother loves her only son: “For Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast made, because they are Thine, O Lord, who lovest souls” (Wis. 11:25, 27). Has He ceased to be a just God? No; the angels in heaven applaud the equity of His judgments: and in hell this condemned soul itself is obliged to render homage to the justness of the sentence that condemned it: “Thou art just, O Lord; and Thy judgment is right” (Ps. 118:137). What an evil must one mortal sin not be, and who would not fear to offend a God who punishes so rigorously? “Who shall not fear Thee, O King of nations?” ( Jer. 10:7).

Now return to yourself.

1. How long is it since you committed mortal sin the first time?

2. Why did not God strike you dead after this first sin, as He fore-saw that you would make use of your life to sin again and again and with so much malice?

3. Why has God spared you until now, when everything demanded your condemnation—the interest of His perfections, which you have outraged; the interest of His graces, which you have trampled underfoot; the interest of souls, whose loss you have caused by your scandals?

4. What was there in you to inspire God with so much mercy toward you? If He considers the past—your baptismal innocence lost, a guilty childhood, a youth given up to pleasure; if He considers the present—a heart attached to sin, rebellious against graces, resolved not to make a sacrifice of its passions; if He should consider the future—iniquities multiplying with years, infidelities growing with graces.

And yet God has left you life and with life grace to return to Him, to repent, to merit heaven! What mercy on His part! You ought to look upon yourself as a soul saved from hell by a singular privilege of Divine goodness; you should say, Lord, if Thou hadst called me before Thy tribunal on such a day, at such an hour and after such a fault, I should now be in hell among the lost; in hell I should shed useless tears over my sin. I will shed them on earth, that they may become efficacious and meritorious for heaven. In hell I should have performed a useless and hopeless penance, on earth I will perform a useful penance, in the hope of obtaining my pardon; in hell I should see all creatures armed against me for my torment; I will detach my heart from all earthly creatures for Thy love; in hell I should have no other occupation than blaspheming and hating Thee; I will spend my life on earth in blessing and loving Thee.

AFFECTIONS AT THE FOOT OF THE CRUCIFIX

Sorrow and Shame. “My God, I am confounded, and ashamed to lift up my face to Thee: for our iniquities are multiplied over our heads, and our sins are grown up even unto heaven” (1 Esd. 9:6).

Gratitude. “I have sinned, and have offended, and I have not received what I have deserved” ( Job 33:27). “It is because of the mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed” (Lam. 3:22).

Fidelity for the future. “I will praise Thee, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify Thy name for ever: for Thy mercy is great towards me, and Thou hast delivered my soul out of the lower hell” (Ps. 85:12, 13).

COLLOQUIES THAT MUST BE FREQUENTLY REPEATED DURING THE FOLLOWING MEDITATIONS

The first will be addressed to Mary, the Mother of Our Saviour, our Lady and our Queen; we shall supplicate her to intercede for us with her Son and to obtain for us the three graces that are most necessary for us: first, a full knowledge, a true detestation and a lively feeling of our sins; then a reformation of ourselves such as God expects of us and such as this thorough knowledge and profound horror of our past disorders should produce; finally, the happiness of profiting by this sad experience of the sinfulness of the world, which we bitterly deplore, by renouncing forever the world and its vanities. This colloquy will end by an Ave Maria.

The second will be addressed to Jesus Christ Our Lord and Mediator. We shall beg of Him to obtain for us these three graces from the Eternal Father. We shall recite at the end the prayer Anima Christi.

The third will be addressed to God the Father, that He may deign to grant us this threefold favor, and we shall end by saying the Pater.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Present yourself before God as a criminal appearing before his judge and about to hear his sentence.

Second prelude. “I groan in Thy sight as one guilty; shame hath covered my face, because of my sin: spare me, a suppliant, O my God.”“Ingemisco tanquam reus: / Culpa rubet vultus meus: / Supplicanti parce, Deus.” Dies Iræ.

First Consideration / A God offended by man

Consider attentively the greatness of the God who is offended; the nothingness of the sinner; the matter and the motive of the sin.

1. The greatness of the God who is offended. What is God? Who is like to Him in greatness? Nations before Him are as a drop of water; the universe as a grain of sand; the whole human race as nothing. “Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the smallest grain of a balance. Behold the islands are as a little dust; all nations are before Him as if they had no being at all” (Is. 40:15, 17).

Who is like God in power? He created all by a word: “He spoke, and it was made.” He preserves all by His will: “Upholding all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3). One word of His can chain the ocean: “Hitherto shalt thou come, and shalt go no further” ( Job 38:11). One look of His makes the earth tremble: “He looketh upon the earth, and maketh it tremble; He toucheth the mountains and they smoke” (Ps. 103:32). And before His face the mountains melt: “The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord” (Ps. 96:5).

Who is like to Him in holiness? In His eyes the just, the very saints, appear defiled: “The Heavens are not pure in His sight” ( Job 15:15). He even finds sin in His angels: “And in His angels He found wickedness” ( Job 4:18). Who is like Him in justice, in wisdom, in goodness? “Thy justice is as the mountains” (Ps. 35:7). “Of His wisdom there is no number” (Ps. 146:5). “All things are naked and open to His eyes” (Heb. 6:13). “The Lord is sweet unto all, and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Ps. 144:9).

Finally, who is like to God? He has lived from all eternity: “But Thou, O Lord, endurest for ever” (Ps. 101:13). Behold His name: “I am who am” (Ex. 3:14). His empire is heaven and earth: “Heaven is My throne, and the earth my footstool” (Is. 66:1). His palace is the light: “He inhabiteth light inaccessible” (1 Tim. 6:16). His vestments are beauty and glory: “Thou hast put on praise and beauty” (Ps. 103:1). His carriage the clouds and the wings of the wind: “Who makest the clouds Thy chariot: who walkest upon the wings of the winds” (Ps. 103:3). His subjects and His ministers are the angels: “Who makest Thy angels spirits, and Thy ministers a burning fire” (Ps. 103:4). And this is He whom the sinner has dared to offend: “Be astonished at this, O ye heavens” ( Jer. 2:12).

Second Consideration / A God offended by man and offended in all His attributes

What is it you do when you are so unhappy as to commit a mortal sin? By this single sin you outrage God in all His titles and in all His perfections.

You outrage God the Father in profaning this supernatural being, this participator of His Divine nature that He gave you in baptism: “Partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

You outrage the Word Incarnate. You dishonor Him in rendering subservient to the devil your soul, His spouse; you trample His blood underfoot and make His sufferings and death useless; you renew His passion and crucify Him again in your heart: “Crucifying again to themselves the Son of God” (Heb. 26:6).

You outrage the Holy Ghost. You grieve this Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30). You do more, you resist Him: “You always resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51). You do more, you stifle Him within you: “Extinguish not the Spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19).

You outrage God in all His titles. As creator, in revolting against His supreme dominion; as legislator, by violating His laws; as redeemer, by despising His grace; as your friend, by provoking His enmity; as your father, by braving His authority; as your king, by banishing Him from your heart, which is His throne.

You outrage His unity. You make divinities of your passions, which have your heart for an altar, your thoughts and affections as a homage, your soul and your eternity as a sacrifice.

You outrage His infinite perfections. To Him you prefer a creature full of imperfections, who is a mere nothing and whom death will soon take from you; and you prefer serving the devil, who is deformity itself, at the risk of falling into hell, rather than serve God, who is perfect beauty and promises you heaven.

You outrage His wisdom. By sin you reverse the order of His providence, you turn creatures away from their end and you destroy the harmony of the universe.

You outrage His holiness. You dishonor His features in your soul, and you cast His image down in the mire of your passions and vices.

You outrage His immensity. If men were to witness your sin, their presence would recall you to your duty; you know that God is everywhere present, that you commit iniquity under His eyes and, as it were, in His bosom; and yet the presence of God, thrice holy, does not deter you from crime.

You outrage His Justice. If sin could destroy your fortune or your reputation, you would not commit it; and because it exposes you only to the anger of God, to the rigor of His judgment, you commit it without fear and as if you had nothing to dread from His justice.

You outrage His patience. If God left no interval between the crime and the punishment of the culprit, would you dare to offend Him? Is it, then, the longanimity of God that inspires you with the boldness to sin?

Finally, and to say all in one word, you go still farther and are guilty of deicide: “Sin, as far as it is possible to it, destroys God” (St. Bernard). It is true you cannot actually destroy God; but you do so in your heart. Why? Because the contempt you offer to His perfections occasions Him such lively displeasure that He would die of it if, by His nature, He were not impassible and immortal. Why? Because, in preferring a vile creature before Him, you take from Him the very essence of His being, that sovereign amiability that deserves to be loved above all things. Why? Because, in consenting to sin, you deprive God of the life He lived in your soul; you make Him die within you; it may truly be said that your heart is His grave. “Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this” ( Jer. 2:12).

Third Consideration / A God offended by man, notwithstanding the many motives that should induce him not to offend

Consider how many reasons there are to induce you to remain in submission to your God.

1. Your respect for your fellow creatures. You are so small, so humbly submissive before your masters; in presence of a sovereign, of an enemy, of a powerful protector; you bow down before their most unreasonable notions, their most absurd caprices; how is it that you are daring only against God, the first of masters, the most powerful of protectors, the most formidable of enemies?

2. What you exact from others. You are so tenacious of your authority; you are so jealous of your honor and your rights; you insist with so much eagerness that all should give way before your ideas and your will; how is it, then, that you respect so little the authority, the rights, the honor of your God?

3. The sacrifices you make for the world. When the world speaks, nothing stops you; you obey at every risk, at the price of your repose, of your pleasure, of your liberty, of your passions, sometimes even of your life. Why, then, when the Lord commands, is He not obeyed in the same manner? Why is it, then, that alone sacrifices are difficult and appear impossible?

4. The promises you have made to God. You glory in respecting your pledged word; you would rather die than fail in your oath. Why do you feel a horror of perjury only when it regards men? Why does it no longer appear infamous when it regards God? Did not God receive your vows in baptism, on the day of your first communion, often in the holy tribunal? Has, then, the oath, which is so strong to bind man to man, no strength to bind man to God?

5. The benefits you have received from God. You hold everything from God;—intelligence, imagination, heart, senses, talent, fortune, authority, birth, rank, youth, life. You can only sin by making use of His gifts. What black ingratitude is it, not only to forget your benefactor, but also to return Him evil for good, to make use of His own gifts to insult Him, to force Him to act against Himself and to turn against Himself His own bounty and power, which preserve you. “Thou hast made Me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied Me with thy iniquity” (Is. 43:24).

AFFECTIONS

Place yourself at the foot of the crucifix, like a perjured friend at the feet of his friend, like a rebel subject at the feet of his king, like a parricide son at the feet of his father. Humbly ask of Our Lord Jesus Christ the pardon of your sins.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Present yourself before God like a criminal loaded with chains, brought from the dungeon of a prison and placed before the tribunal of his judge.

Second prelude. Beg of Our Lord that He will vouchsafe to show you the sad state of a soul that has been so unhappy as mortally to offend God: “Give me, O Lord, that I may see” (Luke 18:41).

First Consideration / By mortal sin we forfeit the friendship of God

When you were in a state of grace, God dwelt in your soul: “If any man love Me, My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him” ( John 14:23). The most august bonds united you to Him. He called you His people: “Thou art My people” (Osee 2:24); His friend: “I have called you friends” ( John 15:15); His spouse: “Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse” (Cant. 4:9); His children: “Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be, the sons of God” (1 John 3:1); Another self: “I have said ye are gods” (Ps. 81:6). But what a change since mortal sin entered into your soul! That moment God left your heart: “Woe to them, when I shall depart from them” (Osee 9:12). To His friendship has succeeded hatred: “Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity” (Ps. 5:7). You have ceased to be His people: “Ye are not My people, and I will not be yours” (Osee 1:9). In his eyes you are now an enemy on whom He has sworn vengeance: “I live for ever; I will render vengeance to My enemies” (Deut. 32:40, 41). He no longer recognizes you as His spouse: “I know you not” (Matt. 25:12). In you He no longer sees anything but the child of Satan: “Ye are of your father the devil” ( John 8:44). He has no longer anything for you but maledictions: “If thou wilt not hear the voice of the Lord thy God, cursed shalt thou be in the city, cursed in the field, cursed shall be the fruit of thy womb. And all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue and overtake thee, until thou perish” (Deut. 28:15–17, 45). He arms every scourge against you: “Death and bloodshed, strife and the sword, oppressions, famine, afflictions, scourges;—all these things are created for the wicked” (Ecclus. 40:9, 10). O guilty soul, consider what thou hast been, and what thou now art, in the eyes of thy Lord; and sigh deeply at the sight of thy misery. “Thou wast the spouse of Christ, the temple of God, the sanctuary of the Holy Ghost; and as often as I say ‘thou wast,’ I must needs groan, because thou art not what thou wast” (St. Augustine).

Second Consideration / Mortal sin deprives us of all the gifts of Grace

1. It destroys the beauty of the soul. A soul in a state of grace attracts the looks and ravishes the heart of God: “I will fix my eyes upon thee” (Ps. 31:8); “Behold thou art fair, O my love” (Cant. 1:14). But mortal sin destroys all trace of this beauty: “All her beauty is departed” (Lam. 1:6); and it covers the soul with a hideous leprosy, which makes it an object of horror to God and His angels.

2. It deprives the soul of all merit. Even if you united in yourself all the merits of all the saints together, all their alms, all their prayers, all their austerities, all their sacrifices, a single mortal sin would be enough to destroy all: “If the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity, all his justices which he hath done shall not be remembered” (Ezech. 18:24).

3. It deprives the soul of all power of meriting. Yes; if you are in mortal sin, all your good works are useless to obtain heaven. Spend all your goods in alms; embrace the most rigorous austerities; convert the whole world, if it be possible; give your body to the flames—St. Paul assures you that all this is useless for salvation if there be a single sin in your heart: “If I have not charity, I am nothing” (Cor. 13:2). To what can I compare you, O unhappy soul? “To what shall I compare thee, or to what shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?” (Lam. 2:13). To a vine loaded with fruit suddenly destroyed by the storm; to a temple unexpectedly overthrown; to a ship that the tempest suddenly sinks with all her treasures; to a rich city that fire has reduced to a heap of burning ashes: “To what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort thee?… Who shall heal thee?” (Lam. 2:13).

Third Consideration / Mortal sin deprives us of our liberty

When you are in a state of grace, you are free: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17). You enjoy the sweetest, the most honorable liberty—the only liberty that no power in the world can deprive you of, liberty conquered for you by the blood of Jesus Christ: “The freedom wherewith Christ has made us free” (Gal. 4:31), which consists in freedom from every yoke except that of God and which we cannot lose without degrading ourselves. But have you had the unhappiness to sin mortally? You have become a slave: “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin” ( John 8:34). You are given over to sin: “Sold under sin” (Rom. 8:14). The devil reigns as master in your heart, which is your prison.

“He hath built against me round about, that I may not get out” (Lam. 3:7). Each day he tightens his chains about us: “He hath made my fetters heavy” (Lam. 3:7). Everything within you is enslaved, your faculties, your senses, your talents, your fortune. Is it not true that, in this sad state, you have often wished to return to God, to pray, to confess, to avoid the occasions of sin, to break through the habit of sin? Did the devil permit it? Has he not treated you as the centurion in the Gospel treated his soldiers: “I say to one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it”? (Luke 7:8). Has he not always said to you, “Bring, bring” (Prov. 30:15): again this passion; again this sin. Has he not always been obeyed? Finally, is it not the story of your slavery that St. Augustine tells with so much force when he describes the servitude of his own passions: “I sighed, chained as I was, not by iron, but by my own will, stronger even than iron. My own will held me bound; and it was of it that the enemy of salvation made use to enchain me, and surround me on all sides by inextricable bonds” (Confessions 8.5).

Fourth Consideration / Mortal sin robs us of peace of heart

A soul that belongs to God knows no trouble or fear: “The just is bold as a lion” (Prov. 28:1). The heart of the just is like an eternal festival: “A secure mind is like a continual feast” (Prov. 15:15). Even in the midst of tribulation he tastes ineffable joys: “I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulations” (2 Cor. 7:4). But how different is it with the sinner; everywhere he carries a trembling heart, a heart a prey to sorrow: “If you will not hear the voice of the Lord, He will give thee a fearful heart, and a soul consumed with pensiveness” (Deut 28:15, 65). Tribulation and anguish penetrate the depths of his soul: “Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that worketh evil” (Rom. 2:9). Remorse is in the conscience like an arrow that lacerates it: “I am turned in my anguish whilst the thorn is fastened” (Ps. 31:4). And his life is like the waves of the sea tossed by a storm: “The wicked are like the raging sea” (Is. 57:20). God has no need to arm the hand of man against the sinner; his conscience pursues him incessantly and is at once witness, judge and executioner; it accuses, condemns and tortures him. Sometimes it pursues him in the midst of serious occupations, like David: “I walked sorrowful all the day long, there is no peace for my bones because of my sins” (Ps. 37:4, 7); sometimes amid pleasures, like Baltassar; sometimes amid the pains of sickness, like Antiochus; almost always in silence and solitude, like Cain. To some it reproaches the pleasure of a moment purchased by a long repentance: “What fruit, therefore, had you then in those things of which you are now ashamed?” (Rom. 6:21) To others it shows all the bitterness of iniquity: “Know thou, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee to have left the Lord thy God” ( Jer. 2:19). To some it recalls incessantly the ingratitude and malice of their sin: “Thy own wickedness shall reprove thee, and thy apostasy shall rebuke thee” ( Jer. 2:19). To others, it shows the sword of God’s justice suspended over their heads: “Looking round about for the sword on every side” ( Job 15:22). It causes cries of vengeance to be heard around them: “The sound of dread is always in his ears” ( Job 15:21). It disturbs their sleep with threatening visions: “Thou wilt frighten me with dreams, and terrify me with visions” ( Job 7:14). “O sinner, what misery is yours! How much are you to be pitied if your conscience thus pursues you! Yet you are still more so if your conscience leaves you in peace” (St. Augustine). For this peace of a guilty conscience is the certain sign of the great wrath of God.

Fifth Consideration / Mortal sin destroys the soul

The soul is the life of the body, and God is the life of the soul. Thus, sin kills our soul in separating it from God: “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die” (Ezech. 18:20). Look at the man who has mortally offended the Lord; he walks, he sees, he speaks, and you think he lives. Ah! what lives in him is the body, the soul has ceased to live. “The most noble part is extinct; the house stands, but the inhabitant is dead. O Christian, there is no longer any feeling of piety in your heart if you weep over the body from which the soul has departed, and yet shed no tear over the soul from which God has departed” (St. Augustine).

And what difference is there between a corpse and a soul in mortal sin? A corpse has lost the use of all its senses. Is not this a faithful image of the sinner?

1. A dead man no longer sees. Everything ought to strike the eyes of the sinner—the state of his soul, the grave ready to open for him—judgment, hell, eternity; and the sinner sees nothing!

2. The dead no longer hear. Everything speaks to the sinner—conscience, grace, events, ministers of religion; and the sinner hears nothing!

3. The dead are insensible. Neither insults nor honors, neither the attentions of men nor their contempt can touch them. God moves heaven and earth to touch the sinner; He endeavors to rouse him, sometimes by benefits, sometimes by afflictions; and the sinner remains insensible!

4. The dead exhale an infectious odor. A corpse, if not placed in the grave, spreads around it a fatal contagion. The sinner exhales an odor of corruption; the contagion of his scandals spreads death around him, and the infection of his vices makes him an object of horror to just men, to angels and to God.

O fatal death! O death that deprives us, not of the life of nature, but of the life of grace, that is to say, of the life of God! Who will give us tears to bewail thee? “Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes? and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people” ( Jer. 9:1).

AFFECTIONS AT THE FOOT OF THE CRUCIFIX

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all that He hath done for thee;… who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thee from destruction” (Ps. 102:2–4).

Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Present yourself before God like a criminal who appears at the tribunal of justice and is about to hear his sentence.

Second prelude. “I groan in Thy sight as one guilty; shame hath covered my face, because of my sin; spare me, a suppliant, O my God.”

First Point / Recall all the sins of your life

1. The sins of childhood. Since the first dawn of reason, of what have I thought? To whom did I give the first movements of my heart? What use did I make of my first moments of liberty? Alas, Lord, I seek in vain any time, any place, which has seen me without iniquity! When I was still young, I was already a sinner before Thee (St. Augustine).

2. Sins of youth. Where shall I not find memories of sin? I find them everywhere: in the shelter of my father’s house, in the schools where I went in search of learning, in the various scenes of my plays and diversions, in the societies formed around me by a common education, in the places even where sin should never enter—in the sanctuary of Thy temples, O my God, and even at the foot of Thy altar!

3. Sins of riper age. Interrogate, O my soul, the course of years that succeeded those of early youth. Where was the day that had not its sin? Examine those societies, those affairs, those employments; what do they recall but grave and frequent falls? Examine all the laws of the Lord; is there one that you have not transgressed? Examine past temptations; how many are there before which you did not fall? Examine all your faculties; which is there that has not been guilty? Examine all your senses; which of them is there that has not served as an instrument of sin? O my God, I confess I have sinned beyond all measure: “I confess to Almighty God that I have sinned exceedingly.”

Second Point / Consider the malice of all your sins in themselves

What deformity in my sins, O my God! They must, indeed, be of an infinite ugliness, since they are opposed to Thee, O Lord, who art infinite beauty.

What ingratitude in my sins! All I had was from Thee, and I have dared to say, Go from me; depart from my senses, which only live through Thy power; depart from my lips, which only received movement to praise Thee; depart from my mind, which receives light from Thee alone and from my heart, which only received feeling from Thee in order to think of Thee and to love Thee; depart from my being, which Thou only gavest that by it I might serve Thee.

What audacity in my sins! I have dared to say, I will not obey: I have said this to Thee, and on the brink of the tomb, on the brink of hell, above which Thou holdest me suspended by the slender thread that I call life.

What folly in my sins! I have left Thee, my Father, my Supreme Beatitude! And for whom? For a perfidious master, for a hateful tyrant, for the most cruel of executioners, for Satan.

Finally, what malice in my sins! I have sinned, carried away by passion; I have sinned deliberately; I have sinned publicly and with scandal; I have sinned and remained at rest in my sin, notwithstanding so many lights, so many good examples, so many instances of Thy justice, so many exhortations from Thy ministers; notwithstanding the counsels and prayers of virtuous parents; notwithstanding the calls of conscience and remorse. “I confess that I have sinned exceedingly.”

O my God! If a man had once treated me as I treat Thee every day in my life, I should hate him forever—what do I say? If I had treated a man as I have treated Thee, I should hate myself, and I should never forgive myself the malice of my heart. “I confess that I have sinned exceedingly.”

Third Point / Consider who you are that have so offended God

What are the angels before God? What are all men, compared to the angels? What am I, compared to the whole of mankind? Like one leaf in the midst of an immense forest, a drop of water in a stream, a grain of sand on the shore of the ocean, an atom in the immensity of the universe; and it is I, vile and worthless dust, who have not feared to declare myself a rebel against God: “Thou saidst, I will not serve” ( Jer. 2:20).

Fourth Point / Consider who God is, Whom you have offended

Against whom have I rebelled, O my God, when I committed sin? I, weakness itself, revolted against strength. I, lowness itself, revolted against sovereign greatness.

I, evil itself, revolted against infinite goodness. I, who am only corruption and darkness, revolted against wisdom and sanctity itself. I, who am nothing, revolted against the Being of all beings. “Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and, ye gates thereof, be very desolate” ( Jer. 2:12).

Fifth Point / Conclude by a fervent address to God and His creatures

Be astonished that, after so many iniquities, all creatures should not have armed themselves against you, that they should have continued to serve you, when you were incessantly insulting their God and yours. Be astonished that God has not withdrawn His gifts from you; that He has left you this fortune, this credit, these talents, this mind, this heart, this life, which you abuse to offend Him.

Then ask pardon of all the perfections of God that you have offended. Pardon, O justice of my God, for having so long braved Thy thunder! Pardon, O holiness of God, for having so long stained the purity of Thy sight by my crimes! Pardon, O mercy of God, for having so long despised Thy voice! “Show mercy to a poor penitent, whom Thou hast so long spared in his impenitence” (St. Bernard).

COLLOQUY

Return thanks to the mercy of God and solemnly promise at the feet of Jesus Christ never more to offend Him.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Imagine to yourself the height, the breadth and the depth of hell.

Second prelude. Ask of God a lively fear of the pains of hell, so that, if ever you are so unhappy as to lose the grace of the love of God, at least the fear of punishment may deter you from sin.

First Consideration / The habitation of the damned

It is hell. But what is hell? The Holy Spirit calls it the place of torments (Luke 16:28). A prison, where the condemned shall be imprisoned by the justice of God, to be tormented through ages of ages: “They shall be shut up there in prison” (Is. 24:22). A region of misery, a darkness where an eternal horror dwells: “A land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death and no order, but everlasting horror dwelleth” ( Job 10:22). A lake of fire and brimstone: “They shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone” (Apoc. 21:8). A deep valley, where a torrent of sulfur rolls, lighted by the breath of the Lord: “For Topheth is prepared from yesterday, prepared by the King, deep and wide; the nourishments thereof are fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, as a torrent of brimstone, doth kindle it” (Is. 30:33). A burning furnace: “Thou shalt make them as an oven of fire” (Ps. 20:10). The depths of an abyss: “He opened the bottomless pit” (Apoc. 9:2); the smoke from which darkens the sun like the smoke from a vast furnace: “And he opened the bottomless pit; and the smoke of the pit arose as the smoke of a great furnace” (Apoc. 9:2). Finally, the anger of the Almighty is like a wine-press, in which an angry God will trample upon and crush His enemies: “And He treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Apoc. 19:15); “I have trampled on them in My indignation, and have trodden them down in My wrath” (Is. 63:3).

Second Consideration / The company of the damned

In hell, a triple society will form the torment of the condemned.

1. The society of his body, which, to the infectious corruption of a corpse, will unite all the sensibility of a living frame and every member of which will have its torment and its pain.

2. The society of devils. “There are spirits that are created for vengeance, and in their fury they lay on grievous torments” (Ecclus. 39:33). Damned themselves, they have no other occupation but to torture the damned. Not being able to revenge their reprobation on God, they revenge it on man, His image; they pursue God in the condemned, and they pursue Him with all the hate and fury that can enter the hearts of demons.

3. The society of an infinite number of wretched creatures damned like himself. Represent to yourself an assembly so hideous, that even in the galleys and prisons of human justice you could not find anything like it; an assembly of all that the earth has borne of licentious men, of robbers, of assassins, of parricides. Imagine to yourself all these wretches bound together, according to the expression of the Holy Spirit, like a bundle of thorns—“As a bundle of thorns they shall be burnt with fire” (Is. 33:12), or a heap of tow cast into the midst of the flames—“The congregation of sinners is like tow heaped together, and the end of them is a flame of fire” (Ecclus. 21:10). Represent to yourself in this horrible reunion the accomplices or the victims of the damned bound and chained with him to burn in the same fire: “They themselves being fettered with the bonds of darkness, and a long night” (Wis. 17:2). What torment for the unhappy man, not to be able to separate himself from the companions of his reprobation, who never cease to accuse him of their misfortune and who find a horrible consolation in tearing him to pieces! “They have opened their mouths upon me, and reproaching me they have struck me on the cheek; they are filled with my pains” ( Job 16:11).

Third Consideration / The punishment of the reprobate through the powers of his soul

1. Torment of the imagination. The imagination of the damned presents his misery to him with incredible clearness. It represents to him all the pleasures of his past life. See how happy thou wert on earth; thy life was but one tissue of delight and joy, all that is passed and can never return: “All those things have passed away” (Wis. 5:9). It shows him all he has suffered, all that he has yet to suffer. Oh, what years thou hast burnt in hell, and yet thy eternity is not begun! Oh, what ages and millions of ages will pass, and thou wilt have no other occupation but to burn! It shows him heaven, with all its felicity. How happy thou wouldst be near Mary, near Jesus Christ. Listen to the songs of the blessed; behold those souls that love and possess God for all eternity. All that is lost for thee. “The wicked shall see, and shall be angry, he shall gnash with his teeth and pine away; the desire of the wicked shall perish” (Ps. 111:10).

2. Torment of memory. The memory of the damned will recall all his sins: “What fruit, therefore, had you in those things of which you are now ashamed?” (Rom. 6:21) It recalls all the trouble taken for advancement in this world: “What doth it profit?” (Wis. 5:8). It recalls all the graces received—faith, a Christian education, the example of so many virtuous persons, the instructions of the ministers of Jesus Christ, the Sacraments of the Church. “And have been able to show no mark of virtue” (Wis. 5:13). It recalls the warnings that were given on earth. How often has he not heard that it is terrible to fall into the hands of the living God, that there is no mercy in hell! Why didst thou not listen to these wise warnings? “Did I not protest to thee by the Lord, and tell thee before?” (3 Kings 2:42).

3. Torment of the understanding. The understanding of the reprobate never ceases to show him the deformity of sin, the greatness and beauty of God, the justice of the punishment of hell. Thou wert made for God; why hast thou refused Him thy heart? God is so great, He is so perfect, He is so good; who deserved thy love and service as He did? Ungrateful! Thou hast abandoned thy benefactor. Perjured! Thou hast dared to break thy oaths. Parricide! Thou hast wished to kill thy Father. Be gone! Suffer for all eternity; an eternal hell is not too much to punish thy crime. “Thou art just, O Lord, and Thy judgment is right” (Ps. 118:137).

4. Torment of the will. Represent to yourself how the condemned soul is tormented. By its regrets: It was so easy to save myself. Oh, why did I abuse the time and the grace of God? By its remorse: Woe to me! I was mad, a wretch; I am lost through my own fault. By its jealousy: Why was such a one saved? He had committed greater sins than I; he had received fewer graces than I; he is happy in heaven, and I burn in hell. By its desires: Oh, that I might return to the earth, that I might receive a few years of life; I would frighten the world by the rigors of my penance. Its reaching after God: Oh, that I might yet see Thee, Lord; that I might love, that I might possess Thee! Its imprecations: My prayer, then, is useless. Malediction upon me! Perish the day of my birth! Destruction fall on my body, on my soul, which the anger of God pursues! Perish this unpitying God, who has nothing but vengeance for me! “The wicked shall gnash his teeth and pine away; the desire of the wicked shall perish” (Ps. 111:10).

Fourth Consideration / The torment of the damned in all his senses

1. Torment of sight. The aspect of this dreary prison—of the damned, the companions of his misery—of the demons, the executioners of the vengeance of God—of the cross of Jesus Christ printed on the vaults—of these terrible words engraved on the gates of hell, “ever, never”—of those flames that roar around him.

2. Torment of hearing. The groans of so many millions of the damned—the howls of their despair—their blasphemies against God and against the saints—their imprecations on themselves—their cries of rage as they invoke death or annihilation—the reproaches they address to themselves—the maledictions with which they load their accomplices—the noise of the flames devouring so many victims.

3. Torment of smell. The horrible infection that exhales from so many bodies, which preserve in hell all the corruption of the grave: “Out of their carcasses shall rise a stink” (Is. 34:3).

4. Torment of taste. A maddening hunger—“they shall suffer hunger like dogs” (Ps. 58:7)—the violence of which shall compel the damned to devour his own flesh: “Every one shall eat the flesh of his own arm” (Is. 9:20). A devouring thirst, and not one drop of water to refresh his parched tongue—no drink but wormwood and gall: “Their wine is the gall of dragons and the venom of asps, which is incurable” (Deut. 32:33). For refreshment, a chalice that the anger of God has filled with fire, with sulfur and the spirit of tempests: “Flames and brimstone and storms of winds shall be the portion of their cup” (Ps. 10:7).

5. Torment of touch. The damned will be enveloped in flames as in a garment. The fire will penetrate all the members of his body—and what a fire! Not a fire like that on earth, which is a gift of the divine bounty, but a fire created by justice to punish sin; not a fire lighted by men—and yet what terrible power in a fire that calcines marble, melts metals!—but a fire lighted and kept up by the breath of God, who avenges His offenses, avenges them without mercy and avenges them according to the extent of His justice and His power; a fire that does not consume the victim but that at one and the same time exhausts and renews that sensibility and thus renders the pain eternal; a fire armed with the attributes of God—His anger to punish, His knowledge to distinguish the senses that have been the most guilty, His wisdom to proportion the chastisement to the degree of crime; a fire so penetrating that it in a manner so identifies itself with its victim, that it boils in the veins and in the marrow—that it escapes and reenters by all the pores—that it makes of the damned a burning coal in the midst of the furnaces of hell; a fire that unites in itself every torment and every pain, which infinitely surpasses anything man can suffer from sickness—all that tyrants ever made the confessors of Christ to endure: “Which of you can dwell with devouring fire, which of you can dwell with everlasting burnings” (Is. 33:14).

Fifth Consideration / Torment of eternity

How many years or centuries will the damned be chained in this prison? Forever. How many years or centuries will he groan in tears of regret and despair? Forever. How many years or centuries will he be condemned to the society of demons? Forever. How many years or centuries will he burn in flames? Forever.

Will God, then, never have pity on his misery? Never. Will there not be any interruption of his torment? Never. Will he not at any time receive any mitigation of his pains? Never; always, never. Stretch your imagination—add years to years—ages to ages; multiply them like the leaves of the forest, the sand of the seashore, the drops of water in the immensity of the seas—you will not yet conceive the meaning of those two words, ever, never. “What number of years can equal eternity, since it is without end?” (St. Augustine).

COLLOQUY

Cast yourself at the feet of Jesus Christ. Represent to yourself this innumerable multitude of souls that sin has precipitated into hell. Return thanks to Our Saviour, who has preserved you from this dreadful eternity and has hitherto followed you with His mercy and His love.

Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First and second preludes. Same as last.

APPLICATION OF THE SENSES

1. Application of the sight. Consider in your mind the vast fire of hell; souls shut up in bodies of fire, as in an eternal prison; wicked spirits constantly employed in tormenting them.

2. Application of the hearing. Listen to the groans, the howls, the cries of rage, the blasphemies against Christ and His saints, the mutual maledictions of the damned.

3. Application of the smell. Imagine you smell the fire, the brimstone, the infection that exhales from so many hideous corpses.

4. Application of the taste. Taste in spirit all the bitterness, the tears, the regrets, the remorse of the damned.

5. Application of the touch. Touch in imagination those devouring flames that in hell consume not only the bodies of the reprobate but also the souls themselves. What do you think of them? Could you inhabit these eternal furnaces for a few hours? “Which of you shall dwell with everlasting burning?” (Is. 33:14).

End, at the foot of the crucifix, by addressing to yourself the following questions:

1. What are those souls that suffer in hell? Souls created, like yours, to love and possess God, souls for whom God had given His heart, His blood, His life; upon whom He wished to bestow His glory for all eternity.

2. What do they suffer? Pains truly infinite; for, except in the being of the sinner, the infinite is everywhere; in the offense that is avenged, in the wisdom that invented the pain, in the justice that decrees it, in the power that applies it and that makes it eternal.

3. Why do they suffer? For mortal sins, perhaps less enormous or less multiplied than yours.

4. What led them to hell? The way that you perhaps have followed until this day—the way of self-love, of sensuality, of tepidity.

COLLOQUY

And now converse with Jesus. At the foot of the cross recall to mind that all the reprobate are so, either for having refused to believe in His coming as a saviour, or for not obeying His precepts; the crime of men before His coming on earth, of the condemned of His time and of those who have come after Him. Attach yourself to Him, then, with heart and mind, that He may save you from eternal death. Finish by acts of lively gratitude that He has not allowed you to fall into this frightful abyss, following you even to this day, not with maledictions, but with unspeakable goodness and infinite mercy.

Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Transport yourself in thought to the bedside of a dying man, beside a grave open to receive a coffin or to the middle of a churchyard.

Second prelude. Ask of Our Lord a salutary fear of death and the grace to be ready at any moment.

First Consideration / What is death?

1. To die is to bid farewell to everything in this world—a farewell to your fortune; farewell to your titles and your rank; farewell to your pleasures, to your friends; farewell to a part of yourself, your body; and, saddest of all, farewell forever to this world.

2. To die is to be abandoned by all whom you leave behind; by your friends and acquaintance, who think no more of you; by your heirs, who will perhaps scarcely speak of you except to dispute your property; by your dearest relatives, who will soon weary of shedding tears, or even bestowing a thought upon you.

3. To die is to leave your house for a deep, narrow grave; it is to await the day of judgment under a stone, in a coffin six feet underground, without any other garment than a shroud; without other society than reptiles and worms; without other titles than an inscription, which few will read and which time will soon efface.

4. To die is to pass into the most humiliating state, the nearest to nothingness; it is to go where your bodily senses will no longer act; where you can see nothing, not even your own destruction; where you will no longer hear anything, not even the work of the worms that devour you; where you will become the prey of corruption and the food of the most hideous reptiles; where you will slowly fall to pieces; where you will decompose into an infectious corruption. “Under thee shall the moth be strewed, and worms shall be thy covering” (Is. 14:11). “I have said to rottenness, thou art my father; to worms, my mother and my sister” ( Job 17:14).

5. Lastly, to die is for your soul all at once to leave this world and enter in a moment into an unknown region called Eternity; where it goes to hear from the mouth of the Lord in what place it must make that great retreat that will last forever; whether it is to be in heaven or in the depths of hell.

Second Consideration / Must I die?

Most certainly. But what assures me of it? Reason, which tells me that a body constantly undermined by time must finally fall to dust. “A mountain falling cometh to naught, and a rock is removed out of its place. Waters wear away the stones, and with inundation the ground by little and little is washed away. How much more shall they that dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, be consumed?” ( Job 14:18, 19; 4:19). Faith tells me that a sentence of death has been pronounced against all men: “It is appointed unto men once to die” (Heb. 9:27). Experience shows them all places and at all hours man cast down and trampled underfoot by that terrible king called Death: “Destruction treads upon him like a king” ( Job 18:14). Man has raised doubts on all truths; but who has ever doubted the certainty of death? “There is no man that liveth always, or that hopeth for this” (Eccles. 9:4). To almost all the questions that might be asked about you the answer would be “perhaps.” Shall you have a large fortune, great talents, a long life? Perhaps. Will your last hour find you in the friendship of God? Perhaps. After this retreat, shall you live long in a state of grace? Perhaps. Shall you be saved? Perhaps. But shall you die? Yes, certainly. Will a day arrive when to health shall succeed sickness, then agony, then the last sigh? Yes. Will there be a day when the bell will toll for your burial, when your name will be inscribed in the register of the dead, when your coffin and your tombstone will be ordered and when your servants will carry you from your apartments to your grave? Yes. Shall you be laid in the bosom of the earth to molder away, to be eaten by worms and to crumble into dust? Most certainly, yes. “It is appointed” (Heb. 9:27).

Take every precaution you please—use the most wholesome food, surround yourself with the most delicate attentions, consult the ablest physicians—you will not escape this decree of death. Say, where are the generations that have preceded you? Where are the monarchs who ruled your fathers, the generals who commanded their armies, the magistrates who administered justice? Where are your fathers? Those whose name and title you bear—where are they? In the grave—in eternity! Know that you will one day have the same end as they and that tomorrow, perhaps, it will be your turn to fall under the stroke of death: “Yesterday for me, and to-day for thee” (Ecclus. 38:23).

Third Consideration / Shall I die soon?

Consider that the measure of your life is this time, of which the days, the hours, the moments, press upon and, as it were, swallow up each other. How, then, can you flatter yourself that death is far off when it has already begun for you? From the moment of your birth to this hour, what have you done but die? Count all the years, the weeks, the days, the hours, which united make up what you call your age—what are they but so many steps toward the grave? You are like the candle, which is consumed in giving light and gives light in being consumed; like it you live in dying and in living die. An action continued without interruption is soon accomplished. All other human actions have some cessation—business, study, pleasures, sleep, everything, in fact, has some interval. There is but one action that is never interrupted, and this action is death; death that began with your first sigh and will end with your last. How can you be long before you die, when you began to die at your birth and are dying every moment of the day and night?

What is your age? Is it twenty, thirty, forty, or are you still older? What do these past years appear to you—years already passed into eternity like waves into the ocean? How quickly they are gone! Be persuaded that your future years will pass as quickly, if even there are years before you. Death will take from you the future, as it took from you the past, with the rapidity of lightning. And this is the life of all; the Holy Spirit says it is like the track of a ship on the ocean, the flight of a bird through the air, or an arrow shot by a vigorous hand; it is like the froth on the edge of a stream, like a little dust on the plain, like a vapor that a breath of wind dispels forever.

Fourth Consideration / When shall I die?

“It is not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father hath put in His own power” (Acts 1:7). “Watch, for you know not the day or the hour” (Matt. 25:13). It is not for us to penetrate the secrets of God; but it is for us to watch, that we be not surprised. For how many terrible uncertainties are there not in death! (1) At what age shall you die? In old age, in middle age, or in youth? “Watch, for you know not.” (2) What kind of death shall you die? Will it be a sudden death, without time to prepare yourself? Will it be after a long illness, which will deprive you of the use of your senses, the use of time, of grace, of the sacraments? Will it be after violent pain, which will render it out of your power to attend to your everlasting salvation? Will it be from a fall, from fire, from the weapon of an enemy? “Watch, for you know not.” (3) In what place shall you die? Will it be in your own house or in that of strangers? At table, at play, at the theatre, at church? Will it be in your bed, or in a prison, or on the scaffold? “Watch, for you know not.” (4) What day shall you die? Will it be in ten years? Why not this very year? Why not this month, this week? Why not even this day? “Watch, for you know not.” (5) During what action shall you die? There is not one action that may not be your last. You pray—why should not death strike you while you pray? You study—why should not death strike you in the midst of this study? You sleep—why should not this sleep be eternal? Not one of your words, not one of your movements, which may not be followed by the silence and stillness of death. “Watch, for you know not.” (6) In what state shall you die? Will it be in a state of grace, or in a state of sin? Again, the same uncertainty. All that we know is that death is the echo of life and that we almost always die as we have lived. “Watch, for you know not.”

Fifth Consideration / How often shall I die?

Once only. “It is appointed unto men once to die” (Heb. 9:27). This is what is most terrible in death: in this great and decisive action, all errors are irreparable; the misfortune of a bad death is an eternal misfortune. If you could die twice, you might reassure yourself as to the risks of your eternal salvation. If you were lost the first time, you might be saved the second: but it is not so; you have but one life, one soul, one death. Once lost, you are lost for all eternity.

And on what does a good or a bad death depend? On a single moment! What is required to consent to temptation? A moment! What is required mortally to offend the Lord? A single instant! Consider well that no more is necessary to decide your eternity; one moment is enough to ensure your damnation. On this moment depends eternity!

If you had died such a year, such a day, such an hour of your life, when you were the enemy of God, where would you be now? You would be lost, and lost forever, for it is written, “If the tree fall to the south, or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it be” (Eccles. 11:3). Are you not seized with terror at the thought of the danger to which you have voluntarily exposed your soul? Resolve to live more carefully for the future, and hasten to assure yourself of the sanctity of your death by the sanctity of your life.

AFFECTIONS

Fear. “Enlighten my eyes, that I never sleep in death, lest at any time my enemy say, I have prevailed against him” (Ps. 12:4, 5).

Desire. “Do with me according to Thy will, and command my spirit to be received in peace” (Tob. 3:6).

Resolution. “All the days in which I am now in warfare, I wait until my change come. Thou shalt call me, and I will answer Thee” ( Job 14:14).

COLLOQUY

Represent to yourself Our Lord dying on the cross, and recommend to Him the hour of your death.

Pater. Ave.

First Contemplation / Your agony

Preparatory prayer.

First and second preludes. Same as in the preceding.

APPLICATION OF THE SENSES

1. Application of the sight. Contemplate—(1) Your apartment faintly lighted by the last rays of day or the feeble light of a lamp; your bed that you will never leave except to be laid in your coffin; all the objects that surround you and seem to say, “You leave us forever!” (2) The persons who will surround you: your servants, sad and silent; a weeping family, bidding you a last adieu; the minister of religion, praying near you and suggesting pious affections to you. (3) Yourself stretched on a bed of pain, losing by degrees your senses and the free use of your faculties, struggling violently against death, which comes to tear your soul from the body and drag it before the tribunal of God. (4) At your side the devils, who redouble their efforts, to destroy you; your good angel, who assists you for the last time with his holy inspirations.

2. Application of the hearing. Listen to the monotonous sound of the clock that measures your last hours and says at each movement, Behold yourself a second nearer to the tribunal of God; the sound of your painful labored breathing and that terrible rattle, the forerunner of death; the stifled sobs of those who surround you; the prayers of the Church recited in the midst of tears: “From an evil death, from the pains of hell, from the power of Satan, deliver him, O Lord.” “Depart, Christian soul, in the name of God Almighty, who created you, in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who died for you, in the name of the Holy Ghost, who sanctified you. Deliver, Lord, the soul of Thy servant from the perils of hell, as Thou didst deliver Noe from the deluge, Abraham out of Chaldea, Job from his sufferings.” And from time to time the priest will suggest to you these words, which the Church places in his mouth: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Mary, mother of grace, mother of mercy, protect us from the enemy and receive us at the hour of death.” Meditate well on these words now, which sickness will not allow you to meditate upon at the hour of your death.

3. Application of the taste. Represent to yourself all the bitterness of the dying agony: “Doth bitter death separate in this manner?” (1 Kings 15:32). For the present, what bitterness in this separation from your possessions, your rank, your pleasures, your friends, your relatives, your body; in the weariness, the sadness, the fears, which precede the last moment! For the past, what bitterness in the memory of your whole life, in which you perceive so many infidelities, so many graces not corresponded with, so many grave sins, so many scandals! For the future, what bitterness in the thought of the judgment you have to undergo, when you must give an account of all your works, when you will hear the decisive sentence of your eternity! “O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee!” (Ecclus. 41:1).

4. Application of the touch. Imagine yourself holding in your feeble hands the crucifix, which the priest presents to you; imagine yourself touching your own body, which will soon be only a corpse. How cold your feet! Your arms, shriveled by sickness, begin to stiffen. How painfully your chest labors with your unequal breathing, which soon will cease! Your heart, which beats with a scarcely perceptible movement, your face hollowed by fever and covered with cold sweat—is it not in this state you have seen friends, near relatives, dying? It is in this state your friends and relatives will see you before long. Make these reflections today, which your agony will soon inspire in those who witness it.

End by a colloquy with Our Lord dying: “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit” (Ps. 30:6).

Pater. Ave.

Second Contemplation / Your state after death

Preparatory prayer.

First and second preludes. The same.

Application of the sight. Consider—1. A few moments after your death. Your body laid on a funeral bed, wrapped in a shroud, a veil thrown over your face; beside you the crucifix, the holy water, friends, relatives, a priest kneeling by your sad remains and reciting the holy prayers, “De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine”; the public officer who writes in the register of the dead all the particulars of your decease—such a death, a year, a day, an hour—the servants all occupied with the preparation for your funeral.

1. The day after your death. Your inanimate body enclosed in a coffin, covered with a pall, taken from your apartment, sadly carried to the foot of the altar, received by the priest of Jesus Christ; deposited before the Lord present in the Tabernacle; then, the Holy Sacrifice over, laid in its last home, the grave. Consider well the dismal field where the eye sees nothing but tombs; this open grave where they are laying your body, the priest who blesses you for the last time, your relatives and friends who contemplate the spectacle with fear, the grave-digger who ends the scene by throwing earth on your coffin.

2. Some months after your death. Contemplate this stone already blackened by time, this inscription beginning to be effaced. And under that stone, in that coffin that is crumbling bit by bit, contemplate the sad state of your body: see how the worms devour the remains of putrid flesh; how all the limbs are separating; how the bones are eaten away by the corruption of the tomb! See what remains of the body you have loved so much—a something that has no name in any tongue and on which we cannot think without disgust.

Application of the hearing. Go through again the different scenes where you are the spectacle. Listen—(1) To the dismal sound of the bells that announce your death and that beg the prayers of the faithful for your soul. (2) The prayers that they recite at the foot of your bed: “Saints of God, come to its assistance. Angels of God, come to its help; receive his soul. Eternal rest give unto him, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon him.” (3) The remarks of the servants who speak of you. (4) Your friends and relatives, who communicate to each other their reflections on your death and mutually console each other for your loss. (5) The assistants called in to arrange your funeral, who speak of you with cold indifference. (6) The chants of the Church during the funeral service: “Deliver me, Lord, from eternal death in that dreadful day when the heavens and the earth shall tremble, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire—that day, a day of wrath, of calamity, and of misery; that great and very bitter day.” (7) The conversations of the persons whom duty, friendship, or civility call to your funeral. (8) What is said of you in society after your death. Examine well all these circumstances, and conclude by making a resolution to detach yourself from creatures, and belong to God alone.

Application of the smell and the touch. Imagine yourself respiring the odor your body exhales when the soul is departed; the infection it would give out if it were taken from the coffin a few months after your death. Imagine you touch this damp earth, where they have laid you; this shroud in which they have wrapped you and that is now in rags; this bare skull, once the seat of thought; these dismembered limbs, which once obeyed all the orders of your will—in fine, this mass of corruption, which the sepulcher has enclosed a few months and the sight of which is horrible. In presence of this terrible scene, ask yourself what are health, fortune, friendship of the world, pleasures of the senses, life itself: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” (Eccles. 1:2).

End by a colloquy with Our Saviour dying: “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit, O Lord.”

Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself the tribunal of Jesus Christ and your soul brought into the presence of its Judge to give an account of all its works.

Second prelude. “Remember, O most loving Jesu, that for me Thou didst humble Thyself to this mortal life. Let me not be lost, I beseech Thee, on that great day.”“Recordare, Jesu pie, / Quod sum causa tuæ viæ; / Ne me perdas illa die.”

First Consideration / The time and the place where the judgment will be held

The time will be that at which you breathe your last sigh. Represent to yourself your relatives and friends examining your lips and heart to find a breath or a beat that may yet give token of life. While they are still asking whether you belong to time or eternity, you are already before the tribunal of your Judge. And where is this tribunal? In the room where you have just expired, beside your deathbed, before your corpse, before those who surround your inanimate remains and who assist at this terrible scene without desiring it and probably without thinking of it.

Second Consideration / The accused

It is your soul, but your soul alone with its works:

“Their works follow them” (Apoc. 14:13). Your soul suddenly illuminated by the lights of eternity, embracing at one glance the extent of its obligations, all the consequences of the graces it received, all the circumstances of the sins it committed: “In Thy light we shall see light” (Ps. 35:10). Your soul in the presence of God, without the power to escape this awful sight. What a situation for the sinner! A worldling in the presence of that God he has never truly loved; a voluptuary in the presence of a thrice holy God, who has witnessed all his excesses and is about to punish them; a careless man in presence of that God of whom he thought as little as if He had not existed!

Third Consideration / The accusers

1. The devil. Satan will stand before the tribunal of Jesus Christ repeating the words of your consecration to the Lord. He will recall your baptismal vows. He will say, “You were asked, ‘Do you renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil?’ and you replied, ‘I do renounce them.’ How, then, have you kept your promise?” Then turning toward Our Lord, “I did not sweat blood for him; I was not crowned with thorns for him; I never shed a drop of blood for him; I was not suspended to the cross one moment for him. And yet he did not serve you, but me. I never gave my life for this soul; and yet it was not to you he gave himself, it was to me. Pronounce the sentence, then, and let him belong to me through sin, since he would not belong to you by grace.”

2. The angels. Your guardian angel will reproach you with rejecting his inspirations, despising his counsels, sullying his looks by your sins that he witnessed: “Arise, O God, and judge Thy own cause” (Ps. 73:22). The angels charged with the souls of your brethren will reproach you with your scandals and demand vengeance for your fatal example, which perhaps caused their loss: “Arise, O God, and judge.” The angels who watch before the holy altars will reproach you with that indifference that kept you from the holy table, or even from the temples of Jesus Christ; those irreverences that have so often outraged the holiness of sacrifice or prayer; the word of God listened to with worldly dispositions; the Sacraments rendered useless by tepidity, perhaps profaned by sacrilege. “Arise, O God, and judge.”

3. Your own conscience. Your conscience will place your whole life before your eyes; it will show you all your works, which will say: Do you know us? We are your works: “It was thou who didst us; we will not leave thee” (St. Bernard). At each accusation of the devil or the angels, it will bear witness against you: “It is true thou art guilty of this iniquity; it was such a day, at such an hour, thou didst commit this sin.”

Fourth Consideration / The judge

It is Jesus Christ, once your father, your spouse, your friend, your brother; but who now, forgetting all these titles, is only your judge—and what a judge! A Judge infinitely holy; He has an infinite horror of every sin, however small. A Judge thoroughly omniscient; there is no sin so small, so secret, that He does not know it and reveal it. A Judge infinitely just; there is no sin that He leaves without vengeance. A Judge without appeal; whose sentence it is impossible to revoke. A Judge all-powerful; how can man escape the chastisements of His justice? Behold, then, the Judge before whom you will appear to give an account of His graces and His blood shed for you! What will become of your soul in presence of such a Judge? “What shall I do when God shall arise to judge?” ( Job 31:14).

Fifth Consideration / Your defense at the judgment of God

If you appear before the tribunal of God in mortal sin, what will you answer to your accusers? “All iniquity shall stop her mouth” (Ps. 106:42). Will you excuse yourself by your ignorance? But they will oppose to you the lights of your conscience and of the Gospel and the instructions of the Church and its ministers. Will you excuse yourself by your weakness? But they will oppose to you the strength of grace. Will you excuse yourself by your temptations? They will oppose the means God gave you to overcome them—prayer, the Sacraments, and so on. Will you excuse yourself by the scandals that led you away? They will oppose all the holy examples that ought to have strengthened you in virtue. Finally, leaving all excuses, will you have recourse to the inter-cession of holy Mary and of the Saints, to the mercy of Jesus Christ? The Blessed Virgin, the Saints, can no longer do anything for you, and Jesus is now the God of justice, not the God of mercy: “My eye shall not spare them, neither shall I show mercy” (Ezech. 8:18).

Sixth Consideration / The sentence

To the just it will be said, “Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning.” To the wicked it will be said, “Begone, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for Satan and his angels” (Matt. 25:34, 41). Be gone: that is to say, every tie between us is broken; go far from Me, wandering sheep, I am no longer your shepherd; go far from Me, faithless spouse, I am no longer thy spouse; go far from Me, unnatural child, I am no longer your father; be gone, you shall have no part in My friendship, in My kingdom, in anything belonging to Me. My Mother is no longer your mother; My angels are no longer your guardians; My saints no longer your protectors. Be gone, ye cursed, cursed in every sense, which has each its punishment—cursed in thy mind, which shall never have one good thought; cursed in thy heart, which shall be given up to despair without end. Be gone to everlasting fire, to that fire where thou wilt have a furnace for thy dwelling, flames for thy food, burning coals for thy couch, devils for thy society, tortures for thy repose; to that fire that will last as long as I am God. Be gone to the fire prepared for Satan. I take heaven and earth to witness it was not prepared for thee. I protest before angels and men that I neglected nothing to save thee from this eternal fire. Behold My angels, to whose care I committed thy soul. Behold My Mother, whom I gave thee for thy mother and patroness. Behold My wounds and My heart open and pierced for thy salvation. But since thou wouldst not have My graces and My friendship, be gone from Me, and be gone for all eternity: “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.”

AFFECTIONS

Colloquy, first, at the feet of Jesus crucified:

“O most just Judge, bestow upon me, I beseech Thee, the gift of pardon before that day of reckoning. Behold, I groan in Thy sight as one guilty; shame covereth my face because of my sin. Spare me, O God, crying to Thee for mercy.”“Juste Judex ultionis, / Donum fac remissionis, / Ante diem rationis. / Ingemisco tamquam reus: / Culpa rubet vultus meus: / Supplicanti parce, Deus.”

Second, at the feet of an image of Mary:

“O Mary, at once the Mother of God and the mother of the sinner, mother of the Judge and of the criminal, let not God your Son condemn your son the sinner.”

Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself the fires of purgatory and a soul in these fires expiating the sins it committed on earth.

Second prelude. Ask of God the knowledge and the hatred of venial sin.

First Consideration / The malice of venial sin

Venial sin is essentially an offense against God. It is consequently a contempt of the majesty of God, an ingratitude toward His goodness, a resistance to His will, an injury to all His perfections—a slight injury if compared to that which mortal sin offers to God but very serious if considered in itself; for it is an offense against Infinite Majesty by a vile creature and for a vile motive.

Venial sin is, then, really the evil of God. Meditate well on these words: An evil against God; that is to say, an evil so great that it surpasses all the temporal and even eternal evils of creatures.

The destruction, or above all the damnation, of the whole human race would be a great evil; and yet it would be a sin to wish, if we had the power, to save the human race from destruction or hell at the price of one venial sin.

It is an evil so great that all the sacrifices and virtues of creatures render less glory to God than one venial sin takes from Him.

It is an evil so great that neither the mind of man can comprehend it nor his will hate it as it deserves to be hated, nor any expiation of his suffice to repair it. For it requires nothing less than the mind, the will and the atonement of a God.

Second Consideration / The effects of venial sin

Venial sin, it is true, does not destroy in us habitual grace; but, nevertheless, how deplorable are its effects in the soul!

1. It imprints a stain that tarnishes its beauty. It is to the soul what an ulcer is to the body.

2. It weakens the lights of the spirit and the fervor of the will; and from that arise languor in prayer, in the use of the Sacraments and in the practice of Christian virtues.

3. It deprives the soul of the superabundance of graces—choice graces, which God only gives to purity of heart.

4. It deprives the soul of a greater degree of grace and glory that it would have acquired by its fidelity and that is lost by its fault. A God less glorified eternally, less loved and less possessed—such are the consequences of venial sin to the soul.

5. It leads to mortal sin as sickness leads to death; for the repetition of venial sins insensibly weakens the fear of God, hardens the conscience, forms evil attachments and habits, gives fresh strength to the temptations of the enemy of our salvation, nourishes and develops the passions. Hence the Holy Spirit says, “He that contemneth small things, shall fall by little and little” (Ecclus. 19:1); and that of Our Saviour, “He that is unjust in that which is little, is unjust also in that which is greater” (Luke 16:10).

Third Consideration / The punishment of venial sin

Even in this life God has often inflicted most rigourous vengeance for venial sin. Moses and Aaron were excluded from the promised land in punishment of a slight distrust; the Bethsamites were struck dead for an indiscreet look at the Ark; seventy thousand Israelites were carried off by a destructive scourge in punishment of the vain complaisance of David in the numbering of his subjects.

But it is above all in the next life that venial sin is punished with the most alarming rigor. Enter in spirit this blazing prison, where the justice of God purifies His elect, and meditate attentively on the following circumstances:

1. What is the victim suffering in purgatory? It is a predestined soul; a soul confirmed in grace and that cannot lose it; a soul so dear to God that He is impatient to give it the most magnificent testimony of His love, that is to say, the possession of Himself.

2. What does it suffer? Pain that man cannot conceive; that is, fires that differ in nothing from those that devour the damned—it is the opinion of St. Augustine, confirmed by St. Thomas, “The same fire forms the torment of the damned and the purification of the just,” and the privation of God, which delivers up the soul to all that is most agonizing in regrets and desires.

3. Why does it suffer? For some of those faults that almost every moment are committed from the weakness of our will.

End by looking into your conscience. Examine the faculties of your soul and the senses of your body. Call to mind how far divine faith regulates the use of them with regard to God, your neighbor and yourself. Examine all the venial faults you commit each day in these different points, through ignorance, levity or weakness—perhaps even with malice and reflection. Humble yourself before God and say with the prophet: “For evils without number have surrounded me; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I am not able to see. They are multiplied above the hairs of my head, and my heart hath forsaken me. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me” (Ps. 39:13, 14).

Colloquy with the Blessed Virgin and Our Saviour.

Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself the prodigal son returning to his father after long wanderings.

Second prelude. Ask of Our Lord the grace to imitate the repentance of the prodigal and, like him, obtain pardon for your past sins.

THE WANDERINGS OF THE PRODIGAL SON

“A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of substance that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his substance. And not many days after, the younger son, gathering all together, went abroad into a far country, and there wasted his substance, living riotously. And after he had spent all, there came a mighty famine in that country, and he began to be in want. And he went and cleaved to one of the citizens of that country. And he sent him to his farm to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.” (Luke 15:11–16)

Consider well all the circumstances of this history.

1. He is young. The passions of youth: here we see the cause of his error. Youth is the age of illusions: the prodigal promised himself a happy and brilliant life away from the paternal mansion. Youth has a passion for pleasure: the prodigal sighed after gaieties of the world; he envied other youths of his age the pleasures of idleness, the noisy joys of their amusements, the success of their mad passions. Youth is, above all, jealous of its independence: the prodigal is weary of the constraint his father’s presence imposes on him; he wishes to be the master of his liberty and the arbiter of his destiny. Look within yourself: what have been the causes of your errors, if not the illusions of the world, the passion for pleasure, the fatal love of independence?

2. “Father, give me the portion of substance that falleth to me.” He asks of his father that portion of the heritage that comes to him. What ingratitude! The name alone of father, ought it not to have recalled to him all the benefits bestowed by paternal tenderness, the cares that surrounded his infancy, the lively affection of which he received fresh testimonies every day? What unjust pretensions! This substance that he claims belongs to his father, who received it from his ancestors or who perhaps owes it to a long series of labors or to prudent economy: by what right does he take it during his father’s lifetime? And what title has he to exact the division of a fortune not yet belonging to him? What foolish temerity! This property once in his hands, what will become of it? Scarcely will he be master of it before he will dissipate it in luxury and debauchery. Apply these reflections to yourself. Is not God your Father in the order of nature and in the order of grace? When you left Him to serve the world, did you not act like the prodigal, ask for your portion of the heritage, that is, the free disposal of yourself, as if you were not the property of God, who created you and redeemed you, as if you could for a moment become master of yourself without making yourself miserable? What ingratitude in your departure from God! What injustice! What folly!

3. “And not many days after he went abroad into a far country.” Being now master of his property, the prodigal goes into a distant country. If he remained in the neighborhood of his father’s house, too many memories would trouble him in the midst of his pleasures; he would be in constant fear of the remonstrances of his father’s friends, the presence perhaps of this father himself, the reproaches of his own heart. To give himself up to pleasure with less trouble and more liberty, he goes into a distant country. Imagine your wanderings, when you gave yourself to the world. You dreaded the exercises of piety, prayer, frequenting of the Sacraments; the society of good people; even meeting the ministers of Jesus Christ, whose zeal might have brought you back to Him; your own reflections and the reproaches of your own conscience—all these you feared. You fled as far from yourself and as far from God as possible, for fear that grace should find you out and restore you, even against yourself, to your Father and God.

4. “And there wasted his substance, living riotously.” Away from his father, the prodigal child has soon dissipated his fortune. He does not consider that it is the fruit of his father’s toil; that it is his sole resource for the future; that this fortune, however brilliant it may be, must come to an end in the expenses of luxury and sin. A few months are scarcely passed, and there remains to him nothing of his riches, nothing but dread poverty: “He wasted his substance.” And what treasures of grace have you not dissipated, far from God! Recall to mind all these losses, and weep for them with tears of blood—loss of the friendship of God; loss of your past merits; loss of those holy inspirations, which you have continually despised; loss of those good examples rendered useless; loss of that Christian education of which you have abjured the principles; loss of those happy dispositions of nature, of that taste for virtue, that uprightness of heart, of that delicacy of conscience, of those favorable tendencies to piety; loss of your talents, which you have prostituted to the service of pleasure and sin; loss of your reason, of your faith, of which you have perhaps even smothered the light. What a sad use of the gifts of your God! “He wasted his substance in riotous living.”

5. “He began to be in want, and he cleaved to one of the citizens; and he sent him into his farm to feed swine.” Sad consequences of the profusion and libertinism of the prodigal!—want, slavery, degradation and infamy.

Want. A great famine falls upon the country where the prodigal has gone; and, his riches wasted in luxury, he is left in shameful poverty. In vain he addresses himself to the companions of his excesses, to the friends on whom he had bestowed pleasure and fortune; he is left alone without resource and forced to beg his bread from the pity of a stranger. This country a prey to famine is the world. This hunger is the devouring hunger of the passions, which incessantly cry from the depths of the guilty heart, “Bring, bring” (Prov. 30:15). This indigence is the emptiness of a soul tormented by the want of happiness, and begging it in vain from creatures, which only offer him agitation, regret, disgust, weariness and afflictions without end. O my God, how true it is that in losing You the sinner loses all! “What can be more lost than what is out of God?” (St. Bernard) “What do you possess if you possess not God?” (St. Augustine)

Slavery. What a sad change! This young man so jealous of his liberty obliged to take service with a hard and unfeeling master! He who was such an enemy of all restraint reduced to the lowest occupations! He so haughty, confounded with the vilest slaves! And is not this the humiliating state of the sinner? Like the prodigal, he is the slave, not of one master, but of innumerable tyrants—slave of Satan, who reigns over his mind, his imagination, his heart, his senses; slave of his inclinations, which every moment require the sacrifice of his repose, his conscience, his reason; slave of the world and so must respect its judgments, applaud its maxims, spare its susceptibility, humor its caprices, satisfy its exigencies, dissimulate and suffer without complaint all its ingratitude and injustice; slave of habits, which become a sort of necessity and second nature and that defy all the efforts of grace, all the reflections of reason, all the remorse of conscience. What a slavery! “Such is the fate of whoever refuses himself to his Father” (St. Peter Chrysologus).

Degradation. The prodigal reduced to feed unclean animals and even envying them their degrading food. What disgrace! It is that of the sinner away from his God. There is no pleasure, however gross and brutal, from which he does not seek happiness; he even descends to envy the lowest libertines their most shameful excesses, their most monstrous debauches. He even envies the stupid condition of the brutes, wishing to have like them no law but instinct, no other destiny than the gratification of sense: “Man, when he was in honour, did not understand: he hath been compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them” (Ps. 48:13).

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself the prodigal son returning to his father after long wanderings.

Second prelude. Ask of Our Saviour the grace to imitate the repentance of the prodigal and to obtain from Him the pardon of your past wanderings.

THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL

The prodigal returning to himself, said, “How many hired servants in my father’s house abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger. I will arise and will go to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee: I am not now worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants. And rising up, he came to his father. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion; and running to him, fell upon his neck and kissed him. And the son said: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee; I am not now worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants: Bring forth quickly the first robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it, and let us make merry: because this my son was dead, and is come to life again; was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:17–24).

Consider two things: the conversion of the prodigal and the welcome that he receives from his father.

1. The conversion of the prodigal.

(1) The misfortunes of the prodigal are the beginning of his conversion. He had forgotten his father when he was rich and happy; miserable and poor, all his thoughts turned to this father so unjustly abandoned. Acknowledge the value of affliction; God always visits with His grace those whom He visits with tribulation.

(2) The prodigal, thus cast off by the world, returns to himself and begins to reflect on his unhappiness and his sins. The injustice, ingratitude and perfidy with which the world recompenses our services, will they not make us also return to ourselves? What subjects of reflection does not a soul that has left God for creatures find in itself! O God, what have I gained by leaving Thee? What rest, what happiness have I found in the world? Was it requisite, Lord, to take from Thee my heart, renounce Thy grace, lose Thy peace of conscience, risk my salvation and my eternity, for pleasures so fleeting, so empty, so degrading?

(3) Returning to himself, the prodigal compares his state to that of his father’s servants: “How many hired servants in my father’s house abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger!” Unfaithful soul, what a difference between your state and that of the servants of God! What peace in their souls! What interior joy! What fullness of consolation, even in the midst of their sacrifices! In your heart, on the contrary, what troubles! What bitterness! What agonies! What a difference between you and them! Recall what even your heart was under the empire of the Divine grace; see what it is become under the empire of sin; and by the troubles of your present state learn to regret the happiness of your past condition: “Who will grant me that I might be according to the months past, according to the days in which God kept me?” ( Job 29:2).

(4) The prodigal arms himself with a noble and courageous resolution: “I will arise and go to my father.” He does not stop at words and wishes only. He does not put off his change to a distant future. He is not afraid of the talk and the raillery of the world at the change. He does not draw back before the sacrifice of his attachments and his passions. What an example of true conversion!

(5) Finally, It is by the humble avowal of his faults that the prodigal wishes to return to his father’s favor: “I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee.” Let that be the first step also of your conversion. Go, throw yourself at the feet of Jesus Christ, present in the person of the priest, and say to Him, “I have sinned against heaven and before Thee; against heaven by the scandal of so many iniquities committed in the light of day; before Thee by so many secret sins, which, though buried in my heart or hidden in darkness, are not less clear to Thy invisible eye. Ah I am not worthy to be called Thy child—too happy if Thou wilt deign to admit me among Thy servants: ‘I am not now worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.’”

1. The welcome the prodigal receives from his father.

(1) “When he was yet a long way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion.” His father perceived him at a distance and was immediately moved with compassion. So, when feelings of repentance arise in your heart, God looks upon you with pity. He forgets everything—your revolt against His will, your having despised His mercy and His justice, your having resisted His grace, your obstinacy and hardness in sin; He no longer remembers that you were ungrateful and rebellious, He only sees in you your misery and your penitence.

(2) “He ran to him, fell upon his neck, and kissed him.” Does it not seem as if the prodigal’s father ought to have waited for his son; then, restraining his tenderness, leave him for some time at his feet and only grant pardon to the importunity of his prayers? Far from that, this father runs to meet him, throws himself on his neck and clasps him to his heart. See in this description the goodness of God: you abandoned Him; and now that creatures abandon you, ought He not to withdraw Himself in His turn? Does He not owe it to His honor to reject your heart as creatures do; to His holiness, not to encourage sin by so easily forgiving a sinner like you; to His justice, by treating you as He has treated so many unhappy ones, whom He punishes in hell without pity for the same crimes you commit so boldly? And yet He seeks you; He does not wait for you to ask pardon, He offers it to you; He does not allow you to remain at His feet, He embraces you and presses you to His sacred heart: “Thus does this Father judge, thus does He chastise, thus does He give His erring son, not the rod, but a kiss. I ask you, then, where is there room for despair?” (St. John Chrysostom).

(3) “Bring forth quickly the first robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand.” To pardon the repentant son seems little to this tender father; he wishes to restore to him all the marks, and at the same time all the rights, of his first condition. No reproaches for the past, no trial for the future; immediately he reinstates him in all the prerogatives of his birth. Thus the Lord treats the soul that returns to Him. In restoring to him His friendship, He restores all that sin had deprived him of; and He restores it without delay: “Our Father does not know what it is to make us wait for pardon” (St. Peter Chrysologus). With pardon what will you not regain? Innocence, peace, your merits, your rights to the glory of heaven, your title to the esteem of the good, all your dignity as man and Christian; and all this you regain in a single moment: “At this very moment I may, if I desire, become the friend of God” (St. Augustine).

(4) “Bring hither the fatted calf, and let us eat and make merry.” Finally, the prodigal’s father orders a splendid feast to celebrate the return of his son; and he wishes all his friends and his servants to take part in the joy of this feast; “For,” said he, “my son was lost, and is found; he was dead, and is alive again.” So the heavenly Father celebrates your return by a solemn festival, where He gives you the body of His Divine Son, who is every day offered, in order to be given to us at the Eucharistic table. He invites just men and angels to rejoice at our spiritual resurrection; He wishes that the day of our conversion should be a feast day for all the family, that is to say, for His Church. After this, why do we delay returning to the arms and the heart of this good Father?

COLLOQUY

Cast yourself at the feet of Jesus Christ, like the prodigal child at his father’s feet, and solemnly promise never more to forsake Him.

Anima Christi

The aim of the first week is to know how far we have wandered from the path that leads to our last end, to deplore so great an error and to conceive an ardent desire to return to this path, never more to quit it.

The purpose of the second week is to propose to ourselves Jesus Christ as the true way, as He Himself says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh to the Father but by Me” (John 19:6). Jesus Christ is, in fact, the Divine model whose example must reform and regulate our lives. And as the life of Our Saviour is the very perfection of holiness, it follows that the more faithfully we imitate Him, the more perfect our lives will be; and as perfection is our end, to approach nearer to our end, is to be nearer repose and happiness. Thus, the more our life resembles that of Jesus Christ, the happier it will be.

The recommendations proper to this week are—

1. To undertake the Exercises with great courage and a sincere desire to follow the way of God, as it shall be manifested to us. This disposition is so necessary for the fruit of the Exercises that it would be better to interrupt them than to continue them with an undecided will.

2. After the meditations, any spare time may be employed in reading some useful work, but one more calculated to nourish piety than give rise to curiosity—such as some of the works of St. Bernard, of Louis of Granada, the Imitation of Christ, the Lives of the Saints, and the Holy Gospels. It must be observed, however, in order to avoid distraction, that if the work treats of the mysteries of Our Saviour, we must not stop to dwell upon any other mystery than the one on which we are to meditate then or during the day.

3. In the observance of the additions there must be the following modifications:

(1) On waking, you must recall the subject of meditation and excite in yourself a great desire to know more particularly the mystery of the Word incarnate, that you may love Him with more ardor and serve Him with more fidelity.

(2) During the day, you must frequently recall some event in the life of Our Saviour, from the time of His incarnation to that of the mystery that is the subject of the present meditation.

(3) In the time of meditation, make use of light, or of obscurity, according as the one or the other appears most suitable to the sentiments and affections we desire to excite in ourselves. With regard to corporeal mortifications, they must be regulated according to the mystery we are meditating on; for some of the mysteries should excite us to penitence, some to other virtues.

When meditation has for its immediate object the mysteries of Jesus Christ, it naturally takes the form of contemplation. It is therefore necessary here to trace out the method of contemplation and the application of the senses.

In this Exercise, where the mysteries of Our Saviour are the object, we fix on persons, listen to words, consider actions; and from each of these we endeavour to draw some fruit for the soul.

I. BEFORE THE CONTEMPLATION

The same thing is to be observed as in the meditations, only adding a prelude. It is a sort of representation of the mystery intended to be meditated upon and that consists in recalling the history in brief. This prelude should be placed after the preparatory prayer and before the construction of place.

II. DURING THE CONTEMPLATION

1. Consider first, the persons, with whatever they present in themselves of good or bad.

2. The words, interior or exterior, the thoughts, the affections.

3. The actions, praiseworthy or blamable, going back to their cause in order to draw more spiritual profit from them.

Each of these points we must consider as regards ourselves, and apply the reflections suggested by the different objects contemplated. We may also meditate on the mysteries, reflecting on all the circumstances, the causes, the end, the effect, the time, the place, the manner of their accomplishment.

End by one or more colloquies and the Pater.

III. AFTER THE CONTEMPLATION

The same review as after the meditation.

CONTEMPLATION

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself the synagogues, villages, cities of Judea, and the different places, the scenes of the preaching of Jesus Christ.

Second prelude. Ask of God the grace not to be deaf to the calls of His divine Son but prompt to obey Him and follow Him.

First Point

Let us suppose that the bounty of Heaven has sent on earth a monarch who unites in himself all the moral and Christian virtues, all the heroic qualities, every title of legitimacy, all the gifts of valor and fortune that can render a general or a king formidable to his enemies and dear to his subjects—a prince wiser than Solomon, greater than Charlemagne, more pious than St. Louis, more fortunate in war than Bonaparte in the days of his greatest prosperity—a sovereign to whom the Lord has given in an authentic manner, and acknowledged by all Christian people, the title of universal monarch, which Henry IV, Charles V and Napoleon aspired in vain to be; in fine, a king to whom all the princes of Europe would willingly become tributary, and who had incontestable rights over the states of the infidels. Suppose, moreover, that this great man, this invincible general, this supreme monarch, should one day call around him all these princes—formerly independent but now considering themselves more fortunate in being his generals and his officers—and should speak to them thus: “Kings, my friends and my subjects, who enjoy with so much happiness the peace that reigns throughout Christian Europe, you are not ignorant of the evils that weigh on a part of humanity still barbarous and savage. In one place absurd divinities exact and receive human sacrifices, in another place, cannibals feed on the hearts of their enemies, or even on the yet living flesh of their parents. Elsewhere, unhappy widows are obliged to burn themselves on their husband’s funeral pile; officers and courtiers are buried alive with their dead prince. There are chiefs of tribes who punish with death any unfortunate being who should by chance cross their shadow, or cast a single look on them. Almost every where, the laws of natural morality, of the rights of man, of modesty, of humanity, are unknown or violated. Nowhere is there liberty, security, instruction, order, or true prosperity. By the announcement only of our approach, by the mere view of our armies, by the reputation of knowledge, wisdom and strength that Europe has acquired in the world, these unhappy people will feel that their subjugation will be their happiness and will submit to us without striking a blow. As they are our subjects by the order of divine power, we must spare their blood as we should spare that of our own soldiers. Thence we must take more precautions and run more perils; but I will be there at your head to set you the example of clemency and bravery; in so splendid an enterprise, I wish to undergo myself the greatest part of the privations and sufferings. No one in the army shall have anything to do, or to suffer, that I have not done and suffered before him. This, then, is the condition I impose on those who wish to take part in this great expedition; to accompany me in the midst of hazards and dangers, or rather to follow me into them, suffer with me but always less than myself. And behold the prize that I promise to the conquerors, and that shall be proportioned to the services rendered: I shall soon have a great number of crowns to distribute; the smallest reward I shall give to my brave and faithful companions will be a throne—a throne to occupy for the liberation, the civilization, the happiness of a whole people.”

With what enthusiasm would this discourse be received! With what unanimous applause! The enterprise is so glorious; the end proposed so noble, so useful; the example of the monarch so encouraging; the rewards promised so magnificent! What generous ambition would fire every heart, and how on every lip would be heard the cry of our fathers marching to the conquest of the Holy Sepulcher, “God wills it, God wills it!” And if it happened that one of these princes, preferring an ignoble repose to this glorious labor, should dare to reply, without dying of shame, “For me, I prefer remaining in the midst of my idleness, enjoying the delights of the court,” what a general hoot, what exclamations of disapprobation and contempt, would follow this cowardly and indolent refusal!

Second Point

And now compare with this great monarch and his noble expedition another monarch, the King of kings, Jesus Christ, and the enterprise that brought Him from heaven upon earth.

1. Son of God, Creator and Saviour of all mankind, King of the whole earth, He receives all nations as His inheritance; He is the way, the truth and the life, and no one arrives at the Father but through Him; there is no salvation possible to mortals but in Him and through Him alone. Full of grace and truth, He unites in Himself all virtues, all perfections, divine and human. And this is the discourse He addresses to all those who have become His subjects by baptism and His soldiers by confirmation: “My will, the most just of all wills, is from the height of My cross to draw all to Me; to enter into the possession of My domain, the world; to subjugate all My enemies for their salvation; and as a peaceful conqueror and master, universally obeyed by all the earth, to introduce with Me into the glory of My Father all these men redeemed by My blood. Let those who would share My crown accompany Me, follow Me; their eternal reward will be proportioned to their labors and their efforts.”

2. Let us reason and understand that it would be folly to refuse to Jesus Christ the generous and fervent offer of our entire selves. Let us, moreover, conceive not only that we must offer to follow Him in bodily works and fatigues but also that we owe Him a more worthy and precious service—the struggle and the victory against our flesh, our senses, our self-love, the love of the world. Let us say, weighing all the circumstances of this sublime vocation:

(1) Who is it that calls us? It is a God who has every right to our submission. The right of His infinite perfections. We cannot belong to ourselves; we must belong to God or to our passions. We have only the choice of the one yoke or the other. Which appears the most honorable? The right of creation. What are we? What have we? All that we are, all that we have, comes from God and consequently belongs to God. Shall we disown, violate, toward Him alone that right of property that reason and justice consecrate in human society? The right of redemption. A thing belongs to us if we buy it with our money, still more if we purchase it by long and hard labor; yet more would it appear so if bought with our blood. But what are we with regard to Jesus Christ? We are the price of all His wealth, the price of all His sufferings, the price of His blood and His death: “Know you not that you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price” (1 Cor. 6:19, 20). The right of our vows and promises. What more sacred than an oath dictated by gratitude and justice, sworn in the fullness of liberty and reflection, renewed so often and so solemnly in the face of heaven and earth? This is the oath that binds us to Jesus Christ.

(2) To what enterprise does Jesus Christ call us? To the most noble and most heroic that can be proposed. In this enterprise all is great. Consider: The enemies to be combated; the devil, the world, our own hearts. The weapons; faith, prayer, humility, patience, self-denial, charity, zeal. Our companions in the battle; the most illustrious that the world ever saw; the apostles, the martyrs, the penitents, in one word, all the saints. Our leader; Jesus Christ Himself; but Jesus Christ who combats in us by His grace and who, already a conqueror in so many saints, wishes to conquer in each one of us and in the hearts of all mankind. Lastly, the motive and end of the combat; to bestow on all the captives of Jesus Christ liberty, glory, happiness; to restore them to the way, the truth and the life.

(3) What are the conditions of the enterprise? To partake in the labors of Jesus Christ, that we may afterward partake of His glory. But let us remark well, that the sacrifices that Jesus asks of us He has first accomplished Himself.

If He asks humility of us, He first humiliated Himself; if He asks renouncement of us, He first renounced Himself. He has done more, He has gone beyond what He asks of us; He humbled Himself even to annihilation; He renounced Himself even to the cross. The sacrifices that Jesus Christ demands are sweetened by the unction of His grace. The cross has been without alleviation for Him alone; for His servants He lightens the weight by consolations. He alone could say in the full force of the words, “My soul is sorrowful even unto death” (Matt. 26:38); He enables His servants to say, “I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulations” (2 Cor. 7:4). The sacrifices that Jesus Christ asks of us are only passing. A short period of combat, an eternity of reward. If He asks humility of us, He first humiliated Himself; if He asks renouncement of us, He first renounced Himself. He has done more, He has gone beyond what He asks of us; He humbled Himself even to annihilation; He renounced Himself even to the cross.

(4) Let us consecrate ourselves generously to the service of so great and magnificent a master and say to Him, “Behold me at Thy feet, supreme Monarch of the universe. Without doubt I am unworthy to march after Thee; but full of confidence in Thy grace and protection, I consecrate myself to Thee without reserve. All that I am and all that I possess I submit to Thy holy will. I declare before Thy infinite goodness in presence of the Virgin Mother of my Saviour and of all the heavenly court that my desire, my unalterable resolution, my determined will, is to follow Thee as nearly as possible, detached in spirit from the things of the earth and, if Thou shouldst will it, really poor; humble of heart and, if that also is Thy will, partaking in all Thy humiliations and all Thy ignominies; living and dying at the post where the interests of Thy glory and my salvation and Thy divine call may have placed me.” “As the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth: in what place soever thou shalt be, my lord king, either in death or in life, there will thy servant be” (2 Kings 15:21).

COLLOQUIES

1. With the Blessed Virgin. Ask her to obtain for you from her Son the grace to be received and to march under His standard; first, in the love, or even, if He should deign to call you to it, in the practice of poverty; then, in the love of abjection and humility. Ave Maria.

2. With Our Saviour. Ask Him the same grace. Anima Christi.

3. With the Eternal Father. The same. Pater.

MEDITATION

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Recall the mystery—The angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin called Mary. The angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; thou shalt bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus. Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word (Luke 1:26–38).

Second prelude. Represent to yourself Nazareth and the humble house of Mary, where the mystery of the Incarnation was accomplished.

Third prelude. Ask the grace of knowing well the infinite charity of the Word incarnate, that you may love Him with more ardor and serve Him with greater zeal.

First Point

Consider the state of the human race before the Incarnation of the Word. With the exception of a few faithful souls, men lived in a profound forgetfulness of their last end. The devils had altars among all the people; pride, voluptuousness, love of riches, reigned in all hearts; the knowledge of God disappeared gradually from their hearts: “Truths are decayed from among the children of men” (Ps. 11:2). The Jews themselves were, for the most part, scarcely nearer to God and salvation than idolatrous nations.

Witness the reproaches addressed to them by the Baptist—“Ye brood of vipers, who hath showed you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matt. 3:7) And after him Our Lord—“You are of your father the devil” (John 8:44). In a word, God was scarcely any longer known, or loved, or served on earth. And souls fell into the abyss every day in such numbers that hell was obliged to enlarge its precincts—“Hell hath enlarged her soul, and opened her mouth without any bounds” (Is. 5:14).

Could man in this state of degradation and misery reasonably hope that God would deign to pity him and save him? For should not God thrice holy, God infinitely just, turn away His eyes with horror from the human race, of whom it is written, “To God the wicked and his wickedness are hateful”? (Wis. 14:9). “Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil, and Thou canst not look on iniquity” (Hab. 1:13). Should He not treat man as He had treated the rebel angels and deliver him up forever to all the rigors of His vengeance?

Did not God, infinitely great, owe it to His glory not to pardon criminals, whose ingratitude He foresaw and who would only receive His mercy with indifference, contempt, resistance and hardness? Where would mankind be, where should we be, if God had only consulted the interests of His greatness or His justice? Let us, then, recognize the infinite need we have of His mercy, and return thanks to Him for not having abandoned us in our misery.

Second Point

Consider the intention of the eternal Word in the Incarnation. His design is to repair the glory of the Father by bringing man back to his end—that is, to the knowledge, love and service of God.

1. The Word became man to bring men back to the knowledge of God. Consider that the Incarnation is the plainest proof of the Divine perfections. It reveals to us the grandeur of God, which cannot be worthily adored except by a Man-God; His wisdom, which knew how to invent this wonderful union of Divine and human nature for His glory and our salvation; His holiness, the offense to which can only be repaired by the satisfactions of a God; His mercy, which, instead of abandoning guilty man to eternal reprobation, takes pity on him and saves him; His love, which, not content with the gifts bestowed on man in the order of creation, wishes also to present him with a God as a Saviour.

2. The Word becomes incarnate to recall men to the love of God. Consider that creatures, instead of leading man to God, usurped all the affections of his heart. What does the Divine Word do to restore this heart to the empire of charity? Because man is under the dominion of his senses, He appears in a sensible form; because he is smitten with the love of creatures, He makes Himself one of them—He becomes man; and that He may more irresistibly captivate the human heart, He gives the first example of the love He asks. Recall the great precept of charity, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength” (Mark 12:30). Recall also the whole life on earth of the Word incarnate. See Him bestowing on our redemption all His thoughts, all His affections, all His works, His humanity, His entire divinity—and say, has He not fulfilled the precept of charity in its full extent toward man?

3. The Word became incarnate to recall man to the service of God. Consider that precepts no longer sufficed to teach man how God should be served. It was because of this that the Divine Word came to instruct us, not only by words, but also by example. His whole life is only a practical lesson of devotion to His Father’s service. What do we see in it in fact? (1) A Man-God, who, from the first moment of His conception, offers Himself to His Father. This is to teach us that there is not a single moment of our lives that does not belong to God. “When He cometh into the world He saith: Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldest not; but a body Thou hast fitted to Me; then said I, Behold I come to do Thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:5–9). (2) A God who fulfilled all the details and observances of the law, which could not bind Him. This was to teach us that He wishes to be served with a religious obedience to all His commandments. (3) A God who devotes Himself to every sacrifice, even to death upon the cross. This is to teach us that God merits to be served, however much it may cost to nature.

Meditate attentively on the great end that the Word proposed to Himself in the Incarnation, and ask of Him the grace to correspond to it faithfully.

Third Point

Consider how the Incarnation of the Word was accomplished. An angel is sent to Mary, a virgin, the spouse of a poor artisan. He comes to announce to her that the Word has chosen her for His mother, and to ask her consent to the great mystery that was to be accomplished in her. Meditate on each of these circumstances.

1. A God who incarnates Himself; that is to say, a God who makes Himself man, who makes Himself flesh, who unites Himself so closely to this vile flesh, subject to so many infirmities, which is common to us with the beasts and which He assumes in a state of feebleness and humiliation in the state of infancy. From this annihilation of the Son of God, learn the necessity and excellence of humility.

2. A God who becomes incarnate in the womb of a virgin mother. Admire the privilege of virginity: it is to it that the greatest honor is granted that God could do to a creature, the honor of the Divine maternity. From this conduct of God, who chose a virgin for His mother, and the purest of virgins, learn the necessity and the value of purity.

3. A God who becomes incarnate in the womb of a poor mother. The Son of God could have chosen a rich mother, and one of elevated rank according to the world. He fixes His choice on the spouse of a poor artisan. Engaged by His promises to be born of the race of David, He waits to be born of her until this royal race had fallen into obscurity and almost indigence. Learn from this the necessity and value of detachment.

4. A God who makes His incarnation depend on the consent of His creature. Learn from this the dignity and power of Mary. God willed that men should, as it were, owe Jesus Christ, and with Jesus Christ their redemption, to the free will of this blessed Virgin. Conceive, then, a great respect and confidence for the Mother of God, and never forget that the Word incarnate having only come into the world through Mary, it is only by Mary that we can go to Him.

COLLOQUY WITH THE THREE PERSONS OF THE ADORABLE TRINITY

Adore the infinite charity of God, who deigns to save men, notwithstanding their unworthiness and their ingratitude. Render thanks to the Word incarnate. Address yourself to Mary, and beg of her to obtain for you the grace of a tender love and faithful imitation of her divine Son.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

CONTEMPLATION

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Recall the mystery, “The angel Gabriel,” and so on, as in the first Meditation.

Second and third preludes also as before.

1. CONTEMPLATE THE PERSONS

2. Men spread over all the universe, almost all opposed in manners, characters, passions, interests, and yet almost all agreeing on one point; that is, in forgetting their last end, in offending God, in serving the devil, in dying as sinners and reprobates and precipitating themselves forever into hell

3. The holy Trinity, which suffices to itself; which finds its happiness in its own perfections, without having need of creatures; and which, instead of overwhelming criminal men with its justice, casts upon them looks of pity and mercy.

4. The blessed Virgin Mary, retired in the humble house at Nazareth and absorbed in prayer.

5. The angel Gabriel descending from heaven and saluting Mary, as Mother of God, full of grace, blessed among women.

Practical reflections and affections.

1. LISTEN TO THE WORDS

2. On earth and among men, words of hatred, of scandal, imprecations, blasphemies.

3. In heaven, words of clemency and charity; the august Trinity, which decrees the incarnation of the Word; the Word, who offers Himself to the Father for His glory and the salvation of man.

4. At Nazareth, the words of the angel Gabriel to Mary: “Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:28, 35). The answer of Mary, who humbly submits to the will of the Lord: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38).

Practical reflections and affections.

1. CONSIDER THE ACTIONS

2. On earth. The diverse crimes of men; the sacrilegious worship paid to idols and demons; the disorders of their plays, feasts, pleasures; their endeavors to supplant and even to destroy each other.

3. In heaven. The charity of the three Divine Persons toward man; with what love the Father gives us His own Son; the Word consents to become incarnate; the Holy Ghost forms the union of the Divine and the human nature.

4. At Nazareth. The respect of the angel in the presence of the Blessed Virgin; the trouble of Mary on hearing the words of Gabriel; her love for virginity, which she prefers to the honor of the Divine maternity; her humility and obedience to the will of Heaven.

Practical reflections and affections.

COLLOQUY WITH THE THREE PERSONS OF THE ADORABLE TRINITY

Adore the infinite charity of God, who deigns to save men, notwithstanding their unworthiness and their ingratitude. Render thanks to the Word incarnate. Address yourself to Mary, and beg of her to obtain for you the grace of a tender love and faithful imitation of her Son.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. “It came to pass that in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. And all went to be enrolled, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, to be enrolled with Mary his spouse. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:1–7).

Second prelude. Represent to yourself the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem—its length, its windings, its roughnesses. Then this cave where the Saviour was born, representing it according to your imagination, as wide or narrow, on a level with the road or in a hollow, as commodious or incommodious, and so on.

Third prelude. The same as in the preceding meditation.

Since the fall of our nature by sin, a triple disorder keeps the heart of man away from his final end—pride, love of riches, attachment to the pleasures of sense. The birth of Jesus Christ opposes to these disorders His humility, His poverty, His sufferings.

First Point / The humility of Jesus Christ in His birth

1. He humbles Himself, even to acknowledging Himself the subject of an idolatrous prince. To obey the edict of Augustus—an edict dictated by pride—He wills that His Holy Mother should take Him to a strange country, where at His birth He should be in poverty and want.

2. He is the Messiah promised to the world; foretold by the prophets many ages before; expected by the people; whose coming the earth has sighed after and to Whom it has cried, “Oh, that Thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down!” (Is. 64:1) And at His coming He would remain unknown; He allows His people to treat Him as a stranger, and that His own should deny Him like a mendicant who begs for public charity: “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11).

3. He intentionally hides the greatness of His birth; He who is of the royal race and of the blood of David wills to be born as the son of a poor artisan; nay, He wills to be born as even the children of the poor are not born—in a stable, in a manger, in the society of vile animals.

4. Not only does He hide His divinity under the guise of humanity, but He also debases His humanity itself to the infirmities and weaknesses of infancy. What a humiliation! This God-Man becomes like little children; like them, deprived of the use of speech, of the liberty of movement; dependent in everything on the will of those around Him!

Let us look in upon ourselves. How opposed are the maxims of the world, and the maxims of our corrupt nature, to the example of Jesus Christ! Let us beg of the Divine Infant to change our hearts by His grace; let us ask of Him that we may understand and love the way of humility.

Second Point / The poverty of the birth of Jesus Christ

1. He is born in a strange country, out of His mother’s house, where He would have found what is never wanting even to the most neglected of poor children, a roof to shelter Him and a cradle to rest in.

2. He is born in the most miserable place in the little city of Bethlehem. While the poorest around Him have an asylum, He is banished to a wretched building, open to the wind and rain.

3. His cradle is a little straw in a manger, so that His birth resembles that of the lowest animals. He is reduced to such misery that He can say with truth even now, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head” (Luke 9:58).

4. Everything around Him participates in His poverty; His parents, who scarcely possess a few coarse garments to clothe Him with; the poor shepherds, who at the voice of the angels leave their flocks to come and adore Him.

Consider that this wretchedness of the Son of God was not necessary and compulsory, like the poor in the world; it is free and of His own choice. Conceive a high idea of this poverty, which appeared so precious to Our Lord, that to espouse it He quitted heaven and His glory. Above all, understand the necessity of detachment and be persuaded that disengagement from creatures is the only true way that leads to God.

Third Point / The sufferings of Jesus Christ from His birth

Consider that the sufferings of Jesus commenced with His life; that they begin in His cradle, never more to leave Him but with His last sigh on the cross.

1. He suffers in His sacred body; for He is born in the depth of winter; at the hour when the cold is the most piercing; in a place where He is exposed, thinly clothed, to all the inclemency of the weather.

2. He suffers above all in His soul, which has the full exercise of its faculties. He suffers from the rebuffs He experiences in His tribe, and even in His own family, where none know Him. He suffers yet more for the troubles of Mary and Joseph, whom He sees repulsed with contempt from all the houses in Bethlehem and inconsolable not to find any other asylum for Him but a stable.

3. He suffers, with the intention of suffering during His whole life, toil, hunger, thirst, perpetual poverty, the most profound humiliations, the scourges, and the cross; and all this for me. Let me, then, seek to penetrate the motives that induce Him to suffer so much for love of me and seek it for my instruction and, above all, for my edification.

COLLOQUIES WITH JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH

Adore Jesus Christ in His cradle; beg Him to be born in our hearts; ask Him to come to us with the virtues He teaches us in the manger—with humility, detachment, spirit of sacrifice. Beg the powerful intercession of Mary and Joseph to support our prayer.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. The same as in the preceding meditation.

Second prelude. Represent to yourself a ruinous stable, and at the end of it a manger, where Mary and Joseph are adoring the Son of God, who is lying in it between two animals.

Third prelude. Ask a grace conformable to the present mystery and to your spiritual want; for example, humility or detachment.

First Point / Contemplate the persons

The Holy Virgin, St. Joseph, Jesus Christ Our Lord, who is just born, the angels who surround the manger, the shepherds who have hastened to the crib of the new-born Child. Represent to yourself the Divine beauty of the Saviour: the modesty, meekness and humility imprinted on the features of Mary; the simplicity and recollection of Joseph; the rapture of the angels; the joy of the shepherds. Imagine that you are beside the manger with Mary and Joseph, to contemplate Him, to serve Him. Consider what spiritual fruit you ought to draw from this sight; and to this end ask yourself, “Who is this that is just born? Why did He choose for Himself, and for all that were dearest to Him in the world—that is, Mary and Joseph—humiliation, poverty, pain? What is that treasure of graces that God has hidden in detachment from all things?”

Second Point / Listen to the words

1. The conversations of Joseph and Mary during the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem; how they beg an asylum at the inns and in what terms they are refused; what they say to each other at the sight of the stable where they are obliged to take shelter; their effusion of heart beside the crib where Jesus reposes.

2. The words of the angels. One of them says to the shepherds, “I bring you tidings of great joy that shall be to all people; for this day is born to you a Saviour in the city of David.” And the others sing in concert, “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will” (Luke 2:10–14).

3. The conversation of the shepherds among themselves: “Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass” (Ibid. 5:15); their expressions of faith and admiration at the sight of Jesus Christ; their conversation with Mary and Joseph.

Third Point / Consider the actions

1. In Joseph and Mary: The fatigue of the journey; the contempt and the rebuffs they suffer at Bethlehem, their solicitude and trouble to find an asylum; their cares to provide a more convenient and worthy cradle for the Divine Child: and in all this the admirable virtues that they practice; their patience, their interior peace, their union with God, their lively faith and their ardent love toward the Saviour.

2. In the shepherds: The contrast of their docility with the hardness of the inhabitants of Bethlehem; their adoration and their homage to the newborn Child.

3. Above all, in Jesus Christ: The extreme deprivation in which He chooses to be born; in which henceforth we shall see Him live and die. If we again ask ourselves, why these deprivations of the Son of God? Ah! It is for us; for our instruction and for our salvation.

Colloquies with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, as in last meditation.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

Preliminary RemarksThese remarks or explanations are given here because they are so placed by St. Ignatius, and because, though the application of the senses is employed from time to time during the first week, it becomes of daily use in the second.

1. By the imagination, the soul can render an object present and, as it were, see it, hear it, taste it and so on. So that to apply this faculty of the soul and the five senses to a truth of religion (according as it is susceptible of it), or to a mystery of Our Lord Jesus Christ, is what is called application of the senses.

2. The application of the senses differs from meditation in this: that in the one, the intelligence proceeds by reasoning, discoursing on the attributes of God and the causes and effects of mysteries, while in the other, it is confined solely to sensible objects—to what can be seen, heard, touched and so forth. It is not that the application of the senses, in order to be useful, does not require some reasoning and reflections, but they should be short, simple and rapid.

3. This exercise generally contains five points; or four only, when the senses of smell and taste are joined together. The following is the method:

First point. Represent to yourself the different persons, together with all their circumstances, and endeavor to draw some spiritual fruit from each.

Second point. Listen to their words or to what it may be supposed they say.

Third point. Taste interiorly the sweetness, or bitterness, or any other sentiment, of the person you are considering.

Fourth point. Respire, as it were, the perfume of the virtues, or the infection of the vices, the sulfur of hell, the corruption of dead bodies and so forth.

Fifth point. Touch interiorly the objects; for example, the eternal flames, the vestments of Our Saviour; kiss His footsteps, the manger and so on.

After two meditations or contemplations, it is usual to repeat the two together twice, and then to follow with the application of the senses to the same truths or mysteries.

APPLICATION OF THE SENSES TO THE BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST

The preparatory prayer and the three preludes as in the preceding meditation.

1. Sight. Contemplate the stable that is falling in ruins; the manger where Jesus Christ reposes on a little straw; the coarse swaddling clothes in which He is wrapped; the animals that warm Him with their breath; the Divine Infant Himself, who fixes His eyes on us and extends His arms to us; Mary and Joseph praying before the manger; the shepherds coming to adore the newborn Child whom the angel has announced to them; all heaven attentive to the great event that is being accomplished at Bethlehem; and, at the same time, the profound indifference of the rest of men to the coming of the Son of God. Practical reflections and affections.

2. Hearing. Listen to the discourse of the strangers going to Bethlehem; to the conversations of Mary and Joseph during the journey; to the words of the inhabitants of Bethlehem, who repulse them; to Jesus Christ, who speaks to His heavenly Father, who speaks to us by His cries and His tears; to the angels singing in the heavens, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace” to the shepherds making inquiries from the holy family about the birth of Jesus. Practical reflections and affections.

3. Taste. Taste interiorly the bitterness of the hearts of Mary and Joseph; the peace of their souls; their joy at the sight of the newborn God. Unite yourself in spirit to the abasement, the tears, the poverty, the prayer, all the virtues of Our Saviour in His birth. Practical reflections and affections.

4. Touch. Kiss respectfully the walls of the stable, the straw in the manger, the swaddling clothes, the sacred hands and feet of Jesus Christ. Practical reflections and affections.

Colloquies as in the preceding contemplation.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

MEDITATION

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Jesus having been found in the Temple by Mary and Joseph, left Jerusalem and returned with them to Nazareth, and was subject to them; and He advanced in wisdom and grace with God and man (Luke 2:51, 52).

Second prelude. Represent to yourself the humble house at Nazareth, the workshop of St. Joseph, and so on.

Third prelude. Ask of God a grace conformable to the present mystery and to your wants; for example, the love of a retired life, of retreat, of labor, of prayer, of obedience, and so on.

The Gospel only teaches us three things regarding the life of Jesus at Nazareth:—(1) That He obeyed: “He was subject to them” (Luke 2:52). (2) That He worked with His hands and at the work of an artisan: “Is not this the son of the carpenter?” (Mark 6:3). (3) That “He grew in wisdom, in age, and in grace before God and before men” (Luke 2:52).

First Point / At Nazareth Jesus obeyed

Consider the obedience of Jesus Christ in all its circumstances.

1. Who is He that obeys? It is He who is reason by essence; He whose will is sovereignly wise and independent; it is the Word of God.

2. Whom does He obey? His creatures. He obeys Joseph and Mary, whom He infinitely surpasses in light and in sanctity; who derive, and can only derive, light and holiness from Him. He obeys even strangers, who command Him like a mercenary; that is to say, He submits His will, the most noble and most upright that ever was, to wills full of weakness, of ignorance, of caprice—wills only made to obey Him.

3. In what does He obey? In everything that was commanded Him; consequently in the most trifling things, even in the meanest things—for example, in all the details of care required by a poor household and the station of a mechanic who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow.

4. How long does He obey? For thirty years, that is, not only during His childhood, when obedience is both a necessity and a duty for man, but also in the strength of age, when, according to the ordinary laws of nature and society, every man is arrived at the time when he has a right to govern himself.

5. How did He obey? In the most perfect way that can be conceived. By obedience of action, which executes promptly and to the letter; obedience of mind, which does not reason on the motives of the order or its nature; obedience of heart, which submits with love to the orders of man as to the orders of the Divine will.

Let us examine ourselves, our thoughts, our feelings, our conduct, with regard to obedience. Let us beg Our Lord to teach us by His example the value, the necessity, the practice of this virtue.

Second Point / At Nazareth Jesus worked

Represent to yourself what passes in a poor family. A mechanic engaged in manual labor; his wife occupied in the lowest domestic offices; a child sharing the toils of both, first assisting his mother, and then, as his strength increases with his age, helping his father in the labors of his trade; this is a faithful image of what took place at Nazareth.

Consider attentively—

1. The dignity of Him who thus labors. How is the condition of a workman regarded by the world? What pity is inspired by the misfortune of a man who is obliged, by reverse of fortune, to descend to this condition? From this conclude how little suitable such a condition is to Jesus Christ; to the descendant of David; the Messiah who might labor in public with such success in the promulgation of the Gospel; to a God.

2. The painful and humiliating circumstances of this work. It is the work of a carpenter, working in wood; using rough tools; his time and toil hired out to any master who will pay him; recommencing each day the same fatigues, scarcely interrupted by hasty meals and a short sleep; living unknown and despised, like those poor artisans, whose fate is never pitied, who often think themselves fortunate in meeting with persons to hire their services. Such is the position of Jesus Christ; thus is accomplished what the prophet said of Him: “I am poor and in labours from my youth” (Ps. 87:16).

3. In what manner Jesus Christ works. Enter into the heart of Jesus Christ. Prayer is constantly united in it to the work of the hands. In the midst of bodily fatigues, Jesus blesses the justice of His Father, that has condemned man to water the earth that gives him bread with the sweat of his brow (Gen. 3:19). When He receives orders, He adores in creatures the supreme dominion of His Father; when He receives payment, He returns thanks to His providence, which gives subsistence to all men; when He suffers disdain and rebuffs, He accepts them as a reparation to His glory outraged by sin.

4. The motive of the labor of Jesus Christ. Among so many different professions, why did Jesus Christ choose one so laborious and so low? It is to teach men that since original sin, they have two great disorders to combat—pride and luxury—and that the only way to arrive at their final end is by the path of humiliation and suffering.

5. The merit of the labor of Jesus Christ; a merit so excellent that it fixes the looks and complaisance of His celestial Father. At the same time that Jesus Christ hides Himself at Nazareth, there are in the world famous politicians, celebrated orators and poets, captains of high renown; but the eyes of the Lord are turned from all these men and rest on Nazareth, a city so despised and of which it was said, “Can any thing good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46). They are fixed on the Son of the carpenter; Him alone the celestial Father points out to His angels, saying, “Behold My beloved Son”—how He obeys, how He humbles Himself, how He annihilates Himself, for My glory and My love.

Third Point / At Nazareth Jesus Christ grew in grace and wisdom before God and before men

Jesus Christ could not grow interiorly in virtue, since from the first moment of His conception the plenitude of grace dwelt in Him, and therefore the words of the Gospel signify that each day He produced new acts and allowed new marks of holiness to appear.

Represent Our Saviour to yourself in spirit as if you contemplated Him with your eyes; follow Him in all the details of this life, so simple and so common; study all the virtues that were developed in Him with age—

1. Humility, which makes Him prefer to the labors of an apostolic life obscurity, retreat, a hidden life in the workshop of a mechanic.

2. Detachment, which makes Him support with joy the most painful privations in His dwelling, His dress, His food; in a word, all the wants of the poor.

3. Charity, which fills his heart with an immense compassion for the miseries of men; above all, with a burning zeal for their salvation.

4. Modesty, which regulates admirably His looks, His words, all His movements, all His steps.

5. Recollection, which, in the midst of conversation, work, or recreation, always keeps His holy soul elevated and united to the Divinity.

6. Perfection in the commonest actions; so that it is written of Him “that He did all things well” (Mark 7:37). Recall to yourself that holiness of life depends on the sanctity of ordinary actions; consequently, that it is by the perfection or imperfection of the actions of common life that we approach our end or go farther from it. Take, then, Jesus Christ for your model, and learn from the example of His private life to do all things well.

COLLOQUY

Let us adore Jesus Christ as our master and model; humble ourselves for having followed His example so little; beg of Him, through the intercession of Joseph and Mary, to give us the intelligence to understand and the strength to practice what He teaches us.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

CONTEMPLATION

Preparatory prayer.

Preludes, same as in the meditation, p. 181.

First Point / Contemplate the persons

(1) In this world, men, thinking only of advancing themselves—the learned, the rich, the great—all occupied with thoughts of fortune, elevation, celebrity; the poor, who envy them, who cannot resign themselves to indigence and degradation. (2) At Nazareth, Mary in silence and prayer, attending to the cares of a poor household; Joseph working with his hands in an obscure workshop; Jesus associating Himself with the troubles and labors of His parents; the grace spread over all His sacred person—“Grace is poured abroad in Thy lips” (Ps. 44:3); the modesty of His countenance and demeanor; the recollection that keeps His mind and heart constantly united to His Father. (3) Finally, in heaven, the angels, who look on this scene with admiration; and the celestial Father, whose looks dwell with complacency on His beloved Son.

Second Point / Listen to the words

They are few. Charity or necessity alone interrupt occasionally the silence of this family, whose conversation is in heaven. They are always regulated by humility, by meekness, by zeal, in a word, by the Spirit of God. They are always holy and perfect. St. Joseph speaks little; Mary still less; the Infant God scarcely ever. In the holy house at Nazareth they converse little with men, but they converse constantly with the heavenly Father. Recollect yourself profoundly, and listen to these holy conversations, which ravish the angels.

Third Point / Consider the actions

The painful toil to which the Son of God voluntarily submits—how he assists Mary in her domestic cares; how He shares with Joseph the rude and humble trade of a carpenter; with what simplicity and zeal He obeys the least wish of His parents; with what patience He bears the fatigues of His condition; with what humility He resigns Himself to the caprices, the repulses, the disdain of strangers, who command Him as a hireling; His charity in His relations with His neighbour; His fervour in prayer; His divine perfections in the smallest actions, and so on.

COLLOQUY WITH THE THREE PERSONS OF THE HOLY FAMILY

Adore Jesus Christ in the humble exercise of His hidden virtues, and beg of Him to fill us with His spirit. Ask, through the intercession of Joseph and Mary, the grace to imitate after them the examples of the Divine Saviour.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

APPLICATION OF THE SENSES

Preparatory prayer.

Preludes, as in the preceding contemplation.

1. Sight. Consider St. Joseph, the holy Virgin, Our Lord Jesus Christ, at their work, their repasts, their prayers, their intercourse with their neighbors; the angels, who look with love on this holy house; the heavenly Father, who takes delight in His Son; and so on.

2. Hearing. Listen to the words of Jesus, of Mary, of Joseph; their silence, their recollection; their conversations, regulated by meekness, humility, modesty, and so on.

3. Taste. Taste the peace that fills their souls, their interior joy, their bitterness, and so on.

4. Smell. Respire the sweetness and, as it were, the perfume of their virtues—obedience, charity, fervor, care in little things, love of a hidden life, and so on.

5. Touch. Kiss inwardly the walls, witnesses of the virtues of Jesus Christ; the rude tools of His trade; the earth sanctified by His steps and His labors.

Colloquy as in the preceding contemplation.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself Our Lord Jesus Christ showing Himself to you as the apostles and inhabitants of Judea saw Him, and saying to you, “Look, and make it according to the pattern” (Ex. 25:40).

Second prelude. Ask the grace faithfully to imitate your divine Model.

Third prelude. Consider Our Lord as the most perfect model man can propose to himself, in regard to God, to himself and to his neighbor.

First Point / Conduct of Jesus Christ in regard to His Father

To pray to God, to obey the will of God, to labor for the glory of God, are the principal obligations of man toward his Creator.

Consider how Jesus Christ accomplished these obligations in His public life.

1. Jesus Christ obeying. He is not subject to the law, since He is the first author of it, and comes to substitute another of a more perfect kind; yet, as He sees in it an expression of the Divine will, He observes all its rules with religious exactness. Recall what the Gospel tells us of His fidelity in coming to pray in the Temple, in sanctifying the Sabbath day, in celebrating the Passover. He carries His respect for the law so far as to honor its ministers even in the Scribes and Pharisees: “The Scribes and the Pharisees have bitten on the chair of Moses. All things, therefore, whatsoever they shall say to you observe and do” (Matt. 23:2, 3).

2. Jesus Christ laboring for the glory of God. The three years of His public life were devoted to the preaching of the Gospel. Admire with what zeal He seizes all occasions to speak to men of salvation, and the obligation of serving God. Represent to yourself this God-apostle in the midst of His disciples, and surrounded by an innumerable crowd.

With what force and with sweetness combined does He reprove sinners! With what patience He repeats the same truths under different forms to their simple and coarse minds, which can scarcely understand them! With what abnegation of Himself and His own glory, at the price of what toils and perils, does He announce the word of His heavenly Father!

1. Jesus Christ praying. Although He has only three years to give to His preaching, He retrenches whole days of even this short space to devote them exclusively to prayer: “He went up into a mountain alone to pray” (Matt. 14:23); “He went into a desert place, and there He prayed” (Mark 1:35). After the fatigues of the day, instead of giving Himself up to the necessary sleep, He retires to a distance from His apostles on the mountains, or to some desert place, to pray in the silence of night. Meditate on all the circumstances of this divine prayer. It is a prayer made in solitude; a prayer accompanied by outward signs of the most profound respect—He prays kneeling, or with His face bowed to the ground; it is a prayer consisting of the purest and most heroic sentiments of charity—He offers Himself as a victim ready to immolate Himself to repair His Father’s glory and to save men.

Look in upon yourself. Do you pray? Do you fulfill the precepts of your religion? Do you labor for the glory of God?

Learn from the example of Jesus Christ to fulfill your duties toward God in a Christian manner.

Second Point / Conduct of Jesus Christ in regard to Himself

Consider Our Lord—

1. In the use of His creatures. Admire His humility—how He hides His knowledge and His virtues; how He forbids those He has cured to publish His miracles; how He steals away from the enthusiasm of the people who wish to proclaim Him king. His poverty—His want is so great that often He has not even a little bread to support His strength, and only a stone whereon to rest His head; and—oh, most admirable!—He who lavishes miracles when required for the necessities of His neighbor, refuses them for Himself. His continual mortifications—He renounces, He crucifies Himself in all things; His life is a course of fatigues, of fasts, of watchings: “The whole life of Christ was but one cross and one continual martyrdom” (Imit. of Christ, 1.2–12).

2. With regard to the exterior. Contemplate the simplicity of His garments; the gravity of His deportment; the modesty that regulates His bearing; the reserve of His words and looks; the serenity and sweetness of His looks, which draw all men to Him—in a word, recognize in Him what the prophets had announced: “Behold my servant, My elect; My soul delighteth in Him. I have given My spirit upon Him. He shall not cry, neither shall His voice be heard in the streets. He shall not be sad nor troublesome” (Is. 42:1, 2, 4).

3. With regard to the interior. Penetrate into the sacred soul of Jesus Christ: study His admirable virtues; His purity of intention, which refers all to His Father; His charity, which leaves but two affections in His heart—zeal for the glory of God and zeal for the salvation of men; His detachment in success, when the people, in raptures at hearing Him, cried out, “Never did man speak like this man” (John 7:46); His resignation and profound peace when His enemies wished to stone Him; His interior calm when He turned the sellers out of the Temple, or when He confounded the Pharisees.

Practical reflections and affections.

Third Point / Conduct of Jesus Christ toward His neighbor

Consider—

1. The reserve of Jesus Christ in His intercourse with His neighbor. His conversations were few and short; He feared, as it were, to be in the midst of men. And yet what had He to dread from communication with them? And, on the contrary, what graces might not men draw from Him who had the words of eternal life? Yet Jesus Christ avoids mingling with them as much as His ministry permits and prefers silence, prayer and solitude.

2. The charity of Jesus Christ toward His neighbor. He bears with divine meekness the hatred and persecutions of the Pharisees, the rudeness of His disciples, the unworthy treatment of His neighbors, who wish to bind Him as a fool and a madman. He receives with kindness, even with a sort of predilection, the ignorant and the common people: “His communication is with the simple” (Prov. 3:32); with the poor: “The poor have the Gospel preached to them” (Matt. 11:5); with little children: “Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to Me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14); with sinners: witness Zacheus, the Samaritan, the adulteress, Magdalen. He could not refuse miracles when they brought to Him one possessed, a paralytic and others; thus it is written of Him that He “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38).

3. The end Jesus Christ proposed to Himself in His intercourse with His neighbor. His sole end was to instruct, to convert, to save men: thus He was never known to speak of vain or curious things; He only spoke of the kingdom of God: “Speaking of the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3); of the value of the soul: “What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul” (Matt. 16:28); of the obligation of loving God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God” (Matt. 22:37); of the necessity of renouncing and conquering ourselves: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself” (Matt. 16:24); of the happiness of sufferings and poverty: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3).

Practical reflections and affections.

COLLOQUY WITH OUR LORD, TO BEG OF HIM THE GRACE OF A FAITHFUL IMITATION OF HIS VIRTUES

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

“Paint to yourself in your heart the conduct and the whole life of Jesus Christ. What humility He displayed among men; what benignity toward His disciples; what commiseration toward the poor, to whom He made Himself like in all things, and who appeared to be the most cherished portion of His family. How He contemned not nor spurned one; how He flattered not the rich; how free He was from the solicitudes of this life, and the fears that men entertain for temporal necessities. What patience He showed under insult; what mildness in His answers. How he sought not to vindicate Himself by bitter or sharp words, but to triumph over malice by gentle and humble replies; how willing to suffer labor and poverty, and how compassionate toward the afflicted; how He condescended to the imperfections of the weak; how He avoided all scandal; how He disdained not sinners but received the penitent with infinite clemency; how calm in all His words, in all His gestures; how solicitous for the salvation of souls, for love of whom He deigned to become incarnate and to die; how fervent in prayer; how prompt in the service of others, as He says Himself: ‘I am in the midst of you as he that serveth’” (Luke 22:27).

“In all your actions, then, in all your words—whether you walk or eat, whether you speak or keep silence, whether alone or in company—lift your eyes to Him as your model. By this you will inflame your love; you will increase your confidence in Him, you will enter into a holy familiarity with Him, and you will become perfect in every kind of virtue. Let this be your wisdom, your study, your prayer, always to have something about Him in your mind, in order that you may be stirred up to a greater love and imitation of Him. For the more we conform ourselves to Him in the imitation of His virtues, the nearer we shall approach and be like to Him in His celestial beauty and glory.” (St. Bonaventure)

Note. It is more especially from this time that the person in retreat must occupy himself seriously with the choice of a state of life, or a reformation to be made in his state of life, if already fixed.

Our Lord, subject to His parents at Nazareth, presents to us the model of that first state of life that consists in observing the commandments and that is called common life.

But from the time that Jesus Christ, at the age of twelve years, leaves His foster father and her who, according to nature, was His mother, and goes to the Temple to attend to His Heavenly Father’s service, as He was to do during the three years of His public life, He appears to give us the idea and the example of a second state, which is that of evangelical perfection.

It is therefore proper here, while we are contemplating the life of Christ, to examine and earnestly beg the grace to know the kind and state of life in which it would most please His Divine Majesty that we should serve Him and promote His glory. We shall be guided in this search by the following exercise, which places in parallel and contrast the thoughts and views of Jesus Christ and those of His mortal enemy. We shall thus learn what ought to be our dispositions, in order that we may arrive at perfection in that state, whatever it may be, which the Divine goodness may counsel us to choose.

Note. This exercise is a sort of parable, in which St. Ignatius represents Our Lord and Lucifer as two captains armed one against the other and calling all men to their standards. The object of it is to place before our eyes the right of Jesus Christ to our service and to engage us to serve under His banner forever.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Consider, on one side, Our Saviour, on the other Lucifer, who both invite men to follow their standard.

Second prelude. Construction of place. Represent to yourself two vast plains; in one, near to Babylon, Lucifer assembles round him all sinners; in the other, near to Jerusalem, Our Lord is surrounded by all the just.

Third prelude. Ask the grace to discover and avoid the snares of Lucifer and to know and imitate the virtues of Jesus Christ.

First Point / The standard of Lucifer

1. Represent to yourself the prince of the reprobate in the vast plains of Babylon, on a throne of fire surrounded by thick smoke, spreading terror around him by the hideous deformity of his features and by his terrible looks. Meditate on the hidden meaning of these figures. These vast plains designate the broad path where sinners walk. Babylon, the city of confusion, signifies the disorder of a guilty conscience. The throne of fire is the symbol of the pride and the passions that devour the soul like a fire. The thick smoke is the image of the blindness of the sinner and of the vanity of his pleasures. The hideous features and terrible look of Lucifer express the deformity of sin and the operations of the evil spirit in the soul; that is to say, its trouble, its agitation, its depression, its sorrows.

2. Consider the innumerable crowd of followers and ministers around Lucifer. Here are found united the sinners of all ages—the spirits who first, even in heaven, raised the standard of revolt against God, degraded beings, with whom evil is become as a nature; all the men who have made themselves the slaves of their passions and sins—the proud, the impure, robbers, homicides, all the wicked men who at different times have startled the world by their crimes, and of whom there is not a single one who is not, in some way, an object of aversion and disgust. But why does Lucifer convoke these under his standard? For the most perfidious and cruel design that can be imagined; he wishes to seduce the whole human race, and after having seduced it, to drag it down to eternal misery.

3. Listen, in spirit, to Lucifer addressing his ministers, and ordering them to lay snares on all sides for men, in order to their perdition: “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us hide snares for the innocent without cause. Let us swallow him up alive like hell. We shall find all precious substances; we shall fill our houses with spoils” (Prov. 1:11–13). Remark his artifices, and the three ordinary degrees of temptation—how, first, he catches souls by the love of riches; next, how he throws them into the paths of ambition; then, from ambition to pride—a bottomless abyss, from whence all vices rise as from their fountain. See with what patience and active zeal the ministers of Lucifer execute the task imposed on them by their master, how they make everything conduce to the one end—the ruin of souls; defects of the understanding, inclinations of the heart, the character, the habits, the passions, the faults, the virtues even, and graces of God. Finally, contemplate the success of hell in its enterprise—how many fools are taken in these snares every day; how many blindly throw themselves in; how many who, not content to allow themselves to be seduced, seek also to seduce their brethren. Look on yourself. Be astonished at having given way so often and so easily to the temptations of the enemy; weep over your folly and your past weakness, and resolve to be wiser and more courageous for the future.

Second Point / The standard of Jesus Christ

1. Represent to yourself a beautiful plain near Jerusalem, and there, not on a throne, but mingling with His subjects, Our Lord, attracting all hearts by the beauty and irresistible charm of His looks. Meditate on the hidden meaning of these figures. This plain signifies the way of the just, rough in appearance but in reality pleasant and happy. Jerusalem, the city of saints, the vision of peace, is the symbol of a pure conscience. Our Lord is represented without a throne and mixing among His subjects, to express the lowness and self-humiliation of His mortal life. He shows Himself as the most beautiful of the children of men—“Thou art beautiful above the sons of men” (Ps. 44:3); and with all the marks described by the prophets: “He shall not be sad, nor troublesome” (Is. 42:4); “His conversation hath no bitterness, nor His company any tediousness, but joy and gladness” (Wis. 8:16); “The bruised reed He shall not break, and the smoking flax He shall not quench” (Is. 42:3). It is the image of beauty, of virtue, and the operations of the good Spirit in souls, that is, of joy, of calm, of consolation and so forth.

2. Consider, around Our Saviour, His disciples and apostles. Where shall we find a more august assembly? There are united the just and the saints of all ages—patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, penitents, virgins, doctors, holy pontiffs; none of the vices or weaknesses that dishonor humanity; on the contrary, all virtues, and these carried even to heroism. But for what purpose does Jesus Christ convoke His disciples under His standard? For the most just, the most noble, the most generous purpose that can be—to recall men to virtue and through virtue to happiness in time and eternity.

3. Listen, in spirit, to Our Saviour addressing His disciples, and commanding them to go into the world to save men: “For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10); “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10); “I am come to cast fire on the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49); “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15); “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). Observe by what degrees, exactly opposed to the temptations of Lucifer, Jesus Christ leads souls to perfection. He wishes His apostles first to inspire them with indifference to riches, and then the desire of abjection, from whence arises humility as from its source and with it every other virtue. See with what ardor, what constancy, the apostles accomplish the mission entrusted to them by the Son of God. Represent to yourself all the labors and sacrifices that their ministry entails: “In all things let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses. In stripes, in prison, in seditions, in labors, in watchings, in fastings. In chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Ghost, in charity unfeigned. In the word of truth, in the power of God, by the armor of justice on the right hand and on the left” (2 Cor. 6:4–7). Finally, contemplate the success of the enterprise—how many sinners snatched from hell; how many disciples won to evangelical poverty and humility; how many apostles trained and prepared for the saving of souls and the glory of God. Examine yourself, and make practical reflections.

Third Point / Election between the two standards

Consider that we are all placed between Jesus Christ and Lucifer, and that it is equally impossible either to serve both at once—“No one can serve two masters” (Matt. 6:24)—or to remain neutral without serving one or other, for Jesus Christ says, “He who is not with Me is against Me” (Luke 11:23). It is, then, necessary to make a choice. And to do so wisely, let us examine attentively—

1. The qualities of the two leaders. In Jesus Christ, all that can captivate the heart; in Lucifer, all that can merit aversion and hatred.

2. What they have done for you. Jesus Christ has been the most generous of benefactors; Lucifer the most cruel of enemies.

3. Their design. That of Jesus Christ is to make you a sharer in His labors and then in His glory; that of Lucifer is to make you first the accomplice of his crimes, and then the companion of his punishment.

4. Their promises. Jesus Christ promises you possessions honorable, unfailing, infinite, eternal. Ask the elect; all render homage to the truth of His promises; all confess that they have only been surprised in being rendered happier even beyond their hopes. Lucifer promises you things unworthy of you, uncertain, which will leave a void in your heart, which will only add to your disgusts and agitations, which will soon pass away and will end in everlasting punishments.

5. Their rights. Jesus Christ has the most sacred and incontestable rights over your heart. Recall what, as a man and as a Christian, you owe Him, what you have promised Him so often, so freely, and so solemnly. Lucifer has no right but to your contempt. You renounced him before heaven and earth at the baptismal font, at the holy table; you cannot give yourself to him without perjury.

COLLOQUIES

1. With the Blessed Virgin. Ask her to obtain for you from her Son the grace to be received and to march under His standard; first, in the love, or even, if He should deign to call you to it, in the practice of poverty; then, in the love of abjection and humility. Ave Maria.

2. With Our Saviour. Ask Him the same grace. Anima Christi.

3. With the Eternal Father. The same. Pater.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself three men attacked by serious illness, who all desire health. One will not take any remedy; the second only certain remedies of his own choice; the third will take whatever remedy may be necessary for his cure.

Second prelude. Figure to yourself that you are in the presence of God and His saints, and offer to the Lord a sincere and ardent desire to please Him.

Third prelude. Ask the grace of a good election; that is, the grace to choose what is the most agreeable to the Divine Majesty, and the most useful for your salvation.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS

1. The exercise of the “Two Standards” points out the motives for following Jesus Christ. The exercise of the “Three Classes” points out the motives for following Him by giving ourselves to Him entirely and without reserve. In the exercise of the “Three Degrees of Humility,” we are about to consider in what this perfect gift of ourselves to Jesus Christ consists.

2. This exercise is called, in the first place, the “Three Degrees,” because it contains the three degrees of Christian perfection, which consist (1) in the firm resolution to avoid mortal sin, even at the risk of life; (2) in the firm resolution to avoid deliberate venial sin at any price; and (3) in the voluntary choice of whatever is most perfect for the service of God: in the second place, it is so called because these three degrees suppose the abasement and, as it were, the annihilation of the old man within us.

First Point

Text. The first degree of humility consists in perfect submission to the law of God, so that we should be ready to refuse the empire of the whole world, or even to sacrifice our lives, rather than willingly transgress any precept that obliges us under pain of mortal sin.

This first degree is absolutely necessary for eternal salvation and is, as it were, the fruit of the exercises of the first week. To establish ourselves firmly in it, we may recall what faith teaches us: (1) of the infinite malice of mortal sin, and the terrible vengeance with which the justice of God pursues it in time and in eternity; (2) of the supreme dominion of God, and His right to the obedience of every creature; (3) of the certainty and nearness of death, which will leave the sinner without resource in the hands of the living God; (4) the rewards that await in eternity the faithful observers of God’s law; (5) the sacrifices of the saints and martyrs, who renounced everything—fortune, pleasures, liberty, life itself—in order to escape mortal sin: “They were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword” (Heb. 11:37).

End by turning back upon yourself. Examine if you are ready to sacrifice all rather than consent to mortal sin; if there is not some obstacle to this necessary disposition of heart, and what that obstacle is; and what means you are willing to take for the future, in order to arrive at this first degree and to strengthen yourself in it.

Second Point

Text. The second degree is more perfect; it consists in the indifference of the soul toward riches or poverty, honor or shame, health or sickness, provided the glory of God and salvation are equally secured on both sides; further, that no consideration of interest or temporal disgrace, not even the consideration of immediate death, should be capable of drawing us into deliberate venial sin.

This second degree is the consequence of the exercise on “The end of creatures.” In that exercise we saw that, according to the order of creation, creatures are only the means given to man to lead him to his true end. Reason tells us that, in the choice of means, man should only consider what brings him nearer or takes him farther from this end. Hence it follows that man should be indifferent to poverty or riches, honor or shame; and that to commit venial sin in order to escape shame or poverty is to sin against this indifference, is to reverse the order and convert the means into the end itself.

To arrive at this second degree, we may meditate—(1) on the malice of venial sin, the greatest of evils after mortal sin; (2) the hatred with which God pursues it and the torments with which He punishes it in the other life; (3) its effects with regard to the soul, in which it weakens charity and disposes to mortal sin; (4) the examples of the saints, of whom several have preferred to die rather than consent to one slight fault; (5) above all, the example of Jesus Christ.

Examine what is your disposition toward venial sin as in the first point.

Third Point

Text. The third degree is the highest degree of Christian perfection. It consists in preferring, for the sole love of Jesus Christ, and from the wish to resemble Him more, poverty to riches, shame to honor and so on, even if on both sides your salvation and the glory of God were equally to be found.

To arrive at this third degree of humility, we may consider—

1. Its excellence. It contains all that is most heroic in virtue, and the perfect imitation of Jesus Christ, who for love of us willingly embraced the ignominy of the cross: “Having joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2).

2. Its happiness. To this degree is attached (1) peace of heart, since nothing can trouble him who professes to love all that nature fears and abhors; (2) intimate union with Jesus Christ, who communicates Himself fully to those souls who give themselves to Him without reserve; (3) the choice graces and blessings of God on all that we undertake for His glory: “The foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise” (1 Cor. 1:27).

3. Its utility. This degree is the most certain way of salvation, because it snatches us away from all the dangers inseparable from fortune and honor; the shortest, because it delivers us at once from sin, and raises us to every virtue; finally, the most meritorious, because it is one uninterrupted course of sacrifices, and consequently of merits, for eternity.

COLLOQUIES

1. With Mary

2. With Jesus Christ

3. With the Eternal Father—to obtain the grace of arriving at the third degree of humility.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

The purpose of the third week is to confirm the soul in the resolution of a new life, and in the determination to serve God better. It is for this purpose that it is devoted to meditations on the touching and admirable examples that are offered to us by the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The remarks peculiar to this week are—

1. The order and method of the preceding meditations must be followed. The preparatory prayer and the three preludes as usual. In the second prelude, or construction of place, however, the person must imagine himself present at a mystery accomplished for him, according to the words of the Apostle, “He Wed me, and delivered Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20); and must dwell upon the consideration that his sins are the cause of the sufferings of Christ.

2. In the meditation we shall continue to consider (1) the persons, (2) the words, (3) the actions. But three other points must be added: (4) what Our Saviour suffers and desires to suffer in His humanity; (5) how His divinity hides itself, as it were, allowing His enemies to work their will; (6) what we must do and suffer for a God whom our sins have reduced to such a state.

On each of these points we must excite ourselves to sorrow, sadness and tears.

Although these three first points are in a degree comprised in the three last, St. Ignatius has chosen to present them separately, that the soul may attach itself in a particular manner to the sentiments they express and that are to lead it to the third degree of humility.

In the fourth point, it will be useful to compare the sufferings of Jesus Christ to the kinds of pain that have been spoken of in the meditation on the end of man—to weakness, to the sufferings He endured in body and soul, to poverty, to constant separation from all dear to Him, to contempt, to insults, to a short life, to the death He suffered on the cross.

The fifth point relates to these words of Isaias (53:3): “He was offered because it was His own will.” Jesus Christ could have destroyed His enemies, as His miracles prove, and yet He spared them and freely gave Himself up to their hate. This thought ought to inspire us with the desire to prefer with Jesus Christ poverty to riches, contempt to reputation and the esteem of men, provided always that both shall be equally conducive to the glory of God.

The sixth point is a sort of abridgment of the colloquy of the first meditation on sin, except that in one we consider what we ought to do for Jesus Christ, and in the other what we ought to suffer for love of Him.

Finally, St. Ignatius wishes that, in these three last points, we should excite ourselves to sorrow, sadness, and tears; but these affections must not stop at an interior sentiment, they must above all tend to the imitation of Jesus Christ suffering.

1. The colloquies must be made according to the disposition of the soul; for example, according as it feels trouble or consolation, as it desires such or such a virtue, or wishes to make such or such a resolution. We may make one single colloquy, addressed to Jesus Christ; or we may make three—one to the Blessed Virgin, another to her Divine Son, the third to the Eternal Father.

2. The observance of the ten additions must undergo the following modifications:

(1) As soon as you awake, you must recall the summary of the prayer; then, in dressing, excite yourself to sadness and sorrow, in union with Jesus Christ suffering.

(2) Dismiss, as so many distractions, agreeable and consoling thoughts, however holy they may be in themselves, and encourage feelings of sadness by the remembrance of all that Jesus Christ suffered from His birth to His death.

(3) It is useful to read some passages from Scripture relating to the Passion of Our Saviour—for example, the Psalms or Isaias, St. Paul or the Gospels—in order to recall the greatness of Our Lord’s sufferings, or His mercy, or the admirable effects of His death for the redemption of mankind.

(4) You may also occupy yourself usefully in reciting the “Stabat Mater,” according to the second method of prayer.

Note. Although the sentiment of compassion is good, though it ought to be asked for earnestly, desired with humility, and received with gratitude, yet there are other sentiments that we must endeavor to excite in ourselves, because they are more useful for our spiritual progress. Such are—(1) Hatred of sin: this hatred must be excited in the soul by the consideration of the insult that sin offers to God—an insult that can only be fully repaired by the sufferings and death of a God-man. (2) Admiration of the infinite goodness and wisdom of God, who has found so efficacious a means of touching and drawing to Him the hearts of men: “But God commendeth His charity towards us, because when as yet we were sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). (3) Confidence: “For,” says St. Augustine, “can He who gave us the most precious thing in the world, the blood of His only son, refuse us eternal glory, which is certainly of less price?” (4) Love; by way of gratitude for this wonderful love of God, who gives Himself to us and gives Himself in this manner. (5) Imitation of Christ: it is for you that He suffered, says St. Peter, leaving you an example that you may follow in His footsteps. (6) The salvation of souls, which God has so much esteemed, has so much loved, that He has redeemed with so much pain, and at so high a price.

MEDITATION

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself the Last Supper, and Our Saviour seated at the same table as His Apostles and by His all-powerful word changing the bread into His own body and the wine into His own blood.

Second prelude. Ask a lively faith in the mystery of the Eucharist, and a tender love for Jesus present in the tabernacle.

First Point / The presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist

Contemplate in spirit Our Saviour present on our altars, and, after having adored Him with profound respect, ask Him why for eighteen hundred years He has remained shut up and, as it were, a captive in our tabernacles. Is it to redeem the world? But the redemption was accomplished on Calvary. Is it solely to confer grace upon us? But from the height of heaven Jesus Christ could sanctify us without there being any need of His presence on earth. Why, then, remain in the midst of us? Because He loves us, and all His delight is to be with the children of men: “My delights were to be with the children of men” (Prov. 8:31). And how does He dwell among us? He dwells under the veils of the Sacrament, for fear that the splendor of His glory should keep us away from His person, either through fear or respect. He wishes to dwell, not merely in a single city or a single sanctuary, but in all the temples of the Catholic Church, so that there shall not be any Christian who may not enjoy converse with Him. Finally, He wishes to inhabit our temples, not on certain days or certain solemnities only, but all days, all hours, all moments, so that there shall not be any person in His family who cannot come at all times before Him, to ask and to receive light, strength and consolation.

What happiness for you to live thus in the society of Jesus Christ! You have, then, nothing to envy the Apostles, the disciples, the inhabitants of Judea—all those who possessed Our Saviour during the days of His mortal life. Between them and you there is only one difference, and that appears to be to your advantage. They possessed Jesus Christ, but in the state of His infirmity; you possess Him in the state of His glory. They only possessed Him at intervals, for Jesus Christ frequently retired from the company of men into solitude; you possess Him constantly, you can enjoy His presence at any hour, as often, as long as you wish. Your happiness is so great that it may be compared to that of the elect in heaven; for this Jesus, whose possession forms the beatitude of the saints, is the same you possess on earth; and He does not reside more really in heaven than He resides in our sanctuaries.

Second Point / The life of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist

Consider that Our Lord reproduces in His Eucharistic life all the states and all the virtues of His mortal life.

1. His mysterious birth on the altar at the voice of the priest represents His birth at Bethlehem. In the solitude of our churches you find the deserted stable where Mary gave to the world its Saviour; in the sacramental species, the swaddling clothes that enveloped the Divine Child; in the indifference of men for the Sacrament of Divine Love, the conduct of the inhabitants of Bethlehem toward the Messiah.

2. The tabernacle represents the humble house at Nazareth. What was the life of Jesus at Nazareth? A life of retreat, of prayer, of obedience. What is His life in the tabernacle? Contemplate it. He dwells in the midst of the world and is at an infinite distance from its societies and its feasts. He prays, but with a continual prayer that has not been interrupted a single instant for eighteen hundred years. He is in a state of absolute dependence, always submissive to His ministers, equally ready, according to their will, either to remain hidden in the tabernacle, or to present Himself to the adoration of the faithful, or to transport Himself to the houses or to the hospitals, to visit His suffering members.

3. Recall to yourself what the Gospel relates of the public life of the Son of God. You will still meet with all this in the Eucharist. In His public life Jesus taught, and He supported His teaching by miracles. In His Eucharistic life what does He do? He teaches still, no longer by His words, but by His example—by His poverty, by His humility, by His flight from the world. He says always, “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Woe to the world” (Matt. 5:3, 18:7). He still works miracles; He still restores sight to the blind, life to the dead—that is, the light of faith to those who walk in the darkness of the world, the life of grace to those who are buried in the grave of sin.

4. The suffering life of Our Saviour on Calvary is perpetuated in the Sacrament of the Altar. On the altar, as on the cross, the same trials: the same sadness of the heart of Jesus Christ at the sight of men’s crimes; the same abandonment of Jesus Christ by those souls who ought to be most faithfully attached to Him; the same insults on Calvary by the Jews and on the altar by heretics and impious men; the same torment of His sacred body, equally crucified by His executioners on Calvary and on the altar by the profane; in fine, on Calvary and at the altar the same examples of patience, of detachment, of charity, in a word, of the most heroic sacrifices.

Meditate with lively faith on the mystery of the Eucharistic life of Jesus Christ and excite yourself to the imitation of His virtues.

Third Point / The union of Jesus Christ with us in the Eucharist

Consider that the Eucharist, according to the idea of the Fathers, is an extension of the mystery of the Incarnation. In the Incarnation, the Word, it is true, unites Himself to us in an ineffable manner; but much more wonderful is the union He contracts with us in the Eucharist. In the Incarnation He takes a nature like ours; He enters into our family, He makes Himself one of us—in a word, our brother. In the Eucharist He goes farther; it is no longer to a nature like ours He unites Himself, He unites Himself to each one in particular; it is no longer to our family He allies Himself, it is to our person.

Enter into this mystery of the charity of Jesus Christ, and meditate on all the circumstances.

1. How does He unite Himself to us in the Eucharist? By the nearest and most intimate union. The Fathers compare it to the union of two waxes melted into and mixed together (St. Cyril of Alexandria). Our Lord compares it to that which exists between His Father and Himself: “As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me” ( John 6:58). As in the Holy Trinity, the Father, without losing anything of His infinite being, communicates it entirely to His Son, who is His Word; so, in the Eucharist, the Word incarnate retains His humanity and His divinity, yet always communicates both to the person receiving Him.

2. With what sentiments does He unite Himself to us? With sentiments of the most ardent love; and this love He reveals by His desires, His promises, His threats: “If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world. Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, you shall not have life in you” ( John 6:52, 54).

3. What does He do to unite Himself to us? He multiplies miracles and reverses all the laws of nature. He does more, He exposes Himself to all insults; for example, to the insults of indifferent Christians, who leave Him alone and do not come to adore Him in His tabernacle; to the insults of profaners, who in their souls unite themselves with sin and the devil; to the insults of heretics and the impious, who have so often trampled Him underfoot and cast Him in the mire.

4. What does He give us in uniting Himself to us? He gives us all He has and all He is—His body, His soul, His divinity, and with this every grace. He is generous even to exhaustion; and what is most admirable is, that He gives Himself thus entirely, not once only, but every day, if we wish it. Every fresh communion is a new gift that Jesus Christ makes of Himself to us.

Practical reflections and affections. Colloquy with Our Lord.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

APPLICATION OF THE SENSES

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself heaven opening at the voice of the priest and Our Lord descending upon the altar amid choirs of angels.

Second prelude. Beg a lively faith in the mystery of the Eucharist and a tender love for Jesus Christ present in the tabernacle.

Application of sight. By faith, pierce through the veils of the Sacrament. Contemplate Our Saviour present in the tabernacle and impatient to give Himself to you. Represent to yourself the glory of His adorable humanity; the majesty, and at the same time the sweetness, of His countenance; the dazzling light that flashes from His wounds; the flames that escape from His heart. Then penetrate in spirit to His divinity, to the Word consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and with them One only God. Consider with what goodness this Divine Saviour casts on you those eyes, one look from which converted sinners in the days of His mortal life; and after having adored Him with a lively faith, profound respect and fervent love, say to Him with the prophet: “Lord, cast Thine eyes upon me, and have pity on my miseries. Look Thou upon me, and have mercy on me” (Ps. 118:132). Make the light of Thy countenance to shine on Thy servant and save me because of Thy mercy: “Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant: save me in Thy mercy” (Ps. 30:17).

Practical reflections and affections.

Application of hearing. Listen to Our Saviour, the incarnate Wisdom, who speaks to you. And what does He say to you? Words of consolation: “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are they that mourn. Blessed are they that suffer persecution” (Matt. 5:3, 5, 10). Perhaps words of reproach, but of sweet and tender reproach: “I know thy works, and thy labour, but I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first charity” (Apoc. 2:2, 4). Words of counsel and invitation: “Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls; for My yoke is sweet and My burden light” (Matt. 12:29, 30). Words of encouragement: “I know thy tribulation and thy poverty, but thou art rich… Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life” (Apoc. 2:9, 10). Words of desire and love: “Behold I stand at the gate and knock” (Apoc. 3:20). “My son, give me thy heart” (Prov. 23:26).

Gather together with holy attention the words of Our Saviour, and say to Him: “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth” (1 Kings 3:9). “Thou hast the words of eternal life” ( John 6:69). “Say to my soul, I am thy salvation” (Ps. 34:3).

Practical reflections and affections.

Application of smell and taste. Respire the celestial perfume of the divinity and the humanity of Jesus Christ. Taste in spirit, sometimes the bitterness that His sacred Heart suffers from the indifference, the contempt, the insults, the profanations of men; at other times the sweetness of the virtues He practices in His Eucharistic life—His patience, His charity, His obedience, His poverty, His humility, His solitude, His prayer and so on. Unite yourself to Him as a model, to imitate His example; as a victim, to sympathize with His sorrows and to make reparation for the outrages He suffers.

Practical reflections and affections.

Application of the touch. Recall to yourself the woman in the Gospel who touched the hem of the garments of Jesus Christ and obtained health as the price of her faith; Magdalen, who embraced His sacred feet and watered them with her tears; St. Thomas, who placed his finger in His wounds; St. John, who reposed on His breast, and so forth. Enter into their sentiments, and put yourself in their places, according to the different states of your soul. Thus, present yourself before Jesus Christ, sometimes as a sick man and in spirit touch His garments to obtain your cure; sometimes as a penitent, embracing His sacred feet and asking pardon for your faults; sometimes as a disciple, whose confidence requires animating and strengthening, then place your finger in His wounds to convince yourself of His love; sometimes as a friend admitted to intimate familiarity, and then figure to yourself that Our Lord presses you to His heart.

Practical reflections. Colloquy with Our Lord.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself the disciple whom Jesus loved reposing on His bosom and drawing from His heart the understanding of His sublime teachings.

Second prelude. Ask the grace to partake with Him this place of honor during your meditation.

First Point / Jesus answers the questions of His apostles

1. Peter asks Him, “Lord, whither goest Thou?” Jesus answers, “Whither I go thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow hereafter.” Peter replies, “Why cannot I follow Thee now? I will lay down my life for Thee.” Jesus answers, “Wilt thou lay down thy life for Me? Amen, amen, I say to thee, the cock shall not crow till thou deny Me thrice.”

2. Thomas says to Him, “We know not whither Thou goest; and how can we know the way?” Jesus answers him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by Me. If you had known Me, you would without doubt have known My Father also, and from henceforth you shall know Him, and you have seen Him.”

3. Philip says to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus says to him, “So long a time have I been with you, and have you not known Me? Philip, he that seeth Me, seeth the Father also. How sayest thou, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am the Father, and the Father is Me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of Myself. But My Father who abideth in Me, He doth the works. Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? Otherwise believe for the very works’ sake. Amen, amen, I say to you, he that believeth in Me, the works that I do, he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do: because I go to the Father. And whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, that will I do: that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask Me anything in My name, that I will do. If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever. The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him: but you shall know Him, because He shall abide with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more. But you see Me, because I live, and you shall live. In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me. And he that loveth Me shall be loved by My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.”

4. Judas says to Him, not Iscariot, “Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If any man love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love Him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him. He that loveth Me not keepeth not my words, and the word that you have heard is not Mine but is the Father’s who sent Me. These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.”

5. The Apostles asked each other what the words signified that Jesus had just said: “A little while, and you shall not see Me; and again a little while, and you shall see Me.” Jesus, knowing they wished to ask Him, said to them, “Of this do you inquire among yourselves, because I said: A little while, and you shall not see Me; and again a little while, and you shall see Me? Amen, amen, I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice, and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, hath sorrow because her hour is come; but when she hath brought forth the child, she remembereth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world. So also you now indeed have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man shall take from you. And in that day you shall not ask Me anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it you. Hitherto you have not asked anything in My name.

Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.”

Second Point

Jesus announces His passion; recommends charity, peace, intimate union with Him and with our brethren, constancy in persecutions: He promises the Holy Ghost.

1. He announces His passion. “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God also will glorify Him in Himself, and immediately will He glorify Him. Little children, yet a little while I am with you” ( John 13:31–33).

2. He recommends charity. “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another” (13:34, 35).

3. Peace. “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions. If not, I would have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to Myself, that where I am you also may be” (14:1–3).

4. Union with Him and with our brethren. “I am the true Vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He will take away; and every one that beareth fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now you are clean by reason of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the Vine; you the branches. He that abideth in Me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing. If any one abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto you. In this is My Father glorified, that you bring forth very much fruit, and become My disciples. As the Father hath loved Me, I also have loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love, as I also have kept My Father’s commandments, and do abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be filled. This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends, if you do the things that I command you. I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of My Father I have made known to you. You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you; and have appointed you that you should go and should bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain; that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you. These things I command you, that you love one another” (15 1–17).

5. Constancy in persecutions. “If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated Me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember My word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they had persecuted Me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they know not Him that sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. He that hateth Me hateth My Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father. But that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their law: They have hated Me without cause. But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, He shall give testimony of Me: and you shall give testimony, because you are with Me from the beginning. These things have I spoken to you, that you may not be scandalized. They will put you out of the synagogues; yea, the hour cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth a service to God. And these things will they do to you, because they have not known the Father, nor Me. But these things I have told you, that when the hour of them shall come, you may remember that I told you” (15:18 to end, 16:1–4).

6. He promises the Holy Ghost. “But I tell you the truth: it is expedient to you that I go; for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go, I will send Him to you. And when He is come, He will convince the world of sin and of justice and of judgment. Of sin: because they believed not in Me. And of justice: because I go to the Father, and you shall see Me no longer. And of judgment: because the prince of this world is already judged. I have yet many things to say to you; but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all truth. For He shall not speak of Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, He shall speak, and the things that are to come He shall show you. He shall glorify Me; because He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it to you. All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine. Therefore I said, that He shall receive of Mine and show it to you” (16:7–15).

Third Point

The prayer of Jesus

1. Jesus prays for Himself. Lifting up His eyes to heaven, Jesus said: “Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee. As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He may give eternal life to all whom Thou hast given Him. Now this is eternal life: That they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on earth. I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And now glorify Thou Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with Thee” ( John 17:1–5).

2. Jesus prays for His disciples. “I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given Me out of the world. Thine they were, and to Me Thou gavest them: and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all things which Thou hast given me are from Thee: because the words which Thou gavest Me I have given to them, and they have received them, and have known in very deed that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world but for them whom Thou hast given Me; because they are Thine. And all My things are Thine, and Thine are Mine: and I am glorified in them. And now I am not in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name whom Thou hast given Me; that they may be one, as We are also. While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name. Those whom Thou gavest Me have I kept: and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the Scripture may be fulfilled. And now I come to Thee: and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy filled in themselves. I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, as I also am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from evil. They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. As Thou hast sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for them do I sanctify Myself: that they also may be sanctified in truth. And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in Me. That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee: that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them: that they may be one, as We also are one. I in them, and Thou in Me; that they may be made perfect in one; and the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast also loved Me. Father, I will that where I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me: that they may see My glory which Thou hast given Me, because Thou hast loved Me before the foundation of the world. Just Father, the world hath not known Thee; but I have known Thee; and these have known that Thou hast sent Me. And I have made known Thy name to them, and will make it known: that the love, wherewith Thou hast loved Me, may be in them, and I in them” (16:6 to end).

Affections at the foot of the crucifix.

Anima Christi.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Jesus entering into the garden of Gethsemani, took with Him Peter and James and John; and He began to fear and be sorrowful; and He said to them: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death, wait here and watch with Me.” And going a little way off, “He prayed, saying, Father, if it be possible, remove this chalice from Me; but yet not My will, but Thine be done.” And being in an agony, He prayed the longer. And His sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground (Mark 14:32; Luke 22:40).

Second prelude. Represent to yourself the garden of Gethsemani, and Our Saviour prostrate on the ground praying for the salvation of mankind.

Third prelude. Ask God to grant you tears of sorrow in union with Jesus Christ suffering for love of us. In each of the scenes of the passion of Our Lord we may consider what He suffers, and how He suffers; that is, a God as a victim, and a God as a model. As the one, we owe Him love; as the other, we owe Him imitation.

First Point / Jesus Christ as victim

Recall to yourself that Our Lord is the most holy of the children of men; that He is the beloved Son of the living God; that He is Himself the God of all consolation, the sight of whom forms the beatitude of the angels and the elect. He ought not, then, to have known pain or suffering; and yet what does He not suffer! He endures the most violent interior trials of the soul—fear, “He began to fear” (Mark 14:33); weariness, “and to be heavy” (Ibid.); sorrow, “My soul is sorrowful even unto death” (Ibid. 34); finally, a sort of agony, “Being in an agony” (Luke 22:43).

In order fully to understand the excess of the suffering of Jesus Christ, meditate on all the circumstances told by the evangelists. Jesus Christ complains; He who had never uttered a single complaint until then. And to whom does He complain? To common and almost unconcerned men, who do not know how to console Him, nor even to pray with Him. In what terms does He complain? In the most energetic—He tells them His soul is sorrowful even unto death. And this Jesus who complains in this way, is He who said a short time before, speaking of His approaching passion, “I have a baptism, wherewith I am to be baptized, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!” (Luke 11:50). In fine, His desolation is such that His heart appears to break; He suffers convulsions like a dying person struggling violently against death; it reduces Him to sweat blood from all His members: “His sweat became as drops of blood trickling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:44).

And what are the causes of this desolation of the Saviour? The eternal misery that sin is preparing for us; this is cause of His fear. The infinite injury that sin does to the majesty of His Father; this is the cause of His sorrow. The uselessness of His sufferings for so many miserable creatures who persist in the way of perdition; this is the cause of His weariness.

The sight of God basely insulted, and of so many souls miserably damned, is the cause of His agony. Return to yourself. You see what Jesus Christ suffered on your account and for you: what will you do for Him?

Second Point / Jesus Christ as our model

Recall these words of St. Peter—Jesus Christ suffered for us, that we might walk in His footsteps: “Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Consider, then, all the examples of this Divine Saviour, and endeavor to imitate Him in your life.

1. Jesus Christ knew beforehand the trials that awaited Him in the Garden of Olives; but it does not make Him less faithful to the holy custom of retiring into solitude to pray. With what intrepidity and what peace He goes to the first theatre of His bloody passion! From this example of the Saviour, learn fidelity to good resolutions in spite of obstacles and trials.

2. Jesus Christ leaves His disciples at the entrance of the garden; He only takes with Him three of His apostles, Peter, James and John; and yet, if He admits them to the confidence of His prayers and sorrows, it is rather for their instruction than His own consolation. From this example of the Saviour, learn detachment from human consolation in afflictions.

3. Jesus Christ, given up to all the agitation and bitterness of His heart, has recourse to prayer. And in this prayer what lessons for a Christian! A lesson of recollection and solitude: “Withdrawn away from them a stone’s cast” (Luke 22:41); a lesson of humility: “Kneeling down He prayed” (Ibid.); a lesson of confidence in God: “Abba, Father, all things are possible to Thee; remove this chalice from Me” (Mark 14:36); a lesson of resignation: “Not what I will, but what Thou wilt” (Ibid.); a lesson of fervor: “And leaving them He went again, and He prayed for the third time” (Matt. 26:44); finally, a lesson of heroic constancy: “Being in an agony, He prayed the longer” (Luke 22:43).

Practical reflections and affections. Colloquies with Our Lord suffering in the Garden of Olives; then with God the Father.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Recall the account of the evangelist. Jesus Christ is betrayed by the traitor Judas, abandoned by His disciples, bound with cords by the soldiers, dragged to the tribunal of Caiphas, then to that of Pilate, and of Herod; again sent back before the Roman governor, and cruelly scourged by his orders, crowned with thorns in the judgment hall; finally, loaded with His cross and led to Calvary, there to undergo the last suffering. (Matt. 26, 27; Mark 14, 15; Luke 22, 23; John 18, 19)

Second prelude. Represent to yourself the different scenes of Our Saviour’s passion: the Garden of Olives, the tribunal of Caiphas, that of Pilate, the palace of Herod, the judgment hall, the way of Calvary.

Third prelude. Beg a lively contrition for your sins, and a tender love for Jesus Christ suffering for us. In the Garden of Olives you have contemplated Jesus Christ making the sacrifice of His interior consolations. Contemplate Him in Jerusalem, making also the sacrifice of all exterior things, which consist in these five things—His liberty, His friends, His reputation, His happiness, His own body. In each of these sacrifices consider the Saviour as a victim and as a model; meditate on what He suffers and how He suffers.

First Point

Jesus Christ as victim

Consider—

1. What Our Lord suffers in His liberty. He is deprived of it in the most unjust, the most violent, the most ignominious manner possible. He is seized in the midst of His disciples by the Pharisees and their followers. He is bound like a vile malefactor. He is dragged from tribunal to tribunal in the same city and amid the same people that have so often witnessed His preachings and His miracles. He is delivered up to the brutality of the soldiers and of the vilest populace. Finally, His bonds are loosed, only that He may be nailed to the cross where He is to expire.

2. What He suffers from His friends. He suffers all that is most cruel from friendships disowned and betrayed. All His apostles forsake Him; one of them denies Him three times and at the voice of a servant; another sells Him to His enemies for thirty pieces of money. And when is it that His friends put His heart to these sore trials? At a time the most painful and when He had the greatest need of consolation; at the moment when His most implacable enemies are the masters of His person; at the moment of His sufferings and death. And who are these friends who treat Him in this way? Men whom He has admitted to intimate familiarity; the depositors of His secrets; men to whom He had just given the institution of the Eucharist, the most splendid testimony of His love: “My friends and my neighbours, and they that were near me, stood afar off” (Ps. 37:12, 13). “My heart hath expected reproach and misery, and I looked for one that would grieve with me, but there was none; and for one that would comfort me, and I found none” (Ps. 68:21).

3. What He suffers in His reputation. What reputation more universal or more glorious than that of Jesus Christ! In all Judea men only spoke of His wisdom, His power, His holiness. Now they only see in Him an ignorant, stupid person, who does not know how to answer accusations the coarsest and the most easy to refute: “Answerest Thou nothing? Jesus held His peace” (Matt. 26:62, 63). An impostor, who has deceived the people by illusions, and who with all His power cannot withdraw Himself from the hands of His enemies: “He saved others, let Him save Himself” (Luke 23:35). A seditious impious man, deserving the greatest punishment: “All condemned Him to be guilty of death” (Mark 14:64).

4. What He suffers in His honor. Not any kind of insult is spared Him. At the tribunal of Caiphas, He is struck in the face, as guilty of irreverence toward the high priest. In the house of this pontiff the soldiers, covering His eyes, struck Him by turns, and cried, “Prophesy, O Christ! and say who it is that struck Thee” (Luke 22:64). At the court of Herod, He was shamefully clothed in a white robe as a madman. At the tribunal of Pilate, He is placed on a level with Barabbas, whom the people unanimously prefer before Him. In the hall of judgment they cover Him with purple rags, crown Him with thorns, put a reed in His hand, and bending before Him in derision, say: “Hail, King of the Jews!”

5. What He suffers in His body. Represent to yourself the cruel scenes of the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the crucifixion. Contemplate the sacred body of Our Lord torn by the scourgers, and presenting to the eye one bleeding wound: “There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness; and we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of Him—a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity; and we have thought Him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted” (Is. 53:2–4). His head pierced by sharp thorns, which the soldiers make more painful every moment by striking Him; His shoulders bruised by the overpowering weight of the cross, which He carries to Calvary; and lastly, His feet and hands nailed to the cross, with horrible torture to the nerves, and all His body suspended and, as it were, sustained by His wounds. Then ask yourself why were all these sufferings of your God and say with lively contrition: “He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed” (Is. 53:5).

Second Point

Jesus Christ as model

Meditate on the examples of virtue Our Saviour gives us in the different circumstances of His passion.

1. In the loss of His liberty, He gives you an example of perfect resignation to the will of His Father, which He adores in the criminal will of His enemies. He knew their designs beforehand, since He had foretold them to His Apostles, and yet He will withdraw Himself neither by a miracle nor by flight. He anticipates the Pharisees and the soldiers by going to meet them; He voluntarily delivers Himself into their hands; He allows Himself to be bound, then led from tribunal to tribunal, and finally nailed to the cross, and that without offering the least resistance, without making one complaint. Learn from so great a model the characters of perfect obedience to the will of God—that is, docility, promptitude and constancy.

2. In the desertion of His friends, He gives you an example of the most generous charity. To the indifference of His disciples He opposes a lively and tender friendship; He watches over their perils, forgetting His own; and while He delivers Himself without defense into the hands of His most cruel enemies, He obliges them to respect the liberty of His Apostles. “I have told you that I am He. If therefore you seek Me, let these go their way. That the word might be fulfilled which He said: Of them whom Thou hast given Me, I have not lost any one” ( John 18:8, 9). To Peter, who had denied Him, He does not even utter a reproach and only replies to his perjury by a look full of sweetness and that converted the unfaithful Apostle: “The Lord turning looked at Peter, and he going out wept bitterly” (Luke 22:61, 62). With regard to Judas, He does not repulse his perfidious embrace; He contents Himself with saying, less to confound him than to convert him, “Friend, whereto are thou come?” (Matt. 26:50). “Judas, dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48).

3. In the loss of His reputation, He gives you an example of perfect detachment. It was easy for Him to confound His enemies, and to reestablish with more splendor than ever His renown for wisdom, sanctity and power. For this a miracle or even a few words would have sufficed. What does Jesus Christ do? He refuses for Himself the miracles He lavishes on others, and if He speaks, it is only in the interest of truth. Are you the Son of God? You have said it. Yes, I am. Learn, then, from your Divine Master to despise the opinion and the esteem of men. What matters the contempt of the world, if you have the approbation of the Lord? “Those who praise me while Thou blamest me, can they save me when Thou shalt condemn me?” (St. Augustine).

4. In the ignominies and insults that Jesus Christ endured, He gives you an example of profound humility. To calumny He only opposes silence: “He held His peace and said nothing” (Mark 14:61). Yet it appears that the interest of His doctrine, of His mission, of His Church, that the glory even of His Father, required from Him at least a few words for His justification. But Jesus is silent: “I as a deaf man heard not; and as a dumb man not opening his mouth, and that hath no reproofs in his mouth” (Ps. 37:14, 15). To derision and insult He only opposes meekness; and He fulfills to the letter what was written of Him: “I have given My body to the strikers, and My cheeks to them that plucked them; I have not turned away My face from them that rebuked Me and spit upon Me” (Is. 1:6); “He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before His shearer, and He shall not open His mouth” (Is. 53:7).

5. In the different torments of His sacred body, He gives you the example of a heroic penance. Meditate well on the following circumstances: (1) Who is He that suffers? A God holy by essence. (2) What does He suffer? Everything that it is possible for man to suffer. (3) From whom does He suffer it? From those whom He has loaded with benefits. (4) Why does He suffer? For your sins. (5) How does He suffer? With infinite love. These, in a few words, are the motives and practice of penance.

COLLOQUIES

1. With the blessed Virgin. Recite some verses of the Stabat Mater, for example.

2. With Our Lord.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. They fasten Jesus to the cross, and crucify Him between two thieves, one on His right and the other on His left. Thus were accomplished the words of Scripture, “With the wicked He was reputed” (Mark 15:28).

Second prelude. Represent to yourself Calvary and there Our Lord Jesus Christ fastened to the cross.

Third prelude. Let us beg a lively contrition for our sins and a tender love of Jesus Christ dying for us.

First Point / Contemplate the persons

1. The crowd of strangers and inhabitants of Jerusalem assembled round Our Saviour. What motive brings them to Calvary? With some, it is compassion; but with a great number, it is curiosity; with a still greater number it is hatred. 2. The Roman soldiers, the Pharisees, the princes of the priests, who insult the Son of God, and who feel a malignant joy at His sufferings and death. 3. The two malefactors crucified beside Jesus Christ. 4. The Blessed Virgin, Mary the wife of Cleophas, Magdalen and the beloved disciple, gathered together at the foot of the cross. 5. Our Lord on the cross; His head crowned with thorns, His eyes blinded by the blood trickling from His forehead, His arms violently stretched out, His hands and feet pierced by sharp nails, His body torn so that the bones may be counted through the still bleeding wounds of His scourging.

Practical reflections and affections.

Second Point / Listen to the Words

1. The words of the people. Those who pass by loading Him with maledictions, shaking their heads, and saying, “Thou that destroyest the temple of God, and in three days dost rebuild it, save Thy own self; if Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt. 27:40).

2. The words of the chief priests and scribes. They said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him. He trusted in God; let Him now deliver Him if He will save Him, for He said: I am the Son of God” (Matt. 27:42, 43).

3. The words of the soldiers, who come to Him and offer Him vinegar, saying, “If Thou be the King of the Jews, save Thyself” (Luke 23:37).

4. The words of the two malefactors. One of them blasphemed against Him, saying, “If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us” (Ibid. 39). The other rebuked him, saying, “Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art under the same condemnation. And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this Man hath done no evil. And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom” (Ibid. 40–42).

5. The interior words of Mary, of the holy women, of St. John, and their communion with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

6. The seven words of Jesus Christ on the cross. (1) To His Heavenly Father: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). (2) To the good thief: “To-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise” (Ibid. 43). (3) To Mary and John: “Woman, behold thy son; son, behold thy mother” ( John 19:26). (4) “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46). (5) “I thirst” ( John 19:28). (6) “It is consummated” (Ibid. 30). (7) “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit” (Luke 23:46).

Practical reflections and affections.

Third Point / Consider the actions

(1) In the Jews, indifference, or rather hate. (2) In the priests and Pharisees, a barbarous joy at the sight of their enemy dying. (3) In the soldiers, a fierce cruelty: they divide the garments of Jesus at the foot of the cross and give Him vinegar to quench the thirst of which He complains. (4) In one of the thieves, an impenitence and hardness that resists every grace. In the other, faith, humility, contrition, confidence in God. (5) In the holy women and St. John, the heroism of fidelity and devotion. (6) In Mary, the union of her heart with the sufferings, the patience, the humility, the charity of Jesus Christ. (7) In Jesus Christ, the perfection of all virtues: the perfection of humility—He dies under the ignominy of the most disgraceful of sufferings: the perfection of poverty—He dies in a state of the most complete privation: the perfection of abnegation—He sacrifices all His liberty, His honor, His affections; His body, in which every sense suffers torture; His soul, of which every faculty has its pain.

Practical reflections and affections.

End by the three following considerations:

1. What Our Saviour suffers in His humanity.

2. How His divinity bides itself and allows His enemies to act, instead of striking them and annihilating them.

3. What we ought to do and suffer for a God whom our sins have reduced to this state.

COLLOQUY WITH OUR SAVIOUR CRUCIFIED

Excite in yourself the sentiments pointed out in the advice on the third week: (1) hatred of sin; (2) admiration of the goodness and wisdom of God; (3) trust; (4) love; (5) imitation of the Saviour; (6) zeal for the salvation of souls.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

Preludes the same as last.

1. Application of the sight. Contemplate the bloody scene of Calvary; the crowd of strangers and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem assembled through compassion, curiosity or hatred; the soldiers and Pharisees who insult the agony of the Son of God; the two malefactors crucified beside Him; the Blessed Virgin, the holy women, and the beloved disciple at the foot of the cross; and on the cross Jesus Christ, just giving the last sign, His feet and hands violently stretched, His head crowned with thorns, His eyes dim, His whole body torn, and allowing the bones to be seen through the wounds that furrow it.

Practical reflections and affections.

1. Application of the hearing. Listen to the discourse of the people; the blasphemies of the soldiers; the words of the bad thief who insults Jesus Christ, and those of the good thief who acknowledges Him as God; the interior words of Mary, of the holy women, of St. John; the seven words of Jesus Christ.

Practical reflections and affections.

1. Application of the taste. Taste the bitterness of the heart of Mary at the sight of her Son nailed to the cross and dying in the most cruel and ignominious tortures. Taste, above all, the bitterness of the heart of Jesus, suffering at once from His own sorrows and those of His Mother and from the rigor of His Father, who seems to have forsaken Him. Practical reflections and affections.

2. Application of the smell. Respire the perfume of the virtues of Jesus Christ dying; of His poverty, His humility, His patience, His charity. Practical reflections and affections.

3. Application of the touch. Kiss inwardly the cross and the bleeding wounds of Jesus Christ.

Practical reflections and affections.

COLLOQUY WITH OUR LORD

Recite slowly the Anima Christi, stopping at each clause.

Pater. Ave.

IN the fourth week, the soul occupies itself entirely with the love of God and the desire of a blessed eternity, of which a pledge is given in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The following are the directions proper to this week:

1. In the first, second and third points of the meditation, you must contemplate the persons, the words and the actions, as in the preceding week.

In the fourth point, you must consider how the divinity of Jesus Christ, which was, as it were, hidden during the time of His passion, is manifested in His resurrection, and afterward declares itself by all kinds of miracles.

In the fifth point, you must remark with what promptitude, what tenderness, and what effusion of heart Jesus Christ deigns to console His faithful followers.

To meditate with fruit on each of these points, you must recall to yourself that we shall participate in the victory and happiness of the Son of God in proportion as we have partaken of His sufferings, as has already been said in the contemplation on the reign of Jesus Christ. It is for this purpose that St. Ignatius proposes to us—

(1) Jesus Christ as glorious and triumphant after His resurrection, in proportion as He had been cast down and humiliated in His death; (2) the Apostles and disciples as consoled by Our Saviour, in proportion to their past trials and sufferings.

1. During this week, some change must be made in the “additions” observed during the preceding weeks. Thus: (1) As soon as you awake you must, in recalling the subject of the meditation, endeavor to unite yourself to the joy of Our Saviour after His resurrection with His disciples. (2) You must occupy yourself with all the thoughts that can excite you to spiritual joy, such as celestial glory. (3) No longer deprive yourself of light or of the sight of heaven but profit by whatever the season offers of agreeable, that we may rejoice with our Creator and Saviour: in spring, with the appearance of verdure, the flowers, and the fresh rich fields; in winter, with the warmth of the sun or the fire; in a word, with the innocent pleasures of nature. Abstain also from corporal mortifications and be satisfied with temperance in your repasts, unless there should be some fast or abstinence prescribed by the Church, of which the precepts must always be observed, unless some legitimate reason should dispense with them.

MEDITATION

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. When Our Lord had breathed His last sigh, His body, taken down from the cross, was placed in the sepulcher: His soul descended into Limbus to deliver the souls of the just; then returned to the sepulcher the third day and withdrew from it His body, which was then united to it never more to be separated. The risen Saviour appeared, first, to His blessed Mother, then to the holy women, and at different times to the disciples and Apostles.

Second prelude. Represent to yourself the sepulcher from which Jesus Christ arose, and some of the places that witnessed His apparitions—for example, the road to Emmaus.

Third prelude. Beg the grace to participate in the joy of Jesus Christ and of His blessed Mother.

First Point / The glory of Jesus Christ in His Resurrection

Consider the glory of the Saviour in His resurrection and how faithfully His Father rewards all the sacrifices of His suffering life.

1. In His passion, Jesus Christ had made the sacrifice of His body. We have seen this sacred body scourged and on the cross, only offering to the eye one bleeding wound, and scarce allowing the features of the Son of man to be recognized: “From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head there is no soundness therein” (Is. 1:6); “There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness; and we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness” (Is. 53:2). In the resurrection, the body of Jesus Christ takes a new life—an immortal life. He is raised in a manner to the nature of spirits; like them, He is endowed with agility and impassibility. In the place of that beauty destroyed by His executioners, He is clothed with a splendor surpassing that of the sun. This glory of the body of Jesus Christ is promised to our body also, but on the condition that, after the example of Jesus Christ, we offer up ourselves by penance: “Yet so if we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him” (Rom. 8:17). Let us courageously embrace Christian mortification, of which the following are the three principal degrees: (1) to suffer patiently all the trials that are independent of our will—for example, sickness, infirmities, the inclemencies of the seasons and so on; (2) not to allow our senses any criminal enjoyment; (3) to resist our senses, whether by imposing voluntary afflictions on them or by refusing them allowable enjoyments.

2. In His passion, Jesus Christ had made the sacrifice of His honor and glory. Before the tribunals and on Calvary we have seen Him, according to the oracle of the prophets, treated as the lowest of men, with the reproach of mankind: “The most abject of men” (Is. 53:3); “The reproach of men” (Ps. 21:7). Classed with the wicked: “And was reputed with the wicked” (Is. 53:12). Loaded with ignominy; trodden underfoot like a worm of the earth, “A worm and no man” (Ps. 21:7). Now, in the resurrection, all is repaired: Jerusalem is filled with the news of His triumph; the judges who condemned Him are confounded; the soldiers, who insulted Him as a seducer and a madman, are the first witnesses of His glory; His disciples and Apostles, who had abandoned Him everywhere, proclaim His resurrection; the angels and the holy souls He has delivered from Limbus bless Him as the Conqueror of death and hell: “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God in Thy blood, and hast made us to our God a kingdom and priests. The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power and divinity” (Apoc. 5:9–12). Conceive a holy contempt for the opinion and esteem of men; place your honor in the hands of God and know how to make the sacrifice of it to Him when He requires it, being assured that He will faithfully return it to you a hundredfold: “I also suffer; but I am not ashamed. For I know whom I have believed, and I am certain that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day” (2 Tim. 1:12).

3. In His passion, Jesus Christ had made the sacrifice of His interior consolations. His soul was steeped in bitterness: in the Garden of Olives we have heard Him cry out, “My soul is sorrowful even unto death” (Matt. 26:38); and on the cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34). Now the time of desolation is passed never to return; His soul enters into possession of a happiness without end; it is inundated with the delights of Paradise, with all the joys of the divinity that is united to Him. Animate your hope by your faith. Recall to yourself that you are called to share this felicity of the Son of God one day in heaven. And when sacrifices alarm you or trials depress you, say to yourself with the Apostle, “For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation worketh for us above measure an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17).

Second Point

The apparitions of Jesus Christ after His resurrection

Consider to whom Jesus Christ appeared, how He appeared and why He appeared.

1. To whom Jesus Christ appeared. He appeared (1) according to the general opinion, to His blessed Mother—not only on account of the incomparable dignity of Mary but above all because no one had participated so much in His sorrows and in the opprobrium of His passion. So Jesus Christ teaches you that you will only participate in His consolations in proportion to your constancy in suffering after His example and for His love.

(2) He appeared next, not to the Apostles, but to Magdalen and the holy women. And why to these holy women? To reward their simplicity and fervor and to teach you that it is to simple and fervent souls that He is pleased to communicate Himself: “His communication is with the simple” (Prov. 3:32).

(3) Lastly, He appears to the Apostles; but it is after Peter and John have been to the sepulcher and have merited the grace of seeing Our Saviour by the zeal of their search. Learn from this that to find Jesus Christ we must seek Him long by prayer and desire. Happy are they who know how to draw Jesus Christ to them! Happy are they who know how to retain Jesus Christ with them! “It is a great art to know how to converse with Jesus, and to know how to retain Jesus is a great prudence” (Imit. of Christ, bk. 2 ch. 8).

1. How Jesus appeared. All the apparitions of the Saviour brought joy and consolation to their souls. He appeared to Mary; who can express with what a torrent of spiritual delight He inundated her heart? He appeared to Magdalen, saying to her, “Mary”; and this word alone, making Him known, transports and ravishes the soul of Magdalen. He appeared to the Apostles, saying to them, “Peace be with you; and He said to them again, Peace be with you” ( John 20:19, 21). And the sight of Him and these words filled all their hearts with joy: “The disciples therefore were glad when they saw the Lord” ( John 20:20).

Let us learn to recognize by these signs the presence of Jesus Christ and the characteristics that distinguished the action of His spirit in our souls from the action of the evil spirit. The one announces himself by obscurity, trouble, depression and agitation; the other, on the contrary, announces Himself by light, peace, interior consolation. Above all, let us know how to profit by the visits of Jesus Christ; and let us not forget that to lose His sensible grace and the consolation of His presence, it suffices only to bestow too much of our thoughts on exterior things: “You may easily banish Jesus and lose His grace if you give yourself too much to exterior things” (Imit. of Christ, 2.8).

1. Why Jesus Christ appeared. For three reasons, which the Gospel indicates to us—to strengthen the still hesitating faith of the Apostles; to prepare them for an approaching and long separation; to animate them to the sacrifices He is going to ask of them. The interior visits with which Jesus Christ favors souls are for the following purposes. If He honors us with lights and consolations, it is always to impress a greater liveliness on our faith—to prepare us for interior desolation and trials—to animate us for the sacrifices He will soon ask of us in the practice of virtue.

COLLOQUIES

1. With the holy Virgin. Congratulate her on her happiness and join in her joy.

Regina coeli.

1. With Our Lord Jesus Christ. Adore Him in the glory of His resurrection and consecrate yourself anew to Him as to your Saviour and your King.

Prayer—Suscipe, p. 181.

CONTEMPLATION

Preparatory prayer.

Preludes. The same as last.

First Point / Contemplate the persons

Represent to yourself Jesus Christ rising gloriously from the tomb; the angel seated on the stone of the sepulcher, of whom it is said in the Gospel, “His countenance was as lightning, and his raiment as snow” (Matt. 28:3); the guard terrified and taking to flight; the holy women, then the Apostles Peter and John, coming to the sepulcher; Jesus Christ appearing to the holy women; the disciples refusing to believe; Jesus Christ appearing to them several times.

Second Point / Listen to the words

Listen to the angel saying to the holy women: “You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He is risen; He is not here,” and so on. To Jesus Christ, appearing to His disciples and addressing words of consolation to them: “Peace be to you. It is I; fear not,” and so on; then explaining to them the mysteries of His passion and of the redemption of men: “Thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again… Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed… Receive ye the Holy Ghost… All power has been given Me in heaven and on earth… Whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven… Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 28; Luke 24).

Third Point / Consider the actions

Jesus Christ, after having delivered the souls of the just from Limbus, rises from the tomb through the massive stone that closes up the entrance. The earth trembles. An angel dazzling with light descends from heaven and seats himself on the stone of the sepulcher after having overturned it; the terrified guards run to tell the priests, who bribe them to say that the disciples have carried off the body of their Master. The holy women arrive at the sepulcher and are seized with terror at the sight of the angel; the celestial spirit reassures them. The Saviour appears to them as well as to Peter; soon He shows Himself to His Apostles to console them, instruct them, strengthen them: He bestows upon them His peace.

Fourth Point

Consider how the divinity of Jesus Christ, which was, so to say, hidden during the time of His passion, manifests itself in His resurrection and is declared by all kinds of miracles.

Fifth Point

Consider with what loving tenderness, what effusion of heart, Jesus Christ deigns to console His Apostles—like a friend who, knowing the affliction of a friend tenderly loved, hastens to console him. Finish by practical reflections, and say to yourself, “If I am now raised to grace, I must, like Jesus Christ, make my resurrection shine for the glory of God and the edification of my brethren. Jesus Christ risen dies no more; I must, then, die no more to grace by sin. Jesus Christ risen made only short apparitions of Himself; I must, then, only appear in the world through necessity, through charity, through courtesy,” and so on.

COLLOQUIES

1. With the holy Virgin. Congratulate her on her happiness and participate in her joy.

Regina coeli.

1. With Our Lord Jesus Christ. Adore Him in the glory of His resurrection and renew your consecration to Him as your Saviour and your King.

Prayer—Suscipe, p. 181. Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Represent to yourself Our Lord seated on His throne at the right hand of His Father; beside Him the Blessed Virgin; around the throne the angels and the elect.

Second prelude. Beg for an ardent desire of heaven, and the courage to suffer on earth with Jesus Christ, that you may one day reign with Him in eternity.

First Point / Jesus Christ in Heaven suffers no more

Consider that Our Lord in heaven is free from all the trials and pains that He experienced in His mortal life. His body, since His resurrection, is withdrawn from the empire of weakness and death. His soul, inundated with the delights of the divinity united to Him, is hencefor-ward a stranger to sadness and desolation.

In heaven, the Christian, like his Divine Head, will be forever freed from all bodily pains and from all afflictions of the soul.

1. In heaven there are no more infirmities. The body, clothed with the glory of Jesus Christ, will be raised, like that of the Saviour, to a state of impassibility: “Who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory” (Phil. 3:21). In this abode of perfect beatitude the blessed no longer know what it is to suffer and die: “And death shall be no more” (Apoc. 21:4).

2. In heaven there is no more grief or sorrow. “Nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more” (Apoc. 21:4). Here below, what is life but one long unceasing affliction? In heaven, all tears are dried: “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Apoc. 7:17). They remember past sorrows, but this memory is for the elect a part of their beatitude. Each one of them, like the prophet, applauds his past trials. Each one of them says, Happy tribulations, which are now repaid by an immense weight of glory: “We have rejoiced for the days in which Thou hast humbled us; for the years in which we have seen evils” (Ps. 89:15).

3. In heaven there are no more separations. Here below, to poison the sweets of friendship, this thought alone suffices: “How long will the society of these friends, of these relatives so tenderly loved, continue?” But once in the bosom of God, the elect meet to part no more. What joy for a Christian family to meet again, after the long and sad separation of the grave! What joy to be able to say with confidence, “We are again united, and it is for eternity!”

4. In heaven there are no more temptations. Here on earth is for the Christian a struggle of every day and every moment; and in this struggle a continual danger of losing the grace of God, his soul, and eternity. Hence the groans of the saints, who never cease crying out with the prophet, “Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged” (Ps. 119:5); or with the Apostle, “Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). The lament of the exile is never heard in this country. There is no longer anything to fear from the world, which has no more illusions; nor from hell, which is conquered; nor from our own hearts, which only live for Divine love. There everything says, as did formerly holy King David, “He hath delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. I will please the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps. 114:89).

5. In heaven, above all, there is no more sin. Recall what you have meditated on the malice of sin. It is the supreme evil, the one only evil of time and eternity; the sole evil of the creature, the great evil done against God. Banished into hell, sin cannot penetrate into the kingdom of charity. Oh, the happiness of that day, when, entering into heaven, the elect shall say, My God is now mine, and I am His! “My beloved to me and I to Him” (Cant. 2:16). I am united to Him forever, and sin can never separate me from Him: “I held Him, and will not let Him go” (Cant. 3:4).

Second Point / Jesus Christ in Heaven has no longer anything to desire

What Our Lord asked of His Father is accomplished: “And now glorify Thou Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with Thee” ( John 17:5). The holy humanity of Our Saviour is glorified and His glory is this blessed possession of God, in which His soul loses itself in the plenitude of all good.

To possess God and in God to possess all good—such is also the bliss that awaits us in heaven; a sovereign and universal beatitude, which will be the full satisfaction of the entire man.

1. Beatitude of the senses. The body raised up at the last day and united to the soul, whose servant it was, will partake of its felicity. The ear will not weary of hearing the sacred songs of the elect; the eye will never tire in contemplating the light of Paradise, the splendor of the glorified saints, the sweet majesty of Mary on her throne, the luster of the adorable humanity of Jesus Christ—all the senses will be inebriated with these pure and spiritual pleasures, which appear to belong only to the celestial intelligences: “They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy house; and Thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of Thy pleasure” (Ps. 35:9).

2. Beatitude of memory. With what joy will the saints recall the graces they have received from God, the virtues they practiced on earth! How will a martyr congratulate himself on his sufferings, an apostle on his labors, a confessor on his sacrifices! How each one of the elect will return thanks to God for His mercies! With what an effusion of gratitude and happiness will they say to themselves, “On such a day God inspired me to serve Him alone; and it is this inspiration that has led me to heaven: on such a day God preserved me from this temptation, withdrew me from this occasion or habit of sin! What care His providence took for my salvation! And what had I done to merit that He should save me in preference to so many who are lost forever?”

3. Beatitude of the intellect. Closely united to God, the intelligence of the elect sees all truth in Him as in a mirror. Suppose the rudest man in the world, the most ignorant of science, enters heaven; that moment his soul is inundated with lights so vivid that before them the lights of the greatest geniuses are but darkness: it sees God without veil and face to face; and in God sees all things—the wonderful laws that govern the world; the mysteries of providence; the secrets of the redemption of men and of the predestination of the elect; the attributes of the Divine nature—wisdom, power, goodness, immensity, eternity; the Three Persons of the Trinity, with their relations and ineffable operation. The soul sees God, and this sight, in a manner, transforms it into God Himself, according to the words of St. John: “We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him; because we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

4. Beatitude of the will. This beatitude will be to love and possess God. To love God is the true object of our heart. But here below how weak is this love, how it is mingled with lowness and imperfections, how subject it is to change and inconstancy! In heaven, scarcely does God show Himself to the soul before He subjugates it and ravishes it forever—sovereign love that rules all the affections; love so pure that the blessed forget themselves to be lost in God; love so ardent and so strong that it absorbs and exhausts all the power of loving; love so ecstatic that the soul goes out of itself and passes entirely into God to be consummated in unity with Him. It is the expression of Our Lord: “The glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given to them, that they may be one, as We also are one” ( John 17:22).

“O God! When shall it be given to me to see the glory of Thy kingdom? When will the day arrive that Thou shalt be all in all to me? When shall I be with Thee in the mansions which Thou hast eternally prepared for Thy beloved?” (Imit. of Christ, 3.48).

Third Point / Jesus Christ in Heaven has no change to dread

The reign of Jesus Christ in heaven is safe from all vicissitudes: it will have no end. He will reign eternally at the right hand of His Father, always triumphant, always sovereign, always the object of love to the saints and angels, as of the sweetest approbation of His Father: Cujus regni non erit finis, “Of whose kingdom there shall be no end.”

The beatitude of the saints is immutable, like that of the Son of God. It is the inseparable condition of worldly goods to be accompanied by fear or distaste, sometimes by both at once: fear, because each moment they may escape; distaste, because we cannot long enjoy them without recognizing and feeling their vanity. It is not so with the goods of eternity. These are unchangeable and therefore have no end or diminution. Add ages to ages; multiply them equal to the sand of the ocean or the stars of heaven; exhaust all the numbers, if you can, beyond what the human intelligence can conceive, and for the elect there will be still the same eternity of happiness. They are immutable, and this immutability excludes weariness and disgust. The life of an elect soul is one succession, without end, of desires ever arising and ever satisfied, but desires without trouble, satiety or lassitude. The elect will always see God, love God, possess God and always will wish to see Him, love Him and possess Him still more.

This beatitude is the end destined for all; God has given us time only in order to merit it, being and life only to possess it. Reflect seriously on this great truth, and ask yourself these three questions at the foot of the crucifix.

What have I done hitherto for heaven? What ought I to do for heaven? What shall I do henceforward for heaven?

Colloquies with the Blessed Virgin and Our Lord glorified in heaven.

Anima Christi. Pater. Ave.

First remark. True love consists in fruits and effects, not in words: “My little children,” says the beloved disciple, “let us not love in word, nor in tongue; but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18).

Second remark. The effect of true love is the reciprocal communication of all good things between the persons who love each other; whence it follows that charity cannot exist without sacrifice. Do not, then, content yourself with tender and affectionate sentiments; “For,” says St. Gregory, “the proof of love is in the works: where love exists, it works great things, but when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.”

CONTEMPLATION

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Place yourself in spirit in the presence of God, and figure to yourself that you are before His throne in the midst of saints and angels, who intercede for you with the Lord.

Second prelude. Ask of God the grace to comprehend the greatness of His benefits and to consecrate yourself without reserve to His love and service.

First Point

Recall to yourself the benefits of God. These benefits are of three principal orders: benefits of creation, benefits of redemption, particular benefits. The first order comprises all the natural gifts—the soul with its powers, the body with its senses, life with the good things that accompany it. The second comprises all the supernatural graces, the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, the Sacraments, and so on. In the third are all the graces that we receive every day and every hour from Divine Providence.

Consider attentively these three orders of the Divine benefits, and in each one meditate on these three circumstances in which St. Ignatius shows us the characters of true charity. In each you will find:

1. A love that acts and manifests itself by works. What is more active than the charity of God in the creation, preservation and redemption of man?

2. A love that gives, that lavishes its goods. Has God anything of which He has not given part to man? Has He not given Himself on the cross for an example and in the Eucharist, His body, His blood, His divinity, His life and all His being?

3. A love never satisfied with what it has given and that would always give more. Is not this the love of God toward us? Is it not true that His greatest gifts have not been able to exhaust the prodigality of His heart? Is it not true that there is in Him a desire to do us good that will never be satisfied until He has given Himself to us entirely and forever in heaven?

After having meditated on these characters of Divine charity, return to yourself and ask yourself what gratitude and justice require in return for such marvelous generosity. You have nothing of yourself: you hold all from God; what else, then, can you do but offer Him all that you have and all that you are? Say to Him, then, with all the affection of your heart:

Suscipe, Domine.: “Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am, all that I have, Thou hast given me, and I give it back again to Thee, to be disposed of according to Thy good pleasure. Give me only Thy love and Thy grace: with these I am rich enough.”Or, as the prayer may be paraphrased, “Take, O Lord, for it is Thine—receive as an offering, for I would give it were it not Thine—all that I value; all my liberty, all my memory, will and understanding. All that I am, all that I have, is Thy free gift to me; this I give back to Thee, that Thou mayest dispose of all according to Thy good pleasure. And now, O Lord, bestow upon me a gift. Give me Thy love and Thy grace, without which I cannot persevere in that love. With this I am rich enough and I desire nothing more.”

Second Point

Consider that God, your Benefactor, is present in all creatures and in yourself. If you look at every step of the visible creation, in all you will meet God. He is in the elements, He gives them existence; in plants, He gives them life; in animals, He gives them sensation. He is in you; and collecting all these degrees of being scattered through the rest of His creation, He unites them in you, and adds to them intelligence. And how is this great God in you? In the most noble, the most excellent manner. He is in you as in His temple, as in a sanctuary where He sees His own image, where He finds an intelligence capable of knowing and loving Him. Thus your Benefactor is always with you; He is more intimately united to you than your soul is to your body. You ought, then—and this is the second degree of love—you ought as much as possible not to lose sight of Him. You ought to think and act in His presence, to keep yourself before Him like a child before a tenderly loved father, studying the slightest sign of His will and wish. Finish this second point by a renewed offering of yourself, and one, if possible, still more affectionate and unreserved.

Third Point

Consider not only that God your benefactor is present but also that He acts continually in all His creatures. And for whom is this continual action, this work of God in nature? For you. Thus, He lights you by the light of day; He nourishes you with the productions of the earth; in a word, He serves you by each one of the creatures that you use; so that it is true to say that at every moment the bounty, the wisdom and the power of God are at your service and are exercised in the world for your wants or pleasures. This conduct of God toward man should be the model of your conduct toward God. You see that the presence of God in His creatures is never idle; it acts incessantly, it preserves, it governs. Beware, then, of stopping at a sterile contemplation of God present in yourself. Add action to contemplation; to the sight of the Divine presence add the faithful accomplishment of the Divine will. Meditate well on the two characters of the action of God in the world so as to reproduce them as much as possible in your own deeds. What is more active than God and at the same time what more calm and tranquil? He is incessantly occupied with the care of His creatures; and yet He is never distracted from the interior contemplation of His essence and of His attributes. Learn in the exercise of the presence of God, to unite movement and repose, work and recollection. Think always of God, but in such a manner that you do not cease to act; act, but in such a manner that you do not cease to think of God. And to arrive at this high degree of perfection, endeavor to seek only one end even in the diversity of your occupations; that is, the good pleasure and holy will of God. End by offering yourself as in the preceding points.

Fourth Point

Recall what you meditated on the first point, that is, that there is in God an ardent desire and, as it were, a need to communicate all His perfections to you, as much as the infinite can be communicated to the finite. Consider that you find the weak and rude image of these perfections in created things. All that there is good and beautiful in creatures, what is it but an emanation of the Divinity? The power, wisdom, goodness of men, from whence do they come if not from God, as the rays come from the sun and the stream from the fountain?

From this consideration arises a double consequence, which is the fourth and last degree of the love of God: detachment from creatures and detachment from ourselves.

1. Detachment from creatures; because they have only very limited perfections, and those lent to them; while God possesses all perfection and in an infinite degree.

2. Detachment from ourselves; because all our being and all our happiness depend, not on us, but on God, as the light of the ray depends on the sun, the water of the stream on the fountain. According to the words of Our Lord, to find ourselves is to lose ourselves, because in us and of ourselves there is only nothingness: “He that loveth his life shall lose it” ( John 12:25); and, on the contrary, to hate ourselves, leave ourselves, lose ourselves is to find ourselves, because then we find ourselves in God, who alone is our life, our happiness, and our being: “He that hateth his life shall keep it unto life eternal” (Ibid.).

From this double detachment springs true liberty of spirit, which consists in no longer being bound either to creatures or to ourselves, and in reposing perfectly and solely on the love of God. In this state, the soul is absolutely indifferent to all that is not God. For if there is only one thought—to please God in all its actions; only one desire—soon to quit this earth, in order fully to possess God in heaven.

Finish as in the preceding points.

Sum up, in order to profit better by them, the four degrees of the love of God, as they are proposed to us by St. Ignatius.

1. A God from whom I hold all; I ought, then, to render Him all. Hence entire oblation of myself.

2. A God who is present in every creature and in myself; I ought, then, to live in God by a constant and happy remembrance of His presence.

3. A God who acts in every creature and for my service, but without losing anything of His infinite repose; I ought, then, to act in God and for His service without ever losing sight of His presence.

4. A God who wishes to communicate all His perfections to me and who beforehand shows me the image of them in a faint degree in His creatures; I ought, then, to leave both creatures and myself, in order to attach myself only to God, in whom I find, as in their source, and in an infinite degree, all perfections.

Colloquy according to the accustomed method.

Suscipe or Pater. Ave.

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. Salute Mary, Mother of God, with the angel Gabriel.

Second prelude. Ask of Jesus Christ a high esteem and great veneration for His Mother.

Consider—

1. What union the Divine maternity established between Jesus and Mary.

2. What virtues this august title presupposes in her.

3. What authority it confers on her.

First Point

Mary is not only the privileged daughter of the Father, the beloved spouse of the Holy Ghost, she is also the mother of the Son of God.

1. In this quality, she is united to Jesus in the eternal decrees and in the promises of the Saviour made in the beginning of all time. It is by her that the head of the serpent is to be crushed (Gen. 3:13). She is united to her Divine Son in the oracles of the prophets. Isaias announces this branch of Jesse and the blessed fruit she is to bear (Is. 11:1); the Virgin Mother and the Emmanuel her Son (Is. 7:14); Jeremias predicts this marvelous woman, Mother of a perfect Man ( Jer. 31:22); David sings of this Queen seated on the right hand of the heavenly King (Ps. 44:10). The book of Wisdom describes the wonders of the temple that Wisdom had chosen for its dwelling (Wis. 9, etc.).

2. She is united to Jesus in the figures of the ancient law. Eve, says St. Augustine, was, in more than one point of resemblance or opposition, a figure of Mary. Eve was drawn from Adam’s side; Mary draws all her merits from her Divine Son. Eve, seduced by an angel of darkness, was the first cause of our ruin; Mary, persuaded by an angel from heaven, began the work of our redemption. Her intercession and power are figured by Esther obtaining grace for her people, by Judith victorious over Holophernes; her Immaculate Conception by the burning bush that the flames surrounded without touching, by that wonderful fleece that alone in a vast plain received the dew of heaven.

3. She is united to the Son of God, above all, at the moment of the incarnation. Then her Creator became her Child (Ecclus. 24:12). The blood of Mary became the blood of Jesus; Jesus is flesh of her flesh; He lives with her life, breathes with her breath; He is in her, to her, of her entirely. Thus the angel says: “The Lord is with thee” (Luke 1:28). Elizabeth says, “Behold the Mother of my Lord” (Ibid., 44). And the Church, in the third General Council, declares, “If any one refuse to call Mary Mother of God, let him be anathema” (Act of the Council of Ephesus).

4. But, above all, the holy soul of Mary is united to the adorable soul of Jesus. She conceived Him in her heart before receiving Him in her bosom, says St. Bernard. She unites herself to Him by the most lively faith, the most ardent charity, by the consent, the memory of which we revere in the “Angelus” three times a day and that associates her with her whole destiny. So Mary is found with Jesus at Bethlehem, in Egypt, in Nazareth, in Jerusalem, and, above all, on Calvary, where the sword of sorrow pierced her soul when the lance opened the heart of her Divine Son.

5. Jesus ascends to heaven and Mary is soon placed on His right hand, that is, associated with His glory and His all-powerful action in the salvation of the world; united to the King of Heaven by an ineffable union. Here on earth the Son and the Mother are united in the praises of the Fathers, in the prayers of the Christian Liturgy, in the definitions of councils, in the solemnities of the Church. We see Christians honoring, always in union, the Incarnation of Jesus, the Conception of Mary; the birth of Jesus, the nativity of Mary; the presentation of Jesus, the presentation of Mary; the baptism of Jesus, the purification of Mary; the sufferings of Jesus, the dolors of Mary; the ascension of Jesus, the assumption of Mary; the sacred heart of Jesus, the holy heart of Mary. The names of Jesus and Mary live always united in the hearts and the songs of the faithful; their temples and their altars are always near together, and nothing is more inseparable in their pious remembrances, their confidence, their invocation, their love, than Jesus and Mary.

Second Point

And what creature was more like to Jesus than Mary?

The laws of nature ordain that the son should resemble the mother; the laws of grace ordained beforehand that the Mother should possess all the characters suitable to the Son. Here recall with profound respect—

1. Her Immaculate Conception, which renders her a stranger to sin and its consequences and to all the occasions leading to sin. This privilege alone, which separates Mary from the mass of iniquity out of which we have all come, raises her above all the saints as much as the heavens are above the earth.

2. Her celestial virginity, which the approach of an angel alarms; which would shrink from the Divine maternity, if the Mother of God could cease to be a virgin; which the Holy Ghost renders fruitful and a mother by an ineffable miracle.

3. Her profound humility, which, says a holy Father, made her merit the Divine maternity: “Behold,” said she, “the handmaid of the Lord. He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid. He hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things” (Luke 1:38, 48, 52, 53).

4. Her perfect charity, which made her so prompt in visiting Elizabeth, so faithful in preserving in her heart the words of life, so attentive at the marriage of Cana, so devoted, so heroic during the labors and sorrows of her Son, so useful to the Apostles, so dear to the infant Church.

Third Point

What authority does not this Divine maternity give to Mary? Jesus Christ the Son of God, and Himself God, obeyed her thirty years; thirty years He executes her will, consults and forestalls her wishes. What a lesson does the docility of this true Son give to us sons by adoption; to us sons of Adam the docility of the Son of God! (St. Bernard)

Jesus Christ on the cross gave her to us for our Mother. The Mother of God is, then, our Mother, exercising over us the maternal authority in all its meaning and extent.

Jesus Christ in heaven, say the holy Fathers, still obeys the humble prayers of Mary. He has made her intercession all-powerful; He has established her the distributor of graces, the succor of Christians, the defense of the Church against infidelity and heresy. Giving us Jesus through Mary was to give us all through Mary. From the conception of Jesus the way was thus traced: “We receive all from her who gave us Jesus” (St. Bernard).

How great, then, is the authority of the Queen of Heaven, how extensive is the power of the Mother of God! In what peril are those who forget her or insult her! How safe are those she protects!

COLLOQUY

Say to her, with the angel, “Hail, Mary, full of grace,” and so on; or, with St. Cyril, the oracle of the Ecumenical Council: “Glory be to you, holy Mother of God, masterpiece of the universe, brilliant star, glory of virginity, sceptre of faith, indestructible temple, inhabited by Him whom immensity cannot contain. Virgin mother of Him who, blessed forever, comes to us in the name of the Lord, by you the Trinity is glorified, the holy cross celebrated and adored throughout the universe, the heavens are joyful, the angels tremble with joy, the devils are put to flight, man passes from slavery to heaven. Through you idolatrous creatures have known incarnate truth, the faithful have received baptism, churches have been raised over all the world; by your assistance the Gentiles have been led to repentance. Finally, through you the only Son of God, Source of all light, has shone on the eyes of the blind, who were sitting in the shadow of death. But, O Virgin Mother, who can speak your praises! Let us, however, celebrate them according to our powers, and at the same time adore God thy Son, the chaste Spouse of the Church, to whom are due all honour and glory now and through all eternity. Amen” (St. Cyril’s Homily against Nestorius).

Preparatory prayer.

First prelude. See Mary at the foot of the cross; hear Jesus saying to you, “Behold thy Mother!”

Second prelude. Ask of Jesus a filial love for Mary your Mother.

Consider—

1. That Mary was given you for your Mother.

2. That she has really shown herself a Mother to you.

3. That you ought to be a confiding and devoted son to her.

First Point / Mary has been given you for a Mother

Consider, then, in your heart all the circumstances of this gift.

1. She was given to you by Jesus Christ, God and Master of all creatures, from whom emanates all power, paternal and maternal; by Jesus Christ the God-Saviour, who had already sacrificed for you the body and lavished the blood He derived from Mary. Having nothing more to give you but her, He bestows her on you as a complement of all His gifts.

2. She is given to you in the clearest terms, the strongest, the most precise, to enable you to realize what they signify: “Behold your Mother.” Jesus said, in showing the bread, “This is My body”; and the bread became His body. Pointing to His Mother, He says, “Behold thy Mother”; Mary immediately became our Mother.

3. She was given to you under the most serious and solemn circumstances. Jesus, dying, makes His last dispositions and signifies His last will. Alone of all the disciples the beloved John is present to receive in the name of all Christians the last gift that their Divine Master makes to them. Thus all the fathers and doctors of the Church have understood it.

4. She is given you “for your Mother.” Feel these words at the bottom of your heart. Recall to yourself that man does not live only by bread; that his soul as well as his body has a life to receive and support. It is in this supernatural order that Mary is your Mother; if you live to grace, it is through her. The principle of this spiritual life is in Jesus; but Mary’s is the bosom that bore you, the milk that nourished you, the maternal heart that always loves its children even when ungrateful.

5. Why was a mother according to grace given to you? And why was this mother the mother of God? Interrogate Jesus in profound recollection of heart. He wished to become your brother both by father and mother; He wished that all should be in common between you; He wished that if the infinite height of His divinity terrified you, a creature, His mother and yours, should serve as your advocate, your refuge and your mediatrix with Him; He wished to encourage the most timid, open the hearts most oppressed by fear, offer to all the sweetest motive for trust, always well founded, never too great; for a mother always loves her child; and Jesus, Son of Mary, will always love His mother.

Second Point / Mary has always shown herself your Mother

1. She received you to her heart when Jesus gave you to her for her child; so the Scripture calls Jesus Christ her first-born (Matt. 1:25). You ought to be born in her and by her, after Him.

2. She has nourished you, not only by the graces her prayers have obtained for you, but also in a real manner by the Body and Blood of her Son given to you in the Eucharist.

3. She has anticipated you, cared for you, loaded you with favors. All the graces you have received from the Lord have been solicited and obtained by her. So, your call to the faith, the grace of a Christian education, of a first communion; the grace of conversion and retreat, the grace that now leads you to give yourself entirely to God—all come to you from Jesus through Mary (St. Bernard).

4. At need, Mary obtains for the defense and salvation of her children extraordinary graces and wonderful miracles. What prodigies have caused, sustained, spread everywhere, confidence among Christian people! What striking proofs of her protection the Church recalls to our memory by solemn feasts and pious practices, enriched by precious indulgences! What titles Christians give her to testify their gratitude: “Help of Christians, health of the sick, comfort of the afflicted, refuge of sinners, gate of heaven, our life, our sweetness, our hope!” What a concourse of people to the places where she is most honored, where she obtains the most succors to those who invoke her! What prayers and acts of thanksgiving at the foot of her altars! And in our days what conquests made by Our Lady of Victories! What favors bestowed on all hearts devoted to the heart of Mary!

5. Her protection, “strong as an army” (Cant. 6), preserves her faithful children from all dangers; she is for them an assured pledge of predestination. So the doctors of the Church believe, who assure us “that a servant of Mary cannot perish.”

Third Point / We then owe to our Mother love, confidence, imitation, zeal to spread devotion to her

1. Love for her who is the beloved of Our Lord; gratitude toward her who has loaded us with benefits, filial affection for our Mother.

2. Confidence. Her power and her title of Mother were given to her that our trust in her might be unlimited, that we might know that she would always be able and willing to help us.

3. Imitation. She expects from us this proof of true love. Does not the child naturally resemble the mother? Let this resemblance in us be the fruit of our efforts, of a careful study and practice of her virtues. Sons of a virgin, let us be pure; sons of the Mother of sorrows, let us be faithful to Jesus, even unto the cross.

4. Zeal to spread her devotion. A sincere love will produce this zeal. We must praise and defend all the practices authorized by the Church; her images must be venerated and distributed; we must love to wear her livery, to visit the places where she is honored; take pleasure in singing her praises, in preceding her feasts by penance and in sanctifying them by the reception of the holy Eucharist. Let us honor the sacred heart of Mary and honor it by a particular devotion.

COLLOQUIES

Let us recite the Magnificat in union with Mary or else address these words of St. Bernard to ourselves: “O thou who feelest thyself tossed by the tempests in the midst of the shoals of this world, turn not away thine eyes from the star of the sea if thou wouldst avoid shipwreck. If the winds of temptation blow, if tribulations rise up like rocks before thee, a look at the star, a sigh towards Mary. If the waves of pride, ambition, calumny, jealousy, seek to swallow up thy soul, a look towards the star, a prayer to Mary. If anger, avarice, love of pleasure, shiver thy frail bark, seek the eyes of Mary. If horror of thy sins, trouble of conscience, dread of the judgments of God, begin to plunge thee into the gulf of sadness, the abyss of despair, attach thy heart to Mary. In thy dangers, thy anguish, thy doubts, think of Mary, call on Mary. Let Mary be on thy lips, in thy heart, and to the suffrage of her prayers lose not sight of the example of her virtues. Following her, thou canst not wander; whilst thou prayest to her thou canst not be without hope; as long as thou thinkest of her thou wilt be in the path; thou canst not fall when she sustains thee; thou hast nothing to fear while she protects thee; if she favour thy voyage, thou wilt reach the harbour of safety without weariness.”

1. He who goes from a warm place to a cold or damp one is, if he is not careful, readily affected by the change of air. So he who passes from a retreat to ordinary life is in danger of losing in a short time the lights and fervor of the Exercises. For the impressions of grace not yet being strengthened by habit, it is almost certain, unless great precaution be used, that they will soon be weakened, and finally dissipated altogether.

2. In coming out from the Exercises, do not fail to thank Our Lord for the graces of the retreat. Recall in His presence all the lights, all the inspirations you have received, and look on them as so many testimonies of the special love of Our Lord for you. Renew your resolution to adopt all the necessary means to accomplish what you know of His Divine will toward you. Fear lest so great a grace, if it does not make you better, should make you more guilty and serve to draw down on you a more severe condemnation at the tribunal of God.

3. Be careful on reentering the world to be on your guard against sin and the occasions of sin. On the one hand, you must expect that the spirit of darkness will neglect nothing to draw you away; on the other, you must not conceal from yourself that you have everything to fear from your own weakness: for you have in the depths of your heart inclinations like a tree that has been cut but whose roots still live; or like a torch just extinguished but that lights again as soon as it is brought near the flame. You require, then, both a spirit of fear lest you allow yourself to be deceived by the demon and by your own heart, and at the same time great courage to combat both.

4. If, after the retreat, you fall even into some serious fault, do not think that the fruit of the Exercises is lost, and so give way to discouragement. It is the ordinary artifice of the evil one to draw the soul again into its old faults, and from these faults into dejection and despair; he thus endeavors to make perseverance appear impossible; and finally, to withdraw the soul forever from the service of God. After each fault, humble yourself before the Lord, repair as soon as possible to the Sacraments, have full confidence in the Divine mercy, and begin again with new ardor to walk in the path of virtue.

5. The following are the most efficacious means of preserving the fruits of the retreat:

(1) Devote each day half–an hour, or if possible an hour, to meditation, and a quarter of an hour to a particular and general examination according to the method traced in the Exercises.

(2) Approach the Sacraments of penance and communion every week.

(3) Fix a rule for your daily actions, keep to it carefully, and in each action study as much as possible to sanctify it by purity of intention, which consists in proposing to ourselves no other motive but the glory and good pleasure of God.

(4) Choose an enlightened confessor, who will be a guide to you in the ways of virtue, and with whom you may speak of all that concerns your soul.

(5) Often read pious books, frequent the company of good men and carefully avoid the conversation of the wicked.

(6) Apply yourself with perseverance to the acquirement of some solid virtue, above all, of humility and charity.

(7) Place yourself under the protection of Mary, have a tender piety to this good Mother and never allow a day to pass without offering her some homage.

(8) Finally, every year devote a week, if possible, to a spiritual retreat; and if this be impossible, at least at Easter make a review or general confession of all the faults of the past year.