Did our Divine Lord work less efficaciously for the Church when He hung on the Cross than when He preached? We must, then, do for the sick and the old who are now bearing their cross what we would have wished to do for Jesus in His suffering.
XV
TENTH CHARACTERISTIC
_Prayer for living and deceased brethren_
"WE do not remember often enough our dear dead, our departed brethren," says St. Francis de Sales, "and the proof of it is that we speak so little of them. We try to change the discourse as if it were hurtful. We let the dead bury their dead. Their memory perishes with us like the sound of the funeral knell, without thinking that a friendship which perishes with death is not true.
It is a sign of piety to speak of their virtues as it urges us to imitate them."
In communities distinguished for fraternal charity and the family spirit the conversation frequently turns on the dead. One talks of their virtues, another of their services, a third quotes some of their sayings, while a fourth adds some other edifying fact; and who is the religious that will not on such occasions breathe a silent prayer to God and apply some indulgence or other satisfactory work for the happy repose of their souls?
Charity also prays for those who want help most, and who are often known to God alone--those whose constancy is wavering, those who are led by violent temptations to the edge of the precipice. It expands pent-up souls by consolations or advice; it dissipates prejudices which tend to weaken the spirit of obedience; it is, in fine, a sort of instinct which embraces all those things suggested by zeal and devotion. Can there be anything more agreeable to God, more useful to the Church, or more meritorious, than to foster thus amongst the well-beloved children of God peace, joy, love of vocation, together with union amongst themselves and with their superiors? It is one of the most substantial advantages we have in religion to know that we are never forsaken in life or death; to find always a heart that can compassionate our pains, a hand which sustains us in danger and lifts us when we fall.
XVI
ELEVENTH CHARACTERISTIC
_To have a lively interest in the whole Order, in its works, its success, and its failures_
RELIGIOUS who have the family spirit wish to know everything which concerns the well-being of the different houses. They willingly take their pens to contribute to the edification and satisfy the lawful curiosity of their brethren. They bless God when they hear good news, and grieve at bad news, losses by death, and, above all, scandalous losses of vocation.
Those who would concentrate all their thoughts on their own work, as if all other work counted for nothing or merited no attention, who would speak feebly or perhaps jealously of it, as if they alone wished to do good, or that others wished to deprive them of some glory, would show that they only sought themselves, and that to little love of the Church they joined much indifference for their Order.
Charity, by uniting its good wishes and interest to the deeds of others, becomes associated at the same time in the merit. It shares in a certain manner in the gifts and labours of others. It is, at the same time, the eye, the hand, the tongue, and the foot, since it rejoices at what is done by the eye, the hand, the tongue, etc., or, rather, it is as the soul which presides over all, and to whom nothing is a stranger in the body over which it presides.
XVII
TWELFTH CHARACTERISTIC
_Mutual Edification_
BE edified at the sight of your brethren's virtues, and edify them by your own. In other words, be alternately disciple and master.
Profit by the labours of others, and make them profit by your own.
Receive from all, in order to be able to give to all. Borrow humility from one, obedience from another, union with God, and the practice of mortification from others.
By charity we store up in ourselves the gifts of grace enjoyed by every member of the community, in order to dispense them to all by a happy commerce and admirable exchange.
As the bee draws honey from the sweetest juices contained in each flower; as the artist studies the masterpieces to reproduce their marvellous tints in pictures which, in their turn, become models; as a mirror placed in a focus receives the rays of brilliancy from a thousand others placed around it to re-invest them with a dazzling brilliancy, so happy is the community whose members multiply themselves, so to say, by mutually esteeming, loving, admiring, and imitating each other in what is good.
This spontaneity of virtues exercises on all the members a constant and sublime ministry of mutual edification and reciprocal sanctification.
XVIII
EXTENT AND DELICACY OF GOD'S CHARITY FOR MEN
IN order to excite ourselves to fraternal charity, let us try and picture that of God for us. After having had us present in His thoughts from all eternity, He has called us from nothingness to life.
He Himself formed man's body, and, animating it with a breath, enclosed in it an immortal soul, created to His own image.
Scarcely arrived on the threshold of life, we found an officer from His court an angel deputed to protect, accompany, and conduct us in triumph to our heavenly inheritance.
What a superb palace He has prepared for us in this world, supplied with a prodigious variety of flowers, fruits, and animals which He has placed at our disposal!
We were a fallen race, and He sent His Son to raise us and save us from hell, which we merited. The Word was made flesh. He took a body and soul like ours, thus ennobling and deifying, so to speak, our human nature. Before ascending to His heavenly Father, after having been immolated for us on the Cross, for fear of leaving us orphans, He wished to remain amongst us in the Holy Eucharist, to nourish us with His flesh, and to infuse into our hearts His Divine Spirit as the living promise and the delicious foretaste of the felicity and glory which He went to prepare for us in His kingdom.
Truly, O God, You treat us not only with a paternal love, but with an infinite respect and honour; and cannot I love and honour those whom You have thus honoured and loved Yourself? Why do not these thoughts inflame my charity in the fire of your Divine love? My brethren and myself are children of God and members of Jesus Christ. My brethren have their angels, who are companions of my angel. One day my brethren will be my companions in glory, chanting eternally the Divine praises. It is but a short time since, with them, I partook of the heavenly banquet of the Most Holy Sacrament, and to-morrow shall do so again.
XIX
EXTENT AND DELICACY OF THE CHARITY OF JESUS CHRIST DURING HIS MORTAL LIFE
LET us now admire the charity of our Divine Saviour while on earth.
If wine was wanting at a feast; if fishermen laboured in vain during the night; if a vast crowd knew not where to procure food in the desert; if unfortunate persons were possessed by devils or deprived of the use of their limbs; if death deprived a father of his daughter, or a widow of an only son, Jesus was there to supply what was wanting, to give back what was lost, or to sweeten all their griefs. Sometimes He forestalled the petition by curing before being asked, or by exciting the wavering faith. He generally went beyond the demands of the petitioners. He was always ready to interrupt His meal, to go to a distance, or to quit His solitude. Nicodemus, as yet trembling and timid, came to find Jesus during the night, and He did not hesitate to sacrifice His sleep by prolonging the conversation. The Samaritan woman was not beneath His notice, although He was fatigued after a long journey. He lavished with prodigality His caresses on the children who pressed around Him. When the crowd was so great that the poor woman with the flow of blood could not come within reach of His hand, He caused an all-powerful virtue to set out from Him, and a simple touch of the hem of His garment supplied instead.
With what charming grace His benefits were accompanied! "Zacheus, come down quickly, for I will abide this day in thy house." Who more than He excelled in the art of making agreeable surprises? In His apparitions to Magdalen, to the holy women, to the disciples at Emmaus, did He not pay well for the ointment, the tears, and the perfumes, and the hospitality He received from them? Who is not moved with emotion when he sees his Lord preparing a meal for the Apostles on the lake-shore, or asking Peter thrice to give him an opportunity of publicly repairing his triple denial, "Lovest thou Me?"
Who would not be moved when he hears what St. Clement relates having heard it from St. Peter that our Lord was accustomed to watch like a mother with her children near His disciples during their sleep to render them any little service?
O Jesus! the sweetest, the most amiable, the most charitable of the children of men, make me a sharer in Your mildness, Your love, and Your charity.
XX
FIRST PRESERVATIVE
_How to fortify ourselves against uncharitable conversations, the principal danger to fraternal charity_
TO meditate on what the Holy Scripture says of it: "Place, O Lord, a guard before my mouth" (Ps. cxl.)--a vigilant sentinel, well armed, to watch, and, if necessary, to arrest in the passing out any unbecoming word--"and a door before my lips," which, being tightly closed, will never let an un charitable dart escape.
"Shut in your ears with a hedge of thorns," to counteract the tongue, which would pour into them the poison of uncharitableness, "and refuse to listen to the wicked tongue."
"Put before your mouth several doors and on your ears several locks"--_i.e._, put doors upon doors and locks upon locks, because the tongue is capable, in its fury, to force open the first door and break the first lock. "Melt your gold and silver, and make for your words a balance"--weighing them all before uttering them--"and have for your mouth solid bridles which are tightly held," for fear that the tongue, getting the better of your vigilance, will break loose and do mischief in all directions.
Considering these many barriers and formidable checks, must we not see the necessity of burying in a well-fortified prison that most dangerous monster, the tongue? "Ah! truly death and life are in the power of the tongue" (Prov. xviii.). "And although the sword has been the instrument of innumerable murders, the tongue has at all times beaten it in producing death" (Ecclus. xxviii.). "It forms but a small part of the body, and has done mighty evil: as the helm badly directed causes the wreck of a fine ship, and as a spark may enkindle a forest. . . . Unquiet evil, inflamed firebrand, source of deadly poison, world of iniquity" (St. James iii.).