Chapter II: Introduction

God's attributes being infinite and our intellects limited and also darkened by the fall, we see these attributes only in part and "as afar off and through a glass." In contemplating His awful sanctity, we are overwhelmed with fear and forget His ineffable mercy. Our views are also greatly influenced by our natural temperaments, whether joyous or sad, and change with our environments and moods.

As the blue firmament is ever the same, so is the great God Himself--"the King of Ages immortal and invisible, without change or shadow of vicissitude." But as the clouds that hang as veils of the sanctuary are movable and variegated, now dark and gloomy and again brilliant in silver or gold, now opening into vistas of the firmament above and again closing in darkness, except when arrows of light pierce them and show their outlines, so are we variable and inconstant and need spiritual direction adapted to our peculiar wants. The naturally joyous, hopeful and sometimes presumptuous, need that wholesome fear of the Lord which is "the beginning of wisdom." The constitutionally severe, scrupulous and almost despairing, need to remember God's tender paternal character and to learn that "His mercies are above all His works." To such souls this little book must prove invaluable. Its theology is sound, as the various episcopal approbations testify. Hence its statements can be entirely trusted. The fact that it has passed through twenty editions in French is sufficient evidence of its appreciation in that country. May it continue its holy mission of light and consolation and joy in this country and act like the angelic messenger to Peter in prison, liberating the soul from the chains of doubt and despondency, illuminating her by the light of God's holy truth and bringing her out of the darksome prison into the company of the confiding, prayerful, joyous saints of God.

+P. J. RYAN.

CONTENTS.

PART FIRST.
_Exterior Practices._

Page.
I. Spiritual Direction 1
II. Temptations 8
III. Prayer 19
IV. Penance 37
V. Confession 43
VI. Holy Communion 62
VII. Sundays and Holydays 76
VIII. Spiritual Reading 81

PART SECOND.
_Interior Life._

IX. Hope 85
X. The Presence of God 90
XI. Humility 93
XII. Resignation 99
XIII. Scruples 108
XIV. Interior Peace 112
XV. Sadness 116
XVI. Liberty of Spirit 119
XVII. Christian Perfection 130

PART THIRD.
_Social Life._

XVIII. Charity 146
XIX. Zeal 153
XX. Meekness 162
XXI. Conversation 165
XXII. Dress 173
XXIII. Human Respect 176
XXIV. Resolutions 178
XXV. Conclusion 182
Additions 186

Light and Peace

INSTRUCTIONS FOR DEVOUT SOULS
TO DISPEL THEIR DOUBTS AND ALLAY THEIR FEARS.

By R. P. QUADRUPANI, Barnabite.

PART FIRST.
EXTERIOR PRACTICES.

I.
SPIRITUAL DIRECTION.

For it is not you who speak, but the Holy Ghost. (S. Mark, xiii, 11.)

1. It is absolutely true that in matters of conscience obedience to a spiritual director is obedience to God, for Christ has said to His ministers on earth: "He that heareth you, heareth Me." (St. Luke, x, 16.)

2. A soul possessed of this spirit of obedience can not be lost: a soul devoid of this spirit can not be saved. (St. Philip Neri.)

3. Saint Bernard says there is no need for the devil to tempt those who ignore obedience and permit themselves to be guided by their own light and deterred by their fears, for they act the devil's part towards themselves.

4. Do not fear that your director may be mistaken in what he prescribes for your guidance, or that he does not fully understand the state of your conscience because you did not explain it clearly enough to him. Such doubts cause obedience to be eluded or postponed and thus frustrate the designs of God in placing you under the direction of a prudent guide. It was the priest's duty to have questioned you further had he not fully understood you, and that he did not do so is a positive proof that he knew enough to enable him to pronounce a safe judgment. God has promised his special help to those who represent Him in the direction of souls. Is not this assurance enough to induce you to obey with promptness and simplicity as the Holy Scripture commands?

5. God does not show the state of our souls as clearly to us as he does to him who is to guide us in his place. You should be quite satisfied, then, if your director tells you the course you follow is the right one and that the mercy and grace of your Heavenly Father are guiding you in it. You should believe and obey him in this as in all else, for as St. John of the Cross tells us, "it betrays pride and lack of faith not to put entire confidence in what our confessor says."

6. Spiritual obedience is most needful for a Christian. Ignore, therefore, the groundless suspicion that you sin by obeying, and walk confidently in this path exempt from danger. "You sometimes fear," says St. Bonaventure, "that in obeying you act against the dictates of your conscience, whereas, on the contrary, far from incurring guilt, you really increase your merit before God."

7. We should allow obedience to regulate not only our exterior actions but likewise our mind and our will. Hence do not be satisfied with performing the works it prescribes, but let your thoughts and desires be also moulded according to its direction. In fact, it is in this interior submission that the merit of spiritual obedience essentially consists.

8. Obedience should be simple and prompt, without reservation or disquietude. Simple, because you ought not to argue about it, but decide by the one thought: _I must obey_; prompt, for it is God whom you obey; without reservation, because obedience extends to everything that does not violate God's law; without disquietude, because in obeying God you cannot go astray: this thought should be sufficient to drive away all fear of doing or of having done wrong.

9. When choosing a director, be careful to select one who has the necessary qualifications. He should be not only virtuous, but prudent, charitable and learned. St. Francis de Sales gives the following opinion on the subject:

"Go," said Tobias to his son, when about to send him into a strange country, 'go seek some wise man to conduct you.' I say the same to you, Philothea. If you sincerely desire to enter upon the way of devotion, seek a good guide to direct you therein. This advice is of the utmost importance and necessity. Whatever one may do, says the devout Avila, he can never be certain of fulfilling God's will, unless he practice that humble obedience which the saints so strongly recommend and to which they so faithfully adhere. And the Scriptures tell us: 'A faithful friend is a strong defence: and he that hath found him, hath found a treasure: ... a faithful friend is the medicine of life and immortality: and they that fear the Lord shall find one.' (Ecclesiasticus, c. VI, vv. 14-16.)

But who can find such a friend? They that fear God, the Wise Man answers--that is to say, those humble souls who ardently desire their spiritual progress. Since it is so essential, then, Philothea, to have a skilful guide in the devout life, ask God fervently to give you one according to His Heart, and rest assured that when an angel is necessary to you as to the young Tobias, He will give you a wise and faithful director.

In fact, the selection once made, you should look upon your spiritual guide more as a guardian angel than as a mere man. You place your confidence not in him but in God, for it is God who will lead and instruct you through his instrumentality by inspiring him with the sentiments and words necessary for your guidance. Thus you may safely listen to him as to an angel sent from heaven to lead you there. To this confidence, add perfect candor. Speak quite frankly and tell him unreservedly all that is good, all that is evil in you, for the good will thus be strengthened, the evil weakened, and your soul shall thereby become firmer in its sufferings and more moderate in its consolations. Great respect should also be united with confidence and in such nice proportion that the one shall not lessen the other: let your confidence in him be such as a respectful daughter reposes in her father, your respect for him such as that with which a son confides in his mother. In a word, this friendship, though strong and tender, should be altogether sacred and spiritual in its nature.

'Choose one among a thousand,' says Avila: "among ten thousand, rather, I should say, for there are fewer than one would suppose fitted for this office of spiritual director. Charity, learning and prudence are indispensable to it, and if any one of these qualities be absent, your choice will not be unattended with danger. I repeat, ask God to inspire your selection and when you have made it thank Him sincerely, and then remain constant to your decision. If you go to God in all simplicity and with humility and confidence, you will undoubtedly obtain a favorable answer to your petition."

In conclusion, it may be well to remind you that the director and the confessor have not necessarily to be the same priest. St. Francis de Sales was the spiritual director of many persons to whom he was not the ordinary confessor. "To a director," he says, "we should reveal our entire soul, whereas to a confessor we simply accuse ourselves of our sins in order to receive absolution for them."

II.
TEMPTATIONS.

My brethren, count it all joy when ye shall fall into divers
temptations. (Epist. S. Jas., Cat., c. i, v. 2.)

Now if I do that which I will not, it is no more I that do it, but sin,
which dwelleth in me. (St. P., Rom., c. vii, v. 20.)

1. "If we are tempted," says the Holy Spirit, "it is a sign that God loves us." Those whom God best loves have been most exposed to temptations. "Because thou wast acceptable to God," said the angel to Tobias, "it was necessary that temptation should prove thee." (Tobias, c. xii, v. 13.)

2. Do not ask God to deliver you from temptations, but to grant you the grace not to succumb to them and to do nothing contrary to His divine will. He who refuses the combat, renounces the crown. Place all your trust in God and God will Himself do battle for you against the enemy.[1]

3. "These persistent temptations come from the malice of the devil," says St. Francis de Sales, "but the trouble and suffering they cause us come from the mercy of God. Thus, despite the will of the tempter, God converts his evil machinations into a distress which we may make meritorious. Therefore I say your temptations are from the devil and hell, but your anxiety and affliction are from God and heaven." Despise temptation, then, and open wide your soul to this suffering which God sends in order to purify you here that He may reward you hereafter.

4. "Let the wind blow," remarks the same Saint, "and do not mistake the rustling of leaves for the clashing of arms. Be perfectly convinced that all the temptations of hell are powerless to defile a soul that does not love them. St. Paul endured terrible temptations, yet God, through love, did not deliver him from them." Look upon God as an infinitely good and tender father and believe that He only allows the devil to try His children that their merits may increase and their recompense be correspondingly greater.

5. The more persistent the temptation, the clearer it is that you have not given consent to it. "It is a good sign," says St. Francis de Sales, "when the tempter makes so much noise and commotion outside of the will, for it shows that he is not within." An enemy does not besiege a fortress that is already in his power, and the more obstinate the attack, the more certain We may be that our resistance continues.

6. Your fears lead you to believe you are defeated at the very moment you are gaining the victory. This comes from the fact that you confound feeling with consent, and, mistaking a passive condition of the imagination for an act of the will, you consider that you have yielded to the temptation because you felt it keenly.

*St. Francis de Sales, with his usual simplicity, thus describes this warring of the flesh against the spirit:

"You are right, my dear daughter. There are two women within you ... and the two children of these different mothers quarrel, and the good-for-nothing one is so bad that sometimes the good one can scarcely defend herself, and then she takes it into her head that she has been worsted and that the wicked one is braver than she. Now, surely, this is not true. The bad one is not the stronger by any means, but only slyer, more persistent and more obstinate. When she succeeds in making you weep she is delighted, because that is always just so much time lost, and she is content to make you lose time when she cannot make you lose eternity."*[2]

It is not always in our power to restrain the imagination. St. Jerome had retired into the desert and still his fancy represented to him the dances of the Roman ladies. His body was benumbed, as it were, and his blood chilled by the severity of his mortifications, and yet the flames of concupiscence encompassed and tortured his heart. During these frightful conflicts the holy anchorite suffered, but he did not sin; he was tormented but was not guilty; on the contrary, his merits were augmented in the sight of God in proportion to the intensity of the temptations.

7. The holy abbot St. Anthony was wont to say to the phantoms of his mind: I see you, but I do not look at you: I see you because it does not depend upon me that my imagination places before my eyes things I would wish not to see; I do not look at you because with my will I repulse and reject you. "It is so much the essence of sin to be voluntary," says St. Augustine, "that if not voluntary, it is not sin."

8. The attraction of the feelings towards the object presented by the imagination is at times so strong that the will seems to have been carried away and overcome by a sort of fascination. This, however, is not the case. The will suffered, but did not consent; it was attacked and wounded, but not conquered. This state of things coincides with what St. Paul says of the revolt of the flesh against the spirit and of their unceasing warfare. The soul, indeed, experiences strange sensations, but as she does not consent to them, she passes through the ordeal unsullied, just as substances coated with oil may be immersed in water without absorbing a single drop of it.

*St. Francis de Sales explains this distinction so plainly and yet so simply in one of his letters, that it may be useful to repeat the passage here: "Courage, my dear soul, I say it with great love in Jesus Christ, dear soul, courage! As long as we can exclaim resolutely, even though without feeling, My Jesus! there is no cause for alarm. Do not tell me it appears to you that you say it in a cowardly way, and only by doing great violence to yourself. It is precisely this holy violence that bears away the kingdom of heaven. Do you not see, my daughter, it is a sign that the enemy has taken everything within our fortress except the impenetrable, unconquerable tower--and that can never be lost save by wilful surrender. This tower is the free-will which, perfectly visible to the eye of God, occupies the highest and most spiritual region of the soul, dependent on none but God and oneself; and when all the other faculties are lost and in subjection to the enemy, it alone remains free to give or to refuse consent. Now, you often see souls afflicted because the enemy, occupying all the other faculties, makes therein so great a noise and confusion that they scarce can hear what this superior will says; for though it has a clearer and more penetrating voice than the inferior will, the loud, boisterous cries of the latter almost drown it: but note this well: as long as the temptation is displeasing to you, there is nothing to fear; for why should it displease you, except because you do not will it?"*

9. Should it frequently happen that you have not a distinct consciousness of your success against temptation, it may be that God refuses you this satisfaction in order that, lacking this clear assurance, your knowledge may come through obedience. Therefore, when your spiritual director, after hearing your explanation, says that you have not given consent, you should be satisfied with his decision and abide by it with perfect tranquillity, discarding all fear that he did not understand you aright or that you did not explain the matter sufficiently. These doubts are but fresh artifices of the devil to rob you of the merit of obedience. As has been said above, to give way to such inquietude is to offend seriously against this virtue, for all direction would thus be rendered impossible, by the failure of the penitent to recognize God Himself in the person of his director.

10. To constitute a mortal sin three conditions must co-exist. First, the matter must be weighty; secondly, the mind must have full knowledge of the guilt of the action, omission or dangerous occasion in question; and, thirdly, the will, through a criminal preference for the forbidden action, culpable omission, or proximate occasion of sin, must give full consent. These reflections should serve to reassure your mind if the fear of having committed a mortal sin disturb it, for it is very difficult for this threefold union of conditions to be effected in a God-fearing soul. However, perfect security can come, and ought to come, only from spiritual obedience.

11. In temptations against faith and purity, do not make great efforts to form acts of these virtues, but simply turn a pleading glance towards God, without speaking even to this compassionate Friend concerning the thought that afflicts you, lest thereby you root the evil suggestion more firmly. Then, without disquieting yourself, engage at once in some exterior occupation or continue what you were doing. Make no answer to the tempter, but ignore him, just as though his assault had never occurred. In this way, whilst preserving your own peace of soul, you will cover your enemy with confusion.

*The same counsel is given by St. Francis de Sales in his characteristic style:

"Do you know how God acts on these occasions? He permits the wicked maker of such wares to come and offer them to us for sale, in order that by the contempt we show for them we may testify our love for holy things. And for this is it necessary, my dear child, to feel anxious, and to change our position? No, no. It is only the devil who is prowling around your soul, raging and storming, to see if he can find an open door.... What! and you would be annoyed at that? Let the enemy storm away; only be careful on your part to keep all the entrances well fastened, and finally he will grow weary; or if he do not, God will force him to raise the siege."*

12. Though you should be assailed by temptations during your entire life time, do not be disquieted, for your merits will increase in proportion to your trials and your crown be accordingly all the brighter in heaven. The only thing necessary is to remain firm in your resolution to despise the efforts of the tempter.

*"This serious trial, and so many others that have assailed you and left you troubled in mind, do not at all surprise me, since there is nothing worse. Do not worry, then, my beloved daughter. Should we allow ourselves to be swept away by the current and the storm? Let Satan rage at the door; he may knock and stamp, and clamor and howl, and do his worst, but rest assured that he can never enter our souls but through the door of our consent. Let us only keep that closed tight and often look to see that it is well secured and we need have no concern about all the rest--there is no danger."*--St. Francis de Sales.

13. The most learned theologians and masters of the spiritual life agree in saying that simply to ignore a temptation is a much more effectual means to repulse it than words and acts of the contrary virtues. On this subject read attentively Chapters III. and IV. of the _Introduction to a Devout Life_. You will find much light and consolation in them. See also