Discovering a book I did not know existed until today, I shall share this with you all starting tomorrow.
No hints...
Tuesday, 2 September 2014
Perfection Series V: Part Seven; On the Wedding Feast at Cana
Meditating on this passage from John's Gospel this morning, I had an insight into the moment of the change of the water into the wine. Perhaps some of you have thought of this, but I have not.
Christ took ordinary water, which represents "natural marriage" and turned it into "supernatural marriage" symbolized by the wine. Water is good, but wine brings joy and is good for the heart.
Natural marriages, outside the sacrament, do not last, cannot bear fruit, as these marriages have no sanctifying grace, no healthy property, no real joy. Water changed into wine, the natural to the supernatural, brings the life of God into the very core of the marriage.
The Blood of Christ, given to us at the Last Supper, the beginning of the Passion, is given to us at every Mass in the wine, the unbloody sacrifice at Calvary. His Blood changes our hearts.
There is no difference between the Blood of Christ gushing forth in the Passion and the Blood of Christ given to us at Mass.
Natural blood of humans was sanctified and is by the Incarnation, by the fact that God became man.
We are sanctified in Christ, through the sacraments, through baptism, symbolized by the water coming from the side of Christ, washing us clean of Original Sin, the Body and Blood of Christ, given to us every day in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and the Blood of Christ making us new in the sacrament of marriage, washing out natural marriage in the corrupted bodies and souls of men and women and making us new in Christ.
Literally, the sacrament of matrimony became so at the Wedding Feast of Cana, by and through Christ, the wine symbolizing His Passion, to road to which began that day through Mary's intercession, making her, indeed, the Mediatrix of all graces.
Mary asked Christ to make wine, but He did more. He made marriage holy, a way to God, the way of salvation for those who choose to make the promise to take each other to heaven.
Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, in marriage, in all of our lives. His Blood joins with us, in our relationships, our loves, our trials.
That Mary began Christ's public ministry by asking Him to have pity on the bride and groom, (and some commentaries of old notes it was Nathaniel's marriage, which is why Jesus' apostles were there are guests as well), means that she leads us to Christ through the Cross.
Her request, her being called Woman is echoed at the foot of the Cross, when she agreed to the Passion and Death of Her Son.
So be it...Mary, Our Mediatrix and Our Co-Redemptorix.
For those contemplating marriage, choose the life of the Body and Blood of Christ. Become sacrament to each other. Bring each other to Christ daily, and at the hour of your death.
Water to wine, natural to supernatural, love in and with Christ, makes a true marriage, which will lead one to the Cross, through dying to self and through sacrifice. Such is the sacrament. In this sacrament, one is forced out of self-deception into the light. It is the way of the Dark Night for some, but only to end in Illumination and Union with Christ.
For some, marriage is the combination of great suffering and joy-the Way of the Cross, not because someone is difficult, but because God called one to minister to another.
From The Hermit, Today
“Today
I double up with laughter whenever I realize that I have started
‘managing’ my life once more – something we all do with astounding
regularity. The illusion of control is truly pathetic, but it is also
hilarious. Describing what I most need out of life, carefully
calculating my next move, and generally allowing my autonomous self to
run amuck inflates my sense of self-importance and reduces the God of my
incredible journey to the role of spectator on the sidelines. It is
only the wisdom and perspective gleaned from an hour of silent prayer
each morning that prevents me from running for CEO of the universe. As
Henri Nouwen once remarked, ‘One of the most arduous spiritual tasks is
that of giving up control and allowing the Spirit of God to lead our
lives.” (Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust)
|
More from the St. Etheldreda's Site
A homily given at St Etheldreda’s by Fr Tom Deidun on the occasion of the Feast of St Etheldreda, 2010
One evening, in the early 1840s, a student at Exeter College, Oxford, attended the annual Scots dinner for St Andrew’s day in College. On the menu were cockie-leekie, oyster soup and haggis; and the whisky flowed. Having over-indulged somewhat, the student confided to a friend at the end of the evening: ‘I am in a state now in which I might be drawn into any wickedness.’ Which doesn’t surprise me, since cockie-leekie sounds potent enough to me to draw any man into wickedness, with or without the whisky. What wickedness this young man was drawn into, if any, that evening, is not known, but first thing next morning he betook himself to the Anglican clergyman The Revd Dr Sewell, Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College, and Doctor of Divinity, to seek absolution for the previous evening’s excesses. Dr Sewell refused to give him absolution and offered him Epsom salts instead. The student later reported: ‘I came away from that ass at once. I asked my father for bread, and he gave me a stone. I asked for fish, he gave me a scorpion.’ ‘I asked for absolution and he gave me Epsom salts.’ (A century later someone wrote a biography of The Revd Dr Sewell entitled: Sewell: A Forgotten Genius. I have not read it myself, but I would be keen to see whether Dr Sewell’s pastoral use of Epsom Salts formed part of his forgotten genius.)1But to be serious: If it hadn’t been for that cockie-leekie and Dr Sewell’s Epsom salts, we would not be here now. For the young man was William Lockhart. He was an Anglican student of theology with High Church leanings, convinced, among other things, of the importance of Confession and sacramental Absolution, a view not shared by Dr Sewell nor by most of his fellow Anglicans. For Lockhart, no church that did not practise it could be called part of the true Church.
Not many years later Lockhart left the Anglican Church and was received into the Catholic Church by Fr Luigi Gentili, an Italian priest belonging to the Institute of Charity, recently founded by Antonio Rosmini. Shortly after that, Lockhart himself joined Rosmini’s Institute and was ordained a priest. He was sent to work among the poor in East London. In 1854 he became the first parish priest of Our Lady and St Joseph’s parish in Kingsland in the Borough of Hackney, still today a very flourishing parish. Fr Lockhart was phenomenally active there for the best part of twenty years, until, in 1870, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Manning suggested that the Rosminians hand the parish to the diocese and start a new parish in the Holborn area, also an area of great poverty. As most of you know, Fr Lockhart managed to purchase, at a knock-down price at auction, a thirteenth-century chapel in Ely Place taken from the Catholics in the sixteenth century courtesy of Henry VIII and after centuries of neglect and tasteless modification finally ending up being leased to the Welsh Episcopalians. Lockhart tells us that it would probably have been pulled down to make room for warehouses, if he hadn’t bought it. Lockhart set about restoring the church not only to the Catholic faith but also to something like its thirteenth-century simplicity and glory, the results of which restoration you can see around you. For this glory, we must thank Fr Lockhart, and many generous and imaginative souls through many generations. And, of course, we must thank The Revd Dr Sewell’s Epsom Salts, without whose hidden genius all this might never have happened.
And St Etheldreda is not the only saint that our founder and first Parish Priest has linked us to. We have already mentioned Rosmini, and we shall come back to him, but Lockhart is also the parish’s link to a third saint, one whose sanctity will be proclaimed to the country and to the world in just three months’ time, that is John Henry Newman, who will be beatified by Pope Benedict on Sunday 19th September.
When Lockhart first went up to Oxford as an undergraduate, Newman was already an influential religious and intellectual figure in the University. As well as being fellow and tutor at Oriel College, he was Vicar of the University Church of St Mary’s, which has been described as the ‘essence of the essence’ of nineteenth-century Anglicanism. It was while the freshman Lockhart was walking one day with a companion in High Street Oxford that he first caught sight of Newman, when his companion suddenly seized his arm and whispered: ‘Look, look, there is Newman!’ Through the mere sight of his demeanour Lockhart fell under his spell. (He later spoke of ‘the majesty of Newman’s countenance for those who have got to know him, his meekness, his intensity, his humility, the purity of a virgin heart in work and will that was expressed in his eyes, his loving kindness, his winning smile, the wonderful sweetness and pathos and delicate unstudied harmony of his voice.’) Now if Newman made such an impression on Lockhart through his outward demeanour, imagine what effect he was to have on him by the power of his intellect and the depth and intensity of his religious devotion when Lockhart became his disciple.
Now it was just at the time of Lockhart’s doubts about Anglicanism (which the Epsom salts episode did nothing to dispel) that Newman himself had decided that he must leave the Church of England. ‘I was already on my deathbed in regard to my relationship with the Church of England,’ Newman later wrote. But he never said that openly at the time, and he was very slow to make the decisive move. He did, however, virtually retire from University life to found a small monastic-like community at Littlemore on the outskirts of Oxford. Lockhart was one of the first to volunteer to join it, and Newman welcomed him. A small group of ardent Christians lived an intense Christian life together, practising a quite rigorous asceticism, broken only by the delights of conversations with Newman at dinner every evening (or occasionally by Beethoven’s sonatas played by Newman on the violin). Newman never spoke of his difficulties to Lockhart and his companions at Littlemore; and when the issue arose, he tried to discourage them from any thoughts of leaving the Church of England. When after less than a year Lockhart ‘could not bear the strain any longer’ (Lockhart’s own words), that is, the strain of reconciling his conscience with the claims of the Church of England (not the strain of listening to Newman’s violin), he left Littlemore and soon afterwards, during a visit to Fr Gentili, was received into the Catholic Church. Lockhart’s defection caused Newman great pain, but when, just two years later, Newman himself was received into the Catholic Church by the Passionist Father Dominic Barberi, one of the first things he did, Lockhart tells us, ‘was to pay me a most kind and loving visit at [the Rosminian community of] Ratcliffe College, where I was studying’.
So in the person of our first parish priest we have a link not only with the blessed Etheldreda and with Rosmini, recently beatified, but also with the soon to be beatified John Henry Newman. How right and proper it would have been, I think to myself, if Newman and Lockhart had been beatified together – not because they left the Church of England together but because truth and holiness shone through their minds and personalities whether as Anglicans or as Roman Catholics.
And to Rosmini too, we parishioners of St Etheldreda’s owe a special debt. For Rosmini was not just a milestone in that strange providential journey that brought Lockhart from Oxford and Littlemore, via Ratcliffe College and Kingsland to London EC1. Rosmini was also the main inspiration, under God, of Lockhart’s entire life as a Catholic. As Lockhart himself put it: ‘Newman had impressed me more perhaps than any but one other man, the master of thought under whom I passed when I left Newman – Antonio Rosmini, the founder of the Order to which I have the honour to belong.’ It was Rosmini who had sent the singularly gifted Luigi Gentili and other missionaries to England to hasten the ‘Second Spring’ of English Catholicism; it was under obedience to Rosmini that Lockhart became the founder of our parish; and it was to the person of Rosmini, to his mission, and writings, that Father Lockhart devoted the rest of his life.
Through Father Lockhart we have a very special access to a network of saintly persons, and not only saintly persons but gigantic figures in the history of the Church, whose spiritual stature, I am convinced, will be more and more widely recognized in the years to come. This is an unusual privilege for us as a parish. We ought to be aware of the rich history of our beginnings and be very grateful for it. St Etheldreda became our patron saint thanks to the labours and extraordinary spiritual journeys of some very remarkable people.
Others have sown, and we have reaped the harvest.
_
1 I am indebted to Fr Nicholas Schofield for the anecdote about Lockhart, cockie-leakie and Epsom salts.
Because I am homesick today....
http://www.stetheldreda.com/index.php/history-of-st-etheldredas/
Two snippets from the article..
...the Fatal Vespers of 1623 and we know that one of the bodies concerned was a priest, because he was buried facing the West.
During the First World War, because the Catholic Chapel of America’s West Point Military Academy was modelled on St Etheldreda’s, the latter found a special place in the hearts of American servicemen on their way to and from the battlefields of the Western Front.
Two snippets from the article..
...the Fatal Vespers of 1623 and we know that one of the bodies concerned was a priest, because he was buried facing the West.
It was on Sunday 26th October 1623, when a number of
Catholics gathered in secret at the French Ambassador’s house in
Blackfriars to hear a special sermon; but unfortunately, the floor of
the room in which they gathered collapsed and over a hundred were killed
and such was the anti-Catholic feeling that they were not allowed to be
buried publicly but they had to be buried in secret; and eighteen of
them were interred in the Crypt of St Etheldreda’s and they lie there to
this day.
And...
During the First World War, because the Catholic Chapel of America’s West Point Military Academy was modelled on St Etheldreda’s, the latter found a special place in the hearts of American servicemen on their way to and from the battlefields of the Western Front.
What happens when lay people refuse grace?
Recently, several situations which I have witnessed revealed to me what happens when lay people refuse a call to sacrifice, a call to grace.
The first is a young couple I knew in a large double city in the upper Midwest, a couple which had horrible marriage problems. The woman wanted to control the husband. Friends encouraged them to get marriage counseling, but they lost many things in the process, as the lifestyle had to change.
The man had to learn to be less passive and stronger, a real leader in the family, (they had one child), and the woman had to learn to stop being angry, aggressive and controlling. The trouble was that for a long time, both were refusing grace, running around in circles, attempting to "fix" the marriage on their own.
The problems were much deeper than going out to dinner together or going to Mass on Sunday, or even praying daily together. They needed someone else on the outside to help them. Pride kept them isolation until separation and divorce loomed. They both had to repent of habits of sin-for the man, wanting a quiet life and not wanting to confront real problems, for the woman, wanting "to wear the pants in the family".
They got Catholic counseling, which helped. But, there were years of unhappiness, even hatred, because the couple refused grace.
The second concerns the house I had asked readers to help me obtain for 24/7 adoration in a place where Our Lady has a shrine. There is no adoration there and no center for those who want to have a Latin Mass. I felt called to do both, but could not find a benefactor.
Now, the house, which was tailor-made for a community, has been bought and lived in by a "ss" couple.
I knew that would happen if those who could did not respond to grace. I even wrote on this blog that God showed me the possibility of a take-over in this town of ss couples and businesses. Not only is an opportunity for grace in generosity lost. but the damage done by not responding is the proliferation of a great evil. Constant adoration would change the place, as Christ's Church Militant would be given a foothold.
The third situation has to do with someone who is living a lie in his life. Those around them do not want to face this huge lie, as they are too afraid to confront the really deep sin of this person. They are afraid of anger, hatred, loss of friendship. They are putting friendship before grace. If this person continues, his soul is in danger of being lost forever. How will God judge his friends for not speaking up?
The turning of one's back on grace is the sin of denying that God can help in a situation. God may be asking YOU to be the instrument of grace. The Gospel does not say "Love your neighbor as yourself, but let someone else do the hard bit."
Are we all not our brother's keepers?
Yes, love means moving out of one's comfort zone, praying for discernment, and acting.
Years ago, another Catholic woman said to me, after we prayed for a person's conversion, and after she talked with this woman, that perhaps it was not the right time for conversion. My answer was this: We do not know the day or the hour.....all times are right for conversion. We must speak, even if we plant seeds and not reap the harvest.
But, act we must. These are not times of passivity, but times of action. Daily, I see that many, many people will go to hell because the laity are afraid, miserly, or lazy.
Conversion, building the Kingdom of God, is our business. And it hurts.
If you are not suffering for someone else, you are not working for God.
I grieve for the lost opportunity of adoration. Much evil will now come from that lost opportunity.
I grieve for the man whose friends are not willing to speak with him about deep sin. He may go to hell when he dies.
I grieve for the couple's wasted years, for the pain in their marriage, and damage done to their child.
If we refuse grace, we are culpable for the loss of souls. This is one reason I write-to build the Kingdom of God.
But, please, do not refuse grace. Remember, there is no neutral territory.
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/08/no-middle-ground-no-neutral-territory.html
The first is a young couple I knew in a large double city in the upper Midwest, a couple which had horrible marriage problems. The woman wanted to control the husband. Friends encouraged them to get marriage counseling, but they lost many things in the process, as the lifestyle had to change.
The man had to learn to be less passive and stronger, a real leader in the family, (they had one child), and the woman had to learn to stop being angry, aggressive and controlling. The trouble was that for a long time, both were refusing grace, running around in circles, attempting to "fix" the marriage on their own.
The problems were much deeper than going out to dinner together or going to Mass on Sunday, or even praying daily together. They needed someone else on the outside to help them. Pride kept them isolation until separation and divorce loomed. They both had to repent of habits of sin-for the man, wanting a quiet life and not wanting to confront real problems, for the woman, wanting "to wear the pants in the family".
They got Catholic counseling, which helped. But, there were years of unhappiness, even hatred, because the couple refused grace.
The second concerns the house I had asked readers to help me obtain for 24/7 adoration in a place where Our Lady has a shrine. There is no adoration there and no center for those who want to have a Latin Mass. I felt called to do both, but could not find a benefactor.
Now, the house, which was tailor-made for a community, has been bought and lived in by a "ss" couple.
I knew that would happen if those who could did not respond to grace. I even wrote on this blog that God showed me the possibility of a take-over in this town of ss couples and businesses. Not only is an opportunity for grace in generosity lost. but the damage done by not responding is the proliferation of a great evil. Constant adoration would change the place, as Christ's Church Militant would be given a foothold.
The third situation has to do with someone who is living a lie in his life. Those around them do not want to face this huge lie, as they are too afraid to confront the really deep sin of this person. They are afraid of anger, hatred, loss of friendship. They are putting friendship before grace. If this person continues, his soul is in danger of being lost forever. How will God judge his friends for not speaking up?
The turning of one's back on grace is the sin of denying that God can help in a situation. God may be asking YOU to be the instrument of grace. The Gospel does not say "Love your neighbor as yourself, but let someone else do the hard bit."
Are we all not our brother's keepers?
Yes, love means moving out of one's comfort zone, praying for discernment, and acting.
Years ago, another Catholic woman said to me, after we prayed for a person's conversion, and after she talked with this woman, that perhaps it was not the right time for conversion. My answer was this: We do not know the day or the hour.....all times are right for conversion. We must speak, even if we plant seeds and not reap the harvest.
But, act we must. These are not times of passivity, but times of action. Daily, I see that many, many people will go to hell because the laity are afraid, miserly, or lazy.
Conversion, building the Kingdom of God, is our business. And it hurts.
If you are not suffering for someone else, you are not working for God.
I grieve for the lost opportunity of adoration. Much evil will now come from that lost opportunity.
I grieve for the man whose friends are not willing to speak with him about deep sin. He may go to hell when he dies.
I grieve for the couple's wasted years, for the pain in their marriage, and damage done to their child.
If we refuse grace, we are culpable for the loss of souls. This is one reason I write-to build the Kingdom of God.
But, please, do not refuse grace. Remember, there is no neutral territory.
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/08/no-middle-ground-no-neutral-territory.html
Doctors of The Church for September: Gregory the Great
Gregory the Great is called "The Apostle to the English" as he sent the missionaries from the Benedictines, which began the great monastery at Canterbury.
Of course, this wonderful Doctor of the Church gives his name to Gregorian Chant.
What better tribute today than an English choir singing Gregorian Chant.
Doctors of The Church for September: Gregory the Great
One day, when St. Gregory the Great was aware of a person in his congregation who did not believe in the Real Presence, he stopped and asked God for a sign for this person.
At the Consecration, Christ appeared with His Bloody Wounds.
Such was the faith and care of this great saint.
Doctors of The Church for September: Gregory the Great
Gregory the Great, like St. Jerome, was a intrepid letter writer. I have chosen one out of many to show his real concern for practical matters.
Nothing should escape the attention of a holy man.
Epistle XXXII.
To Peter, Subdeacon of Sicily. Gregory to Peter, &c.By information received from Romanus the guardian (defensore) I have learnt that the monastery of handmaidens of God which is on the farm of Monotheus has suffered wrong from our church of Villa Nova with respect to a farm belonging to the latter, which is said to have been leased to the said monastery. If this is so, let thy Experience restore to them the farm, and also the payments from the same farm for the two indictions during which thou hast exacted them. Moreover, since many of the Jews dwell on the estates of the Church, I desire that, if any of them should be willing to become Christians, some little of their dues be remitted to them, to the end that others also, incited by this benefit, may be moved to a like desire.
Cows which are now barren from age, or bulls which appear to be quite useless, ought to be sold, so that at least some profit may accrue from their price. But as to the herds of mares which we keep very unprofitably, I wish them all to be dispersed, and four hundred only of the younger kept for breeding; which four hundred ought to be presented to the farmers [1423] --so many to each, to the end that they may make some return to us from them in successive years: for it is very hard for us to spend sixty solidi on the herdsmen, and not get sixty pence from these same herds. Let then thy Experience so proceed that some may be divided among all the farmers, and others dispersed and converted into money. But so arrange with the herdsmen themselves throughout our possessions that they may be able to make some profit by cultivation of the ground. All the implements which, either at Syracuse or at Panormus, can be claimed by the Church must be sold before they perish entirely from age.
On the arrival of the servant of God, brother Cyriacus, at Rome I questioned him closely as to whether he had communicated with thee about the receiving of a bribe in the cause of a certain woman. And the same brother says that he had learnt the state of the case from thy telling him, for that he had been commissioned by thee to ascertain who was the person commissioned to pay the bribe. This I believed, and immediately received him familiarly into favour, introduced him to the people and clergy, increased his stipend [1424] , placed him in a superior rank among the guardians, praising his fidelity before all, in that he had acquitted himself so faithfully in thy service; and I have consequently sent him back to thee. But, inasmuch as thou art in great haste, and I, though sick, am desirous of seeing thee, do thou leave some one whom thou hast fully proved to take thy place in the Syracusan district, and thyself make haste to come to me, that, if it should please Almighty God, we may consult together as to whether thou thyself oughtest to return thither or another person should be appointed in thy place. At the same time I have sent Benenatus the notary to occupy thy place in the patrimony in the district of Panormus till such time as Almighty God may ordain what pleases Him.
I have strongly rebuked Romanus for his levity, because in the Guest-house (xenodochium) which he kept, as I have now discovered, he has been taken up more with his own profits than with [heavenly] rewards. Him, therefore, if it should haply seem good to thee, leave in thy place. See how thou mayest best fortify him, by alarming and admonishing him, that he may act kindly and carefully towards the peasants (rusticos [1425] ); and shew himself towards strangers and townspeople changed and active. In saying this, however, I am not selecting any person, but leave this to thy judgment. It is enough for me to have selected an occupier of thy place in the district of Panormus; and I wish thee to see thyself to providing one for the Syracusan district. When thou comest, bring with thee the moneys and ornaments (ornamenta) on the part, or of the substance of Antoninus. Bring also the payments of the ninth and tenth indictions which thou hast exacted, and with them all thy accounts. Take care, if it should please God, to cross the sea for this city before the anniversary of Saint Cyprian, lest any danger should ensue (which God forbid) from the constellation which always threatens the sea at that season.
Furthermore, I would have thee know that I have no slight compunctions of mind for having been grievously set against the servant of God Pretiosus for no grievous fault of his, and driven him from me, sad and embittered. And I wrote to the Lord bishop [1426] requesting him to send the man to me, if willing to do so; but he was altogether unwilling. Now him I ought not to distress, nor can I do so; since, occupied as he is in the causes of God, he ought to be supported by comfort, not depressed by bitterness. But the said Pretiosus, as I hear, is altogether distressed because he cannot return to me. I, however, as I have said, cannot distress the Lord bishop, who is not willing to send him, and I am doubtful between the two. Do thou then, if in thy little diminutive body thou hast the greater wisdom, manage the matter so that I may have my will, and the Lord bishop be not distressed. Yet, if thou see him to be at all distressed, say no more about it. I have, however, taken it amiss that he has excommunicated the Lord Eusebius [1427] , a man of so great age and in such bad health. Wherefore it is needful for thee to speak privately to the said Lord bishop, that he be not hasty in pronouncing sentences, since cases which are to be decided by sentences must needs be weighed beforehand with careful and very frequent consideration.
When the recruiting officers [1428] come, who, as I hear, are already raising recruits in Sicily, charge thy substitute to offer them some little present [1429] , so as to render them well-disposed towards him. But, before thou comest away, give also something, according to ancient custom, to the prætor's officials; but do it by the hands of him thou leavest in thy place, so as to conciliate their favour towards him. Also, lest we should seem to them to be at all uncivil, direct thy substitutes to carry out in all respects the orders we have given to thy Experience as to what is to be given to any individuals or monasteries. But when thou comest, we will, with the help of God consider together how these things should be arranged. The three hundred solidi which I sent to be given through thee to the poor I do not think ought to be committed to their discretion. Let them carry out, then, those directions I have spoken of with reference to particular places and persons.
Now I remember having written before now to say that the legacies, which, according to the representation of Antoninus the guardian (defensoris), are due from us to monasteries or others, were to be paid as had been appointed. And I know not why thy Experience has delayed to accomplish this. Wherefore we desire thee to pay in full our portion of these legacies from the moneys of the church, that when thou comest to me, thou mayest not leave there the groans of the poor against thee. Bring also with thee at the same time the securities which have been found relating to the substance of the same Antoninus.
I have learnt on the information of Romanus that the wife of Redemptus, when dying, directed by word of mouth one silver shell to be sold, and the proceeds given to her freedmen, and also left a silver platter to a certain monastery; in respect of both of which bequests we desire her wishes to be fully carried out, lest from the least things we be betrayed into greater sins.
Further, I have learnt on the information of the Abbot Marinianus that the building in the Prætorian Monastery is not yet even half completed: which being the case, what can we praise for it but thy Experience's fervour [1430] ? But even now let this admonition rouse thee; and, as far as thou canst, assert thyself in the construction of this same monastery. I said that nothing was to be given them for the cost; but I did not prohibit their building the monastery. But so proceed as to enjoin in all ways on him whom thou mayest depute in thy place at Panormus that he construct this same monastery at the charge of the ecclesiastical revenue, and that I may have no more private complaints from the abbot.
Moreover, I have learnt that thou knowest certain things on the farms, even in considerable numbers, to belong to others; but, owing to the entreaty of certain persons or to timidity, thou art afraid to restore them to their owners. But, if thou wert truly a Christian, thou wouldest be afraid of the judgment of God more than of the voices of men. Take notice that I unceasingly admonish thee on this matter; which if thou neglect to set right, thou wilt have also my voice for witness against thee. If thou shouldest find any of the laity fearing God who might receive the tonsure and become agents under the rector [1431] , I give my full con sent. It will be necessary that letters also be sent to them.
Concerning the case of the son of Commissus the scholasticus [1432] , thou hast taken advice; and it appears that what he claims is not just in law. We are unwilling to burden the poor to their disadvantage; but, inasmuch as he has given himself trouble in this matter, we desire thee to give him fifty solidi, which must certainly be charged in thy accounts. As to the expense thou hast incurred on the business of the Church in the case of Prochisus, either reimburse thyself there out of his revenues, or, should his revenues be clearly insufficient for the repayment, thou must needs receive what is due to thee here from the deacon. But presume not to say anything about Gelasius the subdeacon, since his crime calls for the severest penance even to the end of his life.
Furthermore, thou has sent me one sorry nag and five good asses. That nag I cannot ride, he is such a sorry one; and those good asses I cannot ride, because they are asses. But we beg that, if you are disposed to content us, you will let us have something suitable. We desire thee to give to the abbot Eusebius a hundred solidi of gold, which must certainly be charged in thy accounts. We have learnt that Sisinnius, who was a judge at Samnium, is suffering from grievous want in Sicily, to whom we desire thee to supply twenty decimates [1433] of wine and four solidi yearly. Anastasius, a religious person (religiosus [1434] ), is said to be living near the city of Panormus in the oratory of Saint Agna, to whom we desire six solidi of gold to be given. We desire also six solidi, to be charged in thy accounts, to be given to the mother of Urbicus the Prior [1435] . As to the case of the handmaiden of God, Honorata, what seems good to me is this: that thou shouldest bring with thee when thou comest all her substance which evidently existed before the time of the episcopate of John, bishop of Laurinum [1436] . But let the same handmaiden of God come with her son, that we may speak with her, and do whatever may please God. The volume of the Heptateuch [1437] out of the goods of Antoninus we desire to be given to the Prætorian monastery, and the rest of his books to be brought hither by thee.
Footnotes
[1423] Conductores. See I. 44, note 6. [1424] Presbyterium. The term, as here used, means apparently a pecuniary allowance to presbyters. Cf. V. 33, Ad Gaudentiam Episcopum; "Fraternitatem tuam præsentibus hortamur affatibus ut clericis Capuanæ Ecclesiæ quartam in presbyterium eorum de hoc quod ante dictæ ecclesiæ singulis annis accesserit juxta antiquam consuetudinem distribuere secundum personarum studeat qualitatem, quatenus aliquod stipendiorum habentes solatium, ministerium officiumque suum circa eamdem ecclesiam devotiore mente provocentur impendere." [1425] See I. 44, note 1. [1426] Maximianus (as appears from Epistle 34), whom Gregory had himself appointed bishop of Syracuse. Cf. II. 7, and note. [1427] This Eusebius was an abbot in Sicily. Letters follow about him to Maximianus (Ep. 34), and to him (Ep. 36). [1428] Scribonibus. The term denoted officers sent from the imperial court into the provinces for executing certain duties; in this case for raising recruits for the imperial army. Cf. V. 30, note 8. [1429] Parum aliquid xenii. On xenia, see II. 23, note 8. [1430] We note here the sarcastic vein in which Gregory from time to time pleasantly stimulates Peter to activity. [1431] I.e. the rector patrimonii. The purport of this direction seems be that agents from the laity might be appointed with advantage to assist the rector patrimonii; and these must first be made clerici by receiving the tonsure, so as to be qualified to act for the Church. The rectors themselves were usually at least subdeacons. [1432] Scholastici. The designation appears to have been applied generally to scholarly and learned persons. Cf. Hieron. in Catal. Scriptor. Eccles., "Serapion ob elegantiam ingenii cognomen scholastici meruit." In Gregory's Epistles it seems to denote usually men learned in the law, who might advise on legal points or sit as assessors. In I. 44 (to Peter the subdeacon) scholastici are spoken of as having given a legal opinion, Epistle 36 in Bk. IX. is addressed "Severo scholastico exarchi," and he is spoken of as one of those "qui assistant judicibus." Cf. also IX. 58, 59, for the employment of "Martinus Scholasticus, vir eloquentissimus," in a case of disputed jurisdiction over the primate of the African province of Bizacia. Such scholastici were evidently persons of importance. Gregory addresses them by the title of "Gloria vestra" (IV. 40), and of "Magnitudo tua" (IX. 58). In IX. 12 he speaks of the form of prayer which followed the words of institution in the Canon of the Mass as having been composed by a scholasticus (precem quam scholasticus composuerat), perhaps using the term in the general sense of a scholar. [1433] See I. 46, note. [1434] See I. 61, note 7. [1435] Præpositi. The word, though used also in a more general sense, usually denotes the Prior of a monastery, appointed as the Abbot's vice-gerent. [1436] Episcopi Laurinensis. If the reading is correct, the See intended is unknown. Holstein (Annot. in Geograph. Sacra, p. 21) suggests Carinensem, denoting the Sicilian See of Carine, or Camarina. [1437] I.e. the first seven books of the Bible.http://mb-soft.com/believe/txud/gregor36.htm
Doctors of The Church for September: Gregory the Great
In the perfection series using the Doctors of the Church, one has a hard time choosing something from St. Gregory, one of the few popes to be called "great".
I have chosen a selection from his famous life of St. Benedict (Life of Our Most Holy Father St. Benedict) because it perfectly describes the purgation of the senses in the Dark Night.
More later...
CHAPTER II.
How he overcame a temptation of the flesh.
The holy man being on a certain
day alone, the tempter was at hand; for a little black bird, commonly called
an ousel, began to fly about his face, and that so near as the holy man, if he
would. might have taken it with his hand; but no sooner had he made the sign
of the cross than the bird vanished. When presently so great a carnal
temptation assailed him, that before the holy man had never felt the like.
For the remembrance of a woman which some time he had seen, was so lively
represented to his fancy by the wicked spirit, and so vehemently did her image
inflame his breast with lustful desires, that almost overcome by pleasure, he
was determining to leave the wilderness. But suddenly assisted with divine
grace he came to himself, and, seeing near him a thicket full of nettles and
briars, he threw off his garments and cast himself naked into the midst of
those sharp thorns and nettles, where he rolled himself so long, that, when he
rose up, all his body was pitifully rent; thus by the wounds of his flesh he
cured those of his soul, by turning pleasure into pain; and by the vehemence
of outward torments he extinguished the unlawful flame which burnt within
overcoming sin by changing the fire. After which time, as he himself related
to his disciples, he was so free from the like temptation, that he never felt
any such motion.
Many after this began to forsake the world and to hasten
to put themselves under his government. Being now altogether free from vice,
he worthily deserved to be made a master of virtue. As it is commanded by
Moses that the Levites should serve from five and twenty years and upward, and
after fifty years they should be appointed to keep the holy vessels.
Doctors of The Church for September: Jerome
Jerome struggled on the road to perfection. I like to read his comments, as they apply to my own life of trying to form the day around God's Will. His words speak to us today, those of us on the road to perfection.
Here are snippets from his works.
...and although to the saints their very sleep is a supplication, we ought to have fixed hours of prayer, that if we are detained by work, the time may remind us of our duty. Prayers, as every one knows, ought to be said at the third, sixth and ninth hours, at dawn and at evening. No meal should be begun without prayer, and before leaving table thanks should be returned to the Creator. We should rise two or three times in the night, and go over the parts of Scripture which we know by heart. When we leave the roof which shelters us, prayer should be our armor; and when we return from the street we should pray before we sit down, and not give the frail body rest until the soul is fed. In every act we do, in every step we take, let our hand trace the Lord’s Cross. (Letter 22.37)
Letter
XII. To Antony, Monk.
The subject of this letter is similar to that of the
preceding. Of Antony nothing is known except that some mss. describe him as “of Æmona.” The date
of the letter is 374 a.d.
While the disciples were disputing concerning precedence
our Lord, the teacher of 13humility,
took a little child and said: “Except ye be converted and become
as little children ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”158 And lest He should seem to preach more
than he practised, He fulfilled His own precept in His life. For He
washed His disciples’ feet,159 he received the
traitor with a kiss,160 He conversed with the
woman of Samaria,161 He spoke of the
kingdom of heaven with Mary at His feet,162 and
when He rose again from the dead He showed Himself first to some poor
women.163 Pride is opposed to humility, and through
it Satan lost his eminence as an archangel. The Jewish people perished
in their pride, for while they claimed the chief seats and salutations
in the market place,164 they were
superseded by the Gentiles, who had before been counted as “a
drop of a bucket.”165 Two poor fishermen,
Peter and James, were sent to confute the sophists and the wise men of
the world. As the Scripture says: “God resisteth the proud and
giveth grace to the humble.”166 Think,
brother, what a sin it must be which has God for its opponent. In the
Gospel the Pharisee is rejected because of his pride, and the publican
is accepted because of his humility.167
Now, unless I am mistaken, I have already sent you ten
letters, affectionate and earnest, whilst you have not deigned to give
me even a single line. The Lord speaks to His servants, but you, my
brother servant, refuse to speak to me. Believe me, if reserve did not
check my pen, I could show my annoyance in such invective that you
would have to reply—even though it might be in anger. But since
anger is human, and a Christian must not act injuriously, I fall back
once more on entreaty, and beg you to love one who loves you, and to
write to him as a servant should to his fellow-servant. Farewell in the
Lord.
And, part of, perhaps, his most famous letter of all...only part.
Letter
XXII. To Eustochium.
Perhaps the most famous of all the letters. In it Jerome
lays down at great length (1) the motives which ought to actuate those
who devote themselves to a life of virginity, and (2) the rules by
which they ought to regulate their daily conduct. The letter contains a
vivid picture of Roman society as it then was—the luxury,
profligacy, and hypocrisy prevalent among both men and women, besides
some graphic autobiographical details (§§7, 30), and
concludes with a full account of the three kinds of monasticism then
practised in Egypt (§§34–36). Thirty years later Jerome
wrote a similar letter to Demetrias (CXXX.), with which this ought to
be compared. Written at Rome 384 a.d.
1. “Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline
thine ear; forget also thine own people and thy father’s house,
and the king shall desire thy beauty.”331
In this forty-fourth332 psalm God speaks
to the human soul that, following the example of Abraham,333 it should go out from its own land and
from its kindred, and should leave the Chaldeans, that is the demons,
and should dwell in the country of the living, for which elsewhere the
prophet sighs: “I think to see the good things of the Lord in the
land of the living.”334 But it is not
enough for you to go out from your own land unless you forget your
people and your father’s house; unless you scorn the flesh and
cling to the bridegroom in a close embrace. “Look not behind
thee,” he says, “neither stay thou in all the plain; escape
to the mountain lest thou be consumed.”335
He who has grasped the plough must not look behind him336 or return home from the field, or having
Christ’s garment, descend from the roof to fetch other raiment.337 Truly a marvellous thing, a father
charges his daughter not to remember her father. “Ye are of your
father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to
do.”338 So it was said to the Jews. And
in another place, “He that committeth sin is of the
devil.”339 Born, in the first instance, of
such parentage we are naturally black, and even when we have repented,
so long as we have not scaled the heights of virtue, we may still say:
“I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.”340 But you will say to me, “I have left
the home of my childhood; I have forgotten my father, I am born anew in
Christ. What reward do I receive for this?” The context
shows—“The king shall desire thy beauty.” This, then,
is the great mystery. “For this cause shall 23a man leave his father and his mother and shall
be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be” not as is there
said, “of one flesh,”341 but “of
one spirit.” Your bridegroom is not haughty or disdainful; He has
“married an Ethiopian woman.”342
When once you desire the wisdom of the true Solomon and come to Him, He
will avow all His knowledge to you; He will lead you into His chamber
with His royal hand;343 He will
miraculously change your complexion so that it shall be said of you,
“Who is this that goeth up and hath been made white?”344
2. I write to you thus, Lady Eustochium (I am bound to
call my Lord’s bride “lady”), to show you by my
opening words that my object is not to praise the virginity which you
follow, and of which you have proved the value, or yet to recount the
drawbacks of marriage, such as pregnancy, the crying of infants, the
torture caused by a rival, the cares of household management, and all
those fancied blessings which death at last cuts short. Not that
married women are as such outside the pale; they have their own place,
the marriage that is honorable and the bed undefiled.345 My purpose is to show you that you are
fleeing from Sodom and should take warning by Lot’s wife.346 There is no flattery, I can tell you, in
these pages. A flatterer’s words are fair, but for all that he is
an enemy. You need expect no rhetorical flourishes setting you among
the angels, and while they extol virginity as blessed, putting the
world at your feet.
3. I would have you draw from your monastic vow not
pride but fear.347 You walk laden
with gold; you must keep out of the robber’s way. To us men this
life is a race-course: we contend here, we are crowned elsewhere. No
man can lay aside fear while serpents and scorpions beset his path. The
Lord says: “My sword hath drunk its fill in heaven,”348 and do you expect to find peace on the
earth? No, the earth yields only thorns and thistles, and its dust is
food for the serpent.349 “For our
wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the
principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this
darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly
places.”350 We are hemmed in by hosts of foes, our
enemies are upon every side. The weak flesh will soon be ashes: one
against many, it fights against tremendous odds. Not till it has been
dissolved, not till the Prince of this world has come and found no sin
therein,351 not till then may you safely listen
to the prophet’s words: “Thou shalt not be afraid for the
terror by night nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the
trouble which haunteth thee in darkness; nor for the demon and his
attacks at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand
at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.”352 When the hosts of the enemy distress you,
when your frame is fevered and your passions roused, when you say in
your heart, “What shall I do?” Elisha’s words shall
give you your answer, “Fear not, for they that be with us are
more than they that be with them.”353
He shall pray, “Lord, open the eyes of thine handmaid that she
may see.” And then when your eyes have been opened you shall see
a fiery chariot like Elijah’s waiting to carry you to heaven,354 and shall joyfully sing: “Our soul
is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is
broken and we are escaped.”355
4. So long as we are held down by this frail body, so
long as we have our treasure in earthen vessels;356 so long as the flesh lusteth against the
spirit and the spirit against the flesh,357
there can be no sure victory. “Our adversary the devil goeth
about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.”358 “Thou makest darkness,”
David says, “and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the
forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey and seek
their meat from God.”359 The devil looks
not for unbelievers, for those who are without, whose flesh the
Assyrian king roasted in the furnace.360 It is the
church of Christ that he “makes haste to spoil.”361 According to Habakkuk, “His food is
of the choicest.”362 A Job is the
victim of his machinations, and after devouring Judas he seeks power to
sift the [other] apostles.363 The Saviour came
not to send peace upon the earth but a sword.364
Lucifer fell, Lucifer who used to rise at dawn;365
and he who was bred up in a paradise of delight had the well-earned
sentence passed upon him, “Though thou exalt thyself as the
eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I
bring thee down, saith the Lord.”366
For he had said in his heart, “I will exalt my throne above the
stars of God,” and “I will be like the Most High.”367 Wherefore God says 24every day to the angels, as they descend the
ladder that Jacob saw in his dream,368 “I
have said ye are Gods and all of you are children of the Most High. But
ye shall die like men and fall like one of the princes.”369 The devil fell first, and since
“God standeth in the congregation of the Gods and judgeth among
the Gods,”370 the apostle writes
to those who are ceasing to be Gods—“Whereas there is among
you envying and strife, are ye not carnal and walk as men?”371
5. If, then, the apostle, who was a chosen vessel372 separated unto the gospel of Christ,373 by reason of the pricks of the flesh
and the allurements of vice keeps under his body and brings it into
subjection, lest when he has preached to others he may himself be a
castaway;374 and yet, for all that, sees
another law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and
bringing him into captivity to the law of sin;375
if after nakedness, fasting, hunger, imprisonment, scourging and other
torments, he turns back to himself and cries “Oh, wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”376 do you fancy that you ought to lay aside
apprehension? See to it that God say not some day of you: “The
virgin of Israel is fallen and there is none to raise her up.”377
6. But if even real virgins, when they have other
failings, are not saved by their physical virginity, what shall become
of those who have prostituted the members of Christ, and have changed
the temple of the Holy Ghost into a brothel? Straightway shall they
hear the words: “Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter
of Babylon, sit on the ground; there is no throne, O daughter of the
Chaldæans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
Take the millstone and grind meal; uncover thy locks, make bare the
legs, pass over the rivers; thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy
shame shall be seen.”381 And shall she
come to this after the bridal-chamber of God the Son, after the kisses
of Him who is to her both kinsman and spouse?382
Yes, she of whom the prophetic utterance once sang, “Upon thy
right hand did stand the queen in a vesture of gold wrought about with
divers colours,”383 shall be made
naked, and her skirts shall be discovered upon her face.384 She shall sit by the waters of
loneliness, her pitcher laid aside; and shall open her feet to every
one that passeth by, and shall be polluted to the crown of her head.385 Better had it been for her to have
submitted to the yoke of marriage, to have walked in level places, than
thus, aspiring to loftier heights, to fall into the deep of hell. I
pray you, let not Zion the faithful city become a harlot:386 let it not be that where the Trinity
has been entertained, there demons shall dance and owls make their
nests, and jackals build.387 Let us not
loose the belt that binds the breast. When lust tickles the sense and
the soft fire of sensual pleasure sheds over us its pleasing glow, let
us immediately break forth and cry: “The Lord is on my side: I
will not fear what the flesh can do unto me.”388
7. How often, when I was living in the desert, in the
vast solitude which gives to hermits a savage dwelling-place, parched
by a burning sun, how often did I fancy myself 25among the pleasures of Rome! I used to sit
alone because I was filled with bitterness. Sackcloth disfigured my
unshapely limbs and my skin from long neglect had become as black as an
Ethiopian’s. Tears and groans were every day my portion; and if
drowsiness chanced to overcome my struggles against it, my bare bones,
which hardly held together, clashed against the ground. Of my food and
drink I say nothing: for, even in sickness, the solitaries have nothing
but cold water, and to eat one’s food cooked is looked upon as
self-indulgence. Now, although in my fear of hell I had consigned
myself to this prison, where I had no companions but scorpions and wild
beasts, I often found myself amid bevies of girls. My face was pale and
my frame chilled with fasting; yet my mind was burning with desire, and
the fires of lust kept bubbling up before me when my flesh was as good
as dead. Helpless, I cast myself at the feet of Jesus, I watered them
with my tears, I wiped them with my hair: and then I subdued my
rebellious body with weeks of abstinence. I do not blush to avow my
abject misery; rather I lament that I am not now what once I was. I
remember how I often cried aloud all night till the break of day and
ceased not from beating my breast till tranquillity returned at the
chiding of the Lord. I used to dread my very cell as though it knew my
thoughts; and, stern and angry with myself, I used to make my way alone
into the desert. Wherever I saw hollow valleys, craggy mountains, steep
cliffs, there I made my oratory, there the house of correction for my
unhappy flesh. There, also—the Lord Himself is my
witness—when I had shed copious tears and had strained my eyes
towards heaven, I sometimes felt myself among angelic hosts, and for
joy and gladness sang: “because of the savour of thy good
ointments we will run after thee.”392
8. Now, if such are the temptations of men who, since
their bodies are emaciated with fasting, have only evil thoughts to
fear, how must it fare with a girl whose surroundings are those of
luxury and ease? Surely, to use the apostle’s words, “She
is dead while she liveth.”393 Therefore,
if experience gives me a right to advise, or clothes my words with
credit, I would begin by urging you and warning you as Christ’s
spouse to avoid wine as you would avoid poison. For wine is the first
weapon used by demons against the young. Greed does not shake, nor
pride puff up, nor ambition infatuate so much as this. Other vices we
easily escape, but this enemy is shut up within us, and wherever we go
we carry him with us. Wine and youth between them kindle the fire of
sensual pleasure. Why do we throw oil on the flame—why do we add
fresh fuel to a miserable body which is already ablaze. Paul, it is
true, says to Timothy “drink no longer water, but use a little
wine for thy stomach’s sake, and for thine often
infirmities.”394
9. When Elijah, in his flight from Jezebel, 26 lay weary and desolate beneath the oak, there
came an angel who raised him up and said, “Arise and eat.”
And he looked, and behold there was a cake and a cruse of water at his
head.401 Had God willed it, might He not have sent His
prophet spiced wines and dainty dishes and flesh basted into
tenderness? When Elisha invited the sons of the prophets to dinner, he
only gave them field-herbs to eat; and when all cried out with one
voice: “There is death in the pot,” the man of God did not
storm at the cooks (for he was not used to very sumptuous fare), but
caused meal to be brought, and casting it in, sweetened the bitter
mess402 with spiritual strength as Moses had once
sweetened the waters of Mara.403 Again, when men
were sent to arrest the prophet, and were smitten with physical and
mental blindness, that he might bring them without their own knowledge
to Samaria, notice the food with which Elisha ordered them to be
refreshed. “Set bread and water,” he said, “before
them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.”404
10. There are, in the Scriptures, countless divine
answers condemning gluttony and approving simple food. But as fasting
is not my present theme and an adequate discussion of it would require
a treatise to itself, these few observations must suffice of the many
which the subject suggests. By them you will understand why the first
man, obeying his belly and not God, was cast down from paradise into
this vale of tears;408 and why Satan used
hunger to tempt the Lord Himself in the wilderness;409
and why the apostle cries: “Meats for the belly and the belly for
meats, but God shall destroy both it and them;”410
and why he speaks of the self-indulgent as men “whose God is
their belly.”411 For men invariably
worship what they like best. Care must be taken, therefore, that
abstinence may bring back to Paradise those whom satiety once drove
out.
11. You will tell me, perhaps, that, high-born as you
are, reared in luxury and used to lie softly, you cannot do without
wine and dainties, and would find a stricter rule of life unendurable.
If so, I can only say: “Live, then, by your own rule, since
God’s rule is too hard for you.” Not that the Creator and
Lord of all takes pleasure in a rumbling and empty stomach, or in
fevered lungs; but that these are indispensable as means to the
preservation of chastity. Job was dear to God, perfect and upright
before Him;412 yet hear what he says of the devil:
“His strength is in the loins, and his force is in the
navel.”413
The terms are chosen for decency’s sake, but the
reproductive organs of the two sexes are meant. Thus, the descendant of
David, who, according to the promise is to sit upon his throne, is said
to come from his loins.414 And the
seventy-five souls descended from Jacob who entered Egypt are said to
come out of his thigh.415 So, also, when his
thigh shrank after the Lord had wrestled with him,416 he ceased to beget children. The
Israelites, again, are told to celebrate the passover with loins girded
and mortified.417 God says to Job: “Gird up thy
loins as a man.”418 John wears a
leathern girdle.419 The apostles must
gird their loins to carry the lamps of the Gospel.420
When Ezekiel tells us how Jerusalem is found in the plain of wandering,
covered with blood, he uses the words: “Thy navel has not been
cut.”421 In his assaults on men, therefore,
the devil’s strength is in the loins; in his attacks on women his
force is in the navel.
12. Do you wish for proof of my assertions? Take
examples. Sampson was braver than a lion and tougher than a rock; alone
and unprotected he pursued a thousand armed men; and yet, in
Delilah’s embrace, his resolution melted away. David was a man
after God’s own heart, and his lips had often sung of the Holy
One, the future Christ; and yet as he walked upon his housetop he was
fascinated by Bathsheba’s nudity, and added murder to adultery.422 Notice here how, even in his own house, a
man cannot use his eyes without danger. Then repenting, he says to the
Lord: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done this evil
in Thy sight.”423 Being a king he
feared no one else. So, too, with Solomon. Wisdom used him to sing her
praise,424 and he treated of all plants “from
the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth
out of the wall;”425 and yet he went
back from God because he was a lover of women.426
And, as if to show that near relationship is no safe27guard, Amnon burned with illicit passion for
his sister Tamar.427
13. I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins
who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the church, their mother:
stars over which the proud foe sets up his throne,428 and rocks hollowed by the serpent that
he may dwell in their fissures. You may see many women widows before
wedded, who try to conceal their miserable fall by a lying garb. Unless
they are betrayed by swelling wombs or by the crying of their infants,
they walk abroad with tripping feet and heads in the air. Some go so
far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus
murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they
find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure
abortion, and when (as often happens) they die with their offspring,
they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery
against Christ but also of suicide and child murder. Yet it is these
who say: “‘Unto the pure all things are pure;’429 my conscience is sufficient guide for me.
A pure heart is what God looks for. Why should I abstain from meats
which God has created to be received with thanksgiving?”430 And when they wish to appear agreeable and
entertaining they first drench themselves with wine, and then joining
the grossest profanity to intoxication, they say “Far be it from
me to abstain from the blood of Christ.” And when they see
another pale or sad they call her “wretch” or
“manichæan;”431 quite logically,
indeed, for on their principles fasting involves heresy. When they go
out they do their best to attract notice, and with nods and winks
encourage troops of young fellows to follow them. Of each and all of
these the prophet’s words are true: “Thou hast a
whore’s forehead; thou refusest to be ashamed.”432 Their robes have but a narrow purple
stripe,433 it is true; and their head-dress is
somewhat loose, so as to leave the hair free. From their shoulders
flutters the lilac mantle which they call “ma-forte;” they
have their feet in cheap slippers and their arms tucked up
tight-fitting sleeves. Add to these marks of their profession an easy
gait, and you have all the virginity that they possess. Such may have
eulogizers of their own, and may fetch a higher price in the market of
perdition, merely because they are called virgins. But to such virgins
as these I prefer to be displeasing.
14. I blush to speak of it, it is so shocking; yet
though sad, it is true. How comes this plague of the agapetæ434 to be in the church? Whence come these
unwedded wives, these novel concubines, these harlots, so I will call
them, though they cling to a single partner? One house holds them and
one chamber. They often occupy the same bed, and yet they call us
suspicious if we fancy anything amiss. A brother leaves his virgin
sister; a virgin, slighting her unmarried brother, seeks a brother in a
stranger. Both alike profess to have but one object, to find spiritual
consolation from those not of their kin; but their real aim is to
indulge in sexual intercourse. It is on such that Solomon in the book
of proverbs heaps his scorn. “Can a man take fire in his
bosom,” he says, “and his clothes not be burned? Can one go
upon hot coals and his feet not be burned?”435
15. We cast out, then, and banish from our sight those
who only wish to seem and not to be virgins. Henceforward I may bring
all my speech to bear upon you who, as it is your lot to be the first
virgin of noble birth in Rome, have to labor the more diligently not to
lose good things to come, as well as those that are present. You have
at least learned from a case in your own family the troubles of wedded
life and the uncertainties of marriage. Your sister, Blæsilla,
before you in age but behind you in declining the vow of virginity, has
become a widow but seven months after she has taken a husband. Hapless
plight of us mortals who know not what is before us! She has lost, at
once, the crown of virginity and the pleasures of wedlock. And,
although, as a widow, the second degree of chastity is hers, still can
you not imagine the continual crosses which she has to bear, daily
seeing in her sister what she has lost herself; and, while she finds it
hard to go without the pleasures of wedlock, having a less reward for
her present continence? Still she, too, may take heart and rejoice. The
fruit which is an hundredfold and that which is sixtyfold both spring
from one seed, and that seed is chastity.436
16. Do not court the company of married ladies or visit
the houses of the high-born. Do not look too often on the life which
you despised to become a virgin. Women of the world, you know, plume
themselves because their husbands are on the bench or in other 28high positions. And the wife of the
emperor always has an eager throng of visitors at her door. Why do you,
then, wrong your husband? Why do you, God’s bride, hasten to
visit the wife of a mere man? Learn in this respect a holy pride; know
that you are better than they. And not only must you avoid intercourse
with those who are puffed up by their husbands’ honors, who are
hedged in with troops of eunuchs, and who wear robes inwrought with
threads of gold. You must also shun those who are widows from necessity
and not from choice. Not that they ought to have desired the death of
their husbands; but that they have not welcomed the opportunity of
continence when it has come. As it is, they only change their garb;
their old self-seeking remains unchanged. To see them in their
capacious litters, with red cloaks and plump bodies, a row of eunuchs
walking in front of them, you would fancy them not to have lost
husbands but to be seeking them. Their houses are filled with
flatterers and with guests. The very clergy, who ought to inspire them
with respect by their teaching and authority, kiss these ladies on the
forehead, and putting forth their hands (so that, if you knew no
better, you might suppose them in the act of blessing), take wages for
their visits. They, meanwhile, seeing that priests cannot do without
them, are lifted up into pride; and as, having had experience of both,
they prefer the license of widowhood to the restraints of marriage,
they call themselves chaste livers and nuns. After an immoderate supper
they retire to rest to dream of the apostles.437
17. Let your companions be women pale and thin with
fasting, and approved by their years and conduct; such as daily sing in
their hearts: “Tell me where thou feedest thy flock, where thou
makest it to rest at noon,”438 and say,
with true earnestness, “I have a desire to depart and to be with
Christ.”439 Be subject to your parents,
imitating the example of your spouse.440 Rarely go
abroad, and if you wish to seek the aid of the martyrs seek it in your
own chamber. For you will never need a pretext for going out if you
always go out when there is need. Take food in moderation, and never
overload your stomach. For many women, while temperate as regards wine,
are intemperate in the use of food. When you rise at night to pray, let
your breath be that of an empty and not that of an overfull stomach.
Read often, learn all that you can. Let sleep overcome you, the roll
still in your hands; when your head falls, let it be on the sacred
page. Let your fasts be of daily occurrence and your refreshment such
as avoids satiety. It is idle to carry an empty stomach if, in two or
three days’ time, the fast is to be made up for by repletion.
When cloyed the mind immediately grows sluggish, and when the ground is
watered it puts forth the thorns of lust. If ever you feel the outward
man sighing for the flower of youth, and if, as you lie on your couch
after a meal, you are excited by the alluring train of sensual desires;
then seize the shield of faith, for it alone can quench the fiery darts
of the devil.441 “They are all
adulterers,” says the prophet; “they have made ready their
heart like an oven.”442 But do you keep
close to the footsteps of Christ, and, intent upon His words, say:
“Did not our heart burn within us by the way while Jesus opened
to us the Scriptures?”443 and again:
“Thy word is tried to the uttermost, and thy servant loveth
it.”444 It is hard for the human soul to
avoid loving something, and our mind must of necessity give way to
affection of one kind or another. The love of the flesh is overcome by
the love of the spirit. Desire is quenched by desire. What is taken
from the one increases the other. Therefore, as you lie on your couch,
say again and again: “By night have I sought Him whom my soul
loveth.”445 “Mortify, therefore,”
says the apostle, “your members which are upon the
earth.”446 Because he himself did so, he could
afterwards say with confidence: “I live, yet not I, but Christ,
liveth in me.”447 He who mortifies
his members, and feels that he is walking in a vain show,448 is not afraid to say: “I am become
like a bottle in the frost.449 Whatever there was
in me of the moisture of lust has been dried out of me.” And
again: “My knees are weak through fasting; I forget to eat my
bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my
skin.”450
18. Be like the grasshopper and make night musical.
Nightly wash your bed and water your couch with your tears.451 Watch and be like the sparrow alone upon the
housetop.452 Sing with the spirit, but sing with
the understanding also.453 And let your song
be that of the psalmist: “Bless the 29Lord, O my soul; and forget not all his
benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy
diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction.”454 Can we, any of us, honestly make his words
our own: “I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with
weeping?”455 Yet, should we not
weep and groan when the serpent invites us, as he invited our first
parents, to eat forbidden fruit, and when after expelling us from the
paradise of virginity he desires to clothe us with mantles of skins
such as that which Elijah, on his return to paradise, left behind him
on earth?456 Say to yourself: “What have I
to do with the pleasures of sense that so soon come to an end? What
have I to do with the song of the sirens so sweet and so fatal to those
who hear it?” I would not have you subject to that sentence
whereby condemnation has been passed upon mankind. When God says to
Eve, “In pain and in sorrow thou shalt bring forth
children,” say to yourself, “That is a law for a married
woman, not for me.” And when He continues, “Thy desire
shall be to thy husband,”457 say again:
“Let her desire be to her husband who has not Christ for her
spouse.” And when, last of all, He says, “Thou shalt surely
die,”458 once more, say, “Marriage
indeed must end in death; but the life on which I have resolved is
independent of sex. Let those who are wives keep the place and the time
that properly belong to them. For me, virginity is consecrated in the
persons of Mary and of Christ.”
19. Some one may say, “Do you dare detract from
wedlock, which is a state blessed by God?” I do not detract from
wedlock when I set virginity before it. No one compares a bad thing
with a good. Wedded women may congratulate themselves that they come
next to virgins. “Be fruitful,” God says, “and
multiply, and replenish the earth.”459 He
who desires to replenish the earth may increase and multiply if he
will. But the train to which you belong is not on earth, but in heaven.
The command to increase and multiply first finds fulfilment after the
expulsion from paradise, after the nakedness and the fig-leaves which
speak of sexual passion. Let them marry and be given in marriage who
eat their bread in the sweat of their brow; whose land brings forth to
them thorns and thistles,460 and whose crops are
choked with briars. My seed produces fruit a hundredfold.461 “All men cannot receive God’s
saying, but they to whom it is given.”
Some people may be eunuchs from necessity; I am one of
free will.462 “There is a time to embrace
and a time to refrain from embracing. There is a time to cast away
stones, and a time to gather stones together.”463 Now that out of the hard stones of the
Gentiles God has raised up children unto Abraham,464 they begin to be “holy stones
rolling upon the earth.”465 They pass through
the whirlwinds of the world, and roll on in God’s chariot on
rapid wheels. Let those stitch coats to themselves who have lost the
coat woven from the top throughout;466 who delight
in the cries of infants which, as soon as they see the light, lament
that they are born. In paradise Eve was a virgin, and it was only after
the coats of skins that she began her married life. Now paradise is
your home too. Keep therefore your birthright and say: “Return
unto thy rest, O my soul.”467 To show that
virginity is natural while wedlock only follows guilt, what is born of
wedlock is virgin flesh, and it gives back in fruit what in root it has
lost. “There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and
a flower shall grow out of his roots.”468
The rod469 is the mother of the Lord—simple,
pure, unsullied; drawing no germ of life from without but fruitful in
singleness like God Himself. The flower of the rod is Christ, who says
of Himself: “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the
valleys.”470 In another place He
is foretold to be “a stone cut out of the mountain without
hands,”471 a figure by which the prophet
signifies that He is to be born a virgin of a virgin. For the hands are
here a figure of wedlock as in the passage: “His left hand is
under my head and his right hand doth embrace me.”472 It agrees, also, with this interpretation
that the unclean animals are led into Noah’s ark in pairs, while
of the clean an uneven number is taken.473
20. I praise wedlock, I praise marriage, but it is
because they give me virgins. I gather the rose from the thorns, the
gold from the earth, the pearl from the shell. “Doth the plowman
plow all day to sow?”477 Shall he not
also enjoy the fruit of his labor? Wedlock is the more honored, the
more what is born of it is loved. Why, mother, do you grudge your
daughter her virginity? She has been reared on your milk, she has come
from your womb, she has grown up in your bosom. Your watchful affection
has kept her a virgin. Are you angry with her because she chooses to be
a king’s wife and not a soldier’s? She has conferred on you
a high privilege; you are now the mother-in-law of God.
“Concerning virgins,” says the apostle, “I have no
commandment of the Lord.”478 Why was this?
Because his own virginity was due, not to a command, but to his free
choice. For they are not to be heard who feign him to have had a wife;
for, when he is discussing continence and commending perpetual
chastity, he uses the words, “I would that all men were even as I
myself.” And farther on, “I say, therefore, to the
unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as
I.”479 And in another place, “have
we not power to lead about wives even as the rest of the
apostles?”480 Why then has he no
commandment from the Lord concerning virginity? Because what is freely
offered is worth more than what is extorted by force, and to command
virginity would have been to abrogate wedlock. It would have been a
hard enactment to compel opposition to nature and to extort from men
the angelic life; and not only so, it would have been to condemn what
is a divine ordinance.
21. The old law had a different ideal of blessedness,
for therein it is said: “Blessed is he who hath seed in Zion and
a family in Jerusalem:”481 and “Cursed
is the barren who beareth not:”482 and
“Thy children shall be like olive-plants round about thy
table.”483 Riches too are promised to the
faithful and we are told that “there was not one feeble person
among their tribes.”484 But now even to
eunuchs it is said, “Say not, behold I am a dry tree,”485 for instead of sons and daughters you
have a place forever in heaven. Now the poor are blessed, now Lazarus
is set before Dives in his purple.486 Now he who
is weak is counted strong. But in those days the world was still
unpeopled: accordingly, to pass over instances of childlessness meant
only to serve as types, those only were considered happy who could
boast of children. It was for this reason that Abraham in his old age
married Keturah;487 that Leah hired
Jacob with her son’s mandrakes,488 and that
fair Rachel—a type of the church—complained of the closing
of her womb.489 But gradually the crop grew up and
then the reaper was sent forth with his sickle. Elijah lived a virgin
life, so also did Elisha and many of the sons of the prophets. To
Jeremiah the command came: “Thou shalt not take thee a
wife.”490 He had been sanctified in his
mother’s womb,491 and now he was
forbidden to take a wife because the captivity was near. The apostle
gives the same counsel in different words. “I think, therefore,
that this is good by reason of the present distress, namely that it is
good for a man to be as he is.”492 What is this
distress which does away with the joys of wedlock? The apostle tells
us, in a later verse: “The time is short: it remaineth that those
who have wives be as though they had none.”493
22. How great inconveniences are involved in wedlock and
how many anxieties encompass it I have, I think, described shortly in
my treatise—published against Helvidius502—on the perpetual virginity of the
blessed Mary. It would be tedious to go over the same ground now; and
any one who pleases may draw from that fountain. But lest I should seem
wholly to have passed over the matter, I will just say now that the
apostle bids us pray without ceasing,503 and that he who
in the married state renders his wife her due504
cannot so pray. Either we pray always and are virgins, or we cease to
pray that we may fulfil the claims of marriage. Still he says:
“If a virgin marry she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall
have trouble in the flesh.”505 At the outset I
promised that I should say little or nothing of the embarrassments of
wedlock, and now I give you notice to the same effect. If you want to
know from how many vexations a virgin is free and by how many a wife is
fettered you should read Tertullian “to a philosophic
friend,”506 and his other treatises on virginity,
the blessed Cyprian’s noble volume, the writings of Pope
Damasus507 in prose and verse, and the treatises
recently written for his sister by our own Ambrose.508 In these he has poured forth his soul with
such a flood of eloquence that he has sought out, set forth, and put in
order all that bears on the praise of virgins.
23. We must proceed by a different path, for our purpose
is not the praise of virginity but its preservation. To know that it is
a good thing is not enough: when we have chosen it we must guard it
with jealous care. The first only requires judgment, and we share it
with many; the second calls for toil, and few compete with us in it.
“He that shall endure unto the end,” the Lord says,
“the same shall be saved,”509 and
“many are called but few are chosen.”510
Therefore I conjure you before God and Jesus Christ and His elect
angels to guard that which you have received, not readily exposing to
the public gaze the vessels of the Lord’s temple (which only the
priests are by right allowed to see), that no profane person may look
upon God’s sanctuary. Uzzah, when he touched the ark which it was
not lawful to touch, was struck down suddenly by death.511 And assuredly no gold or silver vessel was
ever so dear to God as is the temple of a virgin’s body. The
shadow went before, but now the reality is come. You indeed may speak
in all simplicity, and from motives of amiability may treat with
courtesy the veriest strangers, but unchaste eyes see nothing aright.
They fail to appreciate the beauty of the soul, and only value that of
the body. Hezekiah showed God’s treasure to the Assyrians,512 who ought never to have seen what they were
sure to covet. The consequence was that Judæa was torn by
continual wars, and that the very first things carried away to Babylon
were these vessels of the Lord. We find Belshazzar at his feast and
among his concubines (vice always glories in defiling what is noble)
drinking out of these sacred cups.513
24. Never incline your ear to words of mischief. For men
often say an improper word to make trial of a virgin’s
steadfastness, to see if she hears it with pleasure, and if she is
ready to unbend at every silly jest. Such persons applaud whatever you
affirm and deny whatever you deny; they speak of you as not only holy
but accomplished, and say that in you there is no guile.
“Behold,” say they, “a true hand-maid of Christ;
behold entire singleness of heart. How different from that rough,
un32sightly, countrified fright, who
most likely never married because she could never find a
husband.” Our natural weakness induces us readily to listen to
such flatterers; but, though we may blush and reply that such praise is
more than our due, the soul within us rejoices to hear itself
praised.
Like the ark of the covenant Christ’s spouse
should be overlaid with gold within and without;514
she should be the guardian of the law of the Lord. Just as the ark
contained nothing but the tables of the covenant,515
so in you there should be no thought of anything that is outside. For
it pleases the Lord to sit in your mind as He once sat on the
mercy-seat and the cherubims.516 As He sent His
disciples to loose Him the foal of an ass that he might ride on it, so
He sends them to release you from the cares of the world, that leaving
the bricks and straw of Egypt, you may follow Him, the true Moses,
through the wilderness and may enter the land of promise. Let no one
dare to forbid you, neither mother nor sister nor kinswoman nor
brother: “The Lord hath need of you.”517 Should they seek to hinder you, let them
fear the scourges that fell on Pharaoh, who, because he would not let
God’s people go that they might serve Him,518 suffered the plagues described in
Scripture. Jesus entering into the temple cast out those things which
belonged not to the temple. For God is jealous and will not allow the
father’s house to be made a den of robbers.519
Where money is counted, where doves are sold, where simplicity is
stifled where, that is, a virgin’s breast glows with cares of
this world; straightway the veil of the temple is rent,520 the bridegroom rises in anger, he says:
“Your house is left unto you desolate.”521
Read the gospel and see how Mary sitting at the feet of the Lord is set
before the zealous Martha. In her anxiety to be hospitable Martha was
preparing a meal for the Lord and His disciples; yet Jesus said to her:
“Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things.
But few things are needful or one.522 And Mary hath
chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.”523 Be then like Mary; prefer the food of the
soul to that of the body. Leave it to your sisters to run to and fro
and to seek how they may fitly welcome Christ. But do you, having once
for all cast away the burden of the world, sit at the Lord’s feet
and say: “I have found him whom my soul loveth; I will hold him,
I will not let him go.”524 And He will answer:
“My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her
mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her.”525 Now the mother of whom this is said is the
heavenly Jerusalem.526
25. Ever let the privacy of your chamber guard you; ever
let the Bridegroom sport with you within.527 Do
you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you.
When sleep overtakes you He will come behind and put His hand through
the hole of the door, and your heart528 shall be
moved for Him; and you will awake and rise up and say: “I am sick
of love.”529 Then He will reply:
“A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a
fountain sealed.”530
Go not from home nor visit the daughters of a strange
land, though you have patriarchs for brothers and Israel for a father.
Dinah went out and was seduced.531 Do not seek the
Bridegroom in the streets; do not go round the corners of the city. For
though you may say: “I will rise now and go about the city: in
the streets and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul
loveth,” and though you may ask the watchmen: “Saw ye Him
whom my soul loveth?”532 no one will deign
to answer you. The Bridegroom cannot be found in the streets:
“Strait and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life.”533 So the Song goes on: “I sought him
but I could not find him: I called him but he gave me no
answer.”534 And would that failure to find Him
were all. You will be wounded and stripped, you will lament and say:
“The watchmen that went about the city found me: they smote me,
they wounded me, they took away my veil from me.”535 Now if one who could say: “I sleep
but my heart waketh,”536 and “A
bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me; he shall lie all night
betwixt my breasts”;537 if one who could
speak thus suffered so much because she went abroad, what shall become
of us who are but young girls; of us who, when the bride goes in with
the Bridegroom, still remain without? Jesus is jealous. He does not
choose that your face should be seen of others. You may excuse yourself
and say: “I have drawn close my veil, I have covered my face and
I have sought Thee there and have said: ‘Tell me, O Thou whom my
soul 33loveth, where Thou feedest Thy
flock, where Thou makest it to rest at noon. For why should I be as one
that is veiled beside the flocks of Thy companions?’”538 Yet in spite of your excuses He will be
wroth, He will swell with anger and say: “If thou know not
thyself, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps
of the flock and feed thy goats beside the shepherd’s
tents.”539 You may be fair, and of all faces
yours may be the dearest to the Bridegroom; yet, unless you know
yourself, and keep your heart with all diligence,540
unless also you avoid the eyes of the young men, you will be turned out
of My bride-chamber to feed the goats, which shall be set on the left
hand.541
26. These things being so, my Eustochium, daughter,
lady, fellow-servant, sister—these names refer the first to your
age, the second to your rank, the third to your religious vocation, the
last to the place which you hold in my affection—hear the words
of Isaiah: “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and
shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment,
until the indignation” of the Lord “be overpast.”542 Let foolish virgins stray abroad, but for
your part stay at home with the Bridegroom; for if you shut your door,
and, according to the precept of the Gospel,543
pray to your Father in secret, He will come and knock, saying:
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man…open the
door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with
me.”544 Then straightway you will eagerly
reply: “It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open
to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled.” It is
impossible that you should refuse, and say: “I have put off my
coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile
them?”545 Arise forthwith and open. Otherwise
while you linger He may pass on and you may have mournfully to say:
“I opened to my beloved, but my beloved was gone.”546 Why need the doors of your heart be closed
to the Bridegroom? Let them be open to Christ but closed to the devil
according to the saying: “If the spirit of him who hath power
rise up against thee, leave not thy place.”547 Daniel, in that upper story to which he
withdrew when he could no longer continue below, had his windows open
toward Jerusalem.548 Do you too keep
your windows open, but only on the side where light may enter and
whence you may see the eye of the Lord. Open not those other windows of
which the prophet says: “Death is come up into our
windows.”549
27. You must also be careful to avoid the snare of a
passion for vainglory. “How,” Jesus says, “can ye
believe which receive glory one from another?”550
What an evil that must be the victim of which cannot believe! Let us
rather say: “Thou art my glorying,”551 and
“He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord,”552 and “If I yet pleased men I should not
be the servant of Christ,”553 and “Far
be it from me to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom the world hath been crucified unto me and I unto the
world;”554 and once more: “In God we boast
all the day long; my soul shall make her boast in the Lord.”555 When you do alms, let God alone see you. When
you fast, be of a cheerful countenance.556 Let
your dress be neither too neat nor too slovenly; neither let it be so
remarkable as to draw the attention of passers-by, and to make men
point their fingers at you. Is a brother dead? Has the body of a sister
to be carried to its burial? Take care lest in too often performing
such offices you die yourself. Do not wish to seem very devout nor more
humble than need be, lest you seek glory by shunning it. For many, who
screen from all men’s sight their poverty, charity, and fasting,
desire to excite admiration by their very disdain of it, and strangely
seek for praise while they profess to keep out of its way. From the
other disturbing influences which make men rejoice, despond, hope, and
fear I find many free; but this is a defect which few are without, and
he is best whose character, like a fair skin, is disfigured by the
fewest blemishes. I do not think it necessary to warn you against
boasting of your riches, or against priding yourself on your birth, or
against setting yourself up as superior to others. I know your
humility; I know that you can say with sincerity: “Lord, my heart
is not haughty nor mine eyes lofty;”557 I
know that in your breast as in that of your mother the pride through
which the devil fell has no place. It would be time wasted to write to
you about it; for there is no greater folly than to teach a pupil what
he knows already. But now that you have despised the boastfulness of
the world, do not let the fact inspire you with new boastfulness.
Harbor 34not the secret thought that
having ceased to court attention in garments of gold you may begin to
do so in mean attire. And when you come into a room full of brothers
and sisters, do not sit in too low a place or plead that you are
unworthy of a footstool. Do not deliberately lower your voice as though
worn out with fasting; nor, leaning on the shoulder of another, mimic
the tottering gait of one who is faint. Some women, it is true,
disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast.558 As soon as they catch sight of any one
they groan, they look down; they cover up their faces, all but one eye,
which they keep free to see with. Their dress is sombre, their girdles
are of sackcloth, their hands and feet are dirty; only their
stomachs—which cannot be seen—are hot with food. Of these
the psalm is sung daily: “The Lord will scatter the bones of them
that please themselves.”559 Others change their
garb and assume the mien of men, being ashamed of being what they were
born to be—women. They cut off their hair and are not ashamed to
look like eunuchs. Some clothe themselves in goat’s hair, and,
putting on hoods, think to become children again by making themselves
look like so many owls.560
28. But I will not speak only of women. Avoid men, also,
when you see them loaded with chains and wearing their hair long like
women, contrary to the apostle’s precept,561 not
to speak of beards like those of goats, black cloaks, and bare feet
braving the cold. All these things are tokens of the devil. Such an one
Rome groaned over some time back in Antimus; and Sophronius is a still
more recent instance. Such persons, when they have once gained
admission to the houses of the high-born, and have deceived
“silly women laden with sins, ever learning and never able to
come to the knowledge of the truth,”562
feign a sad mien and pretend to make long fasts while at night they
feast in secret. Shame forbids me to say more, for my language might
appear more like invective than admonition. There are others—I
speak of those of my own order—who seek the presbyterate and the
diaconate simply that they may be able to see women with less
restraint. Such men think of nothing but their dress; they use perfumes
freely, and see that there are no creases in their leather shoes. Their
curling hair shows traces of the tongs; their fingers glisten with
rings; they walk on tiptoe across a damp road, not to splash their
feet. When you see men acting in this way, think of them rather as
bridegrooms than as clergymen. Certain persons have devoted the whole
of their energies and life to the single object of knowing the names,
houses, and characters of married ladies. I will here briefly describe
the head of the profession, that from the master’s likeness you
may recognize the disciples. He rises and goes forth with the sun; he
has the order of his visits duly arranged; he takes the shortest road;
and, troublesome old man that he is, forces his way almost into the
bedchambers of ladies yet asleep. If he sees a pillow that takes his
fancy or an elegant table-cover—or indeed any article of
household furniture—he praises it, looks admiringly at it, takes
it into his hand, and, complaining that he has nothing of the kind,
begs or rather extorts it from the owner. All the women, in fact, fear
to cross the news-carrier of the town. Chastity and fasting are alike
distasteful to him. What he likes is a savory breakfast—say off a
plump young crane such as is commonly called a cheeper. In speech he is
rude and forward, and is always ready to bandy reproaches. Wherever you
turn he is the first man that you see before you. Whatever news is
noised abroad he is either the originator of the rumor or its
magnifier. He changes his horses every hour; and they are so sleek and
spirited that you would take him for a brother of the Thracian king.563
29. Many are the stratagems which the wily enemy employs
against us. “The serpent,” we are told, “was more
subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had
made.”564 And the apostle says: “We are
not ignorant of his devices.”565 Neither an
affected shabbiness nor a stylish smartness becomes a Christian. If
there is anything of which you are ignorant, if you have any doubt
about Scripture, ask one whose life commends him, whose age puts him
above suspicion, whose reputation does not belie him; one who may be
able to say: “I have espoused you to one husband that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Or if there should be
none such able to explain, it is better to avoid danger at the price of
ignorance than to court it for the sake of learning. Remember that you
walk in the midst of snares, and that many veteran virgins, of a
chastity never called in question, have, on the very threshold of
death, let their crowns fall from their hands.
35If any of your
handmaids share your vocation, do not lift up yourself against them or
pride yourself because you are their mistress. You have all chosen one
Bridegroom; you all sing the same psalms; together you receive the Body
of Christ. Why then should your thoughts be different?566 You must try to win others, and that you
may attract the more readily you must treat the virgins in your train
with the greatest respect. If you find one of them weak in the faith,
be attentive to her, comfort her, caress her, and make her chastity
your treasure. But if a girl pretends to have a vocation simply because
she desires to escape from service, read aloud to her the words of the
apostle: “It is better to marry than to burn.”567
Idle persons and busybodies, whether virgins or widows;
such as go from house to house calling on married women and displaying
an unblushing effrontery greater than that of a stage parasite, cast
from you as you would the plague. For “evil communications
corrupt good manners,”568 and women like
these care for nothing but their lowest appetites. They will often urge
you, saying, “My dear creature, make the best of your advantages,
and live while life is yours,” and “Surely you are not
laying up money for your children.” Given to wine and wantonness,
they instill all manner of mischief into people’s minds, and
induce even the most austere to indulge in enervating pleasures. And
“when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ they will
marry, having condemnation because they have rejected their first
faith.”569
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