Austere at First - Heavenly in its End

Dom Guigo, the fifth prior of La Grande Chartreuse, had written a letter somewhere around the year 1135 to his friend whose name is unknown. Below is an excerpt of that letter which offers advice in the spiritual life. It is a letter that can almost be read as if written to you personally. While it may be nearly impossible to embrace fully Guigo’s suggestions since most of us do not live in a hermitage, one can certainly adapt these Christ-like ways according to one’s state in life. The picture shown here is a manuscript of Guigo’s letter which is kept at La Bibliothèque Municipale de Grenoble.

One man will think another happy. I esteem him happy above all who does not have the ambitious quest to be lifted up with great honors in a palace, but who chooses to be humble, to live like a poor man in a hermitage; who with thoughtful application loves to meditate quietly in peace; who longs to sit alone in silence.

Indeed, to shine with honors, to be lifted up in dignity is in my judgment a way of little peace, exposed to perils, subject to concerns, hazardous to many, unsafe for anyone. Happy in the beginning, perplexed in its development, sad in its end; flattering to the unworthy, disgraceful to the good, generally deceptive to both. While it makes many wretched, it gives satisfaction to no one, makes many unhappy.

Conversely, the poor and lonely life, austere at first, easy in its progress, becomes, in its end, heavenly. It is constant in adversity, confident in uncertainties, modest in good fortune, simple in dress, reserved in speech, pure in manners – worthy of the greatest desires without ambition. Often wounded with sorrow at the thought of past sins, avoids sin in the present, is wary of future evil. Rests on the hope of mercy, not relying on its own merit, it longs for heaven, disdains things of earth, earnestly strives for virtue, which it retains in perseverance and holds firmly for ever. It is devoted to fasting by determined fidelity to the Cross, yet consents to eat for the body’s necessities. In both it regulates with perfect measure by controlling greed when it needs food and pride when it fasts. It is devoted to reading, but mostly in the Scripture canon and in holy books where it is more intent upon the inner marrow of meaning than on the froth of words. But you may praise or wonder more at this: that such a life is continually idle yet never lazy. For it finds many things to do, so that time is more often lacking to it than this or that occupation. It more often laments that its time has slipped away than that its business is tedious.

What else? A fine subject, to advise tranquility, but such an exhortation seeks out a mind that is its own master, concerned with its own good, disdaining to be meddling in the affairs of others, or of society; who so fights as a soldier of Christ in peace as to refuse double service as a soldier of God and of the world; who knows for certain it cannot here be glad with this world and then in the next reign with God.

Small sacrifices are these, and their like, if you recall what drink He took at the gibbet, Who calls you to His Throne. Like it or not, you need to follow the example of Christ poor if you want to share with Christ in His riches. If we suffer with Him, says the Apostle, we shall reign with Him. If we die with Him, then we shall live together with Him. The Mediator Himself replied to the two disciples who asked Him if one of them might sit at His right Hand and the other at His left: “Can you drink the chalice which I am about to drink?” Here He showed us that it is by cups of earthly bitterness that we come to the banquet of the Patriarchs and to the nectar of heavenly celebrations.

Transforming Union (part II)

Here is the concluding part of a Carthusian monk’s perspective on transforming union. If you missed the first part, you can find it here.

The Holy Spirit is in charge of the whole of this transformation. It is the Spirit Who acts in us as the principle of our sanctification. He inclines the soul to these supernatural acts, not by passing through the faculties, from outside, but from inside, from His dwelling in the center, in the substance of the soul. Thus the Spirit moves the faculties, but in His own particular way, enabling them to attain their objects directly with an assurance and strength beyond their normal possibilities. Paradoxically, there is great liberty in this, for the soul is not moved like a lifeless puppet, but as someone who is free. This is a great mystery. The spiritual acts flow freely from a person transformed in his very substance by the Spirit; and these acts express perfectly the most intimate depths of that person, there where he adheres to God so closely that, with God, he is spirit, and source of life (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:17).

It is easy to say words that mean nothing, or say too much. It has been suggested – and by the mystics sometimes – that the soul breathes the Spirit with the Father and the Son; that it creates the world; that, placed within God’s creative act, it is maintaining all things; that, in a game of love, it gives God to God, since God in all truth has given Himself to the soul… All this is true, but in a sense that in no way diminishes the infinite transcendence of the Lord which is radically beyond our grasp. What is clear is that, by grace, in transforming union, the soul is plunged into a life that is infinitely beyond anything that we can possibly imagine. The fine shell of its little personality becomes perfectly transparent to the marvelous light in which it bathes. The soul is known and it knows. It is loved and it loves: perfectly, beyond anything we can possibly imagine or hope for.

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:18).

We set off to seek God, following in the steps of Jesus, on the path of the beatitudes of poverty and purity of heart, by the way of the cross and love, towards the Father. Now at the end, we find Christ again, but the risen Christ. The extraordinary phenomena of the mystical life are an irruption in our world of the life of the resurrection, rays of light from Mount Tabor. If we can come to the Father in all confidence, as sons, it is because of the grace of Christ communicated to us through the Spirit. We are taken up into the life of Christ, we become as it were one person with Him, to constitute what Augustine called “the total Christ.” “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ Who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

When the Word became flesh, He did not eliminate human nature, but raised it, rather, to the fullness of its liberty and perfection; and in the same way, when divine life takes flesh, so to speak, in us – not hypostatically, but by union of grace – our humanity is not eliminated, but radically transformed. It is really our own self that is transformed; myself, with my own features, my character, my feelings, my personal history, my wounds, my limits, my sufferings, my sensitivity… Christ in His glory bears the marks of the nails. The glory He communicates to us is the glory of humanity redeemed, and is all the more luminous because of that. The bread that we offer to be consecrated is the bread of our whole nature. That is why the Eucharist is so important: for there, the Body and Blood of Christ, the living humanity of Christ, touches us, penetrates us, in order to transform us into Himself.

The spiritual person does not become an angel, he or she becomes Christ. And just as so few were able to recognize God in Jesus, so we too often pass by the saints. We look out for the extraordinary and the spectacular, and all we find is something marvelously human, a humanity that is in the likeness of God.

Generally there are not many extraordinary sensory phenomena, and hardly any more ecstasies. The human nature of the mystic is now used to God’s action, and has adapted to it. On the level of the senses, there is no resistance, and the higher faculties have been strengthened in their usual mode of activity.

We are so concerned with the outward show of sanctity, with appearances! Yet the whole life of a monk, and especially of the solitary monk, is on the level of being, where all show is ridiculous comedy. The “little” Thérèse said once: “There is no need for appearances, as long as the reality is there. Our Lord died of love on the Cross, and yet look at His agony.”

And all is humility, because humility is born of truth. In this ultimate intimacy with the Lord, the monk knows, he experiences, that all is grace, that all comes from God. He takes stock in his own minute little self in the shadow of the greatness of God, the greatness of infinite Love. He makes no effort to be humble. We do not need light to see daylight.

In the mystic, the struggle between attention to God and contact with the world no longer exists. Throughout the whole development of the life of prayer, we have seen a ligature of the powers of the soul, from the partial withdrawal from the world in the prayer of quietude, up to the point of ecstasy, when all its usual activity in relation to the surrounding world becomes impossible: it has to be Martha or Mary. But from now on, we find Martha and Mary living together in harmony. Interior union with God is not hindered by the activity of Martha, and vice versa.

There are two levels of conscience, simultaneously occupied each with its own object, natural or supernatural, without hampering one another. This is the secret of the activity of the great saints, which is so fruitful spiritually: it flows from the source, without leaving it. Everything in the saints is unity, and they have tremendous strength to act – if God calls them to do so – and to suffer.

The soul is not exempt from temptations and trials, which are usually of short duration; but it is not deeply affected by them. The great peace in the depths of the heart is not troubled, even when the surface is tossed by the storm. “My peace I leave with you” (John 14:27).

Let us not forget that, except for a few moments on Mount Tabor, Christ offered us the humble, hidden image of the Servant. He renounced, precisely, the outward show of glory that so attracts our ambivalent desires. The light of a soul transformed by grace often dwells in a humanity which seems quite ordinary, sometimes even in one that is heavily burdened, always in one that is simple. Christian perfection does not lie in the Greek ideal of an earthly fulfillment of all one’s human potential; its aim is the plenitude of charity, which, in a world marked by sin, can take the form of sacrifice and suffering assumed in a consent of faith, and of which the fulfillment is on the other side of death, in eternal life.

Transforming Union

Transforming Union or possessing the fullness of Christ is something most of us will never experience in this lifetime. But certainly we’re familiar with stories of saints and mystics who have been there. But what is this transforming union? Why do so few experience it? Is it available to everyone? A Carthusian writer tackles this subject. This is part one of what will likely be a two-part post.

“My Beloved is mine, and I am His” (Song of Songs 2:16).

Transforming union is the full development on earth of sanctifying grace, that is, the fullness of the life of Christ within us. Sadly, it is a state which is rarely reached, for it implies a plentitude of love. But, however far we may be from that state, we should know something about it, so as to be able to distinguish what is only transitory in the spiritual life, from that which pertains to its perfection.

There is one last trial, a testing of love, in which the soul, intensely drawn to the One it loves, aspires with its whole being to heavenly union. It is the desire to die, to break the chains of this life. If the Lord inspires this desire in the soul, it is in order to fulfill it, but in an unexpected way, by giving the grace of transforming union.

Sanctifying grace is the free gift of alliance contracted by God with each one of us, in the Church. It consists in the gift of the Holy Spirit Who communicates divine life to us: the knowledge and love which enable us to know and love God in an intimate exchange of personal friendship. He says to each of us, “I am calling you and you are My friend.” And His Creator Word establishes us in a sort of equality with Him, of friend to Friend (or, in other words, makes us share in the divine nature). The life of prayer is all about learning to live this friendship. We have to be gradually raised to this dignity, purified, and slowly transformed, until our will is one with the will of the Lord and our heart belongs totally to Him. Love is at the heart of transforming union, it is the substance of it. The phenomena which usually manifest this state are secondary, and in some cases are quite hidden, or even absent.

The life of grace becomes conscious. God is experienced not only as the objects of our acts of faith, hope and love, but as the interior source, the indwelling co-principle, of these acts. The sap of divine life flows in our faculties.

The term “spiritual marriage” is sometimes used to indicate this fusion of two lives: an intimate and stable union, based on the total, mutual gift of love between two persons, a gift with implications of rights and duties. “All that is Mine is yours, and all that is yours is Mine” (John 17:10).

The soul shares in the knowledge of God. It is given a mysterious knowledge, both luminous and obscure, by the love poured into it by the Holy Spirit. Love is itself a form of knowledge that goes further than any knowledge that can be formulated in images or ideas. It plunges into the infinite reality of divine life. The Spirit is the flame of love in the soul, a brightly burning flame.

There is no longer any distance. God communicates Himself to the soul by substantial touches, that is, directly, substance to substance, without passing by the faculties. Plunged into the divine fire, the soul becomes fire. Immersed in the vast sea, the drop of water becomes sea. Traversed by light, the pane of glass becomes light, without however ceasing to be what it is. No image can adequately express the reality. The saints and great mystics of all times have tried to speak of it, but this irruption of infinite life into the tiny space of a human soul is beyond words; do we not however, each one of us, recognize in this, in some obscure way, our deepest desire? How strange. But not so strange really, for our heart is made for You, Lord.

This union is the source of special insights on God and on the mysteries of the faith: sparks from the furnace at the center, that the intelligence receives by way of intuitive knowledge. The faculties no longer operate in their usual way, which is more or less discursive, but in the mode of the Holy Spirit acting through the gifts of intelligence and wisdom.

In this state, there is an habitual vision of the presence of God in the center of the soul, which is perceived, without mediation, as the dwelling of God. The higher faculties are drawn passively and imperiously towards the deep center of the soul where God dwells. They are plunged into this source of life, and emerge from it transformed, to act at the exterior. The activity of the soul flows from this deep center, the initiative comes from the interior and not from outside, from the Spirit and not from the world. This is why it is so important for the person of prayer to be able to enter into the interior depths of his or her soul, to remain there habitually, and to act from that center.

The soul often possesses habitually, but with differing degrees of intensity, the vision of the Holy Trinity, or of the divine nature. This is the highest point of spiritual illumination, but paradoxically is sometimes called “the Great Darkness,” for in drawing nearer, God reveals Himself to be supreme mystery, and totally different.

Whether this vision concerns the divine Persons or their unique nature, seems to depend on the religious sensitivity of the soul and the path followed. There is an Eastern tradition particularly directed towards experience of the divine nature, without however excluding, or regarding as secondary, loving intimacy with the Persons of the Holy Trinity. But at this level of mystical experience, however necessary the concepts of nature and person may be, they are very inadequate with regard to the incandescent reality of the union of God.

Saint Hugh of Lincoln

Today on the Carthusian calendar is the feast of Saint Hugh of Lincoln. Here’s an excerpt from Magna Vita Sancti Hugonis by Adam of Eynsham.

Hugh was a canon of Villarbenoit in Dauphine where he had entered as a youth. The potential qualities of saint and scholar were recognized in the boy and fostered by his tutor. With all his longing for holy orders Hugh shrank from promotion. The desire to be a priest was tempered by the sense of utter unworthiness.

At first sight Hugh was in love with the monastery of La Grande Chartreuse in its high solitude of the Dauphine Alps. It was here he would dwell, swiftly his mind was made up. The prior of Villarbenoit on the day he paid a visit to La Grande Chartreuse, taking Hugh with him for company, brought sorrow upon himself. For Hugh seeing the place was filled with rapture and an immediate resolve. Amazing and wonderful was this great monastery in the very heart of the mountains; amazing and wonderful this place, no other than the house of God and gate of heaven. It was the spirit of the place that thrilled him and held him captive.

On that first visit Hugh, young as he was, recognized the powerful charm of the Carthusian life. The solitude that is the essence of the Carthusian rule is tempered by the fact that the life is communal.

Youthful enthusiasm an excellent thing in itself is no evidence of religious vocation. Besides, it is written in the Carthusian constitutions that the severity of the Carthusian life must be set out plainly to all who seek admission. And then he was so young, this canon from the priory of Villarbenoit, and he looked delicate.

During that visit Hugh confided his hopes of becoming a Carthusian to others than the prior, and these so far from shaking their head at the presumption highly approved. They did more, they promised to back him up, urged him to stick to his purpose, did all they could to welcome him to the charterhouse.

Here was a horrible dilemma. That God had called him to the Carthusian life Hugh was convinced ; at the same time how could he resist the prayer of the dear old man who had been to him not only a foster-father but his superior, to whom he had promised obedience? His soul was torn and perplexed. His feelings counseled surrender. Hugh took the vow. While the prior lived he would not leave him.

And then having taken this oath to stay with the canons Hugh realized that it was a mistake, an oath that ought not to have been taken. He had acted in good faith; for the moment it had seemed that it was God's will he should stay at the priory. But it was clear he must not stay.

Once convinced that this oath taken under stress need not be kept, an oath which God did not desire to be kept, Hugh put his affairs at the priory in order and then without saying a word went quietly off to La Grande Chartreuse. He was welcomed joyfully and with the greatest kindness.

For sixteen years did Saint Hugh live at La Grande Chartreuse; the first ten in the uninterrupted solitude his soul desired. Prayer is the chief business: common prayer in the church, private prayer in the quiet of the hermit's cell. What finer life could Hugh, a man of prayer and of study, desire than this steady progress through the years?

With prayer went the training in obedience, poverty and chastity. La Grande Chartreuse trained men to be of strong character, of resolute will. The practice of obedience developed the talent to rule and command the obedience of others. In Hugh the daily exercise in humility produced a courage so robust and fearless that no room was left for subservience to the princes of this world.

The devil has his own methods for projecting evil, and unabashed by failure, aims to reduce the solitary to the mortifying humiliation of confessing partial surrender. In the case of Hugh the Carthusian the devil had no success at all. The torture of an imagination that day and night prompted the flesh to revolt, inviting a rush of wild rebellious feelings, threatening destruction to the health of the soul, had to be endured. Hugh did endure it; but held out stubbornly against any consent of the will to the pictures presented in the mind; refused flatly any recognition of the suggestions that surged so furiously within. They were not his, these vile intrusions of the devil; they did not belong to him, these loathsome pictures of the obscene. He would never receive them or own them. Hugh unflinching held to his course, answering temptation with prayer.

For Hugh came the end of the life of contemplation, of detachment from the world, the life of prayer and study he had set his heart upon. The business of the monastery was in his hands; the employment of servants on the monastery lands; the reception of visitors the procurator was guest master and would himself take guests to their appointed quarters.

Obedience does not come readily or easily to men like the twelfth-century lay brothers; but they rallied to Hugh, the new procurator. They said of him that he brought peace to their souls. Rare characters these lay brothers. Of iron will and gentleness of heart they walked with God and were without fear of man.

Hugh, later, by the order of the bishop of Grenoble became the prior of Witham. Hugh was now forty and prior of Witham, where as yet no priory stood, where everything remained to be done. He at once faced the situation and set about the work. The years of ordered discipline, the fine training in obedience left no room for fretful indulgence in regret or feeling of disappointment ; pride could not whisper a protest against the personal discomfiture, nor self-pity allow a sense of irritation at the depressing environment; for pride in Hugh, the Carthusian, there was none, and of self-pity he was ignorant. Banished from La Grande Chartreuse to this desolate spot in Somerset, the prior of Witham neither hesitated nor looked back.

Far too wise to seek the burden of responsibility shrinking in distress of mind every time it was forced upon him Hugh, once the burden was upon him, would never surrender the responsibility until authority sanctioned release. Good work prospered at Witham, the monastery walls rose steadily. The Carthusian life of prayer deepened with the years. In the few short hours given to sleep by the prior it was said by those who had business to come near him that they often heard him murmur Amen, amen while he slept, as though he were still at prayer.

Five years did Hugh rule Witham charterhouse as prior. The monastery was not completed when he was called to be bishop of Lincoln, but the greater part was built, and of stone that it might endure. He warned the monks against wooden structures that were liable to catch fire. And now, Anno Domini 1186, king Henry knew the man he must have for bishop of Lincoln his friend Dom Hugh, the Carthusian prior of Witham. Every year since the coming of Hugh to England the regard and affection of the king for his Carthusian friend had increased. On a rough crossing from Normandy to England when it seemed that the king and all his ships might be lost Henry had called on the mercy of God to heed the prayers of 'my Carthusian Hugh' in his cell at Witham or chanting the divine office with his brethren, and had come safely to land.

A hermit to rule! Dreadful thought! How could a monk trained to solitude manage the vast diocese of Lincoln? The canons were neither irreligious nor worldly beyond their fellows, but their hearts were dismayed and they trembled in mind at the prospect of this recluse, an austere Carthusian, a stranger to all their ways, coming into their midst. In the end a unanimous vote was given by the canons for the prior of Witham and messengers from the canons were sent to the priory with letters from the king and the archbishop announcing the result of the election, and calling on Hugh to present himself at court in order that a date might be fixed for consecration to the see of Lincoln.

On Saint Matthew's Day, September 21, 1186, was Saint Hugh consecrated, in the chapel of Saint Catherine in Westminster Abbey. All the vestments and ornaments that it was necessary for the bishop to put on, from the miter on his head to the sandals that covered his feet, were at Hugh's request of the simplest and plainest material.

Saint Hugh could command both respect and affection. His clergy loved him and revered him. His displeasure frightened people. Rarely was the bishop moved to anger, but when he saw one of his lay servants ill-treating a child the wrath of Saint Hugh exploded and he soundly cuffed that offending servant. Over and over again he had made it known to his attendants that he would not have children harshly treated or roughly handled, and since neither rebuke nor reprimand were effective, Saint Hugh came down heavily on the man who dared misuse one of God's little ones. In the diocese of Lincoln and in his own cathedral the bishop faced the fury of the anti-Jewish mob; in God's name he demanded an end to the wickedness, and would not be denied. Saint Hugh was most careful that the business of his court should be in every way worthily conducted; since that business was the administration of justice, the justice of God. Heavily the responsibilities of office bore upon him; and the cares and anxieties of his bishopric were at times so oppressive that more than once Saint Hugh begged the pope to let him return to the peace of the Carthusian cloister, to resign his See as other Carthusian bishops had been allowed to do. The Carthusian training and discipline prevailed. Modified the rule must be; the spirit of the sons of Saint Bruno was unquenched in the years when Hugh was bishop of Lincoln. There was no internal relaxation in the crowded hours. In his spare diet which required total abstinence from flesh-meat the only concession was an additional ration of fish. To others the bishop's hospitality supplied a generous table at all times. The hair shirt was retained, the white habit of the order was worn save when occasion demanded the official and ceremonial vestments. The bishop clung with devotion to the daily singing of the divine office.

Becoming ill, Saint Hugh, with fast unbroken, went to church at Dover and there said Mass. It was the last time he was to celebrate the holy mysteries, to offer the holy sacrifice. For two months more the flame of life flickered.

Saint Matthew's Day, September 21, was the anniversary of his consecration as a bishop and Saint Hugh decided that he must now receive the viaticum and be anointed with the oil of the sick. So after making a general confession of all his sins from boyhood the holy Eucharist was brought to him. St Hugh rose up from bed and knelt down to adore his Lord. The sacred Host was placed upon his lips. A short time after he was anointed. Strengthened by the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, Saint Hugh said cheerfully to his attendants: 'Physicians and diseases may now do their worst with me, for I care little for either of them. God Himself has come to me; I trusted to Him and I have received Him. I will hold Him and cleave to Him for ever.'

The clergy were saying Compline when the change in the bishop's countenance told them that the end was near. Saint Hugh made a sign and very tenderly his chaplains lifted the worn-out body and placed it on the ashes above the bare ground. Peacefully and quietly the bishop gave up his soul to God. It was just when they had reached Nunc Dimittis servum tuum Domine that he died, Thursday, November 16, A.D. 1200.

Our Lady Visits Purgatory

Many of the giants of our faith had a devotion to the Holy Souls. From Saint Faustina’s account in her diary, it sure sounds like the souls in purgatory are dependent upon our prayers. They need us now and we’ll surely need them later. Pray for the Holy Souls! Here’s what Saint Faustina wrote.

I asked the Lord who… I should pray for. Jesus said that on the following night He would let me know for whom I should pray. The next night I saw my Guardian Angel, who ordered me to follow him. In a moment I was in a misty place full of fire in which there was a great crowd of suffering souls. They were praying fervently, but to no avail, for themselves; only we can come to their aid. The flames which were burning them did not touch me at all. My Guardian Angel did not leave me for an instant.

I asked these souls what their greatest suffering was. They answered me in one voice that their greatest torment was longing for God.

I saw our Lady visiting the souls in Purgatory. The souls called her the Star of the Sea. She brings them refreshment.

I wanted to talk with them some more, but my Guardian Angel beckoned me to leave. We went out of that prison of suffering. I heard an interior voice which said, "My mercy does not want this, but justice demands it." Since that time, I am in closer communion with the suffering souls.

It’s interesting that their prayers for themselves are “to no avail”… it is our prayers that relieve their sufferings. This clearly delineates our connectedness as the Body of Christ. With all our prejudices, hang-ups, worldly enticements and judgments, it is a lesson we struggle so hard to embrace and practice in this life. Rampant secularism has diminished our culture's "longing for God."

Keep in mind that at Fatima our Lady revealed to us the story of a young girl who will remain in purgatory until the end of time. Our Blessed Mother isn't using scare tactics. She is embracing her children, pleading with them that Jesus is the only way.

Reverential Love begins with Contemplation

One must contemplate the greatness of God in order to understand and experience His love, to know the Lord, the supreme Master, in order to love the Father unchanging and deep, which become neither familiarity nor irreverence. The liveliest transports of love are born of these thoughts: this goodness so compassionate is that of the infinite Being; that love, that understanding, those exchanges of love, that life with God and in Him – He alone can give them. Without Him, we should possess nothing; without Him we should do nothing.

Praise does not exclude petition. God wants to be praised. He wants that, in the face of His greatness, the cry of the soul should be one of admiration. But He loves also that we should realize our weakness, and tell Him our needs. In the last resort, the greatest thing about Him is His goodness. He is the good God: the Being Who gives Himself, communicates Himself, pours out on others, and that in an unlimited degree, His treasures and His joy.

In begging Him for further favors, we thereby recognize those He has already given us. To appeal to His goodness is the way to the Divine Heart.

In order to be touched by the sufferings of others, we must first of all overcome our own self-love, and take our passions in hand.

The heart that shows mercy, which has pity for all frailty and the generosity to come to its aid, will experience a peace which does not change, a calm without cloud – almost, one might say, a participation in the divine unchangeableness.

The greatest joy, if it can come to an end, is not perfect joy. The fear of losing it is a perpetual menace, and casts thereon its shadow. The joy of the just knows not this shadow; its region is beyond all passing clouds, for its source is God, Who knows no change.

It is in God that the just live. Their abode is in the Divine Mind. They dwell there continuously. They see God as an infinitely loving Father in the depth of their soul. Their faith reveals that Presence and recalls to them that love. They believe that at every instant this Father is communicating to them His own Spirit, His own life. They turn away from all created things in order to welcome Him. They make every effort to turn to the Father, even as the Father is unceasingly turned towards them. They place their mind in God’s Mind, and in that union find a stability which is even now a foretaste of eternal life.

At these heights evil does not touch them. They are in God; they are in their supreme Good. Others may speak of them, think of them, do what they will with them: their soul dominates and despises these vain attacks of a world which no longer counts with them. They leave the creature – inviting him to come out of himself – for the Creator, Who bids them be still and dwell with Him in His Heart. That place where now they love to dwell is a place to which neither the world nor the devil has access. It is the abode of the Father, the innermost sanctuary where the Father gives Himself to those who seek Him alone. It is the sacred retreat, where the life of heaven already begins to take form here below.

Sacrifice and renunciation allow us to give ourselves to God. They sever the human and created ties which hold back the soul. They set the soul free and permit it to wing its way towards those high regions where we find peace.

~Dom Augustin Guillerand~

The Life of Saint Martin of Tours

For this day’s Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours, here’s an excerpt from “The Life of Saint Martin” by the ancient Christian writer, Sulpicius Severus. In this particular excerpt, Saint Martin’s compassion is evident. Also very evident is Martin’s monastic/eremitic spirit: living in a cell, his mind always focused on heaven, his fasting and abstinence, and an interior life that has him always engaged in the service of God. This is a very inspiring piece for anyone who is serious about their Christian journey.

Martin was born at Sabaria in Hungary but was educated at Pavia in Italy. His pagan parents were of no mean rank: his father was at first simply a soldier but became a military tribune. The youthful Martin followed a military career, serving on horseback in the Imperial Guard under the Emperor Constantine, and then under Julius. This, however, was not done of his own free will, because since his earliest years, this noble youth aspired to serve God; in fact, when he was ten years old, despite family resistance, he sought refuge in the Church and asked to become a catechumen. Soon afterwards, he wanted to devote himself entirely to God’s work and wished to live in the desert; and he would have followed up on that burning desire if the weakness of his twelve years of age had not prevented him. His heart, however, being always engaged in matters of hermitages or the Church, always meditated on in his boyish years what he afterwards accomplished.

One winter’s day, more severe than usual, so much that people were dying from the extreme cold, Martin, who was wearing only a cloak and military arms, happened to meet at the gate of the city of Amiens, a half-naked beggar. The poor fellow was begging those who passed by to take pity upon his misery, but all passed by him without notice. The man of God recognized that a being to whom others showed no pity, was, in that respect, left to him. Yet, what should he do? He had nothing except the cloak, for he had already parted with the rest of his garments for similar good works. Taking, therefore, his sword with which he was girt, he divided his cloak into two equal parts, and gave one part to the poor man, while he again clothed himself with the remainder. Some of the bystanders mocked him, finding it ridiculous that he stood out as but partly dressed. Many, however, who were of sounder understanding, groaned deeply because they themselves had done nothing similar; they could have clothed the poor man without reducing themselves to nakedness. The next night, when Martin was asleep, Christ appeared to him dressed in that part of his cloak with which he had dressed the poor man. As he contemplated the Lord with the greatest attention, the saint recognized the clothes Jesus was wearing. Then he heard Him cry out loudly to the multitude of angels standing round: “Martin, a simple catechumen, clothed Me with this robe.”

After leaving the military, Martin went to Saint Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, who even then was a recognized authority in theology, and spent some time with him. Now, this same Hilary, having instituted him in the office of the diaconate, endeavored still more closely to attach him to himself, and to bind him by leading him to take part in the service of God, but Martin repeatedly refused, declaring that he was unworthy. The wise bishop felt that the only way to engage him would be to give him functions that were quite humiliating. He therefore appointed him to be an exorcist. The young man did not dare refuse this appointment, for fear that he might seem to have looked down upon it as somewhat humble.

Later, Martin was called upon to be the bishop of Tours. With perfect firmness, he remained the same as he had been before: the same humility of heart, and the same homeliness in his garments. He performed the duties of bishop with prestige and authority, without betraying the objects and virtues of a monk. For a time he lived in a cell adjacent to the church. Then, no longer able to bear the disturbance of so many visitors, he moved to a hermitage just outside of town. This was a retreat so remote that he enjoyed in it the solitude of a hermit. On one side, it was surrounded by a precipitous rock of a lofty mountain, while the river Loire had shut in the rest of the plain by a bay extending back for a little distance; and the place could be approached only by one, and that a very narrow passage. Martin occupied a cell constructed of wood, and also several brothers in the same manner. But the majority preferred to dig a shelter into the rock from the mountain above. There were altogether eighty disciples, who were being disciplined after the example of the saintly master.

The interior life of Martin, his daily conduct and his mind always bent upon the things of heaven, no discourse could adequately express. Mentioned would be his perseverance and self-mastery in abstinence and fasting, and his power in vigilance and prayer, along with the nights, as well as days, which were spent by him, while not a moment was separated from the service of God, either for indulging in ease, or engaging in business. In fact, he did not indulge either in food or sleep, except in so far as the necessities of nature required. Never did a single hour or moment pass in which he was not either actually engaged in prayer; or, if it happened that he was occupied with something else, still he never let his mind loose from prayer. In truth, just as it is the custom of blacksmiths, in the midst of their work to beat their own anvil as a sort of relief to the laborer, so Martin even when he appeared to be doing something else, was still engaged in prayer.

Blessed is the man in whom there was no guile -- judging no man, condemning no man, returning evil for evil to no man! His patience was such a strong armor against any offense. Even when he was chief priest, he allowed himself to be wronged by the lowest clerics with impunity; nor did he either remove them from the office on account of such conduct, or, as far as in him lay, repel them from a place in his affection. No one ever saw Martin angry, upset, distressed, or in the throes of laughter. He was always one and the same, his face radiant with the joy of heaven, seeming to belong to another world. Never was there any word on his lips but Christ, and never was there a feeling in his heart except piety, peace, and tender mercy. Frequently, too, he used to weep for the sins of those who showed themselves his revilers -- those who, as he led his retired and tranquil life, slandered him with poisoned tongue and a viper's mouth.

Martin had predicted long before the day in which he would die. When he suddenly felt the forces of the body leave him, he summoned the brothers and warned them of his impending death. Everyone was very much saddened and in tears, as if becoming one and saying: “Why do you abandon us Father? Why do you leave us desolate? If ravenous wolves attack the flock, who will defend us from their bites? To whom will you entrust the care of your disconsolate children?” Deeply moved, Martin turned to God: “Lord, if I am still necessary for Your people, I will not refuse the labor. Your will be done!”

O great man beyond words, not defeated by troubles, invincible in the face of death! He had no fear of dying. When the bystanders saw that, despite his great fever, he remained lying on his back, they besought him to change position to alleviate somewhat the pain. But Martin answered, “Brothers, rather let me look toward heaven than to earth so that my soul in its journey home may take a direct flight to the Lord.” Shortly before death he saw the evil spirit. “What do you want, horrible beast? You will find nothing in me that is yours!” With those words, he gave his soul to God.

Sancte Martine, ora pro nobis!