The Ideal Form of Virtue

The following is excerpted from Saint Ambrose’s treatise titled, ‘De Virginibus’. It is written for those living the life of virginity, with our Blessed Lady being presented as the perfect model. But this treatise goes far beyond that. It is also a wonderful reflection on the virtues of Mary, offering some gems for one's interior life. And there’s more: this treatise may also add to and enhance one’s meditations on the Holy Rosary, most especially the Joyful Mysteries. As the text itself proclaims, our Blessed Mother's life ‘is an education for all’. As we have now entered into the season of Advent, and the expectation of the Saviour, it seems fitting to re-visit the Annunciation and the important role of Our Lady in salvation history; and Saint Ambrose does that for us here.

Let Mary’s life for you be an image of virginity itself, as from a mirror, the shining model of chastity and the ideal form of virtue. Take, then, the existential life of Mary as an example, as the perfect model, showing you what you need to correct, and keep in you.

Mary was chosen by the Holy Spirit, who is visited by an angel, which is told by the evangelist. Why delay about details? How her parents loved her, strangers praised her, and her worthiness that the Son of God should be born of her.

When the angel entered, he found her at home, in the inner room, without company, that no one could distract her attention or disturb her. In fact, she did not even desire the company of women, who had the companionship of good thoughts. Indeed, she seemed so much less alone when she was alone, for how could she be alone, and how could she be isolated, who had with her so many books, so many archangels, so many prophets?

When the angel salutes Mary, she remains silent, but when addressed she answered. Initially, she feels troubled, but then promises to have done to her the words of the angel.

Scripture depicts Mary as modest towards her neighbours. She became even more humble when she realized she was chosen by God, and immediately goes to her cousin in a mountainous area. She did not go there to see the evidence adduced by the angel, because she had already believed in his prophecy. The sacred text says in fact: ‘Blessed are you who have believed’ (Saint Luke 1:45).

Mary remains with Elizabeth for three months. In such an interval of time, it is not faith that is being sought, but she shows kindness to her cousin. And this was after the child leapt for joy in Elizabeth when greeting the Mother of the Lord. Thus John expressed an affection that exceeds the natural rate. Many miraculous signs came one after another: the barren will give birth, a Virgin conceives, a mute regains his speech; there is the Adoration of the Magi, the expectation of Simeon, the stars gave notice. Mary, who is moved by the angel’s entrance, is not shaken by these miracles. The text says that she kept all these things in her heart (cf. Saint Luke 2:19).

Although the Mother of God, Mary wants to learn the precepts of the Lord God; and she who brought forth God yet desired to know God.

Every year she went to Jerusalem for the Passover with Joseph. Why do you go with him? For a virgin, modesty always accompanies all the virtues. It is so inseparable from virginity, that this cannot exist without that. Thus, Mary did not even go to the temple without the guardian of her modesty.

Mary shines in the true image of virginity. Her life alone is an education for all. There is a proverb which says: ‘If the author does not displease us, let us make trial of the production, that whoever desires the rewards of Mary may imitate the example’. How many virtues shine forth in one Virgin: the confidentiality of modesty, the emblem of faith, the service of devotion, the Virgin within the house, the companion for the ministry, the Mother at the temple.

What a triumph in the heavens, what a great joy of jubilant angels, when she is found worthy of living in heaven, after living a heavenly life in this world. Then Mary, with her timbrel, will stir up choirs of virgins who sing to the Lord, because they have crossed the seas of this world without suffering the storms. Then, each shall rejoice saying: I will go to the altar of God, to God Who makes my youth glad; and, I will offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay vows to the Most High.

Blessed Virgin, I will not hesitate to say that you have access to the true altar of God, for you yourself are the altar in which Christ is daily offered for the redemption of the body, which is the Church.

For if the virgin's body is a temple of God, what is her soul, which, the ashes, as it were, of the body being shaken off, once more uncovered by the hand of the Eternal Priest, exhales the vapour of the divine fire.

Blessed Virgin, you emit a fragrance through divine grace as gardens do through flowers, temples through religion, altars through the priest.

Consumed by Love

As yesterday was the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, I didn’t have the opportunity to post that yesterday was also on the Carthusian calendar the feast of Blessed Béatrice d’Ornacieux. At the very young age of thirteen she joined the Carthusian Order and became a nun of the Order at Parménie where her novice mistress was another well-known Carthusian, Marguerite d’Oingt.

Béatrice was subject to demonic torments and often was attacked with impure illusions and nightly fantasies which included seeing dangerous animals and hearing frightening sounds. Like anyone would do in these types of occurrences, she pleaded with God to be delivered from these attacks and even asked Him to be taken from this earth. Her prayers received a miraculous response with a Voice that said: “Receive the consolations that I give you and do not refuse the sufferings that I send you.” After that encounter she was able to completely surrender herself to the will of God.

Béatrice was intensely in love with Jesus Christ and lived a life of penance in order to follow Him in His sufferings. In response to her love, Jesus gave her the wonderful gift of possessing an intimate knowledge of Himself but she would, however, later experience the “dark night of the soul” in which she felt completely abandoned by the Lord. This caused her great suffering. After that period of refinement she once again regained full intimate union with Jesus, a union that would never again be interrupted.

In the year 1300, Béatrice was the foundress and Prioress of a new monastery at Eymeu where she continued to live in holiness until her death in 1309.

When the Carthusian Order gave up the monastery at Eymeu, Béatrice’s relics were moved to Parménie. An uprising of the Albigensians caused the nuns to flee Parménie. Shortly after, the monastery was burned down and Béatrice’s relics were lost. In the seventeenth century her relics were found and in the year 1697 pronounced authentic by a Cardinal of that region. Later, in the year 1839 the relics were once again inspected by the Bishop of Grenoble and thirty years later in 1869 Pope Pius IX gave permission for her feast to be celebrated by the Carthusian Order.

Nothing Should Cause You Joy Except God

Prepare yourself to live with the wicked, but with an uncorrupted mind: this is angelic. What glory is there in doing this with the saints? He who loves all will be saved without doubt. But he who is loved by all will not on that score be saved. Just as hatred for you keeps all men from life, so your hatred for them blocks your way. Therefore it is expedient for you to love all men; they too profit from loving you. Prosperity is a snare. The knife that cuts this snare is adversity. A prison for one's love of God is prosperity; the battering-ram for breaking down this prison is adversity. A single fever takes away all the things against which you are fighting, namely, the delights of the five senses. What remains, therefore, but to give thanks to God for the victories granted? (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:57). But you, on the contrary, are looking for something to which you may succumb, hating liberty.

What hope is there if you put yourself not recking into the snares and nets of the enemy, if you not only do not avoid them, but even freely embrace them and expose yourself to them? You flee from these to those; you think these a remedy, those a comfort; you desire them, and do not bear their absence.

Adversity teaches one to desire peace; but in your blindness you desire that which, as long as you love and desire it, is quite impossible, namely, to have peace. In joy receive the truth, as the Lord; bear with a lie peacefully, or else fix the charge. You are unaware that you are bound, and you do not resist your chains, like a dog.

Consider two experiences, filling and voiding. What makes you happier, what you experience by the latter or by the former? The former burdens you with useless things the latter unburdens. Look well at what each profits. To have experienced something, this is to have devoured it all. Nothing further remains to be hoped for. So it is in all sensual things. See, then, what happiness all such things, whether in actuality or in hope, have effected in you; and judge accordingly to future things. Reflect, I say, that pleasures belong to the past, and judge that future ones will too. What you hope for will all pass away. And what have you after them? Love and hope for such a thing as will not pass away.

Absolutely nothing in you or in another should cause you joy, except God. While the shapes and bodily forms, by whose clinging you are soiled, perish -- as do syllables at the appointed beats in God's song -- you are in great distress. For the rust which had accumulated is being, scraped off.

Adversity says to you: ‘You try to get me to go. This, should you strongly wish it, you most certainly cannot prevent; for I cannot stay when the Lord leads the song. I, you see, am a syllable’.

~ Meditations of Guigo, Prior of the Charterhouse ~

The Fullness of the Life of Christ Within Us

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.

‘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 plenitude 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 fulfil 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’ (Saint 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 centre, 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 centre of the soul, which is perceived, without mediation, as the dwelling of God. The higher faculties are drawn passively and imperiously towards the deep centre 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 centre, 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 centre.

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.

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 centre, 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 marvellous 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 marvellously 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’ (Saint 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 fulfilment 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 fulfilment is on the other side of death, in eternal life.

Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, Universorum Regis

First Reading, 2 Samuel 5:1-3
The Solemnity of Christ the King was instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quas Primas. It was originally celebrated on the last Sunday of October, immediately preceding the Solemnity of All Saints. The revision of the liturgical calendar placed it at the final Sunday in Ordinary Time. In this First Reading we read about the crowning of David as king of Israel. He was God's choice. And it is from his lineage that the Messiah would come. In Saint Matthew's Gospel, Jesus Christ is listed as ‘the son of David, the son of Abraham’ (Saint Matthew 1:1). David's kingship has its limitations as he is crowned to be the shepherd and commander of Israel. Jesus Christ's Crown is not a result of victory over flesh and blood, but of victory over the mystery of evil which seeks the ruination of souls. In an incredible act of love God became Man to redeem sinful humanity; and because of our sinful ways, all we could do was crown Him with thorns. Christ's love is not only beyond the means of human expression, but also logically it doesn't make sense: the God-Man Who was crowned with thorns is offering us who continue to crown Him with thorns by our sins, eternal glory. As our Lord says: ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts; nor your ways My ways’ (Isaiah 55:8).

Second Reading, Colossians 1:12-20
In this Reading there is a spirit of gratitude to Almighty God for the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. The ‘holy ones in light’ represents all the supernatural benefits of salvation including God Himself Who is the Source of all benefits. God the Father has delivered us from the adversary and transferred us to the perfect, well-ordered Kingdom of His beloved Son. We have been liberated from a state of guilt. Jesus ‘is the Image of the invisible God’. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reads: ‘By His revelation, the invisible God, from the fullness of His love, addresses men as His friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into His own company’ (CCC 142). Saint Thomas Aquinas relates ‘image’ with ‘prototype’ and says that image has three qualities at the same time:
It must have a likeness with the original prototype.
It must be derived from the prototype.
It must belong to the same species as the prototype.
This explanation of ‘image’ delineates that mere likeness alone would not be sufficient. A photograph, for example, is a likeness but it is not an image in the sense that is applied here. By Saint Paul writing that Jesus is the Image of the invisible God, he most certainly means God the Father. Therefore, Christ is the Image of God the Father because He exemplifies the Father. Saint John Damascene explains that image in itself does not demand equality with the original model, but we know that Christ, the Image, is identical and equal to the Father in every way. The only difference is that Jesus is begotten. Saint Paul continues this letter by writing that Christ is ‘the firstborn of all creation’. This is not a reference to being born of the Virgin Mary. Paul's meaning is that Jesus was before all creatures, proceeding from all eternity from the Father. Firstborn, then, as it is applied here is a metaphor for pre-existence before creation. Christ is Supreme, eternal and the final revelation of God because ‘all things were created through Him and for Him’. He is the reason and cause of all things and yet as our Creator He does not distance Himself from us, but instead, He wishes to have communion with us by means of His boundless love. Christ is ‘Head of the Body, the Church’, and yet His Sovereignty over the members does not deter Him from a close and intense union with them. He is ‘the firstborn from the dead’ in the sense that He is the first to rise to a New Life and in His glorious Triumph He is the cause of our resurrection. ‘For in Him all the fullness was pleased to dwell’. Generally, ‘fullness’ is synonymous with ‘totality’. In this case, however, ‘all the fullness’ more appropriately means ‘all existence’. Being reconciled to God through Christ with those on earth primarily means the human race; but what does Paul mean by reconciliation with those in heaven? Saint John Chrysostom defines those in heaven as angels. This doesn't mean, however, that Christ sacrificed Himself for angels. Angels are totally and unequivocally devoted to the cause and glory of Almighty God. This suggests, then, that before Christ's redeeming Sacrifice, the angels were at enmity with the human race because our sins separated us from God. Christ put an end to this division by restoring us to God's favour ‘through the Blood of His Cross’.

Gospel, Saint Luke 23:35-43
The Solemnity of Christ the King kicks off the final week of Ordinary Time; and perhaps this scene in the Gospel might remind you more of Holy Week than the celebration of Jesus Christ as King. But that's just it! Christ is no ordinary King. It is usually the king's loyal subjects who are dying on the battlefield to save the life of the king. Here, the King is dying for the life of His subjects, who just happen to be sinners and therefore not all that loyal. In the biblical days, mockery aimed at the king could very well mean death for the mocker. Here, mockery is aimed at the King with statements like: ‘He saved others, let Him save Himself if He is the chosen One, the Christ of God’ - and – ‘If You are King of the Jews, save Yourself’. In this case, not only will the mockers not be executed, but the King is being executed to save the lives of those who are like these mockers - in other words, sinners. Could Christ have come down from the Cross? Absolutely! Then why didn't He? It was not the nails that held Him to the Cross. Rather, it was His love for humanity collectively and His love for each and every one of us individually. He sacrificed Himself to defeat an enemy that we, left to ourselves, would never be able to overcome - death. Earthly kings have servants; our heavenly King, however, was a Servant. Earthly kings sit on a throne in all their glory - that is until they are overtaken or deceased. Our heavenly King also sits on a Throne, but in eternal glory; and what really makes our heavenly King so special beyond human logic is that He has secured eternal glory for His people, sinners that we are. It seems fitting to reiterate what was written in the First Reading's commentary: ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts; nor your ways My ways’ (Isaiah 55:8). Who really understands this immeasurable love freely given by Love Himself? A wonderful sense of hope is given to us in this Gospel because Jesus promises Paradise to the repentant criminal. Something else in this scene could also leave one with a sense of hope which perhaps isn't as strong as the former but nevertheless does shed at the very least a dimmer ray of hope. The repentant criminal reminds the reviling criminal – and really all of us - of the condemnation we could be subject to. What does the reviling criminal see when he looks at Jesus after hearing that promise of Paradise given to the repentant criminal? Does He see that Divine Love which cannot be explained by mere words? Does He see hope for himself even after he tempted God? What we do know is that Jesus does not condemn him in this Gospel scene. At the funeral of Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, Victoria Petrovna, the wife of Brezhnev, traced the Sign of the Cross on her husband's chest as the casket was about to be closed to begin the state funeral service. This was quite remarkable for an empire that embraced the principles of atheistic socialism. But Victoria Petrovna held fast to that virtue of hope. She trusted that a boundless God could produce redemptive grace that also knew no bounds. Original sin dealt us a nasty blow. We want the bad guy to get what he deserves. But the kind of love that we operate with has boundaries on all sides; and we're quite good at deciding for ourselves who should reside within those boundaries. But making God number One in our lives and trying to grow closer to Him by means of persistent efforts at climbing the often rugged terrain of the spiritual mountain could indeed begin to punch holes into those boundary walls. It's quite natural from a human perspective to assume that the criminal pretty much made his reservations for hell by reviling Jesus. On the other hand, what he witnessed in the exchange between Jesus and the repentant criminal may have triggered the beginning of his own conversion. And since Jesus doesn't even so much as lecture this man in this scene, could it be because our Omniscient God could see changes for the better awaiting this man – even if it would come at his last moment of breath?

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.

Attend to a Continual and Internal Conversation

Seek to obtain by prayer whatever is necessary for you, saying: I fly unto You for help; teach me to do Your will, because You are my God. Do not leave me O my God, and do not depart from me; neither despise me Who are the God of my salvation. Incline Yourself to help me, O Lord, the God of my safety. Behold, I desire to return unto You, draw me after You, and never allow me again to be to be separated or withdrawn from You.

Hearken now to which I gave in commandment to one of My servants long ago, and endeavour also to fulfil it. I said unto him:

Use ever silence in thy tongue,
And have compunction in thy mind;
Be humble, courteous, meek, and mild,
If thou in Me wilt comfort find.

The same words in the same form do I speak unto you, having made it in the true measure of a verse, although you shall have less need of a measure to direct you when you come to this perfection. But I do not now deliver it unto you, as framed in measure to please your ears, but as a sovereign medicine to cure your soul. I have comprehended all those things which are necessary for you, briefly in this verse, that you may more easily retain them in your memory, and more often meditate upon them in your mind. For My will is, that you should altogether apply your endeavour to have a holy compunction for your sins, and that leaving all other business aside, you should only attend to a continual and internal conversation, and remaining weaned from all other pleasures, to be recollected into your own self, and so to continue always free from any distraction or perturbation whatsoever. Be silent in your tongue, and pure from filthiness in your heart. Be humble and meek, and remember to show yourself both courteous and gentle in all your behaviour.

~ Alloquia Iesu Christi ad Animam Fidelem, by Lanspergius ~