CHAPTER 10:
Catechism on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
ALL GOOD WORKS
together are not of equal value with the sacrifice of the Mass, because they
are the works of men, and the holy Mass is the work of God. Martyrdom is
nothing in comparison; it is the sacrifice that man makes of his life to God;
the Mass is the sacrifice that God makes to man of His Body and of His Blood. Oh,
how great is a priest! if he understood himself he
would die. . . . God obeys him; he speaks two words, and Our Lord comes down
from Heaven at his voice, and shuts Himself up in a little Host. God looks upon
the altar. "That is My well-beloved Son, " He
says, "in whom I am well-pleased. " He can refuse nothing to the
merits of the offering of this Victim. If we had faith, we should see God
hidden in the priest like a light behind a glass, like wine mingled with water.
After the
Consecration, when I hold in my hands the most holy Body of Our Lord, and when
I am in discouragement, seeing myself worthy of nothing but Hell, I say to
myself, "Ah, if I could at least take Him with me! Hell would be sweet
with Him; I could be content to remain suffering there for all eternity, if we
were together. But then there would be no more Hell; the flames of love would
extinguish those of justice. " How beautiful it
is. After the Consecration, the good God is there as He is in Heaven. If man
well understood this mystery, he would die of love. God spares us because of
our weakness. A priest once, after the Consecration, had some little doubt
whether his few words could have made Our Lord descend upon the Altar; at the
same moment he saw the Host all red, and the corporal tinged with blood.
If someone
said to us, "At such an hour a dead person is to be raised to life, " we should run very quickly to see it. But is not
the Consecration, which changes bread and wine into the Body and Blood of God,
a much greater miracle than to raise a dead person to life? We ought always to
devote at least a quarter of an hour to preparing ourselves to hear Mass well;
we ought to annihilate ourselves before God, after the example of His profound
annihilation in the Sacrament of the Eucharist; and we should make our
examination of conscience, for we must be in a state of grace to be able to
assist properly at Mass. If we knew the value of the holy Sacrifice of the
Mass, or rather if we had faith, we should be much more zealous to assist at
it.
My children,
you remember the story I have told you already of that holy priest who was
praying for his friend; God had, it appears, made known to him that he was in
Purgatory; it came into his mind that he could do nothing better than to offer
the holy Sacrifice of the Mass for his soul. When he came to the moment of
Consecration, he took the Host in his hands and said, "O Holy and Eternal
Father, let us make an exchange. Thou hast the soul of my friend
who is in Purgatory, and I have the Body of Thy Son, Who is in my hands; well,
do Thou deliver my friend, and I offer Thee Thy Son, with all the merits of His
Death and Passion. " In fact, at the moment of
the elevation, he saw the soul of his friend rising to Heaven, all radiant with
glory. Well, my children, when we want to obtain anything from the good God,
let us do the same; after Holy Communion, let us offer Him His well-beloved
Son, with all the merits of His death and His Passion. He will not be able to
refuse us anything.
CHAPTER 11:
Catechism on the Real Presence
OUR LORD is
hidden there, waiting for us to come and visit Him, and make our request to
Him. See how good He is! He accommodates Himself to our weakness. In Heaven,
where we shall be glorious and triumphant, we shall see him in all His glory.
If He had presented Himself before us in that glory now, we should not have
dared to approach Him; but He hides Himself, like a person in a prison, who
might say to us, "You do not see me, but that is no matter; ask of me all
you wish and I will grant it. " He is there in the Sacrament of His love,
sighing and interceding incessantly with His Father for sinners. To what
outrages does He not expose Himself, that He may
remain in the midst of us! He is there to console us; and therefore we ought
often to visit Him. How pleasing to Him is the short quarter of an hour that we
steal from our occupations, from something of no use, to come and pray to Him,
to visit Him, to console Him for all the outrages He receives! When He sees pure
souls coming eagerly to Him, He smiles upon them. They come with that
simplicity which pleases Him so much, to ask His pardon for all sinners, for
the outrages of so many ungrateful men. What happiness do we not feel in the
presence of God, when we find ourselves alone at His feet before the holy
tabernacles! "Come, my soul, redouble thy fervour;
thou art alone adoring thy God. His eyes rest upon
thee alone. " This good Saviour
is so full of love for us that He seeks us out everywhere.
Ah! if we had the eyes of angels with which to see Our Lord
Jesus Christ, who is here present on this altar, and who is looking at us, how
we should love Him! We should never more wish to part from Him. We should wish
to remain always at His feet; it would be a foretaste of Heaven: all else would become insipid to us. But see,
it is faith we want. We are poor blind people; we have a mist before our eyes.
Faith alone can dispel this mist. Presently, my children, when I shall hold Our
Lord in my hands, when the good God blesses you, ask Him then to open the eyes
of your heart; say to Him like the blind man of Jericho, "O Lord, make me
to see!" If you say to Him sincerely, "Make me to see!" you will
certainly obtain what you desire, because He wishes nothing but your happiness.
He has His hands full of graces, seeking to whom to distribute them; Alas! and no one will have them. . . . Oh, indifference! Oh,
ingratitude! My children, we are most unhappy that we do not understand these
things! We shall understand them well one day; but it will then be too late!
Our Lord is
there as a Victim; and a prayer that is very pleasing to God is to ask the
Blessed Virgin to offer to the Eternal Father her Divine Son, all bleeding, all
torn, for the conversion of sinners; it is the best prayer we can make, since,
indeed, all prayers are made in the name and through the merits of Jesus
Christ. We must also thank God for all those indulgences that purify us from
our sins. . . but we pay no attention to them. We
tread upon indulgences, one might say, as we tread upon the sheaves of corn
after the harvest. See, there are seven years and seven quarantines for hearing
the catechism, three hundred days for reciting the Litany of the Blessed
Virgin, the Salve Regina, the Angelus. In short, the
good God multiplies His graces upon us; and how sorry we shall be at the end of
our lives that we did not profit by them!
When we are
before the Blessed Sacrament, instead of looking about, let us shut our eyes
and our mouth; let us open our heart:
our good God will open His; we shall go to Him, He will come to us, the
one to ask, the other to receive; it will be like a breath from one to the
other. What sweetness do we not find in forgetting ourselves in order to seek
God! The saints lost sight of themselves that they might see nothing but God, and labor for Him alone; they forgot all created
objects in order to find Him alone. This is the way to reach Heaven.
CHAPTER 12:
Catechism on Communion
TO SUSTAIN the
soul in the pilgrimage of life, God looked over creation, and found nothing
that was worthy of it. He then turned to Himself, and resolved to give Himself.
O my soul, how great thou art, since nothing less than God can satisfy thee!
The food of the soul is the Body and Blood of God! Oh, admirable Food! If we
considered it, it would make us lose ourselves in that abyss of love for all
eternity! How happy are the pure souls that have the happiness of being united
to Our Lord by Communion! They will shine like beautiful diamonds in Heaven,
because God will be seen in them.
Our Lord has said, Whatever you shall ask the Father in My name, He will
give it you. We should never have thought of asking of God His own Son. But God
has done what man could not have imagined. What man cannot express nor
conceive, and what he never would have dared to desire, God in His love has
said, has conceived, and has executed. Should we ever have dared to ask of God
to put His Son to death for us, to give us His Flesh to eat and His Blood to
drink? If all this were not true, then man might have imagined things that God
cannot do; he would have gone further than God in inventions of love! That is
impossible. Without the Holy Eucharist there would be no happiness in this
world; life would be insupportable. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive
our joy and our happiness. The good God, wishing to give Himself to us in the
Sacrament of His love, gave us a vast and great desire, which He alone can
satisfy. In the presence of this beautiful Sacrament, we are like a person
dying of thirst by the side of a river -- he would only need to bend his head;
like a person still remaining poor, close to a great treasure -- he need only
stretch out his hand. He who communicates loses himself in God like a drop of
water in the ocean. They can no more be separated.
At the Day of
Judgment we shall see the Flesh of Our Lord shine through the glorified body of
those who have received Him worthily on earth, as we see gold shine in copper,
or silver in lead. When we have just communicated, if we were asked, "What
are you carrying away to your home?" we might answer, "I am carrying
away Heaven. " A saint said that we were
Christ-bearers. It is very true; but we have not enough faith. We do not
comprehend our dignity. When we leave the holy banquet, we are as happy as the
Wise Men would have been, if they could have carried away the Infant Jesus.
Take a vessel full of liquor, and cork it well -- you will keep the liquor as
long as you please. So if you were to keep Our Lord well and recollectedly, after Communion, you would long feel that
devouring fire which would inspire your heart with an inclination to good and a
repugnance to evil. When we have the good God in our heart, it ought to be very
burning. The heart of the disciples of Emmaus burnt
within them from merely listening to His voice.
I do not like
people to begin to read directly when they come from the holy table. Oh no! what is the use of the words of men when God is speaking? We
must do as one who is very curious, and listens at the door. We must listen to
all that God says at the door of our heart. When you have received Our Lord,
you feel your soul purified, because it bathes itself in the love of God. When
we go to Holy Communion, we feel something extraordinary, a comfort which
pervades the whole body, and penetrates to the extremities. What is this
comfort? It is Our Lord, who communicates Himself to all parts of our bodies,
and makes them thrill. We are obliged to say, like
CHAPTER 13:
Catechism on Frequent Communion
MY CHILDREN,
all beings in creation require to be fed, that they may live; for this purpose
God has made trees and plants grow; it is a well-served table, to which all
animals come and take the food which suits each one. But the soul also must be
fed. Where, then, is its food? My brethren, the food of the
soul is God. Ah! what a beautiful thought! The
soul can feed on nothing but God. Only God can suffice for it; only God can
fill it; only God can satiate its hunger; it absolutely requires its God! There
is in all houses a place where the provisions of the family are kept; it is the
store-room. The church is the home of souls; it is the house belonging to us,
who are Christians. Well, in this house there is a store-room. Do you see the
tabernacle? If the souls of Christians were asked, "What is that?"
your souls would answer, "It is the store-room. "
There is
nothing so great, my children, as the Eucharist! Put all the good works in the
world against one good Communion; they will be like a grain of dust beside a
mountain. Make a prayer when you have the good God in your heart; the good God
will not be able to refuse you anything, if you offer Him His Son, and the
merits of His holy death and Passion. My children, if we understood the value
of Holy Communion, we should avoid the least faults, that we might have the
happiness of making it oftener. We should keep our souls always pure in the
eyes of God. My children, I suppose that you have been to confession today, and
you will watch over yourselves; you will be happy in the thought that tomorrow
you will have the joy of receiving the good God into your heart. Neither can
you offend the good God tomorrow; your soul will be all embalmed with the
precious Blood of Our Lord. Oh, beautiful life!
O my children,
how beautiful will a soul be in eternity that has worthily and often received
the good God! The Body of Our Lord will shine through our body, His adorable
Blood through our blood; our soul will be united to the Soul of Our Lord during
all eternity. There it will enjoy pure and perfect happiness. My children, when
the soul of a Christian who has received Our Lord enters paradise, it augments
the joy of Heaven. The Angels and the Queen of Angels come to meet it, because
they recognize the Son of God in that soul. Then will that soul be rewarded for
the pains and sacrifices it will have endured in its life on earth. My
children, we know when a soul has worthily received the Sacrament of the
Eucharist, it is so drowned in love, so penetrated and changed, that it is no
longer to be recognised in its words or its actions.
. . . It is humble, it is gentle, it is mortified, charitable, and modest; it
is at peace with everyone. It is a soul capable of the greatest sacrifices; in
short, you would not know it again.
Go, then, to
Communion, my children; go to Jesus with love and confidence; go and live upon
Him, in order to live for Him! Do not say that you have too much to do. Has not
the Divine Saviour said, "Come to Me, all you that labour and are
burdened, and I will refresh you"? Can you resist an invitation so full of
love and tenderness? Do not say that you are not worthy of it. It is true, you
are not worthy of it; but you are in need of it. If Our Lord had regarded our
worthiness, He would never have instituted His beautiful Sacrament of
love: for no one in the world is worthy
of it, neither the saints, nor the angels, nor the archangels, nor the Blessed
Virgin; but He had in view our needs, and we are all in need of it. Do not say
that you are sinners, that you are too miserable, and
for that reason you do not dare to approach it. I would as soon hear you say
that you are very ill, and therefore you will not take any remedy, nor send for
the physician.
All the
prayers of the Mass are a preparation for Communion; and all the life of a
Christian ought to be a preparation for that great action. We ought to labor to
deserve to receive Our Lord every day. How humbled we ought to feel when we see
others going to the holy table, and we remain motionless in our place! How
happy is a guardian angel who leads a beautiful soul to the holy table! In the
primitive Church they communicated every day. When Christians had grown cold,
they substituted blessed bread for the Body of Our Lord; this is both a
consolation and a humiliation. It is indeed blessed bread; but it is not the
Body and Blood of Our Lord!
There are some
who make a spiritual communion every day with blessed bread. If we are deprived
of Sacramental Communion, let us replace it, as far as we can, by spiritual
communion, which we can make every moment; for we ought to have always a
burning desire to receive the good God. Communion is to the soul like blowing a
fire that is beginning to go out, but that has still plenty of hot embers; we
blow, and the fire burns again. After the reception of the Sacraments, when we
feel ourselves slacken in the love of God, let us have recourse at once to
spiritual communion. When we cannot come to church, let us turn towards the
tabernacle: a wall cannot separate us
from the good God; let us say five Patres and five
Aves to make a spiritual communion. We can receive the good God only once a
day; a soul on fire with love supplies for this by the desire to receive Him
every moment. O man, how great thou art! fed with the
Body and Blood of a God! Oh, how sweet a life is this life of union with the
good God! It is Heaven upon earth; there are no more troubles, no more crosses!
When you have the happiness of having received the good God, you feel a joy, a sweetness in your heart for some moments. Pure souls feel
it always, and in this union consists their strength and their happiness.
CHAPTER 14: Catechism
on Sin
SIN IS the
executioner of the good God, and the assassin of the soul. It snatches us away
from Heaven to precipitate us into Hell. And we love it! What folly! If we
thought seriously about it, we should have such a lively horror of sin that we
could not commit it. O my children, how ungrateful we are! The good God wishes
to make us happy; that is very certain; He gave us His Law for no other end.
The Law of God is great; it is broad. King David said that he found his delight
in it, and that it was a treasure more precious to him than the greatest
riches. He said also that he walked at large, because he had sought after the
Commandments of the Lord. The good God wishes, then, to make us happy, and we
do not wish to be so. We turn away from Him, and give ourselves to the devil!
We fly from our Friend, and we seek after our murderer! We commit sin; we
plunge ourselves into the mire. Once sunk in this mire, we know not how to get
out. If our fortune were in the case, we should soon find out how to get out of
the difficulty; but because it only concerns our soul, we stay where we are.
We come to
confession quite preoccupied with the shame that we shall feel. We accuse
ourselves by steam. It is said that many confess, and few are converted. I
believe it is so, my children, because few confess with tears of repentance.
See, the misfortune is, that people do not reflect. If one said to those who
work on Sundays, to a young person who had been dancing for two or three hours,
to a man coming out of an alehouse drunk, "What have you been doing? You
have been crucifying Our Lord!" they would be quite astonished, because
they do not think of it. My children, if we thought of it, we should be seized
with horror; it would be impossible for us to do evil. For what has the good
God done to us that we should grieve Him thus, and put Him to death afresh --
Him, who has redeemed us from Hell? It would be well if all sinners, when they
are going to their guilty pleasures, could, like St. Peter, meet Our Lord on
the way, who would say to them, "I am going to that place where thou art
going thyself, to be there crucified afresh. " Perhaps that might make
them reflect.
The saints
understood how great an outrage sin is against God. Some of them passed their
lives in weeping for their sins. St. Peter wept all his life; he was still
weeping at his death. St. Bernard used to say, "Lord! Lord! it is I who fastened Thee to the Cross!" By sin we
despise the good God, we crucify the good God! What a pity it is to lose our
souls, which have cost Our Lord so many sufferings! What harm has Our Lord done
us, that we should treat Him so? If the poor lost souls could come back to the
earth! if they were in our place! Oh, how senseless we
are! the good God calls us to Him, and we fly from
Him! He wishes to make us happy, and we will not have His happiness. He
commands us to love Him, and we five our hearts to the devil. We employ in
ruining ourselves the time He fives us to save our souls. We make war upon Him
with the means He gave us to serve Him.
When we offend
the good God, if we were to look at our crucifix, we should hear Our Lord
saying to us in the depths of our soul, "Wilt thou too, then,
take the side of My enemies? Wilt thou crucify Me
afresh?" Cast your eyes on Our Lord fastened to the Cross, and say to
yourself, "That is what it cost my Saviour to
repair the injury my sins have done to God!" A God coming down to earth to
be the victim of our sins, a God suffering, a God dying, a God enduring every
torment, because He would bear the weight of our crimes! At the sight of the
Cross, let us understand the malice of sin, and the hatred we ought to feel for
it. Let us enter into ourselves; let us see what we can do to make amends for
our poor life.
"What a
pity it is!" the good God will say to us at our death; "why hast thou
offended Me -Me, who loved thee so much?" To
offend the good God, who has never done us anything but good; to please the
devil, who can never do us anything but evil! What
folly! Is it not real folly to choose to make ourselves worthy of Hell by
attaching ourselves to the devil. when
we might taste the joys of Heaven, even in this life, by uniting ourselves to
God by love? One cannot understand this folly; it cannot be enough lamented.
Poor sinners seem as if they could not wait for the sentence which will condemn
them to the society of the devils; they condemn themselves to it. There is a
sort of foretaste in this life of
He who lives
in sin takes up the habits and the appearance of the beasts. The beast, which
has not reason, knows nothing but its appetites. So the man who makes himself
like the beasts loses his reason, and lets himself be guided by the
inclinations of his body. He takes his pleasure in good eating and drinking,
and in enjoying the vanities of the world, which pass away like the wind. I
pity the poor wretches who run after that wind; they gain very little, they
five a great deal for very little profit -- they five their eternity for the
miserable smoke of the world.
My children,
how sad it is! when a soul is in a state of sin, it
may die in that state; and even now, whatever it can do is without merit before
God. That is the reason why the devil is so pleased when a soul is in sin, and
perseveres in it, because he thinks that it is working for him, and if it were
to die he would have possession of it. When we are in sin, our soul is all
diseased, all rotten; it is pitiful. The thought that the good God sees it
ought to make it enter into itself. And then, what pleasure is there in sin? None at all. We have frightful dreams that the devil is
carrying us away, that we are falling over precipices. Put yourself on good
terms with God; have recourse to the Sacrament of Penance; you will sleep as
quietly as an angel. You will be glad to waken in the night, to pray to God;
you will have nothing but thanksgivings on your lips; you will rise I towards Heaven with great facility, as an eagle soars
through the air.
See, my
children, how sin degrades man; of an angel created to love God, it makes a
demon who will curse Him for eternity. Ah! if Adam,
our first father, had not sinned, and if we did not sin every day, how happy we
should be! we should be as happy as the saints in
Heaven. There would be no more unhappy people on the earth. Oh, how beautiful
it would be! In fact, my children, it is sin that brings upon us all
calamities, all scourges, war, famine, pestilence, earthquakes, fires, frost,
hail, storms -- all that afflicts us, all that makes us miserable. See, my
children, a person who is in a state of sin is always sad. Whatever he does, he
is weary and disgusted with everything; while he who is at peace with God is
always happy, always joyous. . . . Oh, beautiful life! Oh, beautiful death!
My children,
we are afraid of death; I can well believe it. It is sin that makes us afraid
of death; it is sin that renders death frightful, formidable; it is sin that
terrifies the wicked at the hour of the fearful passage. Alas! O God! there is reason enough to be terrified, to think that one is
accursed -- accursed of God! It makes one tremble. Accursed of God! and why? for what do men expose
themselves to be accursed of God? For a blasphemy, for a bad thought, for a
bottle of wine, for two minutes of pleasure! For two minutes of pleasure to
lose God, one's soul, Heaven forever! We shall see going up to Heaven, in body
and soul, that father, that mother, that sister, that neighbour,
who were here with us, with whom we have lived, but whom we have not imitated;
while we shall go down body and soul to burn in Hell. The devils will rush to
overwhelm us. All the devils whose advice we followed will come to torment us.
My children,
if you saw a man prepare a great pile of wood, heaping up fagots one upon
another, and when you asked him what he was doing, he were to answer you,
"I am preparing the fire that is to burn me, " what would you think?
And if you saw this same man set fire to the pile, and when it was lighted
throw himself upon it, what would you say? This is what we do when we commit
sin. It is not God who casts us into Hell; we cast ourselves into it by our
sins. The lost souls will say, "I have lost God, my soul, and Heaven; it
is through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault!" He
will raise himself out of the fire only to fall back into it. He will always
feel the desire of rising because he was created for God, the greatest, the
highest of beings, the Most High . . . as a bird shut up in a room flies to the
ceiling, and falls down again, the justice of God is the ceiling which keeps
down the lost.
There is no
need to prove the existence of Hell. Our Lord Himself speaks of it, when He
relates the history of the wicked rich man who cried out, "Lazarus!
Lazarus!" We know very well that there is a Hell, but we live as if there
were not; we sell our souls for a few pieces of money. We put off our
conversion till the hour of death; but who can assure us that we shall have
time or strength at that formidable moment, which has been feared by all the
saints -- when Hell will gather itself up for a last assault upon us, seeing
that it is the decisive moment? There are many people who lose the faith, and
never see Hell till they enter it. The Sacraments are administered to them; but
ask them if they have committed such a sin, and they will answer you, "Oh!
settle that as you please. "
Some people
offend the good God every moment; their heart is an anthill of sins: it is like a spoilt piece of meat, half-eaten
by worms. . . . No, indeed; if sinners were to think of eternity -- of that
terrible forever -- they would be converted instantly.
CHAPTER 15:
Catechism on Pride
PRIDE IS that
accursed sin which drove the angels out of paradise, and hurled them into Hell.
This sin began with the world. See, my children, we sin by pride in many ways.
A person may be proud in his clothes, in his language, in his gestures, even in
his manner of walking. Some persons, when they are in the streets, walk along
proudly, and seem to say to the people they meet, "Look how tall, how
upright I am, how well I walk!" Others, when they have done any good
action, are never tired of talking of it; and if they fail in anything, they
are miserable because they think people will have a bad opinion of them . . .
others are sorry to be seen with the poor, if they meet with anybody of
consequence; they are always seeking the company of the rich.
. . if by chance, they are noticed by the great people of the world, they boast
and are vain of it. Others take pride in speaking. If they go to see rich
people, they consider what they are going to say, they study fine language; and
if they make a mistake of a word, they are very much vexed, because they are
afraid of being laughed at. But, my children, with a humble person it is not so. . . whether he is laughed at or esteemed, or praised, or
blamed, whether he is honoured or despised, whether
people pay attention to him or pass him by, it is all the same to him.
My children,
there are again people who give great alms, that they may be well thought of
-that will not do These people will reap no fruit from their good works. On the
contrary, their alms will turn into sins. We put pride into everything like
salt. We like to see that our good works are known. If our virtues are seen, we
are pleased; if our faults are perceived, we are sad. I remark that in a great
many people; if one says anything to them, it disturbs them, it annoys them.
The saints were not like that -- they were vexed if their virtues were known,
and pleased that their imperfections should be seen. A proud person thinks
everything he does is well done; he wants to domineer over all those who have
to do with him; he is always right, he always thinks his own opinion better
than that of others. That will not do! A humble and well-taught person, if he
is asked his opinion, gives it at once, and then lets others speak. Whether
they are right, or whether they are wrong, he says nothing more.
When St.
Aloysius Gonzaga was a student, he never sought to
excuse himself when he was reproached with anything; he said what he thought,
and troubled himself no further about what others might think; if he was wrong,
he was wrong; if he was right, he said to himself, "I have certainly been
wrong some other time. " My children, the saints were so completely dead
to themselves, that they cared very little whether others agreed with them.
People in the world say, "Oh, the saints were simpletons!" Yes, they
were simpletons in worldly things; but in the things of God they were very
wise. They understood nothing about worldly matters, to be sure, because they
thought them of so little importance, that they paid no attention to them.
CHAPTER 16:
Catechism on Impurity
THAT WE MAY
understand how horrible and detestable is this sin, which the demons make us
commit, but which they do not commit themselves, we must consider what a
Christian is. A Christian, created in the image of God, redeemed by the Blood
of a God! a Christian, the child of God, the brother
of a God, the heir of a God! a Christian, whose body
is the temple of the Holy Ghost; that is what sin dishonours.
We are created to reign one day in Heaven, and if we have the misfortune to
commit this sin, we become the den of the devils. Our Lord said that nothing
impure should enter into His kingdom. Indeed, how could a soul that has rolled
itself in this filth go to appear before so pure and so holy a God?
We are all
like little mirrors, in which God contemplates Himself. How can you expect that
God should recognize His likeness in an impure soul? There are some souls so
dead, so rotten, that they lie in their defilement without perceiving it, and
can no longer clear themselves from it; everything leads them to evil,
everything reminds them of evil, even the most holy things; they always have
these abominations before their eyes; like the unclean animal that is
accustomed to live in filth, that is happy in it, that rolls itself and goes to
sleep in it, that grunts in the mud; these persons are an object of horror in
the eyes of God and of the holy angels. See, my children, Our Lord was crowned
with thorns to expiate our sins of pride; but for this accursed sin, He was
scourged and torn to pieces, since He said Himself that after his flagellation
all His bones might be counted.
O my children,
if there were not some pure souls here and there, to make amends to the good
God, and disarm His justice, you would see how we
should be punished! For now, this crime is so common in the world, that it is
enough to make one tremble. One may say, my children, that Hell vomits forth
its abominations upon the earth, as the chimneys of the steam engine vomit
forth smoke. The devil does all he can to defile our soul, and yet our soul is everything. . . our body is only a heap of corruption: go to the cemetery to see what you love, when
you love your body. As I have often told you, there is nothing so vile as the impure soul. There was once a saint, who had
asked the good God to show him one; and he saw that poor soul like a dead beast
that has been dragged through the streets in the hot sun for a week.
By only
looking at a person, we know if he is pure. His eyes have an air of candour and modesty which leads you to the good God. Some
people, on the contrary, look quite inflamed with passion. . . Satan places
himself in their eyes to make others fall and to lead them to evil. Those who
have lost their purity are like a piece of cloth stained with oil; you may wash
it and dry it, and the stain always appears again: so it requires a miracle to cleanse the
impure soul.
CHAPTER 17:
Catechism on Confession
MY CHILDREN,
as soon as ever you have a little spot upon your soul, you must do like a
person who has a fine globe of glass, which he keeps very carefully. If this
globe has a little dust on it, he wipes it with a sponge the moment he
perceives it, and there is the globe clear and brilliant. In the same way, as
soon as you perceive a little stain on your soul, take some holy water with
respect, do one of those good works to which the remission of venial sins is
attached -an alms, a genuflection to the Blessed Sacrament, hearing a Mass. My
children, it is like a person who has a slight illness; he need not go and see
a doctor, he may cure himself without. If he has a headache, he need only go to
bed; if he is hungry, he has only to eat. But if it is a serious illness, if it
is a dangerous wound, he must have the doctor; after the doctor come the
remedies. In the same way, when we have fallen into any grievous sin, we must
have recourse to the doctor, that is the priest; and to the remedy, that is
confession.
My children,
we cannot comprehend the goodness of God towards us in instituting this great
Sacrament of Penance. If we had had a favour to ask
of Our Lord, we should never have thought of asking Him that. But He foresaw
our frailty and our inconstancy in well-doing, and His love induced Him to do
what we should not have dared to ask. If one said to those poor lost souls that
have been so long in Hell, "We are going to place a priest at the gate of Hell: all those who wish to confess have only to go
out, " do you think, my children, that a single one would remain? The most guilty would not be afraid of telling their sins, nor
even of telling them before all the world. Oh, how soon Hell would be a desert,
and how Heaven would be peopled! Well, we have the time and the means, which
those poor lost souls have not. And I am quite sure that those wretched ones
say in Hell, "O accursed priest! if I had never
known you, I should not be so guilty!"
It is a beautiful
thought, my children, that we have a Sacrament which heals the wounds of our
soul! But we must receive it with good dispositions. Otherwise we make new
wounds upon the old ones. What would you say of a man covered with wounds who
is advised to go to the hospital to show himself to the surgeon? The surgeon
cures him by giving him remedies. But, behold! this
man takes his knife, gives himself great blows with it and makes himself worse
than he was before. Well, that is what you often do after leaving the
confessional.
My children,
some people make bad confessions without taking any notice of it. These persons
say, "I do not know what is the matter with me: ' . . . They are tormented, and they do not
know why. They have not that agility which makes one go straight to the good
God; they have something heavy and weary about them which fatigues
them. My children, that is because of sins that remain, often even venial sins,
for which one has some affection. There are some people
who, indeed, tell everything, but they have no repentance; and they go at once
to Holy Communion. Thus the Blood of Our Lord is profaned! They go to the Holy
Table with a sort of weariness. They say, "Yet, I accused myself of all my
sins. . . I do not know what is the matter with me. " There is an unworthy Communion, and they were hardly
aware of it!
My children,
some people again profane the Sacraments in another manner. They have concealed
mortal sins for ten years, for twenty years. They are always uneasy; their sin
is always present to their mind; they are always thinking of confessing it, and
always putting it off; it is a Hell. When these people feel this, they will ask
to make a general confession, and they will tell their sins as if they had just
committed them: they will not confess
that they have hidden them during ten years -- twenty years. That is a bad
confession! They ought to say, besides, that they had given up the practice of
their religion, that they no longer felt the pleasure
they had formerly in serving the good God.
My children,
we run the risk again of profaning the Sacrament if we seize the moment when
there is a noise round the confessional to tell the sins quickly which give us
most pain. We quiet ourselves by saying, "I accused myself properly; so
much the worse if the confessor did not hear. "
So much the worse for you who acted cunningly! At other times we speak quickly,
profiting by the moment when the priest is not very attentive to get over the
great sins. Take a house which has been for a long time very dirty and
neglected -- it is in vain to sweep out, there will always be a nasty smell. It
is the same with our soul after confession; it requires tears to purify it. My
children, we must ask earnestly for repentance. After confession, we must plant
a thorn in our heart, and never lose sight of our sins. We must do as the angel
did to St. Francis of
CHAPTER 18:
Catechism on Suffering
WHETHER WE
will or not, we must suffer. There are some who suffer like the good thief, and others like the bad thief. They both suffered
equally. But one knew how to make his sufferings meritorious, he accepted them
in the spirit of reparation, and turning towards Jesus crucified, he received
from His mouth these beautiful words:
"This day thou shalt be with Me in
On the Way of the
Cross, you see, my children, only the first step is painful. Our greatest cross
is the fear of crosses. . . . We have not the courage to carry our cross, and
we are very much mistaken; for, whatever we do, the cross holds us tight -- we
cannot escape from it. What, then, have we to lose? Why not love our crosses
and make use of them to take us to Heaven? But, on the contrary, most men turn
their backs upon crosses, and fly before them. The more they run, the more the
cross pursues them, the more it strikes and crushes them with burdens. . . . If
you were wise, you would go to meet it like St. Andrew, who said, when he saw
the cross prepared for him and raised up into the air, "Hail O good cross!
O admirable cross! O desirable cross! receive me into thine arms, withdraw me from among men, and restore me to
my Master, who redeemed me through thee. "
Listen
attentively to this, my children: He who goes to meet the cross, goes in the opposite
direction to crosses; he meets them, perhaps, but he is pleased to meet them;
he loves them; he carries them courageously. They unite him to Our Lord; they
purify him; they detach him from this world; they remove all obstacles from his
heart; they help him to pass through life, as a bridge helps us to pass over water.
. . . Look at the saints; when they were not persecuted. they
persecuted themselves. A good religious complained one day to Our Lord that he
was persecuted. He said, "O Lord, what have I done to be treated
thus?" Our Lord answered him, "And I, what had I done when I was led
to
Look at St.
Catherine; she has two crowns, that of purity and that of martyrdom: how happy she is, that dear little saint, to
have chosen to suffer rather than to consent to sin! There was once a religious
who loved suffering so much that he had fastened the rope from a well round his
body; this cord had rubbed off the skin, and had by degrees buried itself in
the flesh, out of which worms came. His brethren asked that he should be sent
out of the community. He went away happy and pleased, to hide himself in a
rocky cavern. But the same night the
Very near
this, in a neighbouring parish, there was a little
boy in bed, covered with sores, very ill, and very miserable; I said to him,
"My poor little child, you are suffering very much!" He answered me,
"No, sir; today I do not feel the pain I had yesterday, and tomorrow I
shall not suffer from the pain I have now:
' "You would like to get well?" "No; I was naughty before
I was ill, and I might be so again. I am very well as I am. "
We do not understand that, because we are too earthly. Children in whom
the Holy Ghost dwells put us to shame.
If the good
God sends us crosses, we resist, we complain, we murmur; we are so averse to
whatever contradicts us, that we want to be always in
a box of cotton: but we ought to be put
into a box of thorns. It is by the Cross that we go to Heaven. Illnesses,
temptations, troubles, are so many crosses which take us to Heaven. All this
will soon be over. . . . Look at the saints, who have arrived there before us.
. . . The good God does not require of us the martyrdom of the body; He
requires only the martyrdom of the heart, and of the will. . . . Our Lord is
our model; let us take up our cross, and follow Him. Let us do like the
soldiers of Napoleon. They had to cross a bridge under the fire of grapeshot;
no one dared to pass it. Napoleon took the colours,
marched over first, and they all followed. Let us do the same; let us follow Our
Lord, who has gone before us.
A soldier was
telling me one day that during a battle he had marched for half an hour over
dead bodies; there was hardly space to tread upon; the ground was all dyed with
blood. Thus on the road of life we must walk over crosses and troubles to reach
our true country. The cross is the ladder to Heaven. . . . How consoling it is
to suffer under the eyes of God, and to be able to say in the evening, at our
examination of conscience: "Come,
my soul! thou hast had today two or three hours of
resemblance to Jesus Christ. Thou hast been scourged, crowned with thorns,
crucified with Him!" Oh what a treasure for the hour of death! How sweet
it is to die, when we have lived on the cross! We ought to run after crosses as
the miser runs after money. . . . Nothing but crosses will reassure us at the
Day of Judgment. When that day shall come, we shall be happy in our
misfortunes, proud of our humiliations, and rich in
our sacrifices!
If someone
said to you, "I should like to become rich; what must I do?" you
would answer him, "You must labor:
' Well, in order to get to Heaven, we must suffer. Our Lord shows us the
way in the person of Simon the Cyrenian; He calls His
friends to carry His Cross after Him. The good God wishes us never to lose
sight of the Cross, therefore it is placed everywhere; by the roadside, on the
heights, in the public squares -- in order that at the sight of it we may say,
"See how God has loved us!" The Cross embraces the world; it is
planted at the four corners of the world; there is a share of it for all.
Crosses are on the road to Heaven like a fine bridge of stone over a river, by
which to pass it. Christians who do not suffer pass this river by a frail
bridge, a bridge of wire, always ready to give way under their feet.
He who does
not love the Cross may indeed be saved, but with great difficulty: he will be a little star in the firmament. He
who shall have suffered and fought for his God will shine like a beautiful sun.
Crosses, transformed by the flames of love, are like a bundle of thorns thrown
into the fire, and reduced by the fire to ashes. The thorns are hard, but the
ashes are soft. Oh, how much sweetness do souls experience that are all for God
in suffering! It is like a mixture into which one puts a great deal of
oil: the vinegar remains vinegar; but
the oil corrects its bitterness, and it can scarcely be perceived.
If you put
fine grapes into the wine press, there will come out a delicious juice: our soul, in the wine press of the Cross,
gives out a juice that nourishes and strengthens it. When we have no crosses,
we are arid: if we bear them with
resignation, we feel a joy, a happiness, a sweetness!
. . . it is the beginning of Heaven. The good God, the
Blessed Virgin, the angels, and the saints, surround us; they are by our side,
and see us. The passage to the other life of the good Christian tried by affliction, is like that of a person being carried on a bed
of roses. Thorns give out a perfume, and the Cross breathes forth sweetness.
But we must squeeze the thorns in our hands, and press the Cross to our heart,
that they may give out the juice they contain.
The Cross gave
peace to the world; and it must bring peace to our hearts. All our miseries
come from not loving it. The fear of crosses increases them. A cross carried
simply, and without those returns of self-love which exaggerate troubles, is no
longer a cross. Peaceable suffering is no longer suffering. We complain of
suffering! We should have much more reason to complain of not suffering, since
nothing makes us more like Our Lord than carrying His Cross. Oh, what a
beautiful union of the soul with Our Lord Jesus Christ by the love and the
virtue of His Cross! I do not understand how a Christian can dislike the Cross,
and fly from it! Does he not at the same time fly from Him who has deigned to
be fastened to it, and to die for us?
Contradictions
bring us to the foot of the Cross, and the Cross to the gate of Heaven. That we
may get there, we must be trodden upon, we must be set at naught, despised,
crushed. . . . There are no happy people in this world but those who enjoy
calmness of mind in the midst of the troubles of life: they taste the joys of the children of God. .
. . All pains are sweet when we suffer in union with Our Lord. . . . To suffer!
what does it signify? It is only a moment. If we could
go and pass a week in Heaven, we should understand the value of this moment of
suffering. We should find no cross heavy enough, no trial bitter enough. . . .
The Cross is the gift that God makes to His friends.
How beautiful
it is to offer ourselves every morning in sacrifice to the good God, and to
accept everything in expiation of our sins! We must ask for the love of
crosses; then they become sweet.
I tried it for four or five years. I was
well calumniated, well contradicted, well knocked about. Oh, I had crosses
indeed! I had almost more than I could carry! Then I took to asking for love of
crosses, and I was happy. I said to myself, truly there is no happiness but in
this! We must never think from whence crosses come: they come from God. It is always God who
gives us this way of proving our love to Him.
CHAPTER 19:
Catechism on Hope
MY CHILDREN,
we are going to speak of hope: that is
what makes the happiness of man on earth. Some people in this world hope too
much, and others do not hope enough. Some say, "I am going to commit this
sin again. It will not cost me more to confess four than three. " It is like a child saying to his father, "I am
going to give you four blows; it will cost me no more than to give you
one: I shall only have to ask your
pardon. "
That is the
way men behave towards the good God. They say, "This year I shall amuse
myself again; I shall go to dances and to the alehouse, and next year I will be
converted. The good God will be sure to receive me, when I choose to return to
Him. He is not so cruel as the priests tell us. " No, the good God is not cruel, but He is just. Do you
think He will adapt Himself in everything to your will? Do you think that He
will embrace you, after you have despised Him all your life? Oh no, indeed!
There is a certain measure of grace and of sin after which God withdraws
Himself. What would you say of a father who should treat a good child, and one not so
father is not just. Well! God would not be just if He made
no difference between those who serve Him and those who offend Him. My
children, there is so little faith now in the world that people either hope too
much, or they despair. Some say, "I have done too much evil; the good God
cannot pardon me: ' My children, this is
a great blasphemy; it is putting a limit to the mercy of God, which has no
limit -- it is infinite. You may have done evil enough to lose the souls of a
whole parish, and if you confess, if you are sorry for having done this evil,
and resolve not to do it again, the good God will have pardoned you.
A priest was
once preaching on hope, and on ; the mercy of the good
God. He reassured others, but he himself despaired. After the sermon, a young
man presented himself, saying, "Father, I am come to confess to you: ' The priest
answered, "I am willing to hear your confession: ' The other recounted his sins, after which
he added, "Father, I have done much evil; I am lost!" "What do
you say, my friend! We must never despair:
' The young man rose, saying, "Father, you wish me not to despair,
and what do you do?" This was a ray of light; the priest, all
astonishment, drove away that thought of despair, became a religious and a
great saint. . . . The good God had sent him an angel under the form of a young
man, to show him that we must never despair. The good God is as prompt to grant
us pardon when we ask it of Him as a mother is to snatch her child out of the fire.
CHAPTER 20:
Catechism on the Cardinal Virtues
PRUDENCE SHOWS
us what is most pleasing to God, and most useful to the salvation of our soul.
We must always choose the most perfect. Two good works present themselves to be
done, one in favour of a person we love, the other in
favour of a person who has done us some harm; well,
we must give the preference to the latter. There is no merit in doing good, when a natural feeling leads us to do it. A lady,
wishing to have a widow to live with her to take care of, asked St. Athanasius to find her one among the poor. Afterwards,
meeting the Bishop, she reproached him that he had treated her ill, because
this person was too good, and gave her nothing to do by which she could gain
Heaven; and she begged him to give her another. The saint chose the worst he
could find; of a cross, grumbling temper, never satisfied with what was done
for her. This is the way we must act, for there is no great merit in doing good
to one who values it, who thanks us and is grateful.
There are some
persons who think they are never treated well enough; they seem as if they had
a right to everything. They are never pleased with what is done for them: they repay everybody with ingratitude. . . .
Well! those are the people to whom we should do good
by preference. We must be prudent in all our actions, and seek not our own
taste, but what is most pleasing to the good God. Suppose you have a franc that
you intend to give for a Mass; you see a poor family in distress, in want of
bread: it is better to give your money
to these wretched people, because the Holy Sacrifice will still be offered; the
priest will not fail to say Holy Mass; while these poor people may die of
hunger. . . . You would wish to pray to the good God, to pass your whole day in
the church; but you think it would be very useful to work for some poor people
that you know, who are in great need; that is much more pleasing to God than
your day passed before the holy tabernacle.
Temperance is
another cardinal virtue: we can be
temperate in the use of our imagination, by not letting it gallop as fast as it
would wish; we can be temperate with our eyes, temperate with our mouth -- some
people constantly have something sweet and pleasant in their mouth; we can be
temperate with our ears, not allowing them to listen to useless songs and
conversation; temperate in smelling -- some people perfume themselves to such a
degree as to make those about them sick; temperate with the hands -- some
people are always washing them when it is hot, and handling things that are
soft to the touch. . . . In short, we can practice temperance with our whole
body, this poor machine, by not letting it run away like a horse without bit or
bridle, but checking it and keeping it down. Some people lie buried there, in
their beds; they are glad not to sleep, that they may the better feel how
comfortable they are. The saints were not like that. I do not know how we are
ever to get where they are. . . . Well! if we are
saved, we shall stay infinitely long in Purgatory, while they will fly straight
to Heaven to see the good God.
That great
saint, St. Charles Borromeo, had in his apartment a
fine cardinal's bed, which everybody saw; but, besides that, there was one
which nobody could see, made of bundles of wood; and that was the one he made
use of. He never warmed himself; when people came to see him, they remarked
that he placed himself so as not to feel the fire. That is what the saints were
like. They lived for Heaven, and not for earth; they were all heavenly; and as
for us, we are all earthly. Oh, how I like those little mortifications that are
seen by nobody, such as rising a quarter of an hour sooner, rising for a little
while in the night to pray! but some people think of
nothing but sleeping. There was once a solitary who had built himself a royal
palace in the trunk of an oak tree; he had placed thorns inside of it, and he
had fastened three stones over his head, so that when he raised himself or
turned over he might feel the stones or the thorns. And we, we think of nothing
but finding good beds, that we may sleep at our ease.
We may refrain
from warming ourselves; if we are sitting uncomfortably, we need not try to
place ourselves better; if we are walking in our garden, we may deprive
ourselves of some fruit that we should like; in preparing the food, we need not
eat the little bits that offer themselves; we may deprive ourselves of seeing
something pretty, which attracts our eyes, especially in the streets of great
towns. There is a gentleman who sometimes comes here. He wears two pairs of
spectacles, that he may see nothing. . . . But some heads are always in motion, some eyes are always looking about. . . . When we
are going along the streets, let us fix our eyes on Our Lord carrying His Cross
before us; on the Blessed Virgin, who is looking at us; on our guardian angel,
who is by our side. How beautiful is this interior life! It unites us with the
good God. . . . Therefore, when the devil sees a soul that is seeking to attain
to it, he tries to turn him aside from it by filling his imagination with a
thousand fancies. A good Christian does not listen to that; he goes always
forward in perfection, like a fish plunging into the depths of the sea. . . .
As for us, Alas! we drag ourselves along like a leech
in the mud.
There were two saints in the desert who had sewed thorns into all their clothes; and we seek for nothing but comfort! Yet we wish to go to Heaven, but with all our luxuries, without having any annoyance; that is not the way the saints acted. They sought every way of mortifying themselves, and in the midst of all their privations they tasted infinite sweetness. How happy are those who love the good God! They do not lose a single opportunity of doing good; misers employ all the means in their power to increase their treasure; they do the same for the riches of Heaven -they are always heaping up. We shall be surprised at the Day of Judgment to see souls so rich!