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1. A great deal can be said on spiritual gluttony, the fourth vice. There are
hardly any persons among these beginners, no matter how excellent their conduct,
who do not fall into some of the many imperfections of this vice. These
imperfections arise because of the delight beginners find in their spiritual
exercises.
Many, lured by the delight and satisfaction procured in their
religious practices, strive more for spiritual savor than for spiritual purity
and discretion; yet it is this purity and discretion that God looks for and
finds acceptable throughout a soul's entire spiritual journey. Besides the
imperfection of seeking after these delights, the sweetness these persons
experience makes them go to extremes and pass beyond the mean in which virtue
resides and is acquired.
Some, attracted by the delight they feel in their
spiritual exercises, kill themselves with penances, and others weaken themselves
by fasts and, without the counsel or command of another, overtax their weakness;
indeed, they try to hide these penances from the one to whom they owe obedience
in such matters. Some even dare perform these penances contrary to obedience.
2. Such individuals are unreasonable and most imperfect. They subordinate
submissiveness and obedience (which is a penance of reason and discretion, and
consequently a sacrifice more pleasing and acceptable to God) to corporeal
penance. But corporeal penance without obedience is no more than a penance of
beasts. And like beasts, they are motivated in these penances by an appetite for
the pleasure they find in them. Since all extremes are vicious and since by such
behavior these persons are doing their own will, they grow in vice rather than
in virtue. For through this conduct they at least become spiritually gluttonous
and proud, since they do not tread the path of obedience.
The devil, increasing
the delights and appetites of these beginners and thereby stirring up this
gluttony in them, so impels many of them that when they are unable to avoid
obedience they either add to, change, or modify what was commanded. Any
obedience in this matter is distasteful to them. Some reach such a point that
the mere obligation of obedience to perform their spiritual exercises makes them
lose all desire and devotion. Their only yearning and satisfaction is to do what
they feel inclined to do, whereas it would be better in all likelihood for them
not to do this at all.
3. Some are very insistent that their spiritual director allow them to do what
they themselves want to do, and finally almost force the permission from him.
And if they do not get what they want, they become sad and go about like testy
children. They are under the impression that they do not serve God when they are
not allowed to do what they want. Since they take gratification and their own
will as their support and their god, they become sad, weak, and discouraged when
their director takes these from them and desires that they do God's will. They
think that gratifying and satisfying themselves is serving and satisfying God.
4. Others, too, because of this sweetness, have so little knowledge of their own
lowliness and misery and such lack of the loving fear and respect they owe to
God's grandeur that they do not hesitate to insist boldly that their confessors
allow them the frequent reception of Communion. And worse than this, they often
dare to receive Communion without the permission and advice of the minister and
dispenser of Christ. They are guided here solely by their own opinion, and they
endeavor to hide the truth from him. As a result, with their hearts set on
frequent Communion, they make their confessions carelessly, more eager just to
receive Communion than to receive it with a pure and perfect heart. It would be
sounder and holier of them to have the contrary inclination and to ask their
confessor not to let them receive Communion so frequently. Humble resignation,
though, is better than either of these two attitudes. But the boldnesses
referred to first will bring great evil and chastisement on one.
5. In receiving Communion they spend all their time trying to get some feeling
and satisfaction rather than humbly praising and reverencing God dwelling within
them. And they go about this in such a way that, if they do not procure any
sensible feeling and satisfaction, they think they have accomplished nothing. As
a result they judge very poorly of God and fail to understand that the sensory
benefits are the least among those that this most blessed Sacrament bestows, for
the invisible grace it gives is a greater blessing. God often withdraws sensory
delight and pleasure so that souls might set the eyes of faith on this invisible
grace. Not only in receiving Communion, but in other spiritual exercises as
well, beginners desire to feel God and taste him as if he were comprehensible
and accessible. This desire is a serious imperfection and, because it involves
impurity of faith, is opposed to God's way.
6. They have the same defect in their prayer, for they think the whole matter of
prayer consists in looking for sensory satisfaction and devotion. They strive to
procure this by their own efforts, and tire and weary their heads and their
faculties. When they do not get this sensible comfort, they become very
disconsolate and think they have done nothing. Because of their aim they lose
true devotion and spirit, which lie in distrust of self and in humble and
patient perseverance so as to please God. Once they do not find delight in
prayer, or in any other spiritual exercise, they feel extreme reluctance and
repugnance in returning to it and sometimes even give it up. For after all, as
was mentioned,1 they are like children who are prompted to act not by reason but
by pleasure.
All their time is spent looking for satisfaction and spiritual
consolation; they can never read enough spiritual books, and one minute they are
meditating on one subject and the next on another, always hunting for some
gratification in the things of God. God very rightly and discreetly and lovingly
denies this satisfaction to these beginners. If he did not, they would fall into
innumerable evils because of their spiritual gluttony and craving for sweetness.
This is why it is important for these beginners to enter the dark night and be
purged of this childishness.2
7. Those who are inclined toward these delights have also another serious
imperfection, which is that they are weak and remiss in treading the rough way
of the cross. A soul given up to pleasure naturally feels aversion toward the
bitterness of self-denial.
8. These people incur many other imperfections because of this spiritual
gluttony, of which the Lord in time will cure them through temptations,
aridities, and other trials, which are all a part of the dark night. So as not
to be too lengthy, I do not want to discuss these imperfections any more, but
only point out that spiritual sobriety and temperance beget another very
different quality, one of mortification, fear, and submissiveness in all things.
Individuals thereby become aware that the perfection and value of their works do
not depend on quantity or the satisfaction found in them but on knowing how to
practice self-denial in them. These beginners ought to do their part in striving
after this self-denial until God in fact brings them into the dark night and
purifies them. In order to get to our discussion of this dark night, I am
passing over these imperfections hurriedly.
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