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Although all the Evangelical Counsels cannot and
should not be practised by every Christian in
particular, yet every one is obliged to love them
all, because they are all very good.
If you have a sick headache, and the smell of musk
annoys you, will you therefore deny that this smell
is good and delightsome? If a robe of gold does not
suit you, will you say that therefore it is worth
nothing? Or will you throw a ring into the dirt
because it fits not your finger? Praise therefore,
Theotimus, and dearly love, all the counsels that God
has given unto men.
Oh! blessed be the Angel of Great Counsel for
ever, together with all the counsels he gives and
exhortations he makes to men! Ointment and perfumes
rejoice the heart, says Solomon, and the good
counsels of a friend are sweet to the soul!(1) But of
what friend, and of what counsels, do we speak? O
God! it is of the friend of friends; and his counsels
are more delightful than honey: our friend is our
Saviour, his counsels are to save us. Let us rejoice,
Theotimus, when we see others undertake to follow
those counsels, which we either cannot or must not
observe; let us pray for them, bless, favour and
assist them: for charity obliges us not only to love
what is good for ourselves, but that also which is
good for our neighbour.
We shall sufficiently testify our love for all the
counsels, when we devoutly observe such as are
suitable to our calling. For, as he that believes one
article of faith because God has revealed it by his
Word (announced and declared by the Church), cannot
disbelieve the others: and as he who observes one
commandment for the pure love of God is most ready to
observe the others when occasion offers: - so he that
loves and prizes one evangelical counsel because it
came from God, must necessarily love all the others,
because they are also from God.
Now we may with ease practise some of them, though
not all of them together; for God has given many, in
order that every one may observe some of them, and
not a day passes without our having some opportunity
of doing so.
If charity require that to assist your father or
mother you must live with them, preserve at the same
time the love and affection for your seclusion; do
not keep your heart in your father's house more than
is required for doing what charity orders to be done
there.
Is it inexpedient for you, on account of your
rank, to preserve perfect chastity? Keep it at least,
as much as you may without violating charity. Let him
who cannot do all, at least do some part. You are not
obliged to seek out him who has offended you, for it
is his place to return to himself, and to come to you
to give you satisfaction, since he began the injury
and outrage: yet go, Theotimus, follow our Saviour's
counsel, prevent him in good, render him good for
evil, cast upon his head and heart the burning coals
of signs of charity, that may wholly inflame him and
force him to a reconciliation.
You are not bound by rigour of law to give alms to
all the poor you meet, but only to such as are in
very great need of them: yet do not therefore cease
to give willingly, according to our Saviour's
counsel, to every poor person you find, so far as
your condition and your real necessities may allow.
You have no obligation to make any vow at all, yet
make some, such as shall be judged fit by your
ghostly father for your advancement in Divine love.
You have liberty to use wine within the limits of
propriety; yet following S. Paul's counsel to
Timothy, take only so much as is requisite for your
stomach's sake.
In counsels there are various degrees of
perfection. To lend to such poor people as are not in
extreme want is the first degree of the counsel of
alms-deeds; to give it them is a degree higher;
higher still to give all; but the highest is to give
oneself, dedicating our person to their service.
Hospitality except in extreme necessity is a
counsel. To entertain strangers is the first degree
of it; but to stay by the wayside to invite them as
Abraham did, is a degree higher; and yet higher than
that is it to live in places of danger, in order to
rescue, help and wait upon travellers: in this
excelled that great S. Bernard of Menthon, a native
of this diocese, who, being a scion of a most noble
house, did for many years inhabit the precipices and
peaks of our Alps, and there got together many
associates to wait for, lodge and rescue, and to
deliver from the danger of the storm, travellers and
passers-by who would often perish amidst the
tempests, snow and colds, were it not for the
hospices which this great friend of God erected and
founded upon the two mountains, which, taking their
names from him, are called the Great S. Bernard, in
the diocese of Sion, and the Little S. Bernard, in
the diocese of Tarentaise.
To visit the sick who are not in extreme necessity
is a laudable charity, to serve them is yet better,
but to consecrate a man's self to their service is
the excellence of that counsel: this, by their
institute, the Clerks of the Visitation of the Sick
exercise; as do many ladies in various places; in
imitation of the great S. Samson, a gentleman and
physician of Rome, who at Constantinople, where he
was made priest, with a wonderful charity devoted
himself to the service of the sick in a hospital
which he began there, and which the Emperor Justinian
erected and finished: and in imitation of SS.
Catharine of Siena and of Genoa, S. Elizabeth of
Hungary, and the glorious friends of God S. Francis
and the Blessed (S.) Ignatius of Loyola, who in the
beginning of their Orders performed this exercise
with an incomparable fervour and spiritual profit.
Virtues have then a certain sphere of perfection, and
commonly we are not obliged to practise them to the
height of their excellence. It is sufficient to go so
far in the practice of them as really to enter upon
them. But to go farther, and to advance in
perfection, is a counsel, as the acts of heroic
virtues are not ordinarily commanded, but counselled
only.
And if upon some occasion we find ourselves
obliged to exercise them, it is by reason of some
rare and extraordinary occurrence, which makes them
necessary for the preservation of God's grace.
The blessed door-keeper of the prison of
Sebaste, seeing one of the forty who were then
martyred lose courage and the crown of martyrdom,
took his place without being apprehended, and thus
made up the forty of those glorious and triumphant
soldiers of Our Lord. S. Adauctus seeing S. Felix led
to martyrdom, - I, quoth he (no
one urging him), I also am as much a Christian as he,
worshipping the same Saviour; and with that, kissing
S. Felix, he walked with him to martyrdom and was
beheaded. Thousands of the ancient martyrs did the
like, and having it equally in their power to avoid
or undergo martyrdom without sin, they chose rather
generously to undergo it than lawfully to avoid it.
In these, martyrdom was an heroic act of the
fortitude and constancy which a holy excess of love
gave them. But when it is necessary to endure
martyrdom or else to renounce the faith, of martyrdom
does not cease to be martyrdom, and an excellent act
love and valour, yet do I scarcely think it is to be
termed an heroic act, not being chosen by any excess
of love but by force of the law which in that case
commands it.
Now in the practice of the heroic acts of virtue
consists the perfect imitation of our Saviour, who,
as the great S. Thomas says, had all the virtues in
an heroic degree from the first instant of his
conception; yea I would willingly say more than
heroic, since he was not simply more than man but
infinitely more than man, that is, true God.
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