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In a previous recollection we meditated on docility to the Holy Spirit as the source of growth in our spiritual life and of fruitfulness in our ministry. One of the necessary conditions for that docility is purity of heart. Divine grace is a gratuitous gift of God and does not depend upon us, yet it rests with us to prepare the ground for those divine communications and to make them effective, by removing whatever is opposed to God's free action in our soul. This preparatory and very necessary cooperation on our part must frequently be the object of our scrutiny, lest we frustrate many of God's designs for our sanctification and our apostolate by keeping our hearts encumbered with obstacles to the operations of divine grace. Such obstacles are: venial sins, uncontrolled passions, vain and useless preoccupations.
AVOIDING SIN
It is obvious that venial sins, and even imperfections deliberately and habitually admitted in our daily life, are a great hindrance to God's grace. For one thing, as they render the soul less pleasing to God, they may decrease considerably the abundance of His gifts and deprive us of many actual graces. But, independently of that, they tend to make us less and less docile to divine inspirations, because they cloud our spiritual vision, diminish our fervour in resisting temptation and practising virtue, and little by little take away all relish for spiritual things.
The danger is the greater as we easily overlook the serious evil there is in venial sin, and are drawn into its groove imperceptibly, even finding ready pretexts to persuade ourselves that such a course is unavoidable for all but Saints.
We must combat such inclinations in us, by thoughts of faith about the dreadful harm there is in venial sin, by an oft-repeated resolution not to consent deliberately to any offence, not even the smallest, against God, by a firm conviction that God calls us to a life of habitual fidelity and gives us ample grace for it, and by sincere acts of contrition and penance when we have been guilty of deliberate faults.
* If we looked upon our daily life with the eyes with which the Saints looked upon their's, how we would shudder at the presence in our habitual conduct of so much infidelity!WATCHING OVER OUR PASSIONS
Let us pray for a greater horror and holy fear of venial sin. Our daily examination of conscience and our weekly confession ought to keep alive in us those views of faith. Do they? - How great is our generosity in atoning for our sins, and our fervour and confidence in the daily oblation of Christ's expiatory sacrifice "pro innumerabilibus peccatis et offensionibus et negligentiis meis" ? . . .
It is not only actual sins and imperfections that impede the work of God in our soul, but we have another enemy, within the place itself, to keep at bay: our ill-regulated passions, which are the root of sin and against which we are never secure unless we keep a close watch over their movements. Alas! how numerous, how insidious, how tenacious those evil inclinations can be! Pride and vanity, the spirit of independence and disobedience, sensuality, sloth: all these and other forms of self-love are a perpetual menace to the work of the Holy Spirit within us. They tend to warp our views, to vitiate our intentions and spoil our actions.
If then we want to give God free play in our soul, we must keep our passions under control: first of all, with sincere humility acknowledge their presence within us; suppress their actual manifestations, and fight them out mercilessly by opposing contrary virtues to each disorderly affection, so that we may free our heart from those poisonous roots which are so great an obstacle to God's inspirations and are often the reason why sacramental graces and the gifts of the Holy Ghost have so little effect upon our spiritual life.
* Are we humble enough to be poignantly conscious of our constant need of vigilance? Beware of self-complacency in spiritual life, which leaves one imbedded in hopeless mediocrity. - Are we generous and methodical in practising theFREEING OURSELVES FROM ALL VAIN PREOCCUPATIONS
"agere contra"? Do we apply our "particular examen" to uproot our defects? - Let us pray that we may know self and die to self in order to live to Christ: "Domine Jesu, noverim me, noverim Te. . . persequar me, sequar Te."
Dissipation of mind and heart is another great obstacle to our docility to the Holy Spirit. The Divine Master knocks at the door, but we hear Him not, or deliberately turn a deaf ear to His voice: we are too engrossed in vain and useless preoccupations. This dissipation may come from the fickleness of a superficial mind which takes pleasure in petty and frivolous pursuits, or from the strength of worldly allurements that bewitch us, or even - alas! - from our apostolic labours, when we allow ourselves to seek in them natural satisfactions which crowd God out of our mind and heart.
* Are we not squandering some of our time in profitless occupations, readings and conversations, thus living in an atmosphere quite uncongenial to God's operation in our soul, and sowing the seeds of innumerable distractions in prayer? - Let us resolve to keep our heart closed to the seductions of all vain things: "Fascinatio enim nugacitatis obscurat bona", and to give undivided to God a life that has been wholly consecrated to His service by our ordination: "In his quae Patris mei sunt oportet me esse."
Lava quod est sordidum, Riga quod est aridum, Sana quod est saucium. - Flecte quod est rigidum, Fove quod est frigidum, Rege quod est devium."
"Largire nobis, quaesumus, Domine, semper spiritum cogitandi quae recta sunt, propitius et agendi: ut, qui sine te esse non possumus, secundum te vivere valeamus. Per C.D.N."
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Adapted from Alter Christus, Meditations for Priests by F.X. L'Hoir, S.J. (1958)
Meditation 26.
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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood.
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