We
need a great deal of prudence and
continual exercise if we are to control and regulate well our exterior
senses, because the appetite, which serves as the
captain of our corrupt nature, is excessively inclined to look for
pleasures and consolations. The soul cannot acquire ideas on its own by
extracting and
pulling them towards itself, so it makes use of the senses as if they
were its own soldiers and the most natural instruments for stamping
these ideas onto the soul. Pleasure springs from this, and through the
affinity between the soul and the flesh, pleasure circulates through
all those sentiments possessing the capacity for delight, from which
the soul
submits no less than the body to a common contagion that corrupts the
whole.
You see the damage: look to the remedy. Be very careful not to allow
your senses to roam freely wherever they please, and do not make use of
them
if your only purpose in doing so is pleasure, rather than some good
end, or else
utility or necessity. If
your senses have advanced too far ahead before you have noticed these
things, you must call them back, or
regulate them in such a way that, where before they made themselves
prisoners to vain consolations, now they take from every object worthy
prey and carry it back into the soul. This latter, collected within
itself, can unfold its wings towards the heavens and contemplate God in
the following manner.
Whenever any object presents itself to your exterior senses, have your
mind separate the spirit in the object from the created thing,
and consider that this item has absolutely nothing of what lies within
the grasp of your senses. Rather, think of how everything is the work
of God, who by his invisible spirit gives to that being the goodness or
the beauty or whatever other good you find within it. Then rejoice that
your Lord alone is the cause and principle of so many various
perfections in things, that he contains them all within himself
most eminently, for these things reach no higher than the smallest
level of his perfections.
When you realize that you are occupied in admiring things of a noble
essence, use your thoughts to reduce that creature to nothing. Fix your
mind's eye on the supreme Creator present within it, who gave it that
essence. Take delight in him alone, saying, "O divine essence,
supremely desirable! How it pleases me that you alone are the infinite
principle of every created thing!" In this manner, consider with your
intellect that the lives of trees, grasses, and similar things have
their origins not in themselves, but in the spirit that you do not see,
which alone gives them life. At this you will exclaim, "Here is true
life: from it, in it, and through it all things live and grow! O lively
joy of my heart!" In this manner, lift your mind from the
sight of brute animals to the God who gives them sense and motion,
saying, "O first mover: moving all things, you remain unmoved in
yourself: how I rejoice in your stability and firmness!"
When you feel yourself enticed by the beauty of created things,
separate that which you see from the spirit which you do not see.
Consider that everything that is beautiful in its outward appearance
comes only
from the invisible spirit which produces that exterior beauty. Say with
gladness, "Here we see the streams of the uncreated fountain; now we
behold the small drops of the infinite sea of everything good. Oh! How
my innermost heart delights to think of that immense and eternal
beauty, the origin and cause of every created beauty!"
When you notice in other things goodness, wisdom, justice, and other
virtues, say to your God after making these distinctions,
"My most
precious treasure of virtue! How it pleases me that every good
is derived solely from you and through you, that all things are nothing
in comparison
to your divine perfections! I thank you, Lord, for this and for every
other blessing you have given to my neighbor: remember, Lord, that I
need the virtue of
N⎯."
Afterwards, as you prepare yourself for activity, consider that God is
the
first cause of that activity, that you are nothing more than his
living instrument. At this, lift your thoughts to him, and speak in
this manner: "Supreme Lord of all, what joy I feel within myself, that
I can do nothing without you
(see
also John 15.5); rather, I
rejoice that you are the first and
foremost
craftsman
of all things!"
When tasting food or drink, consider that it is God who gives them
their flavor. Delighting in him alone, you can say, "Rejoice, my soul:
since there is no true joy outside your God, in every object you can
only take joy
in him."
(see
also Phil 4.4)
If you take pleasure while smelling something pleasing to your senses,
do not stop at that pleasure, but pass with your thoughts to the Lord
from whom it has its smell, and feeling interior consolation say,
"Grant, Lord, that just as I rejoice that every sweetness proceeds from
you, so may my soul, stripped bare of every earthly
pleasure, arise to you and present a pleasing aroma to your divine
nostrils."
When you hear some harmony of sounds and songs, turn with your mind to
God and say, "How I rejoice, my Lord and my God, in your infinite
perfections that, taken together, not only
release
a
divine
harmony, but within angels, heavens and
all created things present a marvelous concert!"
"N⎯":
Insert here your neighbor's Name.
"craftsman":
The Italian word
artefice
is
constructed from the Latin words
facere
(to make)
arte
(by/with art).
"release":
Literally,
sprigionare:
"let
out from prison."
"divine":
Literally,
sovraceleste:
"above the heavens." Hudon uses "supernatural".