Life in a Jesuit College.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1037, 15 January 1892, Page 11

Life in a Jesuit College.

11. Dziewicici, in the Nineteenth Century. A bi-other l'ises a few minutes before four o’clock in the morning, di’asses hastily rings the bell, and passes through all the rooms, saying in each, ‘ Benedicamus Domino !’ to which ‘Deo gi'atias !’ having'been answered, he lights a candle placed overnight for him, and passes on. The moment the bell l-ings you hear a series of jumps on the floor; some di’ess more, others less quickl}'’, but all, ‘ hearing the voice of God in the bell,’ instantly obey. And should the visitor 1 , who passes through the rooms a quarter of an hour after, find anybody still in bed, it would certainly be a case of illness. The passage is soon filled with novices who, having performed their ablutions and dressed completely, go to throw their dirty water down the sink. In this, there is nothing extraordinai-y. Among .Jesuits it is a rule that, as Erancia Xavier said, ‘ What their own hands can perform, that they will allow no servant to do for them.’ I myself have seen rectors and provincials not only doing this very menial work, but blacking their own shoes, and sweeping their own rooms. But what can really he called extraordinary is that the novices cany their basins, &c., walking on tiptoe. It certainly woilld pi-esent a sufficiently comical spectacle to any outsider, if he saw six or seven novices at a time bearing with grave faces those very unclerical vessels, and hastening by ‘ with Tarquin’s ravishing strides. ’ The reason for this peculiarity is that the master of the novices thought that one of the best means to inculcate silence, not only in words but in actions was to order everybody to walk on tiptoe in the house. But as it was not only a very awkward fashion of getting over the ground, but a very tiring one, too, nobody will be surprised to learn that this rule was veiy frequently broken.

As soon as the rapid toilet of the novices is over, they hurry down to the oratory to visit the Holy Sacrament, and say their morning prayer. You may see several of them kneeling down outside ; for it is a rule that, if not ready by 4.25, ,|hey must not go in for fear of disturbing the others. It sometimes happens that, as they are allowed to possess no watch, and the clock is too far off to consult, a novice ready befure many others fancies he is lace, and kneels down outside, all the rest follow his example as they come, and upwards of twenty novices remain outside for a quarter of an hour. But half-past four strikes, and at the sound of the bell they go upstairs for their daily hour of meditation. Fol lowing the directions of St Ignatius, the novice stands for a quarter or for half a minute ‘considering how the Lord our God seei him,’ and then performs an act of humiliation, kneeling down and kissing the ground. Dur ing the whole,, time he remains on his knees and, and far as possible, motionless. As fleas are very numerous in the South of France—-so much so that with the strictest cleanliness it is scarcely possible to avoid them—this immobility whilst smarting under the bite of invisible assailants is by no means an easy matter. I for one could not manage it, I remember. But I knew a novice who could : he never moved in the least, from the beginning of the meditation until the very end. This may seem a small, even a ridiculous thing ; but a few years 'later he got a disease of the spinal marrow, and 1 cannot help thinking that constant suppression of all feeling had something to do with it. At all events, I cannot imagine why this sort of mortification is allowed to novices, while the use of sackcloth is condemned as hurtful to their health. One can get accustomed arid hardened in time to every sort of pain that is inflicted always in the same place ; whereas a bite here, then another bite ’ there, always unexpected, always changing its place, and always excruciating, is much worse,

in. my opinion. Was a novice never allowed to sit down ? Yes, if he had the permission of the master ; but then the ad monitor (a brother who was something like the master’s prime minister) was to be told of the permission, and the * ancient of the room * —he who had entered the novitiate before any of the other occupants of the chamber—had to be warned each time.

The bell rings at last for the end of. the meditation ; again the novices fall prostrate, kiss the ground, and thank God for the spiritual food vouchsafed to them, They then proceed to review the course of their thoughts during the preceding hour, and note briefly what has struck them most. A quarter of’ an hour afterwards another signal is given, and they proceed to make the beds, each according to a uniform plan' every bed untidily arranged is liable to be pulled down and unmade by the admonitor, once, twice, or even three times, until perfection in bedmaking is attained. Sometimes, if brother is of an impatient fiery temp er, the admonitor receives orders froir t the master (although the bed is peyfectlv well made) to pull it down and get him to make it again. Sometimes secret orders are given an-d he is set upon and teased for trifl'es-by five or six novices in office, whi) s t the master is most particularly kin d and encourages him to bear up against these trials of temper ; in other cases, when he is too weakly and sensitively attached to the master, the latter treats him for' months together with affected coldness,, never finds time to speak with him,, and so on. Every weak point of every character is soon found out, and war is; waged against it in different ways ; if it be serious, and no progress be visible’ after some time,, the novice receives; notice to quit. Mass is heard at six. The novisea remain kneeling all the morning, except from the Gospel to the ‘ Sanctus ’ bell, during which tiffie they star id. Their attitude is the following : > je ad cast down ; body straight as an a rro w, hands folded in each other. 7jsy the by, this attitude they are reqr dred or rather counselled, to keep at a |l times, as far as possible, except, for instance, when either hands or eyes required for useful purposes. It 'i S) Q f course, very hard to look ar id natural in such an attitude, when not accustomed to it j and. an Englishman, not beforehand im’bueci with reverence for the novices, we.uld perhaps say that they looked very stiff and ‘ priggish "’ ; while their threadbare and patched * soutanes ’or -cassocks, so poor and worn that one *eould hardly give them away to a beg/ gar, would probably induce him to gi ve them another epithet, hardly more flattering. And a novice, if he should by chance hear any such epithet, ought to be ashamed of himself if he feels any other sensation than joy.

These may he looked upon as miser--able minutiae reducing every Jesuit to the state of a machine, grinding every particle of individuality out of - him, and unworthy of Loyola’s genius! Without attempting to enter r a to that question, which would lead. me to speak of my own point of view, I shall mgiely state the fact, that “these practices. particularly the Buies of Modesty, appeared extremely impr, r tant to St Ignatius, and . that he pai .d more attention to them than to m? my other matters seemingly of greater importance. His ideal was : Jesui ta, alter Jesus, and therefore wishWl the Jesuits to imitate the exterior of Jesus as far as they could. But, instead of leaving this imitation to bo worked out by each individual member, according to the ideal each had formed of Jesus’ appearance, he laid -down those rules according to the ideal that he himself had formed. And with regard to that, I remember a remark of our master of the novices in one of his lectures. There were, sulci he, { two manners of proceeding. ■ One was to render the interior holy, find let the exterior take care of itself y interior holiness would be sure to react , upon the exterior. Another was exactly the contrary : to take care and keep up the exterior of holiness; one would certainly in the end become holy, by acting in all things like a saint,’ I believe much could be said on both sides as to which is the better system ; but, given the ineradicable temptation of judging by appearances, to which almost everybody gives way, St Ignatius’ system seems better adapted to an Order whose every member has to appear much in public. And this I can say, that when not exaggerated, but rendered natural by either inborn or ac-' -

quired tact, this ‘ modesty ’ produces a pleasing rather than disagreeable effect. Englishmen, as a rule, are apt to think that people who don’t look them in the face are either sneaks or cheats ; but a quiet, self-collected, meditative look is something quite different from a sly and stealthy one. Few defects were more severely and, I must add, more frequently censured in the novitiate than the latter hypocritical caricature of real 1 modesty.’