Jesuits!

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 322, 20 June 1879, Page 5

Jesuits!

TRANSLATED FBOM THE FRENCH OF. PAUL VBYAL BY T. F. OAWEY. * BALTntOEB, 1879. THE FIRST VOW. "Ik the eternal city the Vicar of Jesus Christ sits abandoned on his throne, his hands extended to heaven ; he sees the deluge rising, rising, sweeping away everything in its fearful course, threatening.^ inyade the heart of Catholicity, the last rampart of faith, of authority, of truth. ... ' ',-.,. "... This is not news to you, my children and my friends ; the evil is so glittering that all can see it with closed eyes, for the rays of its infernal light pierce the eyelids. What I have desired to show you is the number and the strength of the battalions that are leagued against faith. A like gathering of men has never ibeen before. Will faith be overcome 1 " It cannot be. " Who will defend it ? Jesus.' Where is the army of Jesus ? At Rome and in France. "Is the army of Roma numerous ? No. "Is it strong ? Yes. - - - " And the army of France ? " It is here, count it I "Six young men and a cripple, who will be an old man to-mor-row ; seven souls in all. " The army of France lias but one Frenchman. Do not despise it, for with the help of God it will do great things. " While you were waiting for me, rebuking my silence, in the humility of my prayer I was raised to those heights whence one can look out upon the future. I read our history in Jesus' secret. God accepts us for his soldiers. He showed me the wild field of battle where the other standard marches against his standard. I saw that. " I saw the whole world come down into the arena ; I saw you, I saw myself. . . . "I do not ask if your will is for war. What good 1 I know that you will be abandoned .to the will of God. , , . " And I know you are the ' Companions of Jesus ;' you shall have that name, understand me : you will not take it, God gives it to you. . . . ". . . . Tou shall have hours of triumph so splendid that jealous hatred will rise up about you in a whirlwind, just aa water boils and hisses about the red iron it is tempering. " And you shall have disasters so fearful that your enemies will set theii heel upon what they take to be your dead body, " But you shall not strike, and yet they shall be cast down, . . You shall never strike, "Your law is not to strike, and you shall conquer by this law. " How is the enemy called ? — His name is Revolt. " Where is Revolt ? In Heresy -which is falsehood. " How are Revolt and Heresy to be attacked? By Authority which is Truth. " Where are Authority and Truth ? In the Church with Liberty, which is the right to li ve and die according to the law of God, in order to be born again in t»e glory of God. •' Is the Church attacked ? Yes, on all sides. •' Does ttie Church need any defence ? For herself, no, for she Is •ure of life from the promise of Jesus Christ. In the interest of what is not the Church, yes, and above all in the interest of the active enemies of the Church, who will either come back to the Church or will die, for out of the Church there is no salvation, " We do not wish them to die. " Then how defend the Church, that is to say, the possibility of salvation for those who do not know the Church and for those who persecute the Church ? By. opposing obedience to revolt, self-denial to selfishness*, free sacrifice to the slavery of gross passions which always demand greater indulgence ; that is to say, by making Christians. " How are Christians made 1 By the word of Jesus Christ, recalled to men, and taught to children and to infidels. " The reign of brute force will never finish ; the eword will be broken only by the cannon, and that will prevail till a more brutal force dismounts it ; but opposed to these inert powers that blindly serve the justice of God and the wrongheadedness of man, another power is appearing, called thought. "It is only of yesterday, though the Scripture is 1600 years old, but it is our age which is beginning to cast written and spoken thought upon the earth to feed the appetite of th« mob. " Wickedness ever wakeful, while goodness slumbers, has seized this thing, which is right enough in itself, and, by means of it, has resuscitated the Judaic idol and the altars of the heathen gods. " We must not permit the betrayal of defenceless ignorance by this perverted knowledge. " We shall not fight with the sword, but with the word ; we shall preach to men and instruct children ; we shall make Christians by preaching and teaching. " I who have had lessons from all of you, and am the least learned among you, have at least the science of the bumble, and you hare chosen me to direct your hearts, if not your intelligence. Why 2 Because you have seen the name of Jesus flaming like a torch in my conscience. " I have studied at Barcelona, at Salamanca, at Alcala, at Paris ; what have I learned 1 The language of doubt, but in me there was no harbour for doubt, Jes»Tß came and my trust in God has grown by the 'doubts of man.

" I have admired orators and men of learning, and have drunk the philosophy or the poetry that poured * from their lips, yet at the bottom of my soul I have said the prayer of our Father in heaven as it was taught to the apostles by the Man-God Himself. This is infinite poetry and everlasting philosophy. " I have heard the Scotchman, Buchanan, who sings like Virgil ; the profound Latomus ; the vast Gombaut ; the universal William Bude ; Danes, and his master Lascaris, who could have discoursed with Plato in the pure language of Homer ; Bamus, so keen to point out the shortcomings of Aristotle, and so unable te see his own weakness ; always those noble minds spoke a lofty language^ but above their full sounding tones I heard the voice of my God teaching me to believe, to hope, to love and to abandon my soul to the wonders of his mercy. " And each day I loved, I hoped and I believed more and more, tasting the joys of faith in the very midst of the boldest denials, understanding the happiness of hoping all the more for the learned discouragement that surrounded me, and making the canticle of my great love be heard above the wailings of their hatred. « For every blasphemy is a cry of pain coming from the torture of remorse. " Prom the thrice blessed time when God visited me as I lay wounded on my pallet, I have been seeking my way, the road that is to lead me to the end I so passionately -desire ; the greater glory of God that is to say, the most complete salvation of man. "On this road my soul has made three halts. " In my grotto at Manresa, I dedicated myself to alms and prayer, those powerful weapons of the first hermits. I was still ignorant of the disease of our time, yet something murmured to me : 'It is not enough/ " The Mother of Jesus, whom I had constantly besought, inspired me to visit Calvary ; on my way I heard terrible threats in the name of Luther. The hope of the battle arose in me. " That was the second station on my jouiaiey^ " And the battle was the one I spoke of a little -while ago ; a battle where we give no blows, and which is decided in the enemy's favour, the supernatural battle of charity. " And already I thought : « How few will believe in the sincerity of such an effort which upsets the equilibrium of human virtues 1 Nothing for nothing, is the world's law.' " And I already heard the great cry that was to go up around me : ' Hypocrite ! hypocrite I hypocrite !' *' That is the hardest insult to bear. My captain's pride still exists in the corner of my heart. ' Hypocrite ! hypocrite !' may I live to swallow this insult ; may I die buried in this cry, my Lord and my God, and may my shame be thy glory ! " Nevertheless, to preach as well as to teach, one must be instructed. I studied, and while studying, I heard the same mysterious voice as at Manresa, murmuring the same words : •It is not enough.' " O Virgin ! said I, Immaculate Mother, what more must I do ? Shall I never know the will of my divine Master ? ". . . . Here lam stopped by respect, happiness and sorrow. It has been thus whenever the revelation of the mysterious and wonderful facts of my time of trial have come to my lips. . . . O Jesus of piety and of pity, the treasure of the poor, the glory of the humble, from the very day when I first touched the hand of Peter Lefevre, who was to be the first one consecrated among us, my strength grew, my hope enlarged, and the idea of our association haviug arisen in me, Ino longer heard the voice saying : •It is not enough. 1 " It was enough ; with the idea of association a plan took shape in my thoughts. "lam a soldier and could dream only of an army. Besides, did I not remember seeing in my first ecstacies those great multitudes who walked in the shadow against the light of the Cross, and the mystic conflict of the two standards in the boundless plain 1 "My army existed, though I was still alone with Lefevre to whom I had said nothing. " You came, one after the other, my friends and my children, and I enlisted you without your knowledge. Others offered themselves, but I stopped at the seventh. " The present hour requires no more. What the future asks God will tell.

"We are seven against millions of men who are unfaithful to God. The millions of men who are faithful to God will, perhaps, not be with us. " We do not know our friends and they do not know us ; but we know our enemies and we shall make them know us. "We have neither authority nor mission, and we have but one right, that of giving ourselves and asking nothing in return. Our strength is in. the absence of all strength. We desire not arms, subsidies, ramparts, nor anything perishable. " We shall have everything in Jesus Christ. •' We shall go as our divine Master went through Judea, with open hands and bared breasts. We are to-day what I was when alone yesterday, the Company founded to carry the Cross of Jesus. " Each of us ghall fall by the wayside, crushed by the fearful and »weet weight of that burden, but what matter ? The work shall live and grow — I know it. " The Company of Jesus shall triumph in Jesus, through Jesus. "It will stop the desertion that is desolating the temple, it will fill up the great gaps in the ranks of the faithful. "Do not doubt ; so it will be. " Antiquity had a sublime fable : Orpheus going even to death in search of his love. We shall do as Orpheus ; the Company of Jesus will seek out the victims of apostasy in the apostates' hell ; it will snatch those dear souls from death, by going to the lowest depths of the abyss ; it will try, may it succeed ! to save the soul of the apostate. itself from the greatest of misfortunes I . ■

"Already some of the wanderers, are hesitating and inquiring the right way ; we shall point it out to them, that is not much. < , " But there are great numbers of little souls, the children, the well- beloved children of whom Jesus said : ' Suffer them to come unto me,' we shall take the children by the hand and lead them to Jesus ; that too is but little for the present, hut is a great deal for. the future. " But in darkness beyond the Ocean there are other multitudes of souls as impossible to number as the' sands of the seashore. . . . Xavier, your eye is brightening ; I know your, great heart bleeds when it hears of the demon's heavy yoke that weighs upon the Indies, upon Japan, upon China, upon' the African countries, upon America, in a word, upon the forger half of the world. " You shall go, Xavier ; we shall go, the Company of Jesus shall go ; it will*purchase with the blood of its martyrs as many souls as the Church has lost in the shipwreck of the Eeform, the double, and the triple ; so that the fold of the Good Shepherd will be full to overflowing. ...

" . . . . Let us praise Gk)d. We are the army- of God. I say 'we are,' for the work is founded ; it has existed since the time when my thoughts no longer belonged to me' alone and passed from my soul into yours. This is our birthday. Here is the cradle of our power. The age of this power will count for mankind from the fact that gives sanction to it ; for ourselves it dates from this very day, consecrated to the Immaculate Queen of angels. We know that from the present hour we are the soldiers of prayer, of renunciation and of charity. " Every army must have a general, we shall have a general who will be our earthly chief. Nothing in the world will be vaster or more complete than his authority, unless it be our liberty. " And this liberty and this authority will be together perfect obedience, which is the only remedy that can break the fever of the time. " The obedience I speak of can be defined only in naming Him to whom it will be due, in the same measure and by the same title from our superior-general as from the last one amongst us. We shall seek our supreme Chief not here below, but in heaven : it will be thou, O Jesus Christ our Saviour J " All authority amongst us shall come from thee, and shall be exercised in thee ; all obedience shall be directed to thee. " To obey thee, O God, is to be fre«, and to command in thy holy name is to obey. " The tree of faith, the tree of the Cross, has two symmetrical branches, authority and obedience : both bear the same fruit, liberty. "To command, to obey : two sides of the same sacrifice I two meanings of the word, love ! Jesus, Lord, under thy level he who commands is the more humble. He is a servant among servants :he belongs to those who belong to thee, and thus only, O God Saviour 1 in thee, through thee, the self-denial of power and the devotion of obedience unite in the embrace which gives life to liberty. . . . "We are seven to-day : to-morrow, we can be a thousand. Our earthly chief taust be strong in the hand of our divine Master, under the eye of the common Father of the faithful. " Our house shall not be built for human interests, and yet our house shall prosper, eren in a fashion that is strange to the calling and the intention of the order, but which may be necessary according to tlie times, for the fulfilment of its providential work. " I know that, I see it, and affirm it. " I know, I see, I affirm that the earthly chief of our order, the general of our peaceful army will be mighty among the great ones of the earth, from the very depth of his humility. It must be, it will be so. Therefore you shall choose him ' intimately united to God,* so that from the fountain head itself, he may be able to obtain an abundance of the grace, that through him is to spread out over our whole body.' " Moreover, by his example he should preach the practice of all virtues, and 'above all, the splendo'tr of eliarity ••' in him should be seen ' interior mortification, exterior modesty, circumspection of words, a severity tempered with sweetness, an invincible courage' inspired by the word of the apostle St. Paul : ' when I am weak, lam strong.' 11. Cor. xii, 10. "As for what is called force in human language : science, intelligence, discernment, prudence in business, God will provide, because our chief shall be the l servant whom the Lord has named,' quern, constituit Dominus, to govern the family. . . . He seems to be above, but he is really beneath. The family bears and weighs down upon him, and he can say : ' Thou hast placed m«n upon our heads, Lord, imposuisti homines super capita nostra. . , . " The authority that we are going to confide in Jesus Christ to this head of the family will look so high and so wide to outsiders, that it will b« said : ' Nothing similar has ever existed, it is a drove of slaves led by a tyrant ;' and others will go still further : •He is a despot seated on corpses /' " They wre singular slaves who acknowledge no one above them but Godt% " And whoever attacks the religion of Christ will see a movement among those corpses 1 " No, they who will talk thus will be mistaken or utter a calumny : in our house there shall not be tyrant, slaves, or corpses. There shall be only free and living Christians. "In fact, election shall guaranty the origin of this magnificent, vigorous and extensive power, and throughout its whole duration it shall be supported, balanced, and checked by the glance of the whole assembled family. There shall be no courtiers about him : advisers, helpers, judges ! His works shall be the application of certain and stable laws, not of his own making, and which he shall be unable to elude or abolish.

♦St Ignatius, " Constitutions," Part IX. t Words of Fr. de Ponlevoy, quoted in the admirable book of Fr. do GftbriM La Vie dv P. do Ponlevoy, p. 137. t St. Igntfini, " Ofiztftitntions," Fart VI.

" He shall be able to do all things, it is true, for good, but he shall be able to do nothing for evil. " He shall be able to do all things : " For the greater glory of God, " For the better service of souls, " For the sanctification of his brethren, " For the sacrifice of himself. " He shall be able to do nothing against truth, " Nothing against justice, " Nothing against charity. " Above himself there shall bo that power which people will call absolnte : God, the Vicar of God, the exterior law, that is the 6tate ; the interior law, that is the Rule — and the family itself, obedient, but sovereign. "We are the army of authority, we shall have authority. We desire it to be greater than has been exercised in any re-union of men here below, but we desire liberty : and we shall have it as sincerely and more fully than any human society, because we shall be nothing in our house where God shall be all. "Jesus Christ is our beginning, our middle, and our end. "We see Jesus Christ in our general, our general sees Jesus Christ in us : Christus mnnia in omnibus. . " Thus our heavenly Master has given me a heritage for yon which is the Rule cf Jesus, vast enough to contain at once perfect authority and perfect liberty, as much as is becoming to the sorrowful passage of man here below. " I see that, I know it, I affirm it. ... "We are seven, we can be a hundred thousand. The Rule, permitting authority, kept from any excess by the counter-balance of liberty, to exercise its uttermost power across our ranks, however dense and deep they may te, will fill our whole body with that life and with that force which war calls discipline, a lessened and adapted form of absolutism which is obedience. For discipline our army of peace shall have their abandonment of self which man owes only to God, and which we shall willingly transfer to a man who shall be for us a figure of the Son of God. " Now is the hour of all times to oppose a dyke of our breasts to fhe murky flood. Prayer suffices no longer, we must work. Others assembled in other days to imitate Mary of Bethany in her pious contemplation at the feet of Jesus. Happy were they ; let us praise them, let us not imitate them. 44 We ourselves shall be the children of Martha. We shall be priests as well as monks, and we shall do the work of priests. Study, th« confessional, the pulpit, the school, and the alms-giving of spiritual as well as temporal bread : such will be our task : " Opposing the present evil, preparing future good, preaching in the very thick of schism and wherever truth is attacked, going to the confines of the earth in search of ignorance and error, teaching the little ones to spell, adults to beliave, young people to think : men, women, all, to love God, their country, and their family ; counselling mercy to the mighty, resignation, the companion of hope, to the weak, generosity to the rich, pardon to the poor, teaching all the holy law of charity ; such is our life ! "To revolt, we shall oppose our vow of obedience ; to eager selfishness, our vow of poverty ; to ambition and pride, our vow of humility. " We shall accept money from no one for praying, celebrating, preaching, ot teaching, and we sbail be reproached for this, for we ■hall have other enemies than the enemies of the Church. " Despite the absence of any stipend, our poverty shall erect immense dwellings and shall scatter large alms. " This will be astonishing, and we shall be accused for it. We shall march on, with lowered heads, regardless of insult, and those who outrage us we ihall love as ourselves for the love of God. "My friends and my children, it is haid to do this, and it is especially hard to believe in it. The law commanding us to turn the other cheek is unnatural and so repugnant to the heart of man that when man sees it obeyed, he will insist upon seeing nothing but hypocrisy in the impossible sacrifice, or cowardice in the heroism that he cannot understand. " No man will adu.it that without God's help it needs a thousand times more valour to drink the bitterness of insult than it does to strike down the man who insults you. 41 Amongst men we shall be considered swindlers for our miracle of poverty ; hypocrites, for our miracle of charity ; cowards, for our miracle of humility. "Glory to God? 44 Even our death will not disarm ridicule or insult ; it shall be said of us as was said of our divine Master, Jesus, that 'we have played our parts to the end, and that our last sigh is our last falsehood.' Glory, glory to God alone 1 14 We Arc the companions of Him w"bo is glorified by opprobrium. Praise to the Lord ! Just as our imdigence will be wealth, and our cowardice a supernatural courage, bo our abasement will be incomparable poww. 41 Kings and nation p will come to seek us out under the feet of oar enemies. Lord, save us from pride, whether on tho steps of the throne or in the depth of our misery ! Glory to God ! All glory to God 1 To the greater glory oi God. . . ." ... He knelt down, and the six imitated him. None of them had yet spokon. Ignatius raised his clasped hands and said in Latin : — Jesus most patient, The others replied in the same language : —Have m«rcy on us. — Jesus most obedient, —Hare mercy oa us* — tf twa aMOk «ul lumUk «£ tart;,

— Have mercy on us. — Let uf pray. — O God, who, by the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin, hast illuminated the souls of thy servants with the light of the Holy Ghost, grant, if it please thee, that their dwelling here below may be built for all and not for themselves, so that having given their life for the salvation of men in Jesus Christ, they may never cease to be persecuted for thy greater glory, w ho livest and reignest, world without end. — Amen. And having made the sign of the cross, they arose.

The day had now dawned. The people of the neighbourhood climbed the different paths on their way to mass attheabbey-churcb. Ignatius and his children went to the left of the church, across tlie field that descended from the cemetery, to the martyr's chapel whose situation we have described and whose environs at the time were entirely uninhabited. Alone they entered the crypt that had been prepared for the holy Sacrifice. Tradition fixes nine o'clock as the hour when Father Lefevre celebrated mass. "After having fasted and prayed together," says Cr6tineau-Joly, " they met on the loth AugUbt, 1534, in a subterranean chapel of the church of Montinartre,* where piety believes f that St. Denis was beheaded. It was the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin. Ignatius had chosen that day so that the Society might be born in the very bosom of Mary triumphant. There, these seven Christians . . . to whom Peter Lefevre, already a priest, had given communion with his own hands, make a vow to live in chastity. They bind themselves to a perpetual poverty ; they promise God that after finishing their course of theology they will go to Jerusalem . . . ; but if at the end of a year, it is not possible for them to reach the Holy City (on account of the war), they will cast themselves at the feet of the Sovereign PontiffJ to ask him existence as an order and to receive bis That was all : the Company of Jesus was founded. (To be continued.)