Of the benefits that come to the soul from its withdrawal of
joy from temporal things.
THE spiritual man, then, must look carefully to it that his
heart and his rejoicing begin not to lay hold upon temporal
things; he must fear lest from being little it should grow to be
great, and should increase from one degree to another. For little
things, in time, become great; and from a small beginning there
comes in the end a great matter, even as a spark suffices to set a
mountain on fire and to burn up the whole world. And let him never
be self-confident because his attachment is small, and fail to
uproot it instantly because he thinks that he will do so later.
For if, when it is so small and in its beginnings, he has not the
courage to make an end of it, how does he suppose, and presume,
that he will be able to do so when it is great and more deeply
rooted. The more so since Our Lord said in the Gospel: 'He that is
unfaithful in little will be unfaithful also in much.'[577] For he
that avoids the small sin will not fall into the great sin; but
great evil is inherent in the small sin,[578] since it has already
penetrated within the fence and wall of the heart; and as the
proverb says: Once begun, half done. Wherefore David warns us,
saying: 'Though riches abound, let us not apply our heart to
them.'[579]
2. Although a man might not do this for the sake of God and
of the obligations of Christian perfection, he should nevertheless
do it because of the temporal advantages that result from it, to
say nothing of the spiritual advantages, and he should free his
heart completely from all rejoicing in the things mentioned above.
And thus, not only will he free himself from the pestilent evils
which we have described in the last chapter, but, in addition to
this, he will withdraw his joy from temporal blessings and acquire
the virtue of liberality, which is one of the principal attributes
of God, and can in no wise coexist with covetousness. Apart from
this, he will acquire liberty of soul, clarity of reason, rest,
tranquillity and peaceful confidence in God and a true reverence
and worship of God which comes from the will. He will find greater
joy and recreation in the creatures through his detachment from
them, for he cannot rejoice in them if he look upon them with
attachment to them as to his own. Attachment is an anxiety that,
like a bond, ties the spirit down to the earth and allows it no
enlargement of heart. He will also acquire, in his detachment from
things, a clear conception of them, so that he can well understand
the truths relating to them, both naturally and supernaturally. He
will therefore enjoy them very differently from one who is
attached to them, and he will have a great advantage and
superiority over such a one. For, while he enjoys them according
to their truth, the other enjoys them according to their
falseness; the one appreciates the best side of them and the other
the worst; the one rejoices in their substance; the other, whose
sense is bound to them, in their accident. For sense cannot grasp
or attain to more than the accident, but the spirit, purged of the
clouds and species of accident, penetrates the truth and worth of
things, for this is its object. Wherefore joy, like a cloud,
darkens the judgment, since there can be no voluntary joy in
creatures without voluntary attachment, even as there can be no
joy which is passion when there is no habitual attachment in the
heart; and the renunciation and purgation of such joy leave the
judgment clear, even as the mists leave the air clear when they
are scattered.
3. This man, then, rejoices in all things -- since his joy is
dependent upon none of them -- as if he had them all; and this
other, through looking upon them with a particular sense of
ownership, loses in a general sense all the pleasure of them all.
This former man, having none of them in his heart, possesses them
all, as Saint Paul says, in great freedom.[580] This latter man,
inasmuch as he has something of them through the attachment of his
will, neither has nor possesses anything; it is rather they that
have possessed his heart, and he is, as it were, a sorrowing
captive. Wherefore, if he desire to have a certain degree of joy
in creatures, he must of necessity have an equal degree of
disquietude and grief in his heart, since it is seized and
possessed by them. But he that is detached is untroubled by
anxieties, either in prayer or apart from it; and thus, without
losing time, he readily gains great spiritual treasure. But the
other man loses everything, running to and fro upon the chain by
which his heart is attached and bound; and with all his diligence
he can still hardly free himself for a short time from this bond
of thought and rejoicing by which his heart is bound. The
spiritual man, then, must restrain the first motion of his heart
towards creatures, remembering the premiss which we have here laid
down, that there is naught wherein a man must rejoice, save in his
service of God, and in his striving for His glory and honour in
all things, directing all things solely to this end and turning
aside from vanity in them, looking in them neither for his own joy
nor for his consolation.
4. There is another very great and important benefit in this
detachment of the rejoicing from creatures -- namely, that it
leaves the heart free for God. This is the dispositive foundation
of all the favours which God will grant to the soul, and without
this disposition He grants them not. And they are such that, even
from the temporal standpoint, for one joy which the soul renounces
for love of Him and for the perfection of the Gospel, He will give
him a hundred in this life, as His Majesty promises in the same
Gospel.[581] But, even were there not so high a rate of interest,
the spiritual man should quench these creature joys in his soul
because of the displeasure which they give to God. For we see in
the Gospel that, simply because that rich man rejoiced at having
laid up for many years, God was so greatly angered that He told
him that his soul would be brought to account on that same
night.[582] Therefore, we must believe that, whensoever we rejoice
vainly, God is beholding us and preparing some punishment and
bitter draught according to our deserts, so that the pain which
results from the joy may sometimes be a hundred times greater than
the joy. For, although it is true, as Saint John says on this
matter, in the Apocalypse, concerning Babylon, that as much as she
had rejoiced and lived in delights, so much torment and sorrow
should be given her,[583] yet this is not to say that the pain will
not be greater than the joy, which indeed it will be, since for
brief pleasures are given eternal torments. The words mean that
there shall be nothing without its particular punishment, for He
Who will punish the idle word will not pardon vain rejoicing.