The Madness of the cross - 1 - Abbé Anselme Longpre

Nihil obstat. Goergois Cabana. sacerdos 22â diè Julii 1940
Imprimatur + Fabianus-Zoellus Epus Sti-Hyacinthi 22â julii 1941


To the Christians

The first edition of The Madness of the Cross, appeared in 1938, is exhausted for a long time. We modified it so in this second edition that we offer a work presently nearly completely new. None literature, of the developments very course in order to force to the personal reflection, the diagrams thrown there, of the incomplete paragraphs, of the holes to fill, of the materials to work,. The mind that doesn't like the human constructions will be able to blow where it will want.

This work asks complete by our two other volumes: ‘, the Christian in retirement ‘', and the ‘S ' Retirements ' ' No.1s. in actual fact, these three volumes only form only one work, this one. Abbot Anselme Longpré Saint Hyacinth

N/B of the webmaster

Because of the length of the pages this book will be put on 2 pages.
1 - chapter 1 to the chapitre10 to the ties 289
2 - chapter 11 to the chapter 15 + 2 appendix to the ties 290

Contained of the site

I chapter: Natural order and supernatural order
II chapter: Our Sizes
III chapter: The mind Christian
IV chapter: The True Piety
V chapter: The Convenient Faith
VI chapter: Detachment of the creatures
VII chapter: The Madness of the Cross
VIII chapter: To form a Christian
IX chapter: The nothing of the creatures
X chapter: The mystery of poverty

Contained of the site-continuation 2

XI chapter: Don't like the world
XII chapter: The Relapses
XIII chapter: Conflicts of civilization
XIV chapter: The Madness of the Cross and The Eucharist
XV chapter: Saint Jean of the Cross, doctor of the Madness of the Cross,
Appendix 1: The adversaries of the Madness of the Cross
Appendix 2: Texts to meditate

I chapter: Natural order and supernatural order

It is necessary to look maybe for the explanation first and fundamental of some mistakes of method in spirituality, in a notion improper or incomplete of the reports that exist between the natural order and the supernatural order, or in a too material interpretation of the relations of the two orders, between them. The solemn affirmation of the Plenary Council of Quebec, in his/her/its first decree, reminds it to us: '' Necessarium imprimis censet Plenaria haec Synodus essentialem profiteri distinctionem inter ordinem naturalem and ordinem supernaturalem; qua distinctione neglecta vel denegata, plerique invaluerunt errores moderni ac ipsa vellitur Christianismi radix. It is necessary to really put in relief the distinction between the natural order and the supernatural order: most are modern mistakes come of the carelessness or the dismissal of this distinction. Of the same stroke one the very root of Christianity ''. (Tit. I.C.1mn.1.) Indeed, as warns us holy Thomas of it, a mistake on the principles brings in the practice the most fatal consequences. (In Met., Lib.II.) The necessity of the times pushed, sometimes of the less, the Apologists of the Religion to insist on the harmony that exists between the natural order and the supernatural order. That the apologetic puts the accent on this harmony, there is not anything to retell; it is about preparing a marriage between intelligence and the faith. But it is necessary to really avoid to transport in the spirituality
The method of The apologetic, and to let in the shade the teachings of a complete theology of the occult, as if the principle of the harmony between the two orders, even interpreted healthily, was the total statement of the reports that exists between the natural order and the supernatural order. Under pretext to react against a false mysticism, while protecting the rights of the nature, one inclines then toward an extremely dangerous convenient naturalism.

1 -

We must admit, teach and defend the real harmony that exists between the natural order and the supernatural order. The council of Vatican clearly affirms it: '' Although the faith is above the reason, it would know yet there how to have real disagreement ever between the faith and the reason. Because the God who reveals the mysteries and spills the faith while being us the same that the one put the light of the reason in the man's mind, he/it is impossible that God disowns himself/itself himself, nor that a truth opposes ell other truth. (Idiots. Dei Filius, IV.) the Harmony exists therefore between the reason and the faith as for the truth: what is true in the natural order the is also in the order supernatural, and no truth of the natural order, either physical, either historic, either metaphysical, cannot come in contradiction with the teaching of the faith. It is why the church, far from fearing the scientific progress, encourages it in any case.

This harmony between the nature and the surnature exists again as for the physical activity considered of one and the other. They are suitable a mutual contest. The reason precedes the faith, it prepares him the lands, constructs the intellectual foundations provides the motives of credibility. On his/her/its turn, the faith illuminates the reason, often stop it from getting lost and open him new horizons. The supernatural activity of the soul is bound intimately to his/her/its natural activity, and the grace is received in the nature that it raises is perfected. '' Distinguuntur isti duet ordines sed non separantur, e countered uniuntur sicut perficiens and perfectibile '', writes Garrigou-Lagrange. (Of Rev. T.I.P.213), while leaning on the Doctor Angélique: '' Sic enim fides praesupponit cognitionem naturalem, sicut gratia naturam, and ut perfectio perfectibile, the faith presupposes the natural knowledge and the grace presupposes the nature, as the perfection requires a topic to perfect. '' (I.q.2a2.)

II

But this harmony must not make us forget the real, deep, irreducible distinction, that exists between the natural order and the supernatural order.

To mark this distinction, the New Will uses the strongest expressions, the quickest pictures. The natural life is called nothing, death, darkness, the supernatural life, new birth, life, light,. These expressions and other counterparts are constantly in the mouth of the Mr. Jésus - Christ in worries hardly to establish the harmony between the reason and the faith, between the nature and the grace. Come on the earth to separate and to divide, carrier of a sword and no of a false peace, He/it constantly claims in a way the distinction between the two orders and the superiority infinite of the grace on the nature, Him to take care well little of the rights of the nature and the reason, but he/it insists on the imperious requirements of the grace. Well more, he/it declares distinctly to the one that constantly worries, in his/her/its adherence to the gospel, to save his/her/its reason, his/her/its senses, his/her/its nature, that him to lose all, and blooming it truly of his/her/its natural life and the supernatural life; '' The one that likes his/her/its life will lose it and the one that loses his/her/its life will find it, that enim voluerit animam suam salvam facere, perdet illam,; nam that perdiderit animam suam propter me, salvam faciet illam. '' (Luc., IX, 24.) Christ is the apostle of the occult and He wants that one knows it. Why would we dare carelessly to separate us of the lessons and the examples of the Mr.? Only the apostles that one courage, in spite of the protests of the world, e to claim the transcendence of the gospel and the requirements of the occult converts the souls. So thought the Vicar of Ars.

Saint-Paul, if he/it is allowed to use an expression as childish, he/it seems even out of date knowledge his/her/its Mr. in his/her/its goodwill to establish the distinction between the natural order and the supernatural order and the superiority without boundary-mark of this last on the other.

The Fathers of the church, on their turn, didn't follow another method. With what constant vigor they affirmed in the chair and that the martyrs affirmed in the amphitheaters, non loquendo sed moriendo: the requirements of the grace! More that no one they worked to save the treasures of the human civilization, the truths of the natural wisdom, but even in a work of giants, they didn't know another principle that the one of Christ: '' the one that loses his/her/its life (natural) will find it, and the one that keeps his/her/its life will lose it. '' He/it is believed that to save that that there is good, of truth, in the nature healthy was necessary to assure and to save the supernatural life of the souls; the whole remains would arrive by addition.

Indeed, the distinction between the natural order and the supernatural order is such that one can with difficulty prove some of deeper, since it exists under the report of the four reasons. In the natural order, the man's end is the possession of God known in a discursive way by the reason, while in the supernatural order, it is God's possession by the intuitive vision and a love of the same kind, following upon this knowledge, creative God of the nature is the agent first, in the natural order, and the man in resources of his/her/its nature and his/her/its faculties. In the supernatural order, the man reaches his end by the means of the Revelation, of the grace, of the sacraments, and by the exercise of the supernatural virtues under the influence of the present grace. Finally the grace, ontological involvement to God's very nature, constitute one order of realities essentially distinct of the natural order. (Cf. Garrigou-lagrange, loc. cit. I.P.211.)

Who doesn't see what repercussion these principles must have in the practice?

III

Invincible defender of the distinction between the natural order and the supernatural order, the Christian must besides to maintain the absolute exemption from payment of our elevation in a way to the supernatural order and the superiority infinite, of the grace on the nature. (I,II.q.110.a.3.)

This exemption from payment is as it cannot have there in our nature the least requirement of the occult, not even an innate desire, but only a desire and the passive capacity, that the theologians call power obédientielle, to be raised to this superior order. The real conformity of Christianity with our natural aspirations must not make us forget the absolute exemption from payment of the grant of the grace and the infinite elevation of the grace above the nature. This elevation is as S.Thomais declares the world degree of sanctifying grace superior to the very natural of all the universe of the bodies and the spirit, '' bonum gratiae unius majus is quam bonum naturae totius unversi ''. (O,II.q.a.9.) It is why the harmony between these two orders, of which one is raised the other so above, is far from being obvious to the eyes of the simple mortals. The Christian generated some; see rather a constant opposition between the nature and the surnature. Where is the harmony indeed between the natural order and the supernatural order, and in what sense can one speak of opposition? How the language of the gospel: blissful the poor people, blissful those that suffer, etc., he/it can agree with the one of my reason; is wealth a good, the suffering is a pain? How this doctrine of the death to the world, to oneself and to all things of can here below - her to agree with another: doesn't the grace destroy the nature? Some what to the just the gospel asks it to renounce itself/themselves and that is - did it permit to concede to the nature, to the modern habits, to the mind of the world? The doctrine of a holy Jean himself the Cross on the detachment of the creatures and the necessity of the purification is she/it only true for the Carmelites and the Carmelites or the East her also for the simple faithful? Is the life of François saint of foundation an one '' sublimates madness '' or merely the setting in practice of the gospel? Can I be at a time Christian and worldly? Then me to make my salute while renouncing me until has a certain point or must take me to the letter Christ's speech: who one renuntiat omnia quae possidet non potest propels esse disciplus? How to reconcile my supernatural life and the requirements of my trade, of my professions?

It is to the solution of these problems, that forms the bottom of the modern concern, that we must apply, because maintains it of the faith and the Christian regeneration of the peules depend some. Let's notice this speech e Garrigou-Lagrange however: the harmony between the natural order and the supernatural order really only appears after a deep purification of the nature by the purification and the Cross. '' (Perf. Chrét., t.I.p.61.)

The best means to give the true answer to the problem of the occult in the world, would not be this the survey and the meditation of the gospel and company of the big spiritual writers, that understood the gospel in depth, to the first rank of which it is necessary to place holy Jean of the Cross, doctor of the church, and S.Thomas of Aquin, and on time modern, the P. Garrigou-Lagrange, in particular.

The Christian life is the extension of Christ's life.

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The idea the most exact and highest than we can make ourselves of the Christian life that is that she/it is the extension and the continuation of Christ's very life. This truth rests on the authority of God's speech.

A) Jesus declared it many time in the gospel: '' I am Life… I came so that you have life… as well as I live by my Father, so the one that believes in me will also live per month… In this day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me and me in you.. '' that means, as I am in my Father, living of the same life than Him, so you are in me, living of my life, and I am you, communicating you this same life, of it and so me life in you e you live in me, by me and in me.

B) ON his/her/its turn the Disciple well - beloved, retells us hundred times '' that God sent his Son in the world, so that we lived by Him: that God gave us the eternal life; that we are born of God and that the Son's life is us of it ''. All this admirable gospel of Jean saint is full of this idea '' the Christ is Life and he came to give it to us with superabundance.

c) It is impossible to transcribe here what the sublime S.Paul apostle said on this topic, in his/her/its fourteen epistles, because it is there can - one to say the unique theme of his/her/its predication: '' The Father vivified us with Christ and in Christ… a thousand times the apostle develops this idea that the Christ lives in us to conclude that we must don ourselves of his/her/its feelings and his/her/its arrangements and make appear Christ's life in all our conduct, '' so that the name of Our Lord Christ is glorified in us and us in it ''

The Good News brought to the world by the gospel, it is therefore that Christ lives in us and that we live some him, that our life is a continuation, an extension of his/her/its life, that our unique reason to be in this world and in the eternity is to make to live and to reign in us Christ, to assimilate us his/her/its arrangements, of the feelings, to reproduce his/her/its virtues, to splice in his/her/its states, to make with it, in it and by it the same actions and operations.

2 - how our Christian life is it the extension of Christ's life.

A) TO end to understand this truth fundamental of Christianity better, it is necessary to notice that Our Lord Christ has two sorts of body and two sorts of lives; his/her/its body of flesh that he/it took in the heart of the Virgin Marie at the time of the incarnation, and life that he/it lived in this same body, thinking qu, ' l was on the earth; and his/her/its mystical body, that real that the first, to know the holy Church, that holy Paul calls '' Christi corpus, body of the Christ ''; his/her/its second life is ls life q'il has in this body, it is - to - to say in all Christian truths that are members of this body.

B). life liable and temporal Christ has been accomplished and has been finished at the time of his/her/its death on the cross: but he/it wants to continue this same life not only in his/her/its mystical body, in order to glorify his/her/its Father, by the virtues, arrangements, the actions and the sufferings of one deadly, laborious and liable life, during the space of thirty-three years, but until the end of the world that the Father let subsist only in view of this glory. So life liable and temporal Jesus has in his mystical body, that means in the Christian is not finished yet, but she comes true from day to day and will only end at the end of the times.

C) It is reason holy Paul says '' that he/it accomplishes what misses to Christ's sufferings for his/her/its body that is the church. '' what the apostle says himself, one must say it of every Christian truth, when he endures something in a mind of submissiveness this of love of God. And what holy Paul says some sufferings, it is necessary to say it of all other actions that a Christian makes during its life. So a Christian truth, member of Christ is united to it by his/her/its grace, continue and accomplishes by all actions that it makes in Jesus' mind - Christ, the actions that the Savior made during his terrestrial life. So that, when a Christian prays, him continuous and accomplished the prayer that Christ to made on the earth; when he/it works, him continuous and accomplished the life laborious of Christ wanted to have to all necessities, and so of all other actions that are made chrétiennement. In this sense, holy Paul declares that '' we compete all to perfection of Christ and at the age of his/her/its fullness '', that means his/her/its mystical age that will be perfected some that on the day of the judgment.

II The spiritual rebirth

1 - the Christian life is a real involvement in God's very nature. So surprising that can parâtre this affirmation, she/it is not month a truth of faith, taught by the Prince of the Apostle, some, terms so clear that he/it doesn't let place to the lightest doubt: '' By Christ, he/it says, God communicated the big and precious graces that he had promised us, RETURNING US PARTICIPANTS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, EFFICIAMINI DIVINAE NATURAE CONSORTIS ''. (II., Pet.I. ,4).

It is why the grant of the Christian life is a marvel very superior to the creation of the worlds, since by this grant we enter in God's very family, we become his/her/its child, it becomes our Father. We can know it and can like it as he/it knows himself/itself and like himself, we have in hope the same happiness that him here below while waiting to enjoy some fully in the eternity, Our - Lord declared himself in sound maintains with the Samaritan that such is indeed.. God's grant, Dei donum '', his/her/its grant par excellence.

2 - May how operates itself this deification? By what marvelous process is the divine life us it communicated?

This life is communicated us by the Saint Baptism that is a generation real t ayan for term a true birth. Generation incomparably superior to the first, since instead d,une natural or human life, she/it transmits us a supernatural and divine life; admirable birth that makes each of us.. this new man of which by S. Paul, created according to God in the justice and the real holiness, '' (Eph, IV. ,24); spiritual generation and yet very real, of which the principle '' is not the flesh, nor blood, nor the man's will ', (Joan, I. ,13). But the free to want God: ', voluntarie genuit our '' (Jac., I ..18): mysterious birth that the natural birth can however help us to understand, because it is l of it 'picture; generation and birth as indispensable to be Christian that the generation and the carnal birth to exist according to our natural being: '' Whoever is not born again of water and the mind Saint cannot enter in God's kingdom. What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the mind is mind… (Joan. III, 5,6.)

The Saint-Baptism, it is.. the bath of regeneration. '' (Tit. III. ,3). It is to the Baptism that we have.. received communion to live according to our new being.., (Jac. I ..18)

3 - so by the grace of our Saint Baptism we received a real communication of the divine nature, we became God's children, not only of name, but actually: '' filli Dei nominamur and sumus '', (Joan. III,I ..13). This involvement is a reproduction in us of what is in God, and a real involvement to that that in God according to our manner to speak, is the root, the source, the principle of the operations and the divine attributes. Also this marvelous grant makes us capable to know and to like God of a knowledge and a love counterparts to the knowledge and to the love that it has it even.

This truth that all Christian should constantly have before the eyes is the truth fundamental of Christianity, it contains the statement of our stocks of nobility of this life and the promises of our eternal happiness. '' Yes, my goods-beloved, repeated the apostle S. jean, we are from now on God's children; but what will be us one day didn't yet decorate. We know that when God will appear, we will be similar to him, because we will see it as he is. Anyone has this hope sanctifies itself ''. (I.Joan. III. ,2)

III
So the sizes of the Christian are admirable, He/it is God's child, a same mystical body with Christ, of which he/it is the member; he/it is allied to the three people of the Saint Trinidad and participate in God's very nature. The Christian has really God for father (II Pet.1,4): and we are his/her/its children in a more real way than we are the children of those who generated us to the natural life, (Jean XXX' 17). God's Son calls us his/her/its brothers (Jean, XIV, 14-17): the eternal Father gave us his/her/its Saint - Mind: God's Mother is our mother, all angels, these sublime minds, are to our service. L has life of the Christian is a supernatural life, (Heb.I.14). A continuation of Jesus' very life. It is why the apostle calls the grace of Christianity '' a mystery hidden to the century and the past generations. '' (Eph. II. )

1 - feelings of recognition.

That all men bless the Lord of that that he/it made appear the magnificence of his/her/its grace therefore while filling us in Christ and by him of incomparable spiritual riches (Eph. III,8.) while transferring us in the e kingdom his/her/its beloved son (Collar, 1, 26). He/it is true that these truths can only be known by a supernatural light, '' It is God's wisdom that is hidden, and that hopeless of the sages of this world, said the apostle, didn't know, but that God revealed us by his/her/its mind; because the mind penetrates this e=que has hidden pus, even God's depth. '' (I.Cor. II.7).

But after this revelation that was make of it to us, we are inexcusable us don't return to God of continual action of grace. Misfortune to us really if, in the full noon of the most beautiful days of the grace, whereas the sun of justice himself state survey surrounds us of all parts of his/her/its celestial clarities, our walked again in the darkness, the eyes and the heart nailed to the earth.

2 - interior Christianity

For a big number, Christianity consists in avoiding the most ashamed sins, as the impurity, the injustice, the blasphemy, the drunkenness,; to make some exercises of piety a tip of prayer morning and evening, the aid to the Mass, the communion from time to time, some acts of charity to the poor people. All these things are good and necessary. One must accomplish them. But to reduce to it the grace of Christianity, it is not there anything to understand.

Christian, children of light, know the excellence of your vocation well. She/it summarized in the apostle's mount: '' Don't know yourselves than us all that have been baptized in Christ, we have been baptized in his/her/its death. '' (Rom. V!,3). So by S, Paul at first Christian. These words '' don't know yourselves '' mean that he/it would be indeed ashamed for a Christian to ignore the nature and the mystery of the Saint baptism. To what would serve us to be instructed in all sorts of things if we are not it of the truths of our Christian profession?

We have been buried with Christ in the waters of the Baptism to die with him, e t we are revived with him and as him in order to walk in one new life, all those therefore that received the Saint - baptism died to the sin, having been baptized in his/her/its death; all were, bury with him, so that the body of sin is destroyed; all have been spliced on the Christ: strong and admirable expression of the apostle, because if we are spliced in Christ, our become only one body with him, as the branch becomes one with the tree where it entered in. There is the grace of our Christian vocation. One will say maybe that these truths are too high, too mystical, not convenient. That one says it so much that one will want, he/it makes teach them at the risk of giving up teaching Christianity. By dint of to say them, the Christian will end up familiarizing itself/themselves with them.

3 - ignorance of the Christian.

That it is indeed rare to find the Christian that know the size of their vocation; who look at themselves like a same thing with Christ, knowing that they must live as he/it lived (I Pet.I.15), that they must be holy as the one that has call us is saying; that they must lead a life all resuscitated (Collar. III.I); to search for the things that are in top: the purity of the heart, the company of the Christian truths and no of the worldly, to detach their heart of goods perishable, to sow the ephemeral pleasures of the present life, to trample the distinctions and honors. '' You don't deceive, says the apostle, one doesn't ridicule God '' (gal.VI.7). TO the dangerous instant of the death, the Christian that will have lived in the passions disturbed like pagans who don't know God, will be condemned to the flames eternal (Mat. VII.22)

Who hears these words that the big Apostle shouts to all supporters indeed `.. You that received Christ's Baptism, you have all been donned of Christ.. (gal, III.27), these divine speak don't address only to the religious and to the nuns, but to all those that received the baptism, to all Christian without exception, without distinction of age, of sex, of social condition,. All must be donned of Christ, if they don't want to be ghosts of Christian, However, one doesn't see the parts of the body that are clothed, but only the dress that opens them, it is therefore only Jesus who must be seen in the Christian, these are himself virtues, his/her/its arrangements that must not appear to us. '' ' But, tells us a commentator, one must not be donned of Christ, like a dress that covers the outside, but rather as the body is donned of the soul, like all matter the East of his/her/its shape, as the hot iron the East of fire; this garment is clean to all age, to all condition, nor Salomon, nor the lilies are not if clothed well. ''

Let's listen to the apostle that in the middle of his/her/its chains our implores to live a manner worthy of our vocation (II Teas. I.Ii), not satisfying us of outside practices, of these confessions without change of life, of these routine prayers and by manner of receipt, without real mind, interior.

Let's not stop asking God, so that he/it filled us of the knowledge of his/her/its will by the grants of wisdom and intelligence so that we lived a manner worthy of God; that he/it illuminates the eyes of our heart. (Ephes. I.18), that means that these lights are accompanied by a real loves, so that we know what goods his/her/its vocations made us hope, what are the riches of the glory in the inheritance of the saints, and that knowing it in a convenient manner, we lived so that we can enjoy some one day.

1 -

Origins

1 - ‘' The Holy spirit, written Bossuet, is in us as there coming of the outside, as receipt by loan; he/it is not our own mind; but he/it is the own mind of Jesus Christ. ' ' The Saint-Mind descended in the Verb Embodied in fullness and spilled in it without measure. (Joan., III. 34) it is what the Isaïe prophet had glimpsed, when talking he says the Savior; ‘' The mind of the Lord will rely on it,: the mind of wisdom and intelligence, the mind of advice and by force, the mind of science and the piety, and will be filled of the mind of God's fear. ' ' (Is. XI,2)

It is the very unction of this Divine Mind that made the Christ. It is not of an oil material the that he/it has been anointed, as Élisées and the prophets, as David and the kings, as Aaron and the pontiffs. Although he/it is king prophet and pontiff more than them, he/it was not however not of this unction that was only a shade of his, house according to the expression of the writing: ‘' He/it was not above of an excellent oil all those that are called anointed. ' ' (Pc. XLIV.8) And this unction is once again merely the communication of the Holy spirit that was make him in fullness and perfection.

2 gold, the Christian mind is an involvement to Jesus' mind. And that one only merit indeed to be called Christian that possesses Christ's mind and lives some: ‘' If fetched Spiritum Christi non habet, problem no is ejus; if someone doesn't have the mind u Christ he/it doesn't belong to him. ' ' declares the apostle distinctly. (Rom, VIII,9) All our application must consist therefore in acquiring Christ's mind.

The day of our Saint Baptism, a first unction communicated us Jesus' mind, that made us capable to think, to act and to live as it, Since this day, Christ lives us and us of it have been anointed of l‘onction of which he has been anointed himself, that means the Saint-Mind that staying there in us with the Father produces the inclinations, the feelings and Christ's very arrangements.

3 but we remain free to follow the mind of Jesus or us there to oppose: to extinguish in us the mind ‘', as expresses itself S. Paul, and to follow the inclinations of the nature, the old man and the flesh, here is why the struggle between Jesus' mind and our mind is of every instant. There be located the fight of the Christian life cleanly, to the in of ourselves, in more intimate of our souls,; fight of the nature and the grace, fight of the old man and the new man, fight of the Christ's mind against the mind of the world. ‘' The flesh, said S. Paul, struggle against the mind and the mind relates the flesh, these are two adversaries; haec enim undergone invicem advesantur ‘'. (gal, V. 17).

Such is the difficult situation of the Christian in this world. On one hand the Holy spirit, by the Baptism, comes to rest us, in the bottom of our soul, to print the inclinations, the feelings and the Christ's arrangements there, of it. He/it carries us to the detachment of goods create, to the contempt of the world, to the love of the cross, to the cult and to God's love. But of another side, we keep the inclinations of our nature toward goods of here below and the pleasures duce world. Our soul can throw itself of the side that it pleases to him: or to adhere to the mind-Saint and to live as the Christ lived, ‘' while crucifying the flesh with all are desires, carnem suam crucifixerunt cum vitiis and concupiscentiis; ‘' (gal.V.24) or to follow the slants of the nature, made his/her/its wills, agreeing to all his/her/its desires,: ‘' in desideriis carnis nostrae facientes volutatem carnis. ‘' (Eph. XI,3.)

It is for it that Notre-Seigneur put abnegation, the renouncement to bases it even of his/her/its doctrine: ‘' If someone wants to come after me, that he/it renounces himself/itself himself, that he/it takes his/its cross and that he/it follows me. ' '

II

Character of the Christian mentality.

1 - that it is that the Christian mentality? It is a turn of mind and a disposition of the heart that carry us to think and to act, usually and without difficulty, according to the teaching of Our Lord Christ and his/her/its Gospel. She/it supposes the grace of the Baptism that transplanted us on the Christ, and communicated us in germ his/her/its life and his/her/its mind. She/it eats of a notes fidelity to the Holy spirit, that lives us of it, and carry us to act always for supernatural motives, by love for God, our Father. She/it cannot meet, to his/her/its degree perfects, that at the saints, some that the grace, the supernatural virtues and the grants of the Holy spirit one reaches their full blossoming, what would be able to cepandant to arrive very often, even at young children, if their education make scrupulously in the line of their Baptism.

The pagan mentality is on the contrary the habit to think and to act according to the dictations and the inclinations of our reasonable animal nature, wounded besides by the sin original and our personal sins. These inclinations carry us to enjoy the created things and to put in them and in ourselves our last end. The grace, or the supernatural life being transplanted on this nature, without destroying it, becomes in us a principle of division, of struggle, of fight. The tragic of the Christian life is there, in this intimate and constant battle, between the nature and the grace, between l 'Mind-Saint and our mind. It is why
'' The Christian writes Mr. Olier again, is not on the earth for his/her/its pleasure, he/it is not in this world to look for his/her/its joy. His/her/its big occupation is to lead an always crucified life there and to imitate God's Son, that, having wanted to be the model of our life in his/her/its death, gave us the very mind of his/her/its death by the Baptism… ''

It is the first effect of our Baptism, on which holy Paul comes back to touts the pages of his/her/its austere epistles.

The grace of our Baptism is indeed an involvement to the Christ's grace, However the grace has been given to Our Lord Christ for the very end that made it descend on the earth. From there one must conclude that the abundance of his/her/its grace gave to its soul a disposition and an inclination to obey the decree of the incarnation, according to the views of the adorable Trinidad. Of the cross was consisted in these decrees with all others awful circumstances clean to do a rigorous satisfaction. He/it is therefore manifest that one of the effects of the Christ's grace was an inclination toward the cross. It is necessary to study on this point the beautiful book of the Dominican Louis Chardon; '' The cross of Jesus or the difficulties of the grace and the Cross. ''

Proportionally this thanks to which our participate in the Baptism will produce in us of the similar effects. It is not necessary to wonder from then on, so holy Paul and the Saints exclaim that he/it detached himself/itself of all what the world adores, and that it doesn't make esteem of all the universe anymore that of the mud and manure, in order to be united to Christ, not by a holiness adjusted to the inclinations of the nature ''. '' sed illam quae ex fide is Christi Jesus, quae ex Deo is justitia in fide ''. (Phil. III-8)

3 the essential character of the Christian mentality is research in love and constant with God. Our Lord made the thesis of it in his/her/its incomparable instruction of Thursday, eve of his/her/its death (Jean XIV_XVIIII) Saint Jean of the Cross exposed, as no one else, himself second aspect of the Christian life, especially has in l '' The obscure night '', and '' the Spiritual Hymn ''. The left soul of all creates it, delivered of the appetites messed up for the creatures, is ready to receive the divine light and to unite to his/her/its Creator by the love.

'' My soul used itself with all what it possesses to her/its service. I am not more guardian of herd I don't have another office anymore. Henceforth my only occupation is to like ''.

Our religion is a religion of love. Our rule of conduct, it is the love. The soul parts with all other object creates to like the Sovereign solely Well. To live love, to act by love and by this pure motive, to unite to the Beloved by the love, such is the true Christian life, whose development appears from then on as unlimited. The essence of God's mind is to stretch and to carry all to God: and like this Divine Mind is not himself that a wants perpetual and an infinite tendency toward God, it is the same disposition that he/it operates in the souls where he/it triumphed over the death and senses. He/it digs us of it the abyss of the divine love; he/it lights at the heart this devouring fire, he/it consumes and unify life in the love. It is not about a simple love of complaisance, but, a love of reference and kindliness, whose characters are to be active, efficient and generous. This the love carries us to unite us constantly to the Beloved by a narrow communion of ideas, of feeling, of will, to give us and to sacrifice us for It.

To develop the Christian mentality of a soul, it cultivate these two arrangements, set down in us by the grace of the Baptism. The big means convenient to arrive there is merely the renouncement, seed of all created it. The unique necessary, writing holy Jean of the Cross, is to know how to renounce itself/themselves sincerely, so much inside that outside, and to vow itself/themselves for the Christ to the suffering and to annihilate it most complete. It is par excellence there the exercise, where of all others are consisted eminently and of which one withdraws incalculable profits. (Mounted of the Carmel, Liv. II hp. VII.)

1 -

He/it is little Christian e, even permitted the best, that have a just idea of the true virtue, many make it consist in a certain ROUTINE OF PIETY, without the fidelity to some outside practices. So, with it, they have some movements of SENSITIVE DEVOTION at intervals, without discerning even though these movements come of God or their own efforts, they believe themselves solidly virtuous.

However they are submit to one thousand shortcomings of which they don't perceive and that one essayerait in vain to put them under the eyes. They are SMALL, METICULOUS full of esteem for them even, of an extreme sensitivity, stubborn in their ideas, concentrated in their clean, constrained or affected love in their manners,; attached to all sorts of small mere nothing, and especially to them - same, they prefer themselves internally to the other, and despise them often, condemn them, persecute them. Nothing is more frequent than this false virtue and all outside. She/it meets in all, very frequently, to various degrees, and it is rare to meet some souls perfectly died to themselves, living for only God.

To conceive what it is that the true virtue, it is in CHRIST that it is necessary to consider it: he/it is our unique model, he/it has been given us like such, he/it made himself/itself man to return us the sensitive and palpable holiness. All holiness that is not formed and cast on his and FALSE; she/it displeases to God, she/it deceives the men, she/it is at least useless for the sky. Let's study Christ therefore and for the good to know, to imitate it then, let's ask him continually for HIS/HER/ITS LIGHT AND HIS/HER/ITS GRACES.

2 - characters of the true piety.

1 - N.S.J.C. is never himself sought-after lui-m^me, he/it never had in view his/her/its own interests; nor temporal nor spiritual: he/it never has trusted only one action to be pleasing to the men, he/it never abstained of any good work, in the fear to displease to them, ONLY GOD, his/her/its glory and his/her/its will, were the unique object of his/her/its thoughts and his/her/its feelings, the unique rule of his/her/its conduct. He/it sacrificed everything, all, without no reserve, to his/her/its Father's interests.

11 - N.S.J.C. made consist the piety in the INTERIOR ARRANGEMENTS, and no in vain and illusory feelings; disposition of in whole devotion to God, of a continual extinction of himself, of a charity without boundary-marks towards the men; every instant of his/her/its life has been dedicated
to the achievement of these three arrangements. He/it didn't disregard the observation of a no point of the law: but at the same time he/it HAS REST OF RAPPELLER that this observation had to come of an INTERIOR PRINCE OF LOVE, who gives to this observance all his/her/its value.

III - N.S.J.C. watched THE PRESENT LIFE always like a passage, a pilgrimage, a time of test, solely valued to testify to God his/her/its love, while PREFERRING IT to all created things that surrounds us. What is eternal always occupied it. He/it gave to the nature what was necessary to him, without going ever beyond. Although he/it didn't have anything to him and that for the purpose of the body, he/it was in a continual dependence of the Providence, he/it was never worried of the following day; and he/it wanted to feel more of once the sufferings of poverty.

IV - N.S.J.C. kissed freely and by choice what we have the more of pain to accept. He/it didn't reprove the rich, but he/it blamed ALL ATTACHES to goods of this world, and preferred them poverty. He/it didn't condemn the distinctions, honors that God himself established among the men, but he/it learned us that an one obscure, humble and hidden condition, was more pleasant to God, more favorable to the salute,; and that to believe itself/themselves more that the other (because one has authority on them), it is a mistake and the source of a lot of mistakes. To THE EXCEPTION OF THE NATURAL PLEASURES that the Creator attached to some actions, and whose use is submitted to the sternest rules, it absolutely despised all others kinds of pleasure that one searches for with so much fury, and it even barred himself/itself more innocent. Work, the shoppings apostolic, the prayer, the instruction of his/her/its apostles and peoples filled every moment of his/her/its life.

V. - N.S.J.C. was SIMPLE, without affectation in are words and in all his/her/its actions. He/it taught with all the authority of a Man-God the most sublime things. But he/it proposed his/its doctrine of a manner comfortable, familiar, accessible to all. His/her/its divine Miracles in themselves, he/it is again more by the manner of which he/it made them (Saliva, a sign, a word…)

He/it wanted that the narration of the evangelists answered the simplicity of his/her/its life, It is impossible to express with month of research of the facts and speeches that carries the print of the divinity.

VI. - N.S.J.C. had a to STRETCH COMPASSION for the sincerely humiliated sinners and contrite of their mistakes,.. I came for the sinners, he/it said, and no for the just who confide in their own justice. '' The Madeleine publicain the woman adulterates the Samaritan are treated by him with a goodness that astonishes us. But the pride, the hypocrisy, the greed, the desire, is the object of his/her/its censorship and his/her/its maledictions. The sins of the mind are those that he/it condemns with the more of severity, because they mark more blindness in the mind and more of corruption in the heart.

VII. - N.S.J.C. Aa supported with sweetness THE SHORTCOMINGSES AND THE GROISSERETE of the other. To consider the things according to our ideas, how much didn't have to him to suffer from having to live with so imperfect and so ignorant men of God's things? The trade with the neighbor is maybe one of the most difficult things. However this point is of a continual practice, and of the conduct that one holds in this respect fixes of that returns the agreeable or off-putting virtue.

VIII.N.S.J.C. endured on behalf of his/her/its enemies all kinds of PERSECUTIONS. The hour come where it had to fall between their hands, it let act their passions, that it watched as instruments of the divine justice, IT was QUIET; he/it didn't try to justify itself/themselves, what had been very easy to him,; he/it let himself/itself condemn; he/it let them enjoy their triumph; he/it forgave to them, he/it prayed, he/it poured his/its blood for them. There is the point the most sublime and most difficult of the Christian life.

Such is the ideal of the Christian life to which us must stretch:

1 - '' come, follow me! ''
2 - '' are perfected like your celestial Father is perfected. ''
3 - '' the apostle declares '' that all have been chosen to become saints. '' Eph. I.4.
4 - '' first command: '' You will like the Lord of all your heart. ''

The Vble Mr. OLIER, that was a big director of souls, could not support the opinion unfortunately so widespread in the world that the perfection is only pure the priests and the religious and that people of the world are not obliged there. '' It is there, he/it said, one of the most dangerous illusions that the demon spilled in the minds. It is a means that his/her/its mischief invented, to lose them, while attracting them to tepid and lax life. All Christian are called to perfection, he/it added, because all, being children of God, must be similar to their Father: all being members of J.C. having a same mother who is the church, a same law that is the gospel, a same food, the Eucharist, the same sacraments, and the same glory to hope, he/it is not some that must offer to like God above all ''. (Mind of Olier, Art 6. p.154: To the school of N.S.J.C. by the P. Girou.)

3 - of the violence that it is necessary to make itself.

'' Since the days of Jean Bte, says N.S.le kingdom of heaven endures violence, and those that MAKE himself VIOLENCE that follows the natural slant not therefore of it delight it. ''

So returned N.S.a in truth sees it of the EASIER sky by the abundant effusion of his/her/its graces and by the mind of love that he spilled on his/its disciples: of another side, he/it made this way NARROWER, and he/it requires more that under the natural law and the law of Moise: .. If your justice, don't pass the one of Scribes and Pharisees, you don't enter in kingdom of the heaven. '' Matt. V. Christianity being thus over very ELEVATED to the of the NATURE, one understands easily from the moment N.S. says us: '' kingdom of the heaven endures violence and those only that makes himself violence delight it. ''

This speech is hard TO THE corrupt NATURE because IT is IT that it is necessary to fight, and it without TRÈVE nor REST. The spiritual fight is above all against OURSELVES our natural inclinations.

If the Christian life only consisted in a certain routine of devotion, compatible with one soft and convenient life, with the research of self-esteem, complaisance in oneself, the research of all pleasures permitted, the number of Christian truths would be numerous. But he/it is not some so. N.S.J.C. says us ` ', I didn't come to bring the peace, but the sword. '' He/it puts this sword in our but and he/it had that one uses some to entrench without mercy. All leanings of the corrupt nature, to give itself/themselves the death, to part with the sin opportunities, and to let in us no trace of the old man.

It is once again there, the DIFFICULTY of the CHRISTIAN LIFE. So much that it is only about fact a few prayers, to visit the church Sunday, to practice a few good œuvres, to avoid the big deadly sins, one doesn't find a good number, but when it is about correcting his/her/its shortcomingses, to defeat the human respect, to reform his/her/its mood, to hold in bridle all natural feelings, to defeat he passed, to support the tests, to correspond to the inspirations of the grace, patiently the thing becomes more difficult. Several take the flight, as Pierre during the passion. U n little as the patient who would see the tools with which one is going to operate it!

He/it is certain while it is in it that THE MIND OF THE CHRITIANISME CONSISTS: to look at himself is even like his/her/its biggest enemy to make a continual war to the tendencies of the nature wounded by the original sin, according to lights and the progressive graces that God made us, LITTLE BY LITTLE in the execution: ALL in the intention.

HOW MANY TIMES WILL THIS FIGHT LAST? As a long time that life, because the nature will never be defeated completely in this world. The saints fought all their life, More you will be generous, more quickly you will taste the peace. But the struggles of this ife will want you one so big glory!…

To really orient the work of our sanctification by our ascetic exercises and our prayer, to exercise a powerful action on the souls by our apostolate and to present to the modern world the Christian solution of the problems present, he/it imports to know precisely above all and in a way as clean as possible where is the big difficulty of the Christian life. However little of Christian know at the earth, and that surpasses without measure all other wisdom: Doctrina Christi omnes doctrinas Sanctorum proecellit. (Imit., I.I) And of the same stroke the true difficulty of Christianity escapes us. '' Of the top of the sky, the Lord looked at the men to see if there are some that have the true wisdom of it… All his/her/its stray, and don't know the path of the salute. ', (Ps. XIII.) Put to our Christian this question: what is, according to you, the essential character of the evangelical doctrine? and we will have the various answers, so much the demon persisted in muddling this point yet put in such an evidence by the gospel. Don't we often displace the problem of the Christian life? our difficulties, our failures, our innumerable and painful disappointments, in the work of our sanctification and in our apostolate, would not they come above all of that that '' do we give our strokes in air '', as said holy Paul? In all things, it is necessary to stay late first to the foundation. It is the warning that Notre-Seigneur gives us: '' Who of you, wanting to build a tour, doesn't sit down first to calculate the expense and to see if he/it has what to finish it… or what is the king, who being going to make the war to another king, doesn't sit down first to examine s,il is capable, with ten thousand men, to face whom advances against him with twenty one thousand? '' (Luc, XVI,25.) The saints started with there: holy Ignace in Manrèse: Saint Benoît in Subiaco: holy François to the Alverne: Saint Jean of the Cross in the prison of the Carmel of Tolède.

I

The gospel is eminently a wisdom, Like all wisdom, it has the tendency to consider all things in light of a first principle. Because the gospel is especially a convenient wisdom, we will find his/her/its stated principles under a convenient shape. Indeed the ultimate principle in which sums up the whole wisdom of the gospel is merely the one of the detachment and all things created, principle that contains without expressing it explicitly the one of the infinite and absolute transcendence of l 'to Be incréé. But the gospel, aiming a convenient goal, goes directly to the convenient formula. Happy the one to that the Saint - Mind will make taste experimentally in the prayer this truth so unrecognized and hence preached so little. It is because the gospel is above all the doctrine of the detachment of the things created that it is called the Wisdom of the Cross, or better yet, to use the formula of Paul saint '' the madness of the cross.. It is the whole Christian doctrine, seen under his/her/its essential angle of supernatural doctrine, teaching the universal detachment of everything that is not God, that the apostle wanted to characterize by this strong expression. The natural man not understanding anything and not can understand anything, the gospel appeared to him as fills it even of the madness; if the creatures are good, why there to renounce? Animalis homo, i.e.homo naturalis, non percipit eg quae Dei sunt, stultitia enim is illi. (I Horn., II, 14.) to Live each day thus, to his/her/its own eyes and to the eyes of the world, like a mad, is cleanly the cross of the Christian, and that by what he/it appears indeed as not being anymore of this world, quia vero of mundo non estis (XV.19 jean)

III

We say therefore that the principle and the foundation of the doctrine and the Christian life is the detachment of toues the created things. He/it imports however of hoes to understand this statement, and to know to the just some what consists this detachment, this indifference to the e consideration all created objects, as speaks holy Ignace, in head are Spiritual Exercises, and that he/it also calls him the principle and the foncement. (Indifference, written the P. Longhaye,e st a word to that one could give like convenient synonym,: detachment.) because the first principle of the Christian metaphysics, all as the first principle of the natural metaphysics, express himself under a negative shape, it is necessary to really avoid to believe that it is there about a merely negative principle. '' Is negativum ita ut simul suited affirmativum ''. Writes the P. Gredt. O.s.b., about the first principle of the natural, so exactly named reason: '' principle of contradiction ''. (gredt, Elementa philosophiae. N.648) He/it is some thus proportionally, of the evangelical detachment. Real principle of contradiction, in the supernatural order, he/it contains, without '' to express the idea of God's absolute transcendence knew all created it, and could express itself in his/her/its positive shape: God must be preferred to all creates it. This detachment is an act positive of will by which we divert ourselves from the creatures to turn us toward God: aversion has creaturi and conversion ad Deum, one could say. It is well indeed about one only and same movement of will, according to this principle very known of Thomas saint: omne odium nor amore conra#rii profit fundatur, the hate of a thing is always founded on the love of his/her/its opposite, v.g. the lazy person to the hate of work because it likes his/its rest. This detachment can be born indeed only of a preference, is here the reason and the effect are so inseparable that one can, without mistake, in the convenient language, to identify them (on the laws of the convenient language, cf. Maritai: The Degrees of the Knowledge, a flight. 900 p. passi.) and to say: the renouncement is not and can be only a preference, the renouncement to all creatures is not and would know how to be only the preference granted to the one that transcends all creature infinitely; God, the Incréé, He/it identifies in practice with the exercise of God's love over all things, (to see the Interviews Spiritual hp. VIII, and the famous hp. XII of the treaty of God's love, of S. François of Dirty,) in the moral things, the good and the pain are they contrary, However, how the theology did she/it define the sins? Aversio has Deo and cnversio ad craturas, The conraire d sin, the perfection,sera grant,: aversion has creaturis and conversio year Deum. (To read the first conference of Marmion, The Christ, Life of the soul.) as well as the sinner's life is a race toward the creatures, while moving away of God, so the life of Christ's real disciple is a race toward God while moving away of the creatures: done fetch mihi dabo pennas and volabo? The holiness is therefore the emptiness of the creatures filled in us by God's love, and the perversity is God's emptiness that one tried to fill by the nothing of the creatures. With an incomparable fullness, contemplative big e, written Aquin Thomas,: Placed between the things of this world and the supernatural realities, the man cannot come closer of the some without moving away of the the others: is homo constitutus inter res mundi hujus, and spiritualia bona in quibus aeterna beatitudo consistit: ita quod quanto more inhaeret united eorum, tanto recedit ab altrero and e contrario. (III. II.q.108.a.4.)

IV

The gospel doesn't stop to the objective judgment that I must be about the creatures, but considers the disposition of my will especially to their consideration. That the creatures are beings, that these beings are good in themselves, the gospel doesn't stop to these sterile considerations, admitted by all them that are holy of mind. .. The spiritual doctrine of Jean saint the Cross, written J. Maritain, is not metaphysical, it is evangelical, it is the pure corollary and the pure explanation of the good news of the redemption '', it characterize the same stroke Christ's doctrine, Jesus came to give the stroke of death to the heathenism and to his/her/its mind. The mind of the heathenism is entire in the attachment to the beloved and sought-after creatures for them - same. The heathenism is locked in the created universe in, Jesus teaches us to consider the creature in his/her/its relation with God. Without the present state of the things the creatures without exception, as well those that one calls bad that those qu one calls good in itself are God's rivals in our affection, as holy Thomas and one have to well notice it define the sin of it, didn't say: is ad conversio creaturas malas, but well simplicity is ad conversio creaturas. More the creatures even don't seem good, more I must challenge myself of it, being by their very goodness more capable to solicit my heart. Won't the practice of the ministry have us it didn't learn that the loss is souls begins almost always by the attachment to some good creature in herself? Of the rest that we want therefore to say, when, to excuse us, we affirm: There is not an in itself making this or it. v.g. to smoke, to travel, to possess goods, of the luxury items, etc,: to what to oppose this '' in itself '' that we so often have to the mouth or in the mind, otherwise to quoad our, in relation to us. Such things are good in herself, she/it is not in relation to us, there is not a state of mind in itself to make such thing, there is some for us to make it. Him '' in itself ', throwing us in the natural metaphysics is the pagan's scream that life in us and that claims itself rights. Far from us evidently the thought, to make believe that there are not the intrinsically bad things and intrinsically good others. If we don't insist more on several distinctions that they would be useful to make in a treaty, it is that we believe that the readers will know how to read these pages in the mind in which they have been written. The gospel is the religion of the absolute. It asks for all to the one that doesn't give up everything that it possesses cannot be my disciple: quicumque non renuntiat omnia quae possidet non potest propels esse discipulus. Meditated these words of Maritain: '' Today, naturalism ruined so subverted it the nature that it is not of recovery possible of the nature herself and back possible to the steady order of the reason that in return for the complete recognition of the rights of the occult and the absolute, of the requirements of the gospel and the quick faith. Our pimpernels of favor and complaisances, of decreased truths and embourgeoisées, of ue religion that descends to our measure… what we beg Jean saint of the Cross simply saying the gospel here that is his/her/its most unmanageable doctrine, it is the example of this total renouncement to oneself, of this courage, of this great patience, of this calm relentlessness to suffer, of this entry in a superhuman world, all disproportionner to our measures… '' ' (Preface of The Life DE. Jean of the Cross, by P. Bruno.)

V

This emotional detachment of the things created must be universal, It doesn't include an exception anymore that the essential order himself: no creature is God, therefore no maybe beloved or sought-after for herself: Nemo potest duobus dominis servire. (Luc, XVI.113.) However to hold all whole to God and to only one creature for herself or more precisely for oneself, it undertake to serve two masters. ', All object, small or big, that is not God, said Tauler, lowers You to your unawareness and diverts you of the right path and god.. This detachment must be therefore whole, It must reign in the mind, by the deep contempt are things of the earth in the heart, by the complete clearing of all affections, desire or regret opposite these things,; in will, by the possible most restricted use that one makes to some. He/it is not, once again, until the things the best that becomes obstacles: '' Teach to all to leave for God, writes Louis of Wood… Remember yourselves that what delays in the path of the sky, it is not only the bad things; but the good themselves, if one likes them or that one searches for them with a readiness in purity; as a blade of gold bet before the eyes doesn't prevent less the view that in blade of iron ''. (Institution Spir., c.II.) Well more and it is to the essential point of the doctrine of Jean saint of the Cross the consolations, the sweets, the spiritual tastes, won't escape this law. '' The consolations and the delights of the mind, when one ties of it or that one searches for them with mind of property, are more obstacles in the royal path of the cross, that drives to the spouse, Christ. '' (Hymn, III) S. Bonaventure to writing of Our - Lord Jesus: reliquit seipsum, sweat, suos, (Of gradibus, c. VIII). Such is the model of the Christian. And let's not go distort the sense of this chapter, while believing that we only write for the spiritual or the mystics. It be underestimate the unit of the Christian life. This doctrine addresses to all, as the gospel himself. Probably, as makes it notice holy François of Dirty, '' the devotion must be practiced differently by the gentleman, by the craftsman, by the servant, by the prince, by the widow, by the girl, by the married woman,,; it is necessary to accommodate the practice of the devotion even to health, to the business, to duties of chacun…mais that would be a mistake and even a heresy to want to banish the religious life of the court of the princes, of the armies, of the boutique of the craftsmen, of the house of the married people. ', (Introduction to Life religious c. IV.)

He/it imports to really seize the idea fundamental of the gospel sovereignly. He/it is easy, indeed, '' to mutilate the gospel, '' (Phil., III.2) to adapt it to the requirements of our reason and tendencies of the nature, and reef is extremely dangerous. The Christian who doesn't apply to lead an ive crucified with the Christ, who doesn't deliver a war daily again to death himself every day while practicing the evangelical renouncement under all his/her/its shapes; renouncement to the world and to the wisdom of the world, renouncement to goods of the earth and to the pleasures that they bring, renouncement to all things creates, rivals of God in our affection, renouncement especially to himself, to his/her/its body, to his/her/its heart, to his/her/its own life, this Christian so intelligent either it, will never understand completely the gospel, and will be more or less one of these crippled of which speaks the apostle. The gospel doesn't deliver its secrets that to the soul entirely stripped of elle-,même, life of all attachment to the things of this world, to understand and to preach a God crucified, it is necessary to carry oneself in his/her/its heart and in his/her/its life the stigmata of Jesus crucified, and by what there is little that likes Jesus' Cross and grant to endure sorts of interior and outside pains by love for It, it is some little also that understand the gospel in depth and preach it in his/her/its integrity, in spite of the opposition of the men, and the contempt of the sages, They let of side the main object of Jesus' teaching, to hold itself/themselves of it to an especially human doctrine, of which wisdom, the moderation and the balance are far from being in conformity with wisdom, to the moderation, to the balance of the grants of the Holy spirit. Is pleasing to God, that in light of the divine Writings, we can seize the central object of the evangelical predication.

I

God is infinitely wise. When he/it wants to make a work, he/it immediately has some best means to reach his/her/its wine. Him n,a not to look for, to grope, as us, to make some tests. Of the first stroke, he/it knows the means better at the end the adapted. It is why God acts with simplicity and always of the same way. His/her/its laws, his/her/its processes are always the same. His/her/its laws, his/her/its processes are always the same. His/her/its wisdom is not changing and it would not know being. from then on, when the writing Saint, made us know a manner to act of God, we must really apply to the to notice: God will act again in the same way. For this reason, the holy writing is always of actuality. While studying it, we discover the manner to act of God, his/her/its wisdom. We learn the same stroke what will be his/her/its conduct on us.

I

What God required the Hebrew people to give itself/themselves to Him, he will require it of me, in a measure, before giving itself/themselves to me.

1 - first god put the thousands of years to prepare the world to the incarnation.

Immediately after the original sin, God promises Adam and his/her/its race a Redeemer. He/it renews this promises to the Patriarches; he/it specifies it little by little before the people by the voice of the Prophets.

All the very history of the people of Israel is bound intimately to the Messiah: she/it announces it by innumerable faces that are revealed either in the historic events, either in the character and the life of the big men of the former Will. All the former Will is a long preparation to the incarnation.

In the same way the development of the Christ's life in me will be slow, it won't make himself/itself all of a sudden, It will be necessary to pass of the childhood to the adult age. Before having '' the man's stature perfects in the Christ '', as expresses itself S. Paul, it will be necessary for me to pass overnight by the double purification it double, would say S. jean of the Cross of the senses and the mind, the renouncement to the world, to the flesh and to myself, as the ceremony of the Baptism indicates it: to go from progress in progress, by the very slow and difficult paths of life illuminative, to manage to live fully in the Christ. It is only after having had his/her/its path of Damascus, stayed three years in the desert Arabia, endured the so countable harassments of his/her/its apostolic life that S. Paul, chained for sound Mr., will be able to say: '' My life, it is the Christ.. it is not anymore I that live, it is the christ that lives in me. '' Phil. I. 21.

To know how to wait for the hour of the Christ's arrival in me, Jesus has '' his/her/its hour. '' He/it told it, and he/it added that '' kingdom of the heaven is similar to a seed that grows slowly. '' Marc. IV, 26-29,

2 - God required of the Hebrew people the faith to the promises.

This faith to the Redeemer to come was so to speak the very life of the Hebrew people. Constantly the Prophets cultivate in the people this idea that Israel is the nation elected of the what to be born one day the Savior of the world, In spite of tests and persecutions that at all times threatens to annihilate it, Israel hopes for t waits the achievement of the oracles that concerns it.

So not only I must believe qu describes the incarnation and to his/her/its achievement in the Christ, but I must also believe that jésus wants to prolong his/her/its e incarnation me to communicate me his/her/its life, to unite me intimately to It.

- In spite of my miseries, my nothing, my poverty.
- In spite of my sins, my spots, my retreats.
- In spite of the emptiness, the droughts, the dimness, the disgusts,
- To keep the unshakable conviction that I follow
- The elected race.
- The chosen city.
- The favorite friend.

God required the Jewish people of the flaming sighs, of the ardent desires, accompanied by prayers, and of supplications.

Dying Jacob sighs after the Messiah (Gen, XLIX, 18). David doesn't stop your making bring up his/her/its supplications skywards; Isaïe (XLV'8): Daniel (IX); implore the sky of '' to answer on the earth the beneficent dew. ''

Want it st plugs it of the soul. It is necessary to open the mouth so that God gives himself/itself. '' We must not limit our desires, written Co Theresa,; we must hope on the contrary that while pushing us on God, we will be able to, by constant efforts, sustained of his/her/its grace, to happen to little by little where a lot of the holy arrived. '' Life by herself., ch.13... God, says - her again, don't lavish his/her/its signaled favors customarily that to those that want his/her/its love briskly ''. to perfection Path., hp. 35

So therefore I want that Jesus grow in me, I must constantly maintain the devotion of the desires. The tepid soul, without desire, is vomited of God. Apoc. V. 15

The venerable of the Bridge said that he/it had committed an infinity of mistakes during his/her/its life, but that he/it had never made the peace with his/her/its shortcomingses, Jesus has indeed in horror this tranquillity. He/it will never give himself/itself to the soul satisfied with herself, in spite of engrossment inclinations to the pride, all sorts of disorganized affections and attachments to the things of this world.

4 - God required of the Jewish people the convenient of the renouncement.

Because of his/her/its faith and of his/her/its hope in the Messiah, the people of Israel was always hated and persecuted, the church of the former Will is well this woman of the apocalypse, who carries the Christ, the man-God, within and that the dragon pursues to devour the child that she must put to the world. Apoc. XII.1.4

Israel knew the slavery in Egypt; the forty years have désert¸ the continual harassment of the neighboring peoples.

I will also have myself my Pharaoh, such person, such mate…
I will have my desert..
I should expect the harassments of pass them, of the bad languages..

II - what God required saints of the former Will, he will also require it of me insofar as he wants to give itself to me and according to the part that I must take to the work of the redemption,

1 - ABRAHAM, the father of the believers had an extremely hard, long, laborious preparation.

- He/it is chosen at the age of 75 years. Gen, XII.4,

- God immediately requires him the exile: '' goes your country, of your family, of it and of your father's house, in the country that I will show to you. '' Gen. !..

- He/it feels all sorts of family tests: separation of his/her/its brother. Lot: quibblings between Sara and Agar.

- Abraham is 100 years old when God finally achieves his/her/its promise and give him a son.

- New test, more terrifying than all other,: God asks him to immolate his/her/its son Isaac.

- After this set of separations, of tests, of suffering, God communicates himself/itself without mensure to his/her/its servant, the height of blessings and happiness.

2 - JUDITH gets ready to become God's instrument, for his/her/its people's delivery in the prayer, the solitude, the mortification.

'' She/it had constructed herself/itself on the roof of his/her/its house a retired room where there she/it stayed shut in with his/her/its maids. The mere nothing covered with a cilice, she/it fasted every day of his/her/its life, but the days of Sabbath and new moon and the feasts of the house of Israel. Judith 5-7

When God will need an instrument to save his/her/its people, he won't choose a worldly, nor a worldly, an amateur of sport, an addicted of them '' party '', a theater enthusiast, of movies. It is not there that God gives himself/itself to the soul, and it is not these slaves of the world and pleasures that God chooses to play a role in the Redemption of the world. The preparation of God's instruments is always long and laborious; S.Paul made the net during nine years.

3 - TOBIE, spend his/her/its life in captivity: he/it loses his/its goods; he/it is afflicted in his/its body by the blindness, and in his/her/its soul by his/her/its wife's persecutions; it is after all it that God sends him Rafael. As a rule, before giving itself/themselves fully, God makes us live the first three beatitudes: deprivations of outside goods; mortification of the body; tribulations for the soul. More God calls a to perfection soul, more she tells to live these three beatitudes in a vivid way, as we see it, in the following example.

4 - MIDSUMMER'S DAY THE BAPTIST, He/it is the biggest of the prophets, the Savior's precursor. More that all seer he/it will live the beatitudes.

- He/it stays in the desert.
- Covered of a camel skin.
'' not eating drinking '' says N.S. it is - to say eating and drinking so little that that is not worthwhile to speak of it.

- Persecuted by Hérodes and the courtesans.

Solitude, poverty, mortification,: this is how one gets ready to receive Christ.

This is how forms itself a Christian.

III

Reasons in this manner to act of God.

1 - God acts thus to have his/her/its glory. The glory is the good of God and the reason of all c that it operates in the world of the nature and the grace. We give the glory to God when we recognize that all comes of him. Our deep pride, that pushes us to steal constantly from God his/her/its glory requires that it acted thus. To shortcoming these nights, these difficulties, these delays, the soul gets used to all to wait for God. His/her/its retreats, his/her/its failures make him see that without God we cannot make anything


2 - besides God's wisdom requires this process, this wisdom that S.Paul calls '' The madness of the Cross '' and that consists in what God ridicules the human means, that he has some means to him, of the means that are a madness to the eyes of the reason. No human means can be proportioned to one supernatural end. Middle and thin must be always in the same order. Such is the eternal mistake; the one of Lucifer that would have liked the beatific vision, but by his/her/its angelic means; mistake of Adam that would have hoed wanted him also to become similar to God, but by his/her/its means; mistake of every century.

3 - while requiring these long and painful preparations, God wants to make us appreciate the grant of his/her/its love more. We estimate what was us expensive better.

Let's prepare ourselves therefore to receive the divine. God will make himself/itself wait sometimes. Let's not go whisper. The Jews who whispered in the desert, were bitten by the snakes, wiped out by the Lord, They don't transfer the Promised Earth. In poverty, the solitude, the suffering, let's tell ourselves: '' God comes himself of it! '' When God carves in our affections, he makes the emptiness, to fill us of his/her/its love.

Venatas vanitatum, and omnia vanitas. Vanity of the vanities and all is only vanity, told us the Holy spirit, to the Book of the Ecclésiaste. (LI.I)

Goods of the earth, riches, sumptuous homes, vast domains, luxury of life,: vanity and nothing! Honors, ambitions and sizes; vanity and nothing!

Fun, sport, pleasures of the table, the theater, the movies and the dance, inebriations of the chair`vanité and nothing!

Oh first and sovereign truth! Oh inestimable key of the true wisdom! '' I would like, exclaimed holy Jean Chrysostome one day, that this speech was engraved on the walls of all houses, on the buildings, in the streets, in the hallways and the waiting rooms, in the places of rejoicing, in the lounges. ''

I

First put distinctly the fundamental principle, the essential basis of the Christian Wisdom, of this Wisdom that the Christ came to bring to the world and that must be the rule convenient of our life; all things of this world are vain, changing, corruptible, untrue and misleading. Such is the first truth that the Christian must learn. To feel ill at ease in this world, to feel the emptiness and nothing of it, is one of the signs of the Christianity mind in a soul.

From where does he/it come than so little of Christian understand the nothing of the things created? From where does he/it come that the men of our time, who prick themselves in culture and progress, didn't learn this created science fundamental of the emptiness of the things? Although feed Christianity, they often appear lower to the pagans themselves, according to Léon XIII, because, he/it says, '' to hear the sages among the pagans, even if they liked the things of the earth passionately, they didn't have a disdain as absolute however for the celestial things. '' (Encyclical '' Laetitiae Sanctai '', 8 seven. 1893. ) From where comes that one doesn't want to see in this messed up research of hoe them of this world causes it of the pain that gnaws our Catholic life?

The reason, here it is: the vanity and the nothing of the things of this world only appear to the one that is given itself the pain to think on the sizes and the divine perfections. Nothing and the vanity of goods created only appear if we put them in parallel with the realities of the other life. In a word, we don't understand the nothing of the things created because our mind and our heart his/her/its God's emptiness, vices of the thought of the eternity. If we don't consider the things of this world that in them - same, who will we blame for finding them beautiful, pleasant, agreeable? But if we compare it then to God, to goods of the supernatural life and the eternal life, all riches become deep misery and extreme poverty; all created beauty becomes sovereign ugliness; all human wisdom becomes madness; all power and all liberty of the world, complete servitude; all delights, torments and bitterness.

II

To seize this truth better, let's enter in the details.

1 - so ALL THE to BE creatures, compared to 'to be of God, is for nothing. '' I looked at the earth, said the Prophet, that was an emptiness and a nothing. I considered the heaven, they were without lights. '' (Jér. IV.23.)
'' Substantia mea tanquam nihilum ante you, verumtamen universa vanitas. All my to be, compared to yours, oh God, exclaim to sound all David, is a pure nothing. SO therefore me, being the most perfect of the creation, I am only a nothing, with greater reason the whole remains he/it is that vanity…

In elsewhere the Prophet Isaïe exclaims: '' Omnes gentes almost nihilum and inane reputatae sunt ei, All nations of the earth are not anything in front of You. '. ' (Is.XL.17.)

2 - all RICHES of this world, compared to the inexhaustible treasures of the All Drawing, are only deep misery and extreme poverty.

Oh rich, understand it. All your homes in the what you take pleasure, compared to the homes of Kingdom of the heaven, don't even deserve the name of cabins and lairs for the foxes; here is why God's Son, while coming on the earth, didn't want some.

Oh worldly, oh worldly, you sought-after and fine toilets in which you take so much pleasure, are an awful nudity, compared to the garment of glory, to the bridal dress whose Lord will don his/her/its elected at the sky.

The whole pomp and the display of wealth is only supreme indigence to the eyes of the Lord of all things.

3 - the whole BEAUTY of the creatures, compared to God's infinite beauty, is only a sovereign ugliness. All graces and all charming appeals of the creatures, that captivate so many human cœurses, are only deformities, compared to God's perfections. '' Fallax gratia and vana is pulchritudo: the grace is misleading and beauty is vain. '' (Prov. XXXI.30.)

4 - the whole WISDOM of this world, all the human ability, the whole sharpness of the men, everything that one calls the practicality, the genius of the business, all this wisdom of the earth, compared to the wisdom of the gospel, is pure madness. The mind - Saint declares it: '' Sapientia hujus mundi,stul titia is Deum apud: the wisdom of this world is a madness to God's eyes. '' (I Horn. III. 19) as God despised the wisdom of this world: '' I would destroy the wisdom of the sages and I will annihilate the science of the scientists. '' (Jér., XX,24.)

5 - the whole LIBERTY of the world, compared to the true liberty are children of God, all this supposed liberty to enjoy, to have fun, to make to his/her/its head, to give itself/themselves of it, this liberty is only a complete servitude, a real captivity, an ashamed slavery. But we are not slaves of no one, will tell yourselves to me maybe, '' In truth, in truth, I tell it to you, declare Jesus, whoever himself free to the sin is slave of the sin. '' (VIII jean.)

6 - all pleasures of this life: pleasures of the table and rest; pleasures of the journeys and the novelty, `.. pleasures of the flesh; pleasure of the senses: all these pleasures are only vanity. Compared '' to the torrents of delights '' that wait us at the sky, all these pleasures are only sadness and suffering, (Sap. ! ,20)

Such are therefore the vanity and the nothing of all things of this world. Yet, it is necessary to say it well, a big number of Christian uses their life to pursue these shades and these chimeras, '' Filii hominum usquequo climbed rope, ut quid diligitis vanitatem and quaeritis mendacium: oh son of the men, how long will like yourselves the vanities of this world and their untrue promise? ''. (Ps. 4.)

III

So therefore all goods of this world, compared to the celestial goods, are not anything, it is necessary to detach our heart of these goods, it is necessary to stop putting our happiness, our joy, our affections, our life, in the created things,. Let's serve ourselves of this world to the extent of the necessity, of the utility, but without us there to attach. Such is the basic rule of Christianity that holy Paul expressed in these terms: '' Oh my brothers, the time is short, that those that are married don't put their happiness in the things of the marriage; that those that are delighted only make it by necessity and charity for the neighbor; that those that possess vivrent as not possessing anything, and those that use this world, as while not using. '' (I.Cor.VII.29-32.)

1 - the doctrine that God's Son came to learn to the world, told us holy Jean of the Cross, is precisely the one of the contempt of toues the created things. '' (Mounted of the Carmel. I Ch.1.)

. '' Whoever doesn't renounce to everything that he/it possesses cannot be my disciple. ''

'' That he/it is difficult to the rich i.e. to those that are attached to goods of this world, to splice in kingdom of the heaven. ''

'' Misfortune to you that are satiated, because you will be hungry. ''

'' As she/it is narrow the carries, as she/it is tightened the way that leads to life, and how much find it little! '' Such is the doctrine of the Mr.. Let's not go try to filter it.

2 - already, in the former Law, god prepared the minds, by faces, to accept the doctrines of the renouncement,

A) To the Book of the exodus, we read that God didn't send the manna to the Hebrews that when they had exhausted all provisions that they had brought from Egypt. (Exodus, XVI,4) '' The Lord learns us thus, writing holy Jean of the Cross, to give up all created things in the first place, because the food of the angels in doesn't give itself to the soul that wants to look for a certain satisfactions dan the food of the men '' (Mounted of the Carmel I. Hp. V).

b) In the same Book of the exodus (hp. XXXIV, 2) WE SEE ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THIS DOCTIRNE, When God commanded Moise to go up on the mountain of Sinai to receive his/her/its law there, he ordered him to part with all things and not to bring anything with him. So the one that wants to climb the sky, he/it must detach himself/itself of all creatures.

c) To the first Book of the Kings, he/it is returned that the Philistines having seized the ark, had put it in their temple, next to their idols. To the morning, they found their broken idols in one thousand pieces. That of Christian would like to keep the sanctifying grace, to avoid the deadly sin, to save their soul, but to keep their created idols at the same time, their attachments to goods of this world, to honors, to the pleasures. It is impossible. '' no one can serve two Masters. '' So much that we will keep some attaches in our heart, so much that we will keep the esteem, of the affection for the things of this world, the life of the grace will be always in danger at home. Let's stop attaching us to the things that pass therefore, paour puts, since cete life, our happiness in God: Nostra conversatio in coelis is, That since cete life we lived by the thought and the heart in the society of God and Saints. (Drawn of Jean saint of the Cross, Mounted of the Carmel, Book I. Cb=h.IV.V.)