Charles Coppens

“ There, before us, day after day, the same Redeemer of the world who made Himself the victim of expiation of our sins on Calvary, makes Himself a victim again in the same sacrifice, and offers Himself to His eternal Father, as truly as He did then, to obtain for those present in particular the graces they desire from His liberality. No prayer could be more powerful than the holy Mass. If only we duly enter into the spirit of it, a spirit of deep reverence, of eager supplication, of lively confidence, the daily Mass cannot fail to be for us a copious source of the choicest blessings. ”

“ Retrace in mind your practices of devotion to her from your early childhood to the present day. Offer once more all you have ever done in her honor. Think of the protection she has afforded you with a mother’s love, her probable influence on your vocation to the Society, on your novice fervor, on all your religious life up to the present day. Is there any devotion which you ever practised in her honor and which you have since discontinued? With what fervor do you daily honor her? Could you do more to honor or to please her? ”

“ Every generation of our members has had numerous heroes, conspicuous for their spirit of self-sacrifice. Every generation has had much need of solid virtue on the part of all its members to perform the difficult tasks imposed on them. For the present we are passing through a crisis in the world’s history, which calls for the most patient endurance of ills, and the most generous spirit of sacrifice, that can be expected from brave and faithful men supported by the grace of God. ”

“ Dionysius the Areopagite: “The most Divine of all Divine works is the salvation of souls.” In fact the saving of one soul is a higher achievement than the creation of the material universe; for the value of an action is properly measured by the result achieved, and a glorified soul is as far above all bodily substances as the knowledge, love and fruition of God is above mere matter. ”

“ But the danger of the sin is certainly much greater when a person is, partly at least, the cause of such disorderly affections, when he heaps fuel on the fire of concupiscence.
It is well to ask oneself in a retreat: have I anything to reproach myself with in this respect? How do I habitually observe modesty of the eyes in public and in private? Is my reading always proper and prudent? Do I ever indulge indolence or excessive softness? am I perfectly temperate in food and drink, and thus cautious not to arouse dangerous passions? ”

“ While we have perhaps broken strong bonds in tearing ourselves away from home and kindred, let us not be attached to little things; a slender silken thread is enough to keep a bird from gaining its liberty, and thus a little trifle may prevent us from soaring aloft to higher regions of sanctity. God fully deserves the love of our whole hearts, which are too small to be divided between Him and the things of earth.
Let us examine ourselves during this retreat, and see whether we are drawing all the profit we should from the rich treasury of our religious vocation. ”

“ When our free will co-operates with grace, we lead holy lives. The spring of God’s grace never fails; the only fear of failure regards our own free will. Now the purpose of this triduum is to examine how faithfully our will is seconding the promptings of grace. In this meditation we must ask God’s light to understand the real condition of our soul, and next examine our conduct with care, to see whether our lives are up to the standard of faithful and fervent religious. How is God pleased with us? How are our superiors and our brethren in religion satisfied? ”

“ Another copious source of sins consists of unmortified passions. When any passion is aroused, it blinds us to the dictates of reason and the whisperings of grace. You see this in the conduct of an angry man: he says and does things which he is afterwards ashamed of and sorry for. It is so with all unrestrained passions. Consider what are your most frequent faults and what are their causes. What passions need particularly to be watched and checked. The triduum is just the time for self-introspection, examinations of conscience, and for the ordering of our spiritual exercises. ”

“ It makes us lead a supernatural life, the life of children of God, and in this sense a Divine life. As the vegetable life transforms the clod of earth into the fairest flower and the most luscious fruit; as animal life turns the food into the wonderful organism of the human body; so the life of grace gives to our acts a heavenly value. By it sinners become saints, true children of God. Christ shows intense earnestness in spreading this fire, which is really His greatest work: the most Divine of all Divine works is the salvation of souls. ”

“ POINT II. Study to understand the evil of your sins, considering:
1. Every species of sin has its own peculiar vileness; for instance, lying is so odious that its very name is offensive, stealing is still worse, so that one caught in a theft is disgraced for life, gluttony is disgraceful, pride is odious to God and man, envy is mean, profanity is provoking to the great and holy God, deceit is despicable, vanity is ridiculous, impurity lowers a man beneath the brute, etc.
2. Every sin is an insult to God. When a person insults his equal, he incurs his displeasure and deserves punishment ”

“ Has not Christ given to the true Jesuit an intimate knowledge of Himself? Does He not treat us all as His true friends, rather than servants? The servant is simply expected to obey orders without knowing the why and the wherefore, without understanding what it is all about. To us Christ has given, through the Exercises of St. Ignatius, a clear insight into the entire plan of sanctification, which even our Brothers and our novices soon get to understand remarkably well. ”

“ These vows effected a solemn consecration of your person, made you sacred, like chalices, their violation a sacrilege. These days are to prepare in you proper sentiments to renew this pledge of a sacred Knighthood, like St. Ignatius’s night watch of arms at Mont Serrat, really espousals with the Son of God. The breaking of such a contract is horrible before God and men. An unfaithful religious is like a false coin—apparently gold, really brass. ”

“ Now sin is the greatest obstacle in our way; it bars our road to Heaven and directly insults our Lord. The condition of Christ’s friendship is the observance of His commandments: “You are my friends if you do the things that I command you.” To sin is to break those commandments. If it does not always turn us against God, it at least displeases Him. Even a venial sin is a greater evil than any temporal loss. We should rather die than wilfully commit one.
This disposition is the second degree of humility, on which we resolve to live in every good retreat. ”

“ POINT I. The virtue of hope inspires lofty aspirations. All men must hope for such graces from God as will enable them to attain the ends to which they are called. But as religious, and as Jesuits we are certainly called to attain perfection for ourselves and abundant fruit in the souls of others. Unless a Jesuit aims at these two objects, he falls below the mark of his vocation ”

“ They need it for themselves and for the good of others. For themselves, because the sacred ministry is full of dangers; it is like striving to save drowning men, in which task those who lend assistance often perish themselves. Sad experience teaches that many priests, employed in constant labors, neglect their own souls, and come to a miserable fall. And as far as the neighbor is concerned, it is the man of prayer, the man of God, that does the work of God, and not the priest of a worldly mind who neglects his prayer.
With what devotion do I offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass? ”

“ The same grace of God in their case and in ours being presupposed, they owed their success to their faithful co-operation. The grace of God is in the matter of sanctification, what the spring is in a watch. All the movements of the wheels and the hands come from the spring; when that breaks all the other parts come to a perfect standstill. The powers of our body and soul are like the wheels of the watch which must work along with the spring to indicate the correct time. ”

“ They are so taken up with the vanities or the pleasures of the world, with the pursuit of riches or honor or friendships, that they do not even stop to consider the call of grace. The turmoil of their passions drowns the still voice of conscience, and they rush on to the yawning abyss of eternal loss. ”

“ The best a man can do is to surround himself with such securities as lessen the assaults from without and strengthen the will within him. And such is undoubtedly the religious life. Its vows of poverty, chastity and obedience cut off the fiercest assaults of man’s triple enemy, the world, the Devil and the flesh; and its constant practices of piety and mortification provide a copious supply of Heavenly assistance to resist temptations. ”

“ On Purity of Conscience The main purpose of the first part of the Spiritual Exercises, or what St. Ignatius calls the first week, is to purify the soul from all stains of sin, and to strengthen it against all temptations to sin in future. Of course mortal sin is the principal evil to be destroyed, it is the greatest evil in the world. Since the religious life is essentially the way of perfection, it presupposes the destruction of mortal sin; being the way of the counsels, it supposes the observance of the Commandments. ”

“ And it is an axiom of the spiritual life that one advances in virtue in proportion to the violence he does to himself. Therefore the religious life, which is the school of perfection, calls at every step for generous sacrifices in the observance of that multitude of rules whose very purpose is the sanctification of the soul by the spirit and the practice of sacrifice. ”

“ Were a child, in the fervor of its first Communion, most earnestly to beseech God to let it die young rather than live to commit a mortal sin, He would no doubt give it additional graces to avoid sin, but He will not control the child’s freedom. Every one of us must carve out his own future by his own free choice. ”

“ This freedom is a wonderful gift, a glorious gift in one way, making us like to God and capable of securing our own bliss forever, with God’s grace, of course: but on the other hand putting on us a terrible responsibility. No other power on earth can control a man’s liberty. ”

“ THE THIRD MEDITATION
On Indifference to Creatures The third part of the Foundation: “It is therefore necessary that we should make ourselves indifferent to all created things, in so far as it is left to the liberty of our free will to do so, and is not forbidden; in such sort that we do not for our part wish for health rather than sickness, for wealth instead of poverty, for honor rather than dishonor, for a long life rather than a short one, and so in all other things, desiring and 21choosing only that which most leads us to the end for which we were created.” ”

“ They are going to fight for the grandest, holiest and dearest of all causes. He promises them certain victory, no one of his followers shall perish unless it be through his own fault. Yet it will be a strenuous campaign, full of hardships and fatigue for all concerned. But the King himself will ever be in the midst of his soldiers, in the thickest of the fight, sharing in their hardships and privations, so that no one will be expected to toil and endure more than the leader; and each one shall share in the victory in proportion to the sacrifices he shall have made in the holy cause. ”

“ It is near Babylon, where the tower of Babel once stood, to signify the pride and the confusion which Satan ever labors to stir up in the hearts of men. He is elevated on a throne, to denote the ambition he arouses in all to rise above their fellows. The throne consists of flames, ever restless, and smoke, darkening the mind of his miserable dupes. ”

“ Much of this may be in many men merely sentimental, or poetical. To make it actual in us, real in our conduct and the dispositions of our will, seeking God in all things, is true sanctity. At this we must steadily aim. It is in fact the motto of our Society: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, “To the Greater Glory of God.” A perfect man is a man of one idea, the idea of the greater glory of God.
POINT II. Such devotedness to God requires detachment from all creatures; this detachment is not itself perfection, but it is a necessary condition to attain this entire devotedness, in which perfection consists. ”

“ The condition of mind in religious is like that of the Blessed Angels, who are busy with God and the things of God. It is like that of the Holy Family while it abode on earth; so that a religious house is a copy of the Holy House of Nazareth. ”

“ We may be actuated in many of our actions by the love of praise, not seeking to please God but to please ourselves. Of course all that is done for a merely natural purpose is so much labor lost for eternity: “Take heed that you do not your justice before men, to be seen by them; otherwise you shall not have a reward of your Father who is in heaven (St. Matth. vi, 1) . Thus a religious, whether a Father, a Scholastic or a Brother, may give great satisfaction 189to his superiors, to his brethren and to outsiders, and yet have little merit before God.” ”

“ On Temptations In the meditation on the Two Standards we studied the manner in which the evil spirit tempts the souls of men, leading them from apparently innocent beginnings to total independence of their Creator. We must now consider the subject of temptations in further detail.
I Why does the Devil hate men? Because he hates God, and as he cannot injure God, he wreaks his vengeance on God’s images and children. Now man is created in the image of God, and all men are, or at least are destined to be, elevated to the dignity of children of God. ”

“ The demon understands full well that the temptation is to be adapted to each one’s character. With many there is from the beginning an inordinate love of honor and distinction; these may at once be assailed on their weak point and more rapidly led into pride. Others are more readily allured by the bait of pleasure; they may first be tempted by innocent amusements, then by more inordinate enjoyment, till they cast off all restraint, loving self to the contempt of the Creator, which is but another form of pride. ”

“ The more humble our opinion of ourselves and the more lively our confidence in God, the more earnest no doubt will be our efforts to sanctify ourselves and others, and thus the more we shall foster in us the spirit of our vocation.
POINT III. To attain supernatural results we must trust in the use of supernatural means. All the Philosophy of the world cannot convert a Pagan; nor all theology a Protestant, nor all literature a sinner. Conversion and sanctification are the work of grace. Now grace is obtained by prayer, by sacrifice, self-immolation, mortification. ”

“ By mortal sins we would drive Him entirely from our souls; by deliberate venial sins we oppose His work, turning to creatures and attaching ourselves to them, thus opposing His efforts to unite our will with God’s, in which union sanctity consists. By indeliberate venial sins also we resist His influence, but to a less degree. Yet we must also strive to diminish their frequency. Then acting on the promptings of grace, we shall perform a multitude of virtuous acts, by which the Holy Spirit will advance us to ever higher sanctity. ”

“ A wise God must establish order in all His works; hence the maxim: “Order is Heaven’s first law.” The material universe obeys the law of gravitation, the moral universe obeys the law of subordination of wills of inferiors to superiors, that is the law of obedience. Common sense teaches all mankind that children must obey their parents, servants their masters, subjects their lords, etc. When God came to share your nature, He put Himself to obey, and carried this virtue to the highest perfection, “becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Phil. ii, 8) . ”

“ Ask grace to renew your spirit of zeal for souls.
POINT I. The salvation of souls is the most earnest desire of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was the purpose for which He came down to earth, which was ever before Him during His private life, His preaching, His sufferings and His death; and it is still the object of His intercession for us in Heaven. For He realizes, better than any one else, the immense interests at stake in saving souls. This is the reason of His infinite self-humiliation, His boundless self-sacrifice. ”