Jean-Baptiste Berthier

“ When the hour has come to carry out our vocation to the state of perfection, a difficulty sometimes arises. In things painful to nature, human weakness keeps us back as much as possible. It seeks reasons to justify its delays and to deceive itself. ”

“ The perfection of an order is not always a pledge of its security. The contemplative life, though less perfect than the mixed, is, nevertheless, safer. Salvation is there surrounded with greater protection. [13]
Cloistered houses have the immense advantage of shutting out all occasion of sin that is to be found in the world. Those who, in the world, have learned to know their weakness, do well in preferring them as their place of rest, and as a port after shipwreck. The approbation of the Church is the basis, the support, and the strength of religious societies. ”

“ Thus, in the active life, it is better to ransom captives than to give hospitality or shelter; and in the contemplative life, it is better to pray than to read. Another form of superiority in an order arises from its doing more kinds of work than others, and from its rules affording more efficacious means for the attainment of its end. ”

“ When we have to deliberate, not on the choice of a state of life, but on some undertaking, as, for instance, on accepting or refusing some office, we should keep to the rules laid down in the foregoing chapter, taking care always for this is a capital point to act in view of God's glory and not for earthly interests. ”

“ In deed this confidence would be unlimited if parents knew all their duties, and sufficiently appreciated the state of perfection to second their children's desire to embrace it. But experience proves too well that such is not the case. To set limits, therefore, to the confidence of children, is only to apply the words of the Holy Ghost : "We ought to obey God rather than men." (Acts v, 29.) As it is important to conceal our vocation from those who might thwart it, so it is good to make it known to a man of God, who has, as Suarez requires, right notions on the religious life. ”

“ But there are some whom God really calls to the path of Christian perfection, and yet there are excusable hindrances in their way. For instance, a young man needs to recruit his health ; a young woman is only eighteen years of age, and she must wait until her twenty-first year, because the convent that she intends to enter will not accept her before she is of age, as her parents now refuse their consent. ”

“ When, in accordance with the rules we have given, a person has chosen the order in which he is to pass his days, he must still be on his guard against inconstancy and negligence in following his vocation. ”

“ To give up a greater good is, according to St. Thomas, an act of imprudence. A salutary project which has been determined on, cannot be abandoned without some defect and error on the part of reason, from the fact that it rejects what it had deliberately accepted. ”

“ Who does not deplore the sad neglect of this principle in our days ? Passion, human advantages, drive men into careers fraught with danger for salvation, and that for some trifling and perishable gain. ”

“ The mixed life unites action and contemplation. The active life is good ; the contemplative is better; the mixed life, which comprises both, is perfection itself. Jesus Christ, St. John the Baptist, and the apostles, led the mixed life. Our divine Lord spent his nights in prayer and preached during the day. [10] "Works of the active life which spring from the fulness of contemplation, such as teaching and preaching, are preferable to mere contemplation. It is better to enlighten than to shine only ”

“ Some orders are more given to solitude ; others devote themselves very much to the service of their fellow-men. Considering only a person's qualities of mind and body, it is easy to see that one order may be very suitable, and another altogether unsuited. [3] Above all, no one should enter any order in which religious discipline is not well kept. [4] St. Liguori, who also gives this counsel, adds that a confessor should consider it his duty not to recommend such an order. ”

“ Gregory, so in our own day there are many avocations which a man can scarcely, or even not at all, take upon himself, without committing sin: "Sunt pleraque negotia, quae sine peccatis exhiberi aut vix aut nullatenus possunt" (Hom. 24, in Evang.) Therefore, after his return to God, a man must be exceedingly careful not to expose himself anew to anything that would lead him into sin. ”