We all know, I expect, the book called The Imitation of Christ and perhaps one or two other well tried and helpful books that deal with the way to perfection. One good but nowadays not so well known book of this sort is The Spiritual Combat by Fr. Lorenzo Scupoli, who lived from 1530 to 1610. St. Francis de Sales regarded it as one of the best treatises on the spiritual life, so it is well worth reading. It begins with these words: “Do you want to attain in Christ the height of perfection, and by a nearer and nearer approach to God become one spirit with Him? Before undertaking this greatest and noblest of all imaginable enterprises, you must learn what constitutes the true and perfect spiritual life.” Fr. Scupoli goes on to point out that many people have been deceived by thinking that the spiritual life consists exclusively in such things as austerities, vigils and fasts, bodily hardships, multiplied vocal prayers, silence, solitude and other such things. These may all have a part in the spiritual life of some souls and may be very useful, he says, but they are not the essence of the spiritual life. “Some of these are means to acquire grace,” he says. “Others are the fruits of grace, but they cannot be held to constitute Christian perfection and the true life of grace. . . But these external works, though all most holy in themselves, may yet, by the fault of those who use them as the foundation of their spiritual building, prove a more fatal occasion of ruin than open sins.” . . .
Fr. Scupoli eventually comes down to the point he is leading up to and says what the spiritual life does consist in. . . . “It consists in nothing else but the knowledge of the goodness and the greatness of God, and our own nothingness and inclination to evil; the love of Him and the hatred of ourselves; in subjection, not to Him alone, but for love of Him, to all His creatures; in entire renunciation of all will of our own, and absolute resignation to all His divine pleasure; and furthermore, in willing and doing all this purely for the glory of God and solely to please Him, and because He so wills and deserves to be thus loved and served. This is the law of love, impressed by the hand of the Lord Himself upon the hearts of His faithful servants; this is the abnegation of self that He requires of us; this is His sweet yoke and light burden; this is the obedience to which, by His voice and by His example, our Master and Redeemer calls us. In aspiring to such sublime perfection you will have to do continual violence to yourself by a generous conflict with your own will in all things, great or small, until it be wholly annihilated: You must prepare yourself, therefore, for the battle with all readiness of mind; for none but brave warriors shall receive the crown.” . . .
“Now that you see what Christian perfection consists in, and that it requires a continual sharp warfare against self, you must provide yourself with four most sure and necessary weapons in order to secure the palm and gain the victory in the spiritual combat. These are: 1. Distrust of self. 2. Trust in God. 3. Spiritual exercise. 4. Prayer.
Of course when we hear something like this we feel it is too hard for us and too demanding. But Our Lord did say we must die to self if we are to live, and for all its demands, these quotations from The Spiritual Combat do not go beyond what Our Lord Himself said in the Gospel and through St. Paul.
I am not sure, however, that for most of us it is a good thing to think too much of our life for God as a battle against ourselves and all evil. It is such a battle, of course, but it does not seem a good thing to spend too much effort in observing ourselves in order to go against our selfish wishes, or to look out for evil in order to combat it. We have got to watch self-love and go against it, it is true, and we have got to recognize evil when it appears and go against it, but for devout people, who have been trying to serve God with all their hearts for a long time, it seems much better to try to keep their eyes on God and His holy will rather than on themselves and on evil. If we live in the presence of God and
abandon ourselves to divine Providence at each moment, we shall in fact fight the battle outlined in The Spiritual Combat, but it will not seem to be a very severe and difficult and unpleasant task at all. If we love God, we love His will. If we love Him and do His will, we shall be glad to do it and shall not stop to say to ourselves, “I am going against my own will.” . . .
It may appear that I have said two contrary things in this conference. I have said that our spiritual life is a battle, and I have quoted some words about dying to ourselves, which seem very austere, but I have also suggested that we should keep our eyes on God rather than on ourselves and our battle and should find this a sweet yoke and a light burden. It is only an apparent contradiction, like those of Our Lord. He said, e.g., that He came to bring peace and that we find it in looking at Him and loving Him. But He also said He came to bring a sword, for in looking at Him and loving Him and His holy will, we should have to cut away from us all that keeps us back from union with God. Yes, there is suffering in it, but we are Friends of the Cross. Yes, it is expensive to reach union with God, but it is His grace that pays the price, if we have complete trust in Him and distrust ourselves.
Let us be wholehearted about our spiritual combat. Let us strive to give God everything, so that He may give us everything. . . . Let us begin from now to give ourselves entirely to God, and instead of saying, “I have not succeeded up to now and, therefore, am unlikely to do so now,” let us say, “I have failed up to now, and I will never trust myself again, but God has promised He loves me, and He is my Father. I will trust in Him, and I will keep my eyes on Him and His holy will, and by His grace I really shall begin to go forward.
You have the rest of your life ahead of you, and today is the first day of the rest of your life, a new beginning with God.
