THE CONFORMITY OF OUR WILL TO GOD’S WILL AS DECLARED BY HIS COUNSELS
A commandment expresses an entirely strong and urging will of the one who gives the order. However a counsel shows only a desire. A commandment imposes on us an obligation. A counsel only invites us. The commandment makes the transgressors blameworthy. The counsel makes those who do not follow it less worthy of praise. Those who break the commandment deserve to be condemned. Those who neglect the counsels deserve only less glory.
There is a difference between commanding and recommending. If we command we use our authority to impose an obligation. If we recommend we make use of friendship to induce, to challenge. The commandment imposes on us a duty. The counsel and the recommendation encourage us to follow what is most useful. Obedience is the response to a command and confidence to a counsel. We follow the counsel to please. We obey the commandment not to displease. That is why gratifying love which obliges us to please the Beloved leads us, as a consequence, to follow the counsels. Benevolent love desires all the wills and emotions be subject to God. The same love makes us desire not only what God commands but also what he counsels. It advises us to do this. Thus the love and respect a faithful child offers to its father makes it decide according to the commandment its father imposes. Moreover, it decides according to the desires and tendencies of the father.
A counsel is indeed given in favour of the one whom we counsel so that he or she may become perfect: If you wish to be perfect, says the Saviour, go, sell all that you have and give it to the poor, and follow me (Mt. 19:21; Lk. 18:22). A loving heart does not accept the counsel for its own usefulness. Instead, it is for complying with the wishes of God who gives the counsel. It is to render the homage due to his will. Hence the loving heart does not receive the counsel except as God desires it. God does not intend each person to follow all the counsels but only those that are suitable. He wishes that each one keeps the counsels depending on the difference of individuals, of times, of circumstances and abilities just as charity dictates it. For charity is the queen of virtues, of all commandments and of all counsels. In short it is charity the queen of all laws, all Christian activities giving them all their rank, their order, their time and their value.
Your father or mother has real need of your assistance to live. If so, it is not the time to practise the counsel of embracing monastic life. In fact charity commands you to go and fulfil the commandment to honour, serve, help and assist your father or mother (Ex 20:12).
You are a prince. Peace is to be maintained for the subjects of your kingdom who belong to you. They are to be protected against tyranny, rebellion and civil war, For this you need lawful successors. Such a situation of great public welfare imposes on you the obligation to beget legitimate successors in holy marriage. It is not loosing chastity or at least it is to lose it chastely. Rather it is sacrificing it for public welfare in favour of charity.
Is your health weak, unsteady so that you need much rest. Then do not burden yourself voluntarily with actual poverty. Charity forbids it.
Charity does not allow parents to sell everything to give to the poor (Mt. 19:21). It also commands them to acquire what is necessary for the education and support of children, wife and servants. Similarly kings and princes should have some treasures gathered by reasonable thrift and not by tyrannical devices. They serve as a safe defence against visible enemies. Does not St. Paul advice the married to return to normal marital relationship after a time spent in prayer (1Cor. 7:5)?
All the counsels are given for the perfection of the Christian people. It is not for that of each Christian in particular. There are circumstances which sometimes make it impossible to practise them, sometimes useless, sometimes dangerous, and sometimes harmful to some. It is one of the intentions of our Lord in saying about one of them: Let anyone accept this who can (Mt.19:12). This may be said of all the counsels. It is as though he said, as St. Jerome explains: He who is able to win and carry away the honour of chastity as a prize of character let him take it up. For it is open to those who run courageously. Then all cannot, it means, it is not suitable for all to keep always all the counsels. They are given in favour of charity. Charity serves as a rule and measure of the practice of the counsels.
When charity orders it, monks and religious are taken out of their cloisters to be made cardinals, bishops, parish priests. Sometimes, some are even compelled to marry for the peace of kingdoms as I have already mentioned. Charity makes some who were attached to the cloisters by solemn vows to come out. Then with greater reason and for a lesser cause we can advice many by the authority of the same charity to stay at home, to keep their resources, to marry, even to take up arms and go to war which is a very dangerous profession.
Charity leads some to poverty and draws back others from it. It urges some to marriage and others to chastity. It encloses one in the cloister and makes another to come out of it. Charity has no need of giving reason for all these to anyone. It is because charity has the fullness of power in Christian law as it is written: Charity can do all things (1Cor.13). It has the fullness of prudence as it is written: Charity does nothing in vain (1Cor. 13:4). If someone wishes to protest and ask why it does so, it will answer boldly: Because the Lord has need of it (Mt. 21:3).
All is made for charity and charity for God. All must serve charity. Charity does not serve anyone, not even its Beloved [God]. To him, charity is not a servant but a spouse. To him it does not do service but gives love. Hence we have to take charity's order for the practice of the counsels. To some charity commands chastity and not poverty, to others obedience and not chastity; to some fasting and not almsgiving; to some solitude and not pastoral care and to others social life and not solitude.
In short charity is a sacred water by which the garden of the Church is made fertile. Eventhough it has only one colour without a colour , nevertheless, the flowers it causes to grow do not fail to have each one its own different colour. Charity makes martyrs more red than the rose and virgins whiter than the lilies. To some it gives the delicate violet of mortification, to others the yellow of the cares of marriage. Charity makes use of the counsels differently for the perfection of souls who are extremely happy to live under its guidance.