INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE

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PART III, Chapter 21: Counsels And Remedies Against Evil Friendships

What are the remedies against this brood and swarm of foolish lovers, indecencies and impurities? As soon as you sense the first feelings turn away from them at once. With an absolute detestation of this vanity run to the Cross of the Saviour. Take his crown of thorns to surround your heart with it, so that these little fox cubs (Songs 2:5) cannot come near it. Take care that you do not make any compromise with this enemy. Do not say, “I will listen to him but I will not do anything he tells me. I will lend him my ears but I will refuse him my heart.” Dear Philothea, for God’s sake, be strict on such occasions.

The heart and the ears communicate with one another. Just as it is impossible to stop a torrent which has taken its descent from a mountain slope so too it is difficult to prevent love which has fallen into the ear from dropping immediately into the heart. The goats, according to Alcmaeon, breathe through their ears and not through their nostrils. It is true that Aristotle denies it. I do not know if it is so. But I know quite well that our heart breathes through the ear. As it breathes in and breathes out its thoughts through the tongue, it inhales also through the ear, by which it receives the thoughts of others. Let us then carefully prevent our ears from hearing filthy words. Otherwise, our heart will soon be infected by them. Do not listen to any kind of indecent proposals no matter what the pretext. In this case alone, there is no danger of being impolite and rude.

Remember that you have dedicated your heart to God. Since your love is offered in sacrifice to God, it would, therefore, be a sacrilege to take away from it even just a little. Sacrifice it anew to him by a thousand resolutions and affirmations. Hold yourself in between them like a stag in the thickest wood and implore God. He will help you, and his love will take yours in his protection, so that it may live solely for him.

If you are caught in the nets of these foolish lovers, how difficult it is to disentangle yourself from them! Place yourself before his Divine Majesty, acknowledge in his presence the greatness of your misery, your weakness and your vanity. Then with the greatest effort of which your heart is capable, detest these loves that you have begun. Give up the vain profession you made of them. Renounce all the promises received, and with a great absolute will determine in your heart and resolve never more to enter into these games and exchanges of love.

If you can distance yourself from the person you love, I would strongly recommend it. Persons who have been bitten by serpents cannot be easily healed in the presence of those who have been bitten previously[1]. So also the person who is stung by love will be healed of this passion with difficulty, as long as he is close to another who had been stung in the same way. The change of place serves very much to calm the vehemence and the anxieties of both sorrow and of love.

The young man, of whom St. Ambrose speaks in his second book of The Penance, made a long journey and came back totally freed from the foolish loves in which he had indulged earlier. He was so changed that when his foolish mistress said on meeting him: “Do you not know me? I am just the same.” “Yes,” he replied, “but I am not the same myself.” The absence from the place had brought about this happy change in him. St. Augustine testifies that, to alleviate the sorrow he experienced at the death of his friend, he left Tagaste where his friend had died and went away to Carthage.

What is he to do who is not able to distance himself? He should absolutely refrain from all private conversations, all secret exchanges, all amorous glances, all smiles. In general he must stop all communications and allurements which may feed this stinking and smoking fire. At most, if he is forced to speak with his accomplice, let it be only to declare by a bold, short and stern affirmation of the eternal separation which he has sworn. I cry aloud to anyone who has fallen into these traps of love affairs: cut off, hew, break off. Do not waste time in undoing these foolish friendships. You are to tear them off. You must not untie the knots. You should break them asunder or cut them off, the more so as their ropes and bonds are worthless. You must not treat with consideration a love which is so contrary to the love of God.

After I have thus broken off the chains of this infamous slavery, there will still remain stamped on my feet, that is, in my affections some marks and traces of the fetters. They will not affect you, Philothea, if you have conceived as great a detestation of the evil as it deserves. In this case, you will not be troubled by any feeling except that of an extreme horror of this filthy love and all that results from it. You will remain freed from all other affections towards the abandoned person except that of a very pure charity for the sake of God.

If, through the imperfection of your repentance, there remains in you still some evil inclinations, procure for yourself a mental solitude as I have taught earlier [Second Part, Chapter 12]. Recollect yourself there as often as you can. Through a thousand earnest longings of your spirit renounce all your inclinations and disown them with all your strength. More than usual read holy books. Go to confession more often than you are accustomed to, and receive communion. Consult humbly and simply, if you can, your director, or at least some faithful and prudent person, about all the suggestions and temptations which come to you in this regard. Do not doubt that God will free you from all your passions provided you continue faithfully in these exercises.

You will ask me: will it not be ingratitude to break off a friendship so pitilessly? How blessed is the ingratitude that makes us pleasing to God! No, in God’s name, Philothea, it will not be ingratitude but a great blessing you will bestow on the lover. Indeed, in breaking your bonds, you will break his also since they are common to both of you. Though he is not aware of his happiness at the moment, soon he will recognize it and sing with you sooner or later his thanksgiving: O Lord you have broken my bonds. I will offer you a sacrifice of praise and call upon your holy Name (Ps. 116:16-17).

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[1] Pliny.

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