INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE

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PART III, Chapter 34: When We May Play Or Dance

Playing and dancing are permissible provided we take part in them for the sake of recreation and not from any attachment to them. It should be for a short time, not till we are tired or dizzy. Let it be rarely. It is usually done changing recreation into an occupation. On what occasions can we play or dance? Suitable opportunities for proper dancing and for lawful games are more frequent. Opportunities for forbidden games are quite rare since such games are very blameworthy and dangerous. In a word, dance and play in keeping with the conditions which I have laid down for you. When prudence and discretion counsel you, you may comply and give pleasure to a social gathering which you are attending. In fact, compliance being a form of charity makes good what is indifferent and permissible what is dangerous. It even takes what is harmful from things which are in some way evil. Therefore games of chance which are otherwise reproachable are not such if sometimes a right compliance leads us to them.

I was happy to read in the Life of St. Charles Borromeo that he used to comply with the Swiss in certain things about which he was otherwise strict. Also Blessed Ignatius of Loyola being invited to play accepted it. As to St. Elizabeth of Hungary, when she found herself in recreative gatherings, sometimes she played and danced without harm to her devotion. It was so deeply rooted in her that, just as the rocks around the lake of Rietta grow when beaten by waves, so also her devotion increased in the midst of vanities and pomps to which her situation exposed her. These are the great fires which grow and break into flames by the wind while the little ones are extinguished if we do not protect them.

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