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Life of John Baptist, Cardinal Franzelin
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 Life of John Baptist, Cardinal Franzelin
CARDINAL FRANZELIN, S.J
JOHN BAPTIST FRANZELIN, S.J. CARDINAL PRIEST OF THE TITLE SS. BONIFACE AND ALEXIUS. A SKETCH AND A STUDY. BY THE REVEREND NICHOLAS WALSH, S.J.
" Ego sum Via, et Veritas, et VHa; nemo venit ad Patron nisi per me" JOAN. xiv. 6
PUBLISHED BY M. H. GILL AND SON DUBLIN. 1895
CARDINAL FRANZELIN, S.J.
DEDICATION
A. M. D. G.
To the English-speaking Novices and Scholastics of the Society of Jesus, and to the English-speaking Scholars of Cardinal Franzelin, at home and abroad, this Sketch and Study of his Life is affectionately and respectfully Dedicated.
PREFACE
A BRIEF sketch of the late Cardinal Franzelin, written in Latin and prefixed to his posthumous work on the Church, and a more detailed one written in Italian by Father Bonavenia, S.J., suggested the thought and desire to write this little book. These were no doubt strengthened by great admiration of the man, personally known to me ; an admiration against which, however, I have honestly tried to protect myself. Nor have I willingly allowed it to influence me unduly. Besides, I felt convinced that, whilst Cardinal Franzelin would live for all time, in his works, as a great theologian, his memory as a singularly holy man would die out with those who knew him. The sketch suggested the study which is interwoven with it. The life of Cardinal Franzelin may- be truly called an ordinary life. First, because it was a life such as every man is bound to lead. He sought early the will of God in his regard, and did it to the end with earnestness and exact ness, in patience, and not without suffering. Secondly, because it was neither relieved nor glorified by those extraordinary gifts or charismata which mark the lives of many who have not perhaps a saintlier record. It illustrates fully the well-known axiom, that perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extra ordinarily well." His life is, in all its main points, imitable and worthy of imitation.
The short notices of the Roman and German Colleges are introduced as a very poor and humble tribute to the memory of St. Ignatius ; these two works being, after the foundation of his order, the greatest, the most enduring, and the most fruitful of his life ; a fact of which many are ignorant. Moreover, within their walls Cardinal Franzelin was trained and formed as student and Professor of Theology, his name will always be associated with them, his fame is theirs, and both were largely bene fited and greatly honoured by his labour, his learning, and his holiness.
I am conscious that "the study" may give occasion to some severe, perhaps justly severe criticism, should any one think it deserving of
notice. It may be fairly said that I have introduced nothing into the study but the most trite and commonplace truths, with which nearly every one is familiar. But I may be permitted to say in excuse, that these truths are the truths of God, reflected from Him to us in Holy Scripture, in the teaching of His Church, and in the writings of the most eminent masters of the spiritual life ; truths tested and in great part proved true by the study and experience of man s life. They are of those things " which the householder brings forth of his treasure new and old" old, because they are of God, "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever"; new, because they are always powerful for doing God s work in all men who reduce them to practice in their souls and lives. He would be a very original character, dangerously so, who would endeavour to invent or find sounder truths, more helpful principles, or better means to an end, than those of God. Familiar they are, but are they always made practical even by those who know and believe in them ? It is to be feared not ; for if they were, we would not have so many failures in every walk of life. Are there not sinners who have the catechism by heart, and who are conversant with holiness in theory ? Men of great authority tell us that there is not a small danger in being familiar with the truths of God, if we do not bring them home, and prove and keep them true, first of all, in ourselves. It cannot, therefore, be a perfectly useless labour to call attention again and again to those important truths, and, above all, to what I may call their practical aspects, or to give a book suited to spiritual reading, lightened and made somewhat interesting, perhaps, under the guise of a biographical sketch, to the young ecclesiastic and religious. Nor would the study have been added on to the sketch but for a great sympathy with and a oreat interest in such students.
I publish it with much fear and many mis givings, believing that serious defects must mar the first venture of a very inexperienced hand. I know that my readers will be kind and con siderate, and I hope I shall be able to bear criticism, should it be deemed deserving of such, consoling myself with the hope that as a " sketch " it may interest a few, and as a " study " may do harm to none.
N. W.
MILLTOWN PARK, Feast of St. Francis Xavier, 1 894.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. BIRTH AND BOYHOOD . . 13
II. VOCATION TO THE SOCIETY OF JESUS . . 25
III. THE NOVITIATE . . . . 37
IV. THE SCHOLASTICATE . . .64 V. SCHOLASTICATE IN ROMAN COLLEGE . . 84
VI. PROFESSOR ...... 95
VII. PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY . . . .10$
VIII. CREATED CARDINAL . . . .147
IX. CARDINAL . . . . . .178
X. LAST SICKNESS AND DEATH . . -193
CHAPTER I
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD
THERE is no country in Europe, perhaps in the world, which leaves such delightful memories in the mind of the tourist as the Italian Tyrol. The railway traveller, as he runs by the Brenner Pass, from Munich to Verona, gets a bird s - eye view of it, and catches many glimpses of its surpassing beauty ; whilst few things could be more enjoyable than to rest for some clays in its cities, and make excursions amongst its mountains. It is a land of varied and widely contrasting loveliness and grandeur : valleys of emerald verdure, rich and fruitful ; hills clothed with the vine and chestnut ; leafy wood and lordly forest ; and towering above
all, the stern, rugged mountain peak, covered with eternal snow, often of weird form, and not without its legend. Along the level railway line you have cities such as Brixen, Botzen, Innspriick, the capital, and Trent, all pictur esquely placed, interesting to visit, and pleasant to linger in. If you ascend from the plain to wander through the mountains, you pass many a crucifix and shrine with picture or statue of the Blessed Virgin ; you receive a word of polite and pious salutation from everyone you meet, and come across villages securely nestling in the hollows, each with its devotional church, and pious people. This land is owned by a race eminent for its simplicity, industry, bravery, and patriotism. Though of free and independ ent spirit, their whole-hearted loyalty to the House of Hapsburg is historic, and reads like a romance. This fidelity has often brought upon them great suffering, borne, however, with heroic patience, and relieved by great glory. They have upheld and preserved it in desperate struggles, which rival in self-devotion and courage those of the Swiss against the same dynasty, or of the Greeks against the Persians. The Tyrolese, in those moun tain villages, suggest Arcadia, or Paradise
before the fall. They lead lives of simple faith and childlike innocence, difficult of belief to those who have not lived amongst them, and who are in constant contact with the world outside.
In one of these villages, called Aldein or Altino, near Trent, John Baptist Franzelin was born, on the 15th of April 1816. He was the fifth of six children born to Pellegrino Franzelin and his wife, whose maiden name was Anna Wieser. His parents were neither noble nor rich. They lived on a small farm, which they cultivated with their own hands ; and were true Tyrolese in their frugal habits and religious lives. When John Baptist was a mere child, God's loving providence and his angel guardian saved him from an untimely and violent death. A savage bull caught him on its horns and cast him into the air. He escaped uninjured, except that ever afterwards his head remained slightly inclined towards the right shoulder ; this, however, was scarcely perceptible, and in no way disfigured him.
When old enough, he was sent to Bolzano, a small town near to his native village, where the Franciscan Fathers had a convent and school. Here, under their care, he studied
grammar, humanity, and rhetoric. As a mere boy, at the very start of his student life, he manifested a strong desire and fixed determina tion to become very holy and very learned. He was admittedly the cleverest and best boy in the school, and showed great talent for the classics and languages ancient and modern Livy's "pictured page" and Tacitus being his favourite reading. Although gentle and amiable, he had little of the boy about him, and took no part in the games and recreations of his fellow-scholars. A short walk, generally alone, was always enough for him. He also cultivated a decided inclination towards solitude and silence. This, however, was not carried too far, and never tinged him with sourness, moroseness, or indifference to others.
Such a manner of life, adopted so early, by a boy of fourteen, was, we may suppose, in accordance with that natural disposition which, though special to the individual, is yet so varied and different in our common nature. It may also have been, in part at least, the result of his surroundings. One so thoughtful as he could not but be impressed by the stillness of the silent valleys, and the solemn grandeur of "the eternal hills," beneath the
shadows of which he was born and grew up. But perhaps we may find the real reason in the fact that John Baptist, being intensely earnest and practical, rightly concluded that such a manner of life was the best for one whose heart was set on acquiring great holiness and great knowledge. A certain grave and determined expression of countenance caused the good Franciscan Fathers to call him John the Lion- faced.
He used to hear two masses every morning, the first at five o clock, the second that cele brated for the scholars. He was to be seen every Sunday morning as early as four o clock at the confessional, on which days he received Holy Communion, as well as on the festivals of the Church. Every Holy Week he threw aside his books, and gave himself to a retreat of three days. Through the rest of the year, his spiritual duties and short walk being secured, he gave the remainder of the day and part of the night to severe and laborious study.
Father Patiss, his boy-friend, tells us that " he was innocent as an angel, that he never saw in him anything that was faulty; once only, and with himself, he showed some signs of im-
patience." He was very gentle and kindly of manner, winning, by the sterling perfection of his character, the esteem and respect of masters and scholars. He had, as was men tioned before, a great natural talent for languages, and could read the sacred Books with ease in Greek and Hebrew, when he was eighteen. He had a passion for the study of Holy Scripture, and the fruit of this was mani fested in his own life and in his teaching. He certainly seems to have taken to heart some divine truths preached to us all, but which had for him special meaning and import, because they touched the two strong purposes of his life. First, that "it is good for a man to remember God, and bear His yoke from the days of his youth." Secondly, that "it is God who giveth to the young understanding and knowledge," that "from God cometh wisdom, and that wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sin." Thirdly, that " what ever man is able to clo, he ought to do it earnestly"; that "man should not hate laborious work ordained by the Most High," for "man is born to labour." On these divine lines he laid the foundations of his life, and according to these divine principles he built it up. His
whole career from start to finish was fore shadowed in the following inspired words : " When he was yet young, before he wandered about, he sought for wisdom openly in his prayer. He prayed for her before the temple, and unto the very end he sought her. He stretched forth his hand on high, he bewailed his ignorance of her, his soul wrestled for her, and in knowledge he found her. She flourished as a grape soon ripe, and his heart delighted in her ; and the Lord gave him a tongue for his reward." And "the unlearned drew near, and gathered round him in the house of discipline, and he opened his mouth, and praised and glorified God, who gave wisdom to him."
The life led by young Franzelin would not only be intolerably hard, but impossible, to a boy influenced by and acting according to mere natural principles, no matter how great his intellect and strong his will. But it was not so to the supernatural boy, full of faith, and "living by it," as John Baptist did. Still, even to him, as to all who live such a grand and noble life, it is a yoke, a burden, and a labour. Our Lord tells us so. Into such a life suffering must enter, and man to live it needs the courage of patience. If it were without its trials, its
struggles, and its battles, where would be the grandeur, the glory, and the merit of it ? But the boy Franzelin knew to whom and where to go, in order to make it the happiest and the most successful of lives. He went to God, " whose staff and whose rod comfort" to God, whose grace is oil to soothe, wine to cheer, and balm to heal; who makes such a life "in its bitterness most sweet." He went to the Altar of Sacrifice and the Tabernacle of Love, to Him who says, " Take up My yoke upon you, for My yoke is sweet, and My burden light. Come to me, all ye that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls." He went to the Great Mother of God and "Seat of Wisdom," to whom (as we learn from a paper found after his death) he, when a boy, formally dedicated himself, and to whom, under the title of Her Immaculate Conception, he was from childhood singularly devout.
This boy-life of John Baptist is a good one to study, and, in its main points, to imitate. For it is sad to think of the many who prac tically forget, ignore, or reject those divine truths and principles which he so honoured in
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD 21
his life. There are some highly gifted, born into the bosom of Mother Church, carefully, re ligiously, and expensively reared and educated who never stoop to the burden of labour, and soon throw off the yoke of innocence, to become the cowardly slaves of idleness and sin. For we scarcely need God to tell us that idleness worketh much evil." Such a be ginning only too often leads on to a life in keeping with it. "The boy is father to the man." His vices grow strong with his years ; "they fill his bones, and sleep with him in the dust." Such a beginning too frequently passes into a life devoid of the dignity of labour and the beauty of love ; not the life of a man, for there is nothing manly in it. Aimless, useless, disappointing, a failure, with its own Nemesis even in this world, to end in the sadness of regret and remorse. There are others who never put on, or soon cast off, the yoke of holiness, but become the slaves of labour ; yet not of a labour " ordained by the Most High," or blessed by Him. They place God outside their reckoning; they throw Him over, and become of the earth earthly, and of the world worldly, in all their desires, motives, and am bitions. If disappointment or failure come, as
22 CARDINAL FRANZELIN
it sometimes does, they may be classed with those of whom St. Paul speaks as the most miserable of all men ; their god has failed them, and they know no other to fall back on. But, granted success, is it without its penalties ? Success often creates a disturbing longing for something higher which cannot be reached ; or it was much more enjoyable in the castle- building prospective than in the responsible possession ; or it brings duties which are hard, and associations which are unpleasant ; or it subjects a man to severe and, as he thinks, unjust criticism, which pains and irritates. One; father of the Church, speaking of earthly things so desired, says they are a torturing anxiety when we are seeking them, a torturing burden when we possess them, and a torturing regret when we are about to lose them. Another says that to men who seek their own will, independent of or opposed to His, God often gives what they wish, but sends with it its own punishment ; whilst the Divine Teacher Himself asks that most pertinent question, " What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Boundless power, immense wealth, imperial position, cannot stay one second the unsparing, inevitable foot-
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD 23
fall of pale death, even at the palace. And " when man is dead, and stripped and con sumed," what of earthly things does he take with him ? Nothing but his deeds done in the flesh. " Where is he ? "-his body to the dust, and his soul to God who gave it ; face to face with the Great Judge, " who will judge even justice." There are others who idle in their early schooldays, when the very rudiments are to be learned, and the foundations of knowledge are to be laid, who after a time get more sense, and with it the desire and resolve to really study ; but it is too late, the golden hours have flown, a harm is done which they can hardly undo ; and they must often, in the race of life, suffer the consequences of a bad start. There are others who study to get through the day escaping censure and punishment, or to pass an examination, to get a degree, or to win a money prize. These also too often have a penalty to pay they fail, or their knowledge passes away with the examination ; and they learn at last that cramming is not education. The schoolboy life of John Baptist was a protest against all these, as well as an example and model to the young student He set great value on time, which is one of God s most
2 4 CARDINAL FRANZELIN
precious creatures and gifts, too often lost or abused without any scruple of conscience. He studied with intense earnestness and persever ancenot for the day, to merely gain the approval or escape the censure of his master, or to win distinction, honour, or reward ; but to store up all knowledge, that he might the better do whatever work God would give him in the future. Still more, he did his work for God alone, whom he loved ; and therefore did it well, as it ought to be done by all, for such a Master.
CHAPTER II
VOCATION TO THE SOCIETY OF JESUS
THERE was a custom worthy of all praise with the good Franciscan Fathers : they insisted that their scholars, towards the close of the rhetoric year, should consider, in a very formal and careful way, God s holy will with reference to their future, and use the ordinary means to ascertain it. Young Franzelin during his schooldays had for confessor and director the Franciscan Father Gabriel Sprenger; a man, as we know from the records of his monastery, eminent for piety and learning, and much sought as a spiritual guide by priests and people. With him for his director, John Baptist, now coming up to his eighteenth year, faced this important question, and gave himself to the study of it with that inborn earnestness and thoroughness which were his.
But at the very beginning Father Sprenger and he found themselves confronted by a serious
26 CARDINAL FRANZELIN
difficulty. Although young Franzelin s parents had neither position nor wealth, he had an uncle, brother of his mother, who had come to a high and honoured position in the State. He held a seat in the diets of Styria and the Tyrol, was one of the Emperor s Privy Council, and president of the Court of Appeal for the Vorarlberg. The Emperor had rewarded his great merits with a title of nobility, made hereditary in his descendants. He was Baron Andrea Luigi Dipauli de Trenheim. The Baron, hearing that his nephew was a young fellow of great promise, pressed him to come to Innsprtick in order to study philosophy and jurisprudence, promising to take charge of and provide for him. This was a very tempting and attractive offer to one who, in all his humility, could scarcely be unconscious of his own capabilities, and who in his thirst for knowledge would naturally desire all the advantages of a university education. It also opened a delight ful vista in the future to an earnest youth of striking talents, whose heart was set on becom ing great. This offer appealed to him also on other grounds, likely perhaps to influence him more than ambition. His parents means were slender, he could not well tax them, and was
VOCATION TO THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 27
obliged to support himself when at school by the generosity of some kind friends and by acting as tutor to the children of rich families. He had heard his friend Patiss speak of the Society of Jesus, then little known in the Tyrol, and the thought had come, now and then, in a very passing way, of offering himself to it. Being so placed, he had great difficulty in coming to any conclusion, and Father Sprenger shrank from doin^ so. This and what follows
o
show the importance the good Franciscan Father attached to this question, and also the great interest he took in his penitent. The difficulty was solved, and solved rightly, in a very strange and exceptional manner.
There lived at this time, in a small village called Kaltern, not far from Bolzano, a girl named Maria Mori. She was looked on by all as a person of great virtue and holiness, whilst some sensible and prudent men believed that she was favoured by God with ecstasies, visions, and the sacred stigmata. The time she lived would suggest that she may have been one of the two Tyrolese ecstaticas about whom Frederick Lucas of the Tablet had a passage of arms with the then Earl of Shrewsbury, to which O Connell indirectly alluded in his once
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celebrated letter to the same Earl. Maria Mori had for confessor Father John Capestrano, a Franciscan and intimate friend of Father Gabriel Sprenger. Both, after much considera tion, determined to consult her with reference to John Baptist s vocation, and her confessor commanded her, under obedience, to ask of God some manifestation of His holy will in this matter. She did so, and after some days gave as God s answer to her prayers, that young Franzelin ought to enter the Society of Jesus ; but that his doing so would not be without some difficulty. John Baptist received this word as the word of God, and resolved to offer himself after he had finished his rhetoric. He did so when the time came, and was re ceived by the Father Provincial of the Austrian and Galician provinces then united. We see here that God, in an extraordinary manner, it is true, settled the all-important question of John Baptist s future, because the youth had used with goodwill and trust the right means of securing it. St. Gregory Nazianzen has said : " The choice of a state of life is so important as to decide for the rest of our existence the good ness or badness of our behaviour." A mistake in this matter is a lifelong mistake ; a mistake
VOCATION TO THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 29
which places a man outside the groove of God s ordinary providence, and makes salvation a far greater difficulty than it otherwise would be.
It may sound strange, a man placing himself outside God s providence; God Himself telling us that "no man can resist His will," and that " He can do whatever He wills in heaven and on earth." So God can, and by means, too, which harmonise perfectly with man s freewill. But God never acts violently, never destroys man s freedom ; and man has the awful power of fighting with Gocl and choosing for himself what is evil, and deadly evil, against His will. Anyone who admits the sanction of the moral law as God s law, and man s responsibility to it, must also admit that man can and often does resist God s will and act in direct opposition to it. This is not without mystery ; in fact, it is part of that greatest mystery, the permission of evil, which no man can solve, and before which we must, with finger on lip and in humble sub mission to God, bow and be silent. St. Austin tells us all, perhaps, which can or may be said about it when he wrote : " Gocl judged it better to work crood out of evil, than that there should
3 o CARDINAL FRANZELIN
be no evil at all. Do not think that the bad are for no purpose in this world, and that God does no good by means of them : the bad live either that they may be converted, or that the good may be exercised by them. . . . Man can place himself outside the love, but he cannot place himself outside the power of God, for the sinner must, in v the end, become either the object of His mercy or of His justice."
A mistake in the matter of one s state of life is perhaps the greatest a person can make. There may or may not be much wilfulness in making it. Some never seriously consider the subject at all, or they look on it as a purely human worldly matter. They leave God out, and take that settlement which others propose, opportunities offer, or natural inclination may suggest; or it may be that some ignore God because they fear that His decision would be opposed to what they humanly desire, or that, even knowing His will, they would not have the courage to accept it. Still, no matter how you view it, or the reason for it, such a mistake is putting oneself wrong with God, placing one self in a position for which one is not fitted and in which one will not have the graces and helps special to it. " There is no prudence, there is
VOCATION TO THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 31
no wisdom, there is no counsel against God," and "no one ever fought with Him and had peace." In God s hands alone can man be safe, happy, and successful. Hence in love He commands man to commit his ways to Him" who is "alight to his feet," and to "cast his cares upon Him " who is " his staff and his strength."
If a man throw God over, and take into his own hands the settling of his ways with their responsibilities and cares, he will act humanly and naturally, and therefore, as a rule, wrongly, because he will act according to the darkness, the weakness, and the corruption of his nature. He will be, before God at least, a failure.
The practice of the Franciscan Fathers who had care of young Franzelin is worthy of all praise, because it fulfilled a strict duty touching the most important event in a young life. All, therefore, who have that most anxious and most responsible office, the education of the young in school or their direction in the con fessional, ought to study and be familiar with those means settled by God and formulated by eminent spiritualists for testing and settling this question. They should carefully and prudently instruct their charges in those means, and how
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to use them means which, being God s means, fixed by Him for a certain end, must, if rightly used, make this lifelong mistake impossible. They should bear in mind, and impress on their charges, that God and God s holy will are the first, if not the only things to be considered ; and that if other persons, such as parents, their will and wants, are to be taken into account (which sometimes is the case), it is because God wills that in certain circumstances they ought.
They should also remember that in nothing do God and His Holy Church so guard the liberty of the subject as in the matter of the priestly and religious state; and rightly so, because a mistake here is the most miserable of all. They should instruct and help them to find out God s will ; but they or their parents should not suppose for a moment that their own will must be also the will of God, or dare to put any undue pressure on their subjects or children, above all with reference to either of the states just mentioned. It is to be feared that some religious, with more zeal than sense, imagine that they are doing a holy work, creating and fostering vocations, by running down the world and the secular state in a most exaggerated and partisan style. The world no
VOCATION TO THE SOCIETY OF JESUS 33
doubt is a very dangerous, and in many ways a very bad place, but not nearly as dangerous or as wretched as is the sanctuary or cloister for those who enter them not called by God. The priestly and religious states are in themselves of a different and higher order than the secular, and one of God s greatest compliments and graces is the call to either. At the same time, belief in this truth, which no catholic may deny, the conviction that the world is a very bad place, and the thought that it is better for a person to be called to either of those states, do not constitute a vocation. A vocation is a personal thing. I must be convinced not only that the priestly or religious state is the highest and safest in itself, but also I should have good reasons for believing that God has settled it as the best for me.
A vocation to the religious state is, after all, a very simple matter, and easily discoverable, if we take our Lord s view of it and use the means settled by Him. He gives us His view in that sad and touching interview He had with " the young man of large possessions." As we have it recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew, our Lord first told him that if he wished to enter into life, he should keep the command- 5
34 CARDINAL FRANZEL1N
ments. The youth having at once answered that he had done so from his earliest years, and then asked what was yet wanting to him, our Lord replied, If you wish to be perfect, go sell all you have, give to the poor, and come, follow Me." Our Lord places a vocation in two things first, the wish, inclination, desire to be a religious, begotten sometimes of a convic tion that I ought to embrace this state ; and secondly, that I have it in me with God s grace to make the necessary sacrifice and to be true to its obligations. A man of great experience and authority Father E. O Reilly, S.J. used to say that a vocation consisted in two things a wish for the state, and physical and mental capabilities equal to it. We can and shall become fairly certain on these points, if, having no wish but the will of God, we pray for light to know and strength to do, study ourselves under God s guidance, seeking help from those gifted and graced by Him to give it. At the same time, we should bear in mind that God, the great Father of all, calls thousands to live in the world, and may take as great an interest in these His children, if they rightly seek His face, as He does in those called to religion. Marriages as well as vocations are made in heaven by God
VOCATION TO THE SOCIETY OP JESUS 35
for those who desire only His holy will and use the means to know and follow it.
It may not be out of place to give the mind and teaching of St. Ignatius on this sub ject, as he made it a special study, laid down " rules of election" which, when rightly observed, can scarcely fail in their purpose, and intended that the spiritual exercises should be given with a view to the settling of this question. The 4th of his " rules for thinking with the Church " is, " to praise greatly religious orders and a life of virginity and continence, and not to praise the married state as much as these." It would be too much to give the whole of his note headed " Prelude for making the election," but the following is its substance : In every good election, as far as regards ourselves, the eye of our intention ought to be single, looking only to the end for which I was created, which is for the praise of God our Lord and for the salvation of my soul. And thus, whatever I choose ought to be for this, that it should help me to the end for which I was created, not ordering or drawing the end to the means, but the means to the end. I should not therefore first determine to become a priest or a religious, or to marry, and as such to save my soul, but
36 CARDINAL FRANZELIN
first to resolve to save my soul, and then find out in which of those states I am most likely and best fitted to do so." The isth of the " Annotations for the help of him who is to give and of him who is to receive the Spiritual Exercises" is as follows: " He who gives the exercises must not incline him who receives them more to poverty or a vow than to their contraries, nor to one state or manner of life than to another; for although outside the exercises we may lawfully and meritoriously induce all who may in all probability be disposed to it to choose a life of continency, virginity, a life in religion, or any kind of evangelical per fection, nevertheless, during the time of the Spiritual Exercises, when the soul is seeking the divine will, it is better and more fitting that its Creator and Lord Himself communicate with the devout soul, disposing it for that way of life which will best suit it for the future." This simple and straight direction of St. Ignatius should destroy an idea which some seem to have, that the Spiritual Exercises were intended to catch all for the religious state, and, if possible, for his own order.
CHAPTER III
THE NOVITIATE
YOUNG Franzelin having found out God s holy will in his regard corresponded with it, and entered the novitiate of Gratz in Styria on the 27th of July 1834, being then in his eighteenth year. His life here stands on record in the following words : "In tyrocinio omnibus raro prseluxit exemplo." " In the novitiate he out shone all by his rare example." True to himself and to his principles, he was the first and the best in the study of spiritual things the only study allowed in the novitiate as he had been in the study of letters.
The novitiate is a monotonous, uneventful sort of place. Still we are not without some interesting and edifying details of his novice life. According to the letter and spirit of one of his rules, "he constantly and patiently laboured, that no point of perfection which by God s grace he could attain by the perfect
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observance of all the constitutions and in the fulfilment of the particular spirit of the Institute should be lost to him." He was scrupulously careful to observe all, even the smallest rule or custom, singularly clever and good-humoured in protecting himself against any temptation to violate what he loved so much, silence.
In one matter, however, he was sinlessly in discreet and imprudent, justifying himself, no doubt, by his strong desire to become holy, and a certain thoughtlessness and indifference about bodily comfort, health, even life. Morti fication is the most important, if not the most necessary, factor of holiness, and this perhaps because it is the hardest and most distasteful to our nature. But it can be carried too far a rare fault, it is true, but into it our good novice fell. He was never known to touch wine, the common drink of the country, and for a long time so we read he never drank water. He also practised other most severe corporal austerities. The reader will probably ask, Where was his master of novices, or was he minding his business ? Well, this question may be answered by saying that a novice- master must necessarily believe the statements of his subjects about themselves, and it is very
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 Re: Life of John Baptist, Cardinal Franzelin
likely that John Baptist, in thorough good faith, made out a strong case in favour of his own action. After some short time, however, superiors realised the state of affairs and the danger of allowing it to continue, so they placed him under prohibitions and restrictions, to all of which he gave the most simple and perfect obedience. But it was somewhat too late. Injury to health, at first very alarming, was the result of his imprudent zeal. His chest and lungs became seriously affected, accompanied by obstinate blood-spitting. Now the word of Maria Mori seemed to be fulfilled ; for things looked so badly that superiors were on the point of dismissing him as unequal, through delicacy, to the life and work of the Society. But God in His loving providence intervened; and one does not like to think what the Church, the theological world, and the Society of Jesus would have lost in losing him. He recovered slowly, if it could be called a recovery, for he remained so delicate to the end, that many who knew him well often expressed their surprise that he was able for so many years to bear the fatigue and labour of teaching, above all, of teach ing as he taught. For they who had the grace and privilege of sitting at his feet must re-
member how clearly and strongly he rang out every word, so as to be perfectly audible in the remotest corner of the large lecture-hall of the Roman College. He himself, when he had touched seventy, said to more than one, "It is a wonder to me how I have lived to such an age." The truth is, he had an iron will, and in its power, strengthened by grace, he went on to the end, determined to work, heedless of self. A friend said of him, "There is the delicate man who existed, and whom John Baptist ignored, and the strong man who did not exist, and in whom he alone believed."
Cardinal Franzelin, a few months before he died, set himself to burn a mass of MSS., letters, etc., and inspected the work himself for hours. A few of these, very few indeed, were by some means or other saved. Amongst them were some notes which he had taken during that long retreat which all novices are obliged to make, his particular examen book, which he always carried in the breast-fold of his habit, marked up to the day before he died, and with in this some slips of paper on which were written pious sentiments, religious principles or maxims, resolutions, aspirations, and .a long list of the saints he was in the habit of invoking. These
were all written during the novitiate or the early days of his scholastic life, and in Latin. There was also found amongst them a form written in German, according to which, when a mere schoolboy, he had dedicated himself to the Mother of God.
He placed himself and the important work of the long retreat under the special protection of the Ever-Blessed Virgin, St. Ignatius, and his gtiardian angel. He also selected a patron saint for each day, beginning with St. John Baptist. On the first meditation, " The End of Man," called by St. Ignatius " First Principle and Foundation," his note shows how he at once grasped and applied to himself the great corner stone truth which it so impressively teaches.
" God gave to me, in love, every thing I have, when He, not needing me, created me. He is therefore my Lord and Master, who created me for His own glory ; therefore I am bound, in every way and every thing, to pro mote His glory. I cannot find rest in anyone but God. If a man were seeking to find a precious pearl, and another said to him, It lies buried under earth here, dig for it ; would he not do so ? I know I can find calm and rest only in God ; why therefore not seek it
there ? The labourer works hard every day, even to the tiring of himself, for a few pence, and I give myself no trouble to gain eternal life. The things offered to me are, on one side a moment of time, a fleeting pleasure, and hell ; on the other labour for the moment, supreme happiness in God, and eternal life. Now make your choice. Shall I not choose the second ? I have done so. Elegi, Elegi"
In this election he persevered, faithful, as we shall see, in every moment of his life, to the last.
On a meditation of the second week he writes : " Through the whole hour I was tried
by temptations, but these were not in vain nor without some good results. I propose firmly not to think or speak of any but holy and sacred things in the future. May God give me grace to do so." In his meditation on " The Three Classes," he writes : " There are some who desire to rid themselves of a bad habit or vice, but never use any means to do so. These are like to a man who cries out that he wishes to go to Rome as soon as possible, but does not wish to walk or to be carried there. There are others who do make use of some means, but not the right ones ; I have been
amongst these up to the present, because I resolved before to avoid certain things, and to think only of spiritual things, and yet I am as of old. If I saw another man in the state in which I am, should I not say to him, It is all over with you, all hope is lost ; you are as one despaired of by the physician ; and still you are not afraid. Settle the question at once. Do you wish to be lost or saved ? Think seri ously. I wish to be saved, but this is not possible for me unless in the Society of Jesus, because I have been called to it, and not possible in it, unless I become a true Jesuit verus Jesuita. Therefore I renounce, this moment and for ever, the world, the flesh, the devil, myself. Re- mmtio, Renuntio. I will have nothing more to do with such things. If others were able to do this, why not I ? I will never again think of dangerous things. I will ground myself in true humility. When I read in the refectory, I will mispronounce ; if I have to preach, I will com pose in the simplest way. If it please God, I will be a lay brother, and I will ask superiors to receive me as such. I will be in all things a true follower of my Captain, Jesus Christ, a true Jesuit. I make this resolve in the presence of my God, One and Three, by whom I was
created, in the presence of the Blessed Virgin, my angel guardian, St. Ignatius, and all my patron saints and protectors. I place all my resolutions in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and I confide them to the care of the Mother of God. With the grace of God it is fixed and settled." In another small memorandum book, written after he had finished the long retreat, but whilst still a novice, he formulated, in a very precise way, the means he would use when preparing himself for confession : i. Vigilant guardian ship of the heart, deep study and examination of self; labour to acquire such delicacy of con science that it will feel hurt by the least fault committed till repented of. 2. To acquire the habit of making acts of contrition, now in a studied manner w r ith many words, now in a very simple way by short aspirations, particu larly in time of prayer, meditation, examen, when tempted, before any important work, before falling asleep ; and when making these aspirations, to think of God s great love and to grieve because of the sins he had committed against Him. 3. To be most observant of the daily examens of conscience, and to make them as if about to confess, observing accurately the five points prescribed by St. Ignatius in
his book of the Spiritual Exercises. Being a believer in the saying of St. Chrysostom, " that we should be more afraid of little than of great sins," he made nine resolutions, and noted them under the heading, " Peccata venialia maxime cavenda."- " Venial sins most of all to be avoided." The second was, " To be on his guard against anger and impatience." The third, " Never to speak of the defects of his neighbour." The fourth, " Never to omit his spiritual duties, or to perform them with deliberate distractions or negligence." The eighth, " In his trials and sufferings, no matter whence they come, to never murmur or grumble, but to receive and bear them with an even mind and grateful heart as sent by God" adding, " The greatest sufferings which could befall me in this life are as nothing to hell, which I have so often merited." The ninth, " Never to hide his defects from those who ought to know them, and never to show himself other than he is." He also noted down some pious affections and resolutions, which prove still more how the Spiritual Exercises had produced in his soul the two purposes for which we are told to work when making them, namely, a thorough hatred of sin and all spiritual disorder, and a true love
of Jesus Christ, that we may, from the highest motive, labour to conform our lives to His. " Nothing can be done," he writes, "without labour. I will fight for the Infinite Good, for Jesus dixi, mine ccepi" "God is always the same, Infinite Perfection and Love, therefore thou oughtest never to offend Him." "Thou, Thou, my Jesus, didst hold me to Thy Heart, on the Cross. Oh, no, no, no sin nulhim, nullum, nu Hum peccatum" " O Jesus, I promise to love Thee for ever, and never wilfully to sin against Thee. I resolve to be humble, holy, obedient, after Thy example, even though all things around me should change. In Thee I trust; my present fervour may cool, my resolve, never. If I again fall, I am determined to arise with redoubled humility and confidence. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, O Cross, O Jesus, strengthen me."
In this same book he mentions a saying of the imperfect suggested by himself or heard from others, and answers it : "In the Society they are of greater importance, and made more of, who are learned, who are distinguished as professors, preachers, etc., than they who are holy, but without these gifts. Personal holiness is only good for the man himself; learning is good
for others, and the learned are in the mouths of all." "The falseness," he answers, "of this proposition is proved by the iith and i6th rules of the Summary, in which our Holy Father Ignatius and the Society declare the contrary. Virtue is the soul of learning ; learn ing without virtue is only a dead body. Talents are good, learning is good, but virtue is better than both. The perfect praise of a Jesuit is, to be not only solidly learned, but solidly holy. Knowledge without love of God puffs up. Love of God without knowledge availeth the person himself only, but not others." He also noted down certain principles called by him "funda mentals," which he determined to hold well in mind, heart, and hand, after he had passed from the novitiate to the active life. They are four : i. A delicate conscience. 2. Strong love of his vocation. 3. Strict adherence to the letter and spirit of religious life. 4. A resolution to act always against human views and human judgments. These, "that he may remain faithful to the good novitiate training and its principles."
" The perfect praise of a Jesuit is not only to be solidly learned, but to be solidly holy." On this John Baptist set his heart from the very
start of his religious life, and this he went on perfecting day after day to the last. Rejoicing as a giant he ran the way, and would not be much out of place, in heaven or on earth, side by side with the canonised Thomas and Bonaventure or the uncanonised Suarez and Bellarmine.
We have just noticed how he, with foreseeing and provident mind, prepared and forearmed himself in his novitiate for the much harder, more trying, and more dangerous life which was to follow. This is not without its instructive moral. Many destined for the priestly or religious state, who have spent their time well in seminary or novitiate ; many destined for the secular state, who have spent (and spent well) their years in college, as John Baptist, scholar and novice, did ; rest on their oars with too much confidence in what they have done, and are too thoughtless of what they have yet to do. This arises perhaps from a certain feeling of strength in an innocence and virtue which, however, have not yet been tested ; or from their ignorance or mere superficial knowledge of the world in which they must now take their stand and fight their battle. They think they are now well provisioned for the journey and well armed for the enemies, open and hidden, who may meet them on the way. But they forget that provisions can fail, that they may find themselves in famine districts, devoid of many spiritual helps, that their arms may become dull and edgeless, or that new and different ones, as well as other tactics, may be needed ; or, again, they castle- build and day-dream a future which is either not real, or if it were, would be full of danger ; namely, the life, as it were, of one moving in a gay-looking but frail boat on a gentle current, all calm below and sunshine above, no quick sands, or rocks, or contrary winds, or storms. This is one of youth s most dangerous mis takes or delusions, be he seminarist, novice, or secular scholar. The college, the seminary, the novitiate are, as a rule, well cared preserves, into which many enemies cannot enter, and in which the inmates are well guarded and protected against the few that can. Here also the regular fixed routine of religious duties and practices is such that they cannot well get out of it. But when they pass from these they will find them selves face to face with another world, and with temptations, dangers, and enemies new and unexpected, all which will really test the
foundations they have laid, whether on rock or sand. The young religious, especially of the Society, will have to pass to the study of classics, mathematics, philosophy, etc., and then to a far more laborious and anxious work, the moral and intellectual training and education of the young a work not only of the greatest importance and most far-reaching effects, but of the gravest and most awful responsibilities. They who undertake it assume all the duties of parent and pastor, stand in the place of both towards their scholars, and are bound to look well to the health and welfare of body and soul. A work which demands unceasing labour, constant but prudent vigilance, and much patience because of the anxieties inseparable from it. A work in which strictness and severity must be tempered with gentleness, consideration, and mercy, into which prejudice, one-sidedness, undue favouritism, or temper should never enter, and to be done with studied impartial justice when there is question of correction or punishment. " Do thy work earnestly," says God/ but in meekness, and thou shalt be loved before thou enquirest, blame no man, and when thou hast enquired, reprove justly." The greatest of English novelists and
moralists, Thackeray, speaks somewhere of a blow given unjustly to a boy at school by his master tingling and smarting on his cheek when a man. Or, after a time, he as well as the secular priest must give himself to the missionary life, sometimes even to strictly parochial duties, and must, for the great purpose of saving souls, come into close contact with the world, with all that is corrupt and bad, with all that is dangerously attractive and dangerously repel ling in it. In the striking words of St. Chrysostom : " Priests must live not for them selves but for others, for others differing in disposition, character, state, as well as in most difficult spiritual miseries, diseases, and wants. They cannot be without anxieties about the good of every individual committed to them, and each demands a different kind of labour, and a caution and a prudence greater than the labour. They are surrounded by the black array of the devil and his mad conflict, surrounded not only by declared enemies, but by many also who, whilst pretending friendship, are ready to combine with others to destroy them. They need, therefore, a hundred eyes, more than human virtue, a strong mind that will not despair, and much grace. Their souls
should be made by grace like to the bodies of those youths who stood in the furnace of Babylon, for it is no common fire to which they are exposed, but to an all-devouring flame blown up from every quarter, and searching- out their souls more severely than the furnace fire did the bodies of those children." And yet, being so placed in the world, and with such surroundings, they must not allow anything to interfere with that solid virtue and holiness which in the words of John Baptist are better than talents or learning, and without which both are only as a dead body ; or with those means which must be patiently and perseveringly used to keep them intact. The priest and the religious, who whether in college, parish, or mission must work for others and be constantly in contact with them, are not angels, but men, men with man s corrupt nature, not only subject to those temptations common to all men, but to some also which are special to themselves and their works. " They " (writes St. Chrysostom) " cannot hide themselves, they must be always under the eyes of others, and men will measure and weigh their faults not according to the fault in itself, but according to the dignity of him
who commits it." The greatest compliment paid by seculars to priest and religious is, that they expect great virtue and holiness from them ; and their first duty, as the light, the salt of the world, and the saviours of men, is to edify and teach others by the perfection of their own example. " By living well and preaching well, they teach their people to live well." " Men believe more in what they see than in what they hear." Words are either a reproach recoiling on him who uses them, or mere " sounding brass and tinkling cymbal," if they be not the outcome of a soul and a life filled with the love of God and reflecting it ; an outcome as natural and necessary as light and warmth from the sun, or sweet sound from a perfectly tuned and toned musical instru ment.
The first and most important duty of those who are consecrated to save others, is to look well to their own personal virtue and holiness ; "to take heed to themselves," that they may be the "pattern of the flock from the heart." "Sound of life for the salvation of their people," " adorned with all virtues, and mirrors of holiness," that their words may have a power in and from their lives which nothing else can
give. " Take heed to thyself , a short motto," writes St. Basil, "full of meaning for all, what ever be their rank and position in the Church." He compares priests to architects, builders, travellers, shepherds, husbandmen, hunters, soldiers ; he proves that all success depends on looking well to self, and concludes his homily with the following words: "The day would fail me, were I to go on recounting the wonder ful efficacy and effects of this golden rule Take ht 7 ed to thyself."
True charity begins at home. A Kempis counsels that no matter what a man does for others, he should not neglect himself; and God Himself tells us that it will profit a man nothing to gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul. Such are the commands of God as we have them in His Inspired Word, in the councils of His Church, and in the earnest preaching of its fathers and doctors. Besides, there are eminent spiritualists who say that there are few in greater danger than they who pour them selves out even on holy works and neglect their own personal sanctification. Neglect of this most important duty is an inexcusable sin, for who knows better than priest or religious, that God, the " Faithful and True," is never wanting
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to us, that He is more anxious to give grace than the holiest is to receive it, that He does give it, and that we have means always at hand by the right use of which we may increase it to any amount grace, by which the priest and religious, notwithstanding their corrupt nature and dangerous surroundings, can be fully up to the high standard of virtue and holiness rightly required of them ; can live in the world, and yet not be of it ; can come into contact with its corruption, not only not bearing away the slightest taint, but purifying it by their sacred ministrations. It is therefore evident that those spiritual duties of rule in seminary and novitiate meditation, prayer, daily mass, confession, examen of conscience, spiritual reading, and certain devotions in which we were instructed, trained, and disciplined, and which even there did not make us better than we ought to have been are far more needed when we have passed into the battlefield of the world. They should be held on to in a strong, determined, and mortified spirit because certain helps to wards their observance are removed, whilst temptations to neglect them and difficulties in their way are increased. In seminary and novitiate, we were as hothouse plants under
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glass, carefully looked to and tended by others. But afterwards, when our own masters in lonely country or busy town or city, we are as such planted out in poor or bad soil, exposed to the action of burning sun, chilling wind, drought, deluge, and storm ; protection, culture, growth, and fruit depending on ourselves alone. If in these circumstances the spiritual duties of seminary or novitiate be neglected, what must happen ? The graces necessary to make and keep us what we ought to be, will not, through our own fault, be secured, and the seminary or novitiate holiness, such as it was^will soon give way, collapse, disappear. What will happen ? What must happen to a soldier who struts about in armour in time of peace, and goes into the thick of the fight without any armour at all. He will become the prey of his enemies, and deserves no better fate.
To the young passing from college to take their stand as laymen in the world, formidable enemies at once present themselves : the feeling, naturally delightful, of new-found liberty and the temptation to abuse it ; no actual work, or object in life to labour for, no wholesome occupation given to them at once. A fatal mistake this, too frequently made by wealthy parents, and
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for which they often pay a sad penalty. Hence "idleness, which worketh much evil," worldli- ness, mere pleasure and play, an unhealthy tone of mind ; all tending in the worst direction and towards the most degrading forms of vice. In a word, wasted lives and untimely deaths. Or it may be a devoting of oneself to what is called the business of life, so human, so one sided, so absorbing, that, even if it secures success in this life, fearfully endangers it in the next. Now what chance is there of a young man holding his own against these and other uglier and more dangerous enemies, if the morning and night prayer, the daily mass when convenient, or the visit to the Most Blessed Sacrament, the aspiration when tempted, the Rosary, the Sunday instruction, the weekly or monthly confession, etc., are entirely or in great part given up? Those pious, grace-giving duties and practices did little more than keep him a good boy when within the well-guarded preserves of college life. What must become of him if he neglect them when he is in the midst of the world s dangers ? What must become of a youth who can scarcely keep his head above water in the swimming-bath, if thrown into a tempestuous and stormy sea ? He
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must sink and be lost, because he has ceased to use the only means which could sustain him.
But some one may ask, "Am I, a man living in the world, to be as good as I was when a boy in school ? In my present position, it is very difficult to keep up the religious duties and devotions of college." Well, such a ques tioner may be answered by saying, that he is as much bound to be a good man as he was to be a good boy, nay, a better man than boy, if his responsibilities towards others have increased in number and importance. Hard and difficult those religious duties in some sense certainly are, but will giving them up make a man s life easier and happier? Surely throwing the great God over, and sin, are not factors of peace and contentment even in this world. Hard these duties are, but so much the better for him who holds faithful to them. The very overcoming of self in order to be so, smooths and sweetens life, and is richly re warded by peace of mind and heart and con science. A man who comes to confession on principle, because God commands it, because it is necessary, and he cannot live well without it, and who comes in the teeth of a strong natural
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repugnance, brings to the sacrament perhaps the very best disposition, better than tears of sorrow without this repugnance. Free will is one of God s noblest gifts to man, and God never violently overrules or overrides man s will, so as to make him do good and avoid evil, if he determine not to do so. For God says, " Good and evil, life and death, are before you, and whichever you choose will be yours." And many there are who so abuse or misuse their free will, that they make the good things of God evil, and the life-giving things of God death-bearing to themselves. By not over coming themselves, by not using a certain amount of mortification and self-denial, by yielding to the promptings of passion and inclination in the wrong direction, they abuse the senses of the body, the faculties of the soul, health, wealth, position, the food that strengthens and the wine that cheers, and many other good things of God, ancl make them the cause or occasion of evil and of death. Give to your flesh its concupiscence, and it will make you a laughing-stock to your enemies. How many are there this moment lost in hell, or degraded and miserable on earth, who when leaving college would have
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shuddered at such a possibility, and resented as an insult the hint of it from another. And yet they came to it. How? By the easy descent of that concupiscence, which was theirs, and which is commonly called the predominant passion. They did not keep eye on and hand against it as their special enemy, because this would entail a conquering- of self. On the contrary, they made little of it, gave it its way at first, saying, It is not a sin, or at least not a great sin, and when it begins to be such, I will look to it, forgetting the old pagan maxim, " Principiis obsta " ; forgetting that by acting in this way they were weakening themselves and strengthening their enemies ; a line of action which must end in defeat. Spiritual writers compare this predominant passion to a lion s cub, that is nice-looking, gentle, and playful, which a child could kill with a stroke, but if you feed it, pet it, give it what it likes, day after day, you make it a fierce wild beast to lacerate and destroy you ; to a horse, which, if left unbroken and untrained, will carry you wildly along as it wills ; to a gentle current, running in the direction of dangerous rocks, pleasant to drift on, but if you do, it becomes stronger and quicker, and you are
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wrecked almost before you take in your danger. The great poet wrote no truer words than these : " The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us." And greater far than he has said, "In that in which man sinneth, in the same shall he be punished." We see this Nemesis in the daily records of human crime in suicide, in gaol, in gibbet, in families made miserable or disgraced, in social ostracism and mercantile bankruptcy. But we do not see that Nemesis which is in every sinful soul ; for the offspring of sin are a brood of vipers that torture the soul which gave birth to it, even in this world. In the history of the world as written by men, the great heroes are the great conquerors of men and of nations. In history as written by God, this is not the case ; His heroes are they who conquer themselves, for He says, " The patient man is better than the valiant, and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh cities." The poorest beggar in the street who bears patiently the trials of life, and rules his evil inclinations according to the principles of right reason and faith, is in God s mind a better and nobler man than the Alexanders, Caesars, and Bonapartes, who, whilst conquering men
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and taking cities by storm, were too often the vile slaves of the most shameful vices. David, according to St. Chrysostom, was a greater man when, having Saul, his enemy seeking his life, helpless in his hands, he resisted the temptation to kill him, than when he struck down Goliath, and was hailed the saviour of his nation. Theodosius was greater when he bowed to the just but humiliating penance of St. Ambrose, than when as emperor he ruled the world. Every man should ambition to be great and noble, but according to God s view.
Well, therefore, it is with the youth who, leaving college, imitates John Baptist, by fixing deep in mind and heart certain truths, and determines, at all cost and labour, to live up to them, as he did. First, that the more Christian, virtuous, and religious he is, the happier he shall be, even in this world. Second, that what is best for eternity is best for the hour, accord ing to the pertinent question which a saint bids us to ask ourselves often, "Quid hoc ad seternitatem ? " Third, that grace, merit, and glory will come to him in proportion to the overcoming of and doino; violence to himself;
o o
that the hardest thing, when borne or done for
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God, is the best. "The truest honour is the manly confession of wrong, and the truest courage the courage to avoid temptation." Fourth, to use, fearful of himself and trustful of God, the means by which alone he can keep himself holy and happy ; namely, prayer, con fession, and communion, and some devotions, according to his spiritual taste. Fifth, in the light and strength of the graces which these will certainly bring to watch the enemy, his dominant passion, and give it no quarter. For, in the words of our Lord, "When a strong man armed keepeth his court, those things are in peace which he possesseth ; but if a stronger than he cometh upon him, and over come him, he will take away all his armour, wherein he trusted, and will distribute his spoils."
CHAPTER IV
THE SCIIOLASTICATE
JOHN BAPTIST passed, in the year 1836, from the Novitiate in Gratz to Tarnapol, a city in Galicia where the Society had a college, in which its own scholastics and secular youths were educated. Here he made what is called second rhetoric repeating, for a short time his classical studies ; and then began his course of philosophy, logic, metaphysics, and ethics, which lasted two years. He had, as was men tioned before, such an extraordinary talent for languages, and had cultivated it so earnestly, that, when eighteen, he was able to read the Holy Scriptures in Greek and Hebrew. On this account, his superiors appointed him, even when making his own studies, to teach these tongues. He also learned so quickly Polish, that he was soon able to teach the children of Tarnapol the catechisms. Here John Baptist met, for the first time, the Very Rev. Father
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Beckx, who afterwards, as General, governed the Society with great prudence and gentleness for more than thirty years. They were thrown much together for a few days, owing to the fact that John Baptist was one of the very few in the college who spoke German, and they formed a high estimate, one of the other. Having finished his philosophy, he was named to teach, first, humanity, and then rhetoric. But as he was still extremely delicate, these schools were found too much for him ; hence, the year follow ing, he was appointed to teach Greek and Hebrew. He considered this work too little, as he always had a horror of being unoccupied. He was therefore named Superior of the Scholastic Philosophers, Sub-librarian, and In structor, in spiritual things, of the Scholastic Rhetoricians. In the year 1843 he was sent from Tarnapol to Lemberg, the capital of Galicia and an archiepiscopal city, in which the Society had a College of Nobles. This college had for friend and patron the Archduke Ferdinand d Este, who obtained permission that its pupils might receive all teaching within the college, provided they were presented twice a year for examination at the State University. Hence some of the ablest men at the disposal
9
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of the Provincial were sent there. During his stay of three years, John Baptist taught for one year the third class of grammar, and for the other two, Greek and German. We have evidence that, during all his time in Tarnapol and Lemberg, he was true to the great resolve, " Holiness and learning," and faithful in using the means~[of acquiring both. His path was " as a shining light, going forward and increas ing even to perfect day."
Having spent six years as master in the colleges, his superiors determined that he should begin the study of theology ; and it is no wonder that they sent one of such rare talents and high hopes to the Gregorian University, or, as it was more commonly called, the Roman College. As this house will be for many years the home of John Baptist, and his name and fame will ever be amongst its greatest glories, it may not be deemed out of place, or without interest, particularly for those who studied within its walls, to give a brief history of this the first and most celebrated scholasticate of the Society, and the greatest centre of theo logical learning perhaps in the world.
The most important work of St. Ignatius, after the founding of his order, was the
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establishment of this college. Its birthday was the 1 6th of February 1550, when thirteen scholastics young Jesuits who had made their simple vows with Father Pelletier as their first Superior, left the professed house and took up their abode in a small dwelling at the foot of the Capitol which Ignatius had rented. The benefactor who gave him the money to do so was his fellow-countryman, Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia, w r ho afterwards entered the Society, became in time its third General, and is now a canonised Saint. According to the intention of Ignatius, this college was not to be a house of studies for young Jesuits only ; its doors were to be open to all who might wish to come. Those of his own order lived within it, others attended as day scholars, and the teaching was perfectly gratuitous ; in the words of St. Ignatius, "every one, whether rich or poor, is admitted out of pure charity without any remuneration being accepted." After a short time, such numbers flocked to it,, that Ignatius was obliged to rent a larger building, the property of the historic family of Frangipani, near to the Minerva, the Duke of Gandia being again his generous friend. But soon trials came, as they always do, to test a good work
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which is destined to last. All the professors were Jesuits, and no pension was asked or received. This was naturally distasteful and injurious to other teaching establishments in Rome, between the members of which and the Society things soon became more than unpleasant. Hard, bitter, and untrue things were said and published of the Jesuits. Their manner of life, their doctrines, their faith, were unfairly questioned or ridiculed, and " ignorant " or incapable" was perhaps the least offensive epithet applied to them. In answer to this last charge, Ignatius used to say, " We do not pretend to be savants, but the little we have ourselves learned we wish to give freely to all for the love of God."
We take the following extract from a letter of St. Ignatius written at this time to the rectors of the colleges of the Society : " The devil commonly takes pains to impede those things that work most against him for the benefit of souls, as we find by experience here in Rome in the new college, as also in those of Italy and Sicily. Here a great zeal has seized many of the schoolmasters, so much so, that one day lately some of them came to the college and joined the audience of Master Joaquin, and
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found fault with him publicly, though they were in the wrong, and gave great scandal. This very week, two boys being missed from home, their mothers came to our chapel during mass, cried out and made an extraordinary disturb ance there, and also in the college and at the houses of some cardinals, saying we had estab lished the college on purpose to steal away people s sons, though in fact neither of these boys had entered either our college or our home." He then ordered that " if any of these schoolmasters come and say that the masters of the college are ignorant, let them confess with humility that they are more ignorant than they would wish to be, though they try to serve God and their neighbours with the small talent which the great Father has bestowed upon them ; finally, let them modestly excuse their presumption." He also forbade the rectors to receive any boys against the will or without the permission of their parents or guardians.
About this time, also, an insidious attempt was made to injure the college. Melanchthon sent one of his followers, a clever man, who had some knowledge of Scripture and talked well, that he might secretly propagate heresy within its walls. But he was soon found out,
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and handed over to the Holy Office. In the year 1553, scholastic and moral theology and Sacred Scripture were first taught, Fathers Olave, Charlat, and Frusis being the professors. Ignatius always held in great esteem the manner of teaching, as he himself had seen it, in the University of Paris ; hence he took all possible care that the prominent men in his new college should be men who had studied in that famous university, and that they should adhere strictly to its system. The college soon got a good name, and the scholars so increased, that the second house was now found too small. But the expense of supporting the enlarged staff of professors and of scholastics became too great for the resources Ignatius had at his disposal ; and strong representations were made to him on this point. To these he always gave one answer: " Go on, go on. God will take care of us, and provide for all our wants." And so He did, by raising up generous benefactors. The Sovereign Pontiff, Julius III., living witness as he was of the good done in a few years by this college, promised to grant two thousand gold crowns annually towards its support. He died, however, before giving legal effect to this intention ; but his successor,
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Paul IV., cognisant of his predecessor s will, declared that he was disposed to give even more.
In the year 1555, one hundred had passed from its schools educated for their work in the world, and the same year two hundred new scholars replaced them. In 1556, the year in which Ignatius went to his reward, Pope Paul gave it all the rights and privileges of a university. In the year 1557 it was trans ferred to the Salviati Palace, which then stood on the site where, some time after, the larger and grander college was built. During this year it gave its first literary exhibition, into the programme of which entered a play performed by the scholars. Father Natalis was rector ; amongst the professors were Emmanuel Sa, Polanco, and Ledesma ; and amongst the students were scholastics of the Society from nearly every country in Europe.
Still the college, though a great success, was not yet really founded. It subsisted on chance alms ; an existence too precarious to last long. The Sovereign Pontiffs were aware of this, and now resolved to remedy it. Pius IV., in the year 1560, commissioned Cardinals Maroni, Savelli, Hippolito D Este, and Alexander
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Farnese to provide for the needs of the college and to place it on a more solid basis. These cardinals removed it again to a large deserted monastery given to them by the Marchioness of Tolga. Here it remained seven years, during which time some of the professors acquired such fame, that cardinals, bishops, doctors of divinity, and eminent university men came often to hear them lecture.
But we are not to suppose that the Fathers of the Society were not more zealous in their labours for the spiritual than for the literary education of their students. We have the following in the words of Ignatius himself: " The scholars are to be trained to offer up themselves and their works to God, to attend mass and be taught the catechism every day, to hear a sermon on every Sunday and festival, and to go to confession every month." Father John Leon began early to establish sodalities amongst the secular boys, and great care was taken to ground them in the Christian virtues, as well as to give them opportunities of frequenting the Sacraments and to encourage them to do so. All those sodalities of men and women, called " The Children of Mary," and now found in every part of the world, are but
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affiliations of the great sodality named the " Prima Primaria," first founded in the Roman College. And this is the reason why the Father General of the Society of Jesus is the only person authorised and empowered to give diplomas of association.
The well - known devotional missionary church called "Caravita" formed a portion of the Roman College, and was worked by fathers residing in it. The scholastics gave a good deal of their free time to pious works in the city. They visited the hospitals and prisons ; they preached short " fervorino " sermons in the piazzas, and this often with the purpose of collecting a crowd and bringing it to a neighbouring church where a mission was being given, or where that organised catechism called " il Dotto e 1 Ignorante" was instructing the faithful in the most attractive and interest ing manner. During vacation time, they went on pilgrimages through the country districts around Rome, catechising the children and preaching to the people. When, as in the year 1590-91, famine and pestilence devastated Italy, and Rome suffered most of all, the Jesuits not only served in all the hospitals, but established one at their own expense, in which
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Father Aquaviva, the General of the Society, tended the sick. The scholastics were not behind their superiors in zeal : St. Aloysius with others died of the pestilence, martyrs to charity.
In the year 1560 the Emperor Ferdinand sent generous help to Pope Pius IV. for this college, and in doing so wrote as follows : "In the preceding years, a large number of men distinguished for virtue and knowledge have been sent from its halls not only into my dominions, but to all parts of the Christian world, and even to India men who preach and propagate truth, defend religion, and stir up the old faith." In the following year, 1561, Philip II. of Spain forbade money destined for the Roman College to be sent out of the country. This was the occasion of at least one good a letter from Pope Pius IV. to that monarch, in which His Holiness commends in words of high praise the Society and its college : " Amongst all the religious orders, the Society of Jesus merits the special pro tection of the Holy See. Though the last of all to come, and at the ninth hour, to cultivate the vineyard of the Lord, those laborious workers have not only plucked out the briars
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and the thorns, but have also enlarged its borders by propagating" the true faith in new countries. We have here in this city the first college of the order, the nursery of all those others which have been established in Italy, Germany, and France. From this fruitful seminary the Apostolic See takes select and capable ministers, as so many plants full of life and vigour, to plant them where they are most needed. They never refuse any labour which is for the honour and glory of Gocl and the service of His Church. They go without fear, wherever they are sent, to countries the most heretical and infidel, even to the extremities of India. We owe much to this college, which has merited well of the Church, continues to do so, and is so devoted to the service of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Chair of Peter. But in order that, placed in this city, the citadel of the Christian religion, it may be useful to all the faithful, it is not only right that we should support it, but that all good Christians likewise should do so. It has need, above all, of your Majesty s help and protection. We have therefore wished to make known to you the very great and opportune fruit which the whole Church derives from this college."
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This same Pontiff, when recommending the Fathers of the Society to the King of France, instances the Roman College as a proof of what they can do for education. One of its glories is that it numbered amongst its warmest friends and most generous benefactors Cardinal Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, and nephew of Pope Pius IV. An eminent classical scholar named Maurice, then well known for his edition of Sallust, has left on record the following tribute of praise: "Called last year, 1561, to Rome, I went with great eagerness. I longed to see with my own eyes, what had often been the object of my earnest studies, I was about to tread the very soil upon which so many illustrious men had dwelt. With great pleasure, therefore, did I contemplate those venerable monuments which recall to us the genius of the artist and the memories and glories of ancient times. But neither statues of marble or bronze, nor the prospect of the Seven Hills, nor the august splendours of the Capitol, charmed and ravished my soul as did the grandeur and order of the Roman College. There, nothing suggests vain delights or fleet ing interests. There, all is directed towards a solid and glorious end, the eternal salvation of
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souls. To those undertaking, within its walls, the pursuit of noble works, neither interest, nor honours, nor motives of worldly emulation, but a heavenly recompense is offered ; and this new ambition, kindled a few years ago by the great Ignatius of Loyola, will never be extinguished. It will produce the happiest effects, not only in the city, but throughout the whole world. What city, what nation, sincerely attached to the laws of Jesus Christ, will not appreciate such an institute, receive it into its bosom, and use it to instruct youth, to preserve morals, and to extend the empire of religion ? "
Father Lainez, second General of the Society, introduced in the year 1564 a public distribution of prizes as awarded to the more successful students ; His Eminence Cardinal Farnese kindly giving him the means of purchasing the premiums. The grandeur of the ceremony, and the good effect it had in exciting emulation and stimulating the spirit of study, made it so popular, that it soon formed part of the programme in all the colleges of the Society. Anyone who ever saw this solemn yet animated spectacle could not easily forget it. The splendid Church of St. Ignatius, filled to overflowing and joyous with the bright
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faces of successful scholars and their happy parents and friends, the prizes announced and presented with marvellous quickness and order. The Roman College, from the beginning-, and for some thirty years, depended for support, as we have said, in a very precarious way on the generosity of benefactors ; eminent amongst whom were the Sovereign Pontiffs, and cardinals like St Charles Borromeo, Farnese, and De Lorraine. This manner of existence, however, was not satisfactory, nor without its difficulties and dangers. Hence the fourth General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, held in the year 1581, petitioned the reigning Pontiff, Gregory XIII., to place the college on a more durable foundation. The Pope at once consulted Cardinal Matteo Contarelli, who gave him his mind in the following words: "Holy Father, you and your predecessors have made a statue like to that of Nebuchodonosor : the German College is the head of gold, the English College the breast of silver, but the Roman College, the support of the statue and of these, is the feet of clay. Strengthen this, therefore, that so much money already usefully spent may not in the end be practically lost." His Holiness took the hint. He not only
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ordered the magnificent college, as it is to-day, to be built at his own cost, but he secured for it a permanent and sufficient endowment. Rightly, therefore, Gregory XIII. is held, in memory and by annual suffrages, as the founder of the college ; a fine marble statue of this great and good Pope was placed in the large entrance hall, and though commonly called the Roman College, its legal title always was, and is to this day, " Universitas Gregoriana."
It began, as we have seen, with thirteen students in the year 1550. In the year 1566 it had one thousand, and the average attendance between 1581 and 1591 was two thousand. The German, Irish, English, Scotch, Greek, Maronite, and Noble Colleges, as well as those called after their founders, Capranica, Fuccioli, Mattel, Pamphili, Salviati, and Ghislieri, sent at one time their pupils to attend the lectures. Amongst its professors we find the names of Bellarmine, Suarez, De Lugo, Toletus, Sacchini, Maffei, Clavius, Mariana, Maldonatus, Vasquez, A. Lapide, Pallavacini, Kircher, Pianciani, Manera, Di Pietro, Schrader, Gury, Liberatore, Kleutgen, and a host of others. St. Camillus de Lellis, St. Leonard of Port Maurice, and hundreds of holy and apostolic
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men, some of them martyrs, were educated within its walls, and eight of its students sat in the Chair of St. Peter. The present illustrious Pontiff, Leo XIII., was one of its most dis tinguished scholars " the best in his day," according to the words of his fellow-student, the late Father Edmund O Reilly, S.J. ; and Father Manera, then rector, has left it on record that illness alone prevented him from making a public defence in philosophy, and that his previous success made it certain that his defence would have been a brilliant one.
SS. Aloysius and Berchmans died when they were scholastics, studying in this college. The rooms in which they lived are now chapels, but their relics are enshrined under the transept altars raised to their honour in the Church of St. Ignatius. The feast of St. Aloysius was the special feast of college and church, and was always celebrated with great devotion and splendour. The most rare and beautiful flowers were profusely used to decorate his altar, petitions from every part of the world were laid upon it, and thousands of the Roman youths thronged around its rails to receive Holy Communion. The spacious church was full at first vespers and at the High Mass ;
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inconveniently so at second vespers, when others besides devout worshippers crowded in to hear the " Laudate Pueri" sung by three choirs; a oreat musical treat and heard on this
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occasion only. The late Sovereign Pontiff of holy memory, Pius IX., had a marked devotion to St. Aloysius, and scarcely ever allowed his day to pass without showing this in some remarkable way. On one feast he sent to the Roman College a most beautiful and valuable missal ; on another, a golden lily ; on another, a manuscript written by St. Aloysius when studying under Vasquez. Another time he himself came, passed up the church during second vespers, and spent a quarter of an hour kneeling before the Saint s altar.
An eye-witness who knew a good deal about this college in the years 1858-60, writes: "It was a delightful sight to see, morning after morning, some twelve hundred students crowd through its large open doors into the spacious court. Those of the ecclesiastical colleges, in their varied and somewhat pictur esque habits. Priests who had come to Rome to perfect themselves in the higher studies ; Church dignitaries and learned men from distant colleges, who came to hear the more distin-
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guished professors lecture ; boys big and little- some marched in file from the secular colleges, some left at the gate by their parents or tutors, some trooping in groups all bright and happy- looking, and welcomed by the kindly and good - humoured Prefect, Father di Pietro. Everyone was free to come, the poor and lowly as well as the rich and exalted ; and often the sons of a noble s servant, retainer, or dependent, sat on the same bench with those of his master. Each school and chair had the man best suited to it ; and many of these were men of world wide fame in their branch of science, such as Passaglia, Franzelin, Perrone, Patrizi, Ballerini, Secchi, Solomani, Tongiorgi Tarquini, and Armellini."
The Roman College has of course followed the fate of the Society. After the suppression, it was restored by Pope Leo XII. It was closed for a short time in 1848-49, and trans ferred to the Via del Seminario where it now is in 1873, when the building erected by the munificence of Gregory XIII. was seized by the Italian Government, and utilised since for the municipal school, no compensation of any kind having been even offered. At present the Gregorian University, as it is now called,
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is for the education of priests and religious only. The English, German, Scotch, French, Belgian, South American, Lombard, Spanish, Polish, and Capranica Colleges go to it for lectures, as well as a number of students belonging to some small religious congrega tions. The average attendance is between
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eight and nine hundred.
CHAPTER V
SCHOLASTICATE IX ROMAN COLLEGE
JOHN BAPTIST arrived in Rome some time in September 1845, and began at once his theological studies in the Roman College. He had for professors Father John Perrone and Father Charles Passaglia. In his first year he was appointed to preside over an academy of the Hebrew language, composed of students who met once or twice a week outside lecture-time, to perfect themselves in this tongue. He also took the place of Father Patrizi, the professor of Hebrew, when the latter was incapacitated through illness. He wrote an analysis of nearly all the words in the Hebrew version of Scripture, and read that version freely without the help of points or signs. The following fact shows the fascination this language had for him. When recovering from a very serious illness, the doctor forbade him all study, and advised him to read some
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light literature. Found soon after with the Hebrew Bible open before him. and being reminded of the doctor s injunction, he good- humouredly answered, "The doctor has advised me to read some pleasant book, and I could find no book more delightful than this."
So quickly did he learn Italian, that he was sent in his first scholastic year to instruct the prisoners in one of the jails in Rome. Father Valerian Cardella, an Italian and fellow- student who knew him well, tells us : " For a month
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or two after his arrival in Rome he used to be silent in recreation, and listen with great attention ; but when he began to speak no one could detect a mistake. I remember the first words I heard him say in Italian, because of a certain grace and readiness of reply in them. Talking about spiritual books, I said., * Brother Franzelin. have you in your room Rodriguez on Religious Perfection ? : : . answered at once, * Rodriguez, yes but religious perfection, no !
Father Passaglia used no text or class book, nor did he dictate. He laid down the thesis or proposition, and then explained, developed, and proved it. Hence it was necessary for his students to take in writing his lectures as best
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they could. John Baptist was so quick of hand that he was able to do this perfectly, and his fellow-students generally made use of his manuscript to supply the hiatus in their own. He was not only most industrious in lecture and study time, but also managed to turn recreation to good account. He often started some controverted question, generally in history, which led on to an animated, interesting, and instructive debate. His opponent was often Father Paul Bottalla. Wonderful things are told of his knowledge of history ; not merely of great events, but of the most minute details of persons, places, dates, etc. When a young scholastic, in the College of Lemberg, he took up the cause of one of the scholars, who was rather roughly handled by an inspector of schools for a slip in history, and proved the boy to be right, and the inspector wrong.
As a large number of extern scholars attended the Roman College, gatherings, called "circles," were established for their advantage. They met at stated times, to exercise themselves in the scholastic style of disputation, and to debate the propositions upon which the professors were lecturing. Some were named to defend, and others to object ; and a scholastic of the Society
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was appointed to preside over these circles. So great was Franzelin s name, from the very beginning, that all, particularly the clever students, tried to belong to that of which he was president.
He was about to finish his third year of theology in 1848, the year of revolutions, and a very disastrous one for Rome. The Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX., had given the word early to the Very Rev. Father Roothaan, General of the Society, that it would not be safe for his subjects to remain, at least in their recognised normal state. This meant, of course, the breaking-up of the Roman College. The last lecture was given on the 2Qth of March, and the following entry is found in John Baptist s particular examen book : "March 30, Dispersio." According to the rule and custom of the Society, its subjects are ordained priests at the end of their third year s theology. But in those trying and sad circumstances the Father General dis pensed with the rule, and gave permission for all even those of the first year to be ordained. John Baptist did not wish to avail himself of this privilege probably for the reasons which made him intensely dislike, and strongly oppose, his being afterwards named cardinal namely,
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his great humility, his great love of study, and his great scrupulosity ; for we may mention here that he was through his whole life scrupulous, in the fullest meaning of the word. It was his great cross. Hence, perhaps, he did not care to take the dignity and responsi bility of the priesthood till he could no longer refuse it.
The 3Oth of March was a day of trial and affliction to the Roman College, fierce tumult and cries of " Death to the Jesuits!" outside, hurry and haste within, anxiety, fear, and sorrow in every Jesuit heart. They were as exiles driven away from the country, city, and college to which they were so attached ; as children weeping over the sufferings of the mother they so fondly loved. This, how r ever, was relieved by some amusing incidents. All fathers and students were advised to disguise themselves as best they could in some secular garb. One old father, remarkable for his learning and simplicity, got himself up in full military costume. He had scarcely, however, put foot on the piazza of the Roman College, when a gentleman gently whispered in his ear, " Father, the sword is on the wrong side." But another incident dissipated for a moment
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the gloom, and caused many a smile and pleasant word. A strange figure appeared enveloped in a large rough cloak with no end of pockets, and all these stuffed full with books. This was Franzelin, a small improvised library. He had a passion for books not to put them on shelves and look at, but to devour them. If left to himself, he would dispense with the ordinary evening walk and read in the library as long as he had daylight, longer too, only it was strictly forbidden to bring lamp or candle into it. He could not keep away from books, even for the four or five days rest which he was sometimes obliged to take during the vacation in the country. He generally brought with him a large case filled with books, and bore good-humouredly all the chaffing he received on this head. Once the question proposed amongst the scholastics at their villa was, " How would you define Father Franzelin s villa?" Someone answered, "Studium in quovis loco a bibliotheca moraliter di verso." To the end the library was his favourite resort.
John Baptist s destination was England, and his travelling companions were Father Patrizi and Father Pianciani. Father Patrizi had been professor of Scripture and Hebrew, and
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was in some ways very like his young com panion. He was a scrupulously holy man ; such a good judge of books and so fond of them that he was for years librarian of the Roman College. He read in his room as long as he had light, and then under one of the large windows of the corridor. It was said that for years he never went outside the walls of the college except to attend a book auction, to visit his brother, the Cardinal Vicar, and his mother once a year. His commentaries on portions of the Sacred Scripture are well known and highly prized. Father Pianciani was a distinguished professor in natural science. He was a man of great simplicity and of a singularly sweet expression of face, the outcome of his disposi tion. His scrupulosity in saying mass was shown in an amusing but edifying way. In his old age he was sometimes asked to give the domestic exhortations to the community in the Roman College. His presence in the pulpit was his sermon. On one occasion at least the ruling passion broke out strongly, and he caused a smile by his ingenious way of illustrating spiritual truths by the principles and experiments of natural science.
John Baptist had scarcely got outside the
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gates of Rome when two troubles came upon him. He was kept as a prisoner under guard for a day, owing to some mistake in his pass port. This cost him nothing. Secondly, the case containing all his manuscripts, which were very voluminous, went astray. About this he was inconsolable, until, after an anxious and laborious search of some days, he at last found it. He, with other scholastics, arrived in England towards the end of May, and took up their abode at Ugbrook in Devonshire. This mansion was given for the time by its owner, Lord Clifford, who in this and in other ways proved himself a kind friend and benefactor to the Society. Here he and others finished the scholastic year under the direction and teaching of Father Patrizi and Father Passaglia. Father Franzelin used to tell a little incident of his stay here. Father Passaglia was a large portly man of strong voice, and somewhat declamatory in his manner of lecturing. An old gardener, who had care of the flower-beds under the windows of the class-room, said one day to a passer-by, "These young men appear to be quiet, well-conducted fellows, and I cannot make out why the big schoolmaster is always scolding them." He remained about six
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months in England. At the end of this time Father Passaglia got permission from the Very Reverend Father General to go to Louvain and take withhim his two cleverest favourite students, Franzelin and Schrader. The latter became a well-known and distinguished professor of theology in Rome and Vienna, worked with Father Passaglia in bringing out a new edition of Petavius a labour begun but never com pleted was one of the papal theologians of the Vatican Council, and has left us a few theological treatises of eminent merit. It was intended that both these young men should prepare for what is commonly called a "grand act," which is a defence against all comers of propositions taken from the whole course of theology. This, however, Father Franzelin was unable to undertake, on account of the delicate state of his health.
His stay in Louvain was short, for we find him in Vals early in 1849, teaching Scripture and Hebrew in the Scholasticate of the Society. Towards the end of this year he was ordained priest in Le Puy by the Most Reverend Augustine cle Morthon, Bishop of the diocese, having completed his thirty-third year.
The name of Father Passaelia has been
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mentioned more than once. He was the professor who had most to do with the theo logical formation of Father Franzelin, and held him in great esteem, as the cleverest and most industrious of his students. It was said he used to call him "his eagle." One cannot think or speak of Father Passaglia without a feeling of great regret, tenderness, and charity. He entered the Society when little more than a child, and a child in some sense he remained to the end. He became, if not one of the greatest, certainly one of the most brilliant lecturers in theology the Society ever had. The learned flocked to hear him, and men like Newman took counsel with him. He had much, if not most, to do in the laborious work connected with the definition of the Immacu late Conception ; and the lessons of the second nocturn, read through the octave of the Feast, are taken from the bull composed by him. He afterwards left the Society, having obtained the necessary papal dispensation ; lectured for a few years, first in the Roman University and then in the Royal University of Turin, and then disappeared from the thoughts and ways of men ; so much so, that he, who was for years the best known and most sought
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man in Rome, was found only after days of inquiry and search in Turin, by an eminent and distinguished prelate, who formerly sat at his feet. It is comforting to write that he was perfectly reconciled to God and His Church before he died. During his last illness he was attended by the parish priest of the district in which he lived, received the Holy Viaticum with the greatest fervour, shedding tears, and praying to God in a most edifying manner, and Cardinal Alimonda, then Archbishop of Turin, visited and gave him his blessing more than once. May we not think that this great grace was granted to him through the omnipotent prayer of the great Mother of God, whom in his lectures and writings he had glorified, and that in him was fulfilled that inspired word which the Church in office and mass applies to Her : " They who explain me shall have life everlasting " ?
CHAPTER VI
PROFESSOR
IN the year 1850, even before Pius IX. had returned to Rome from Gaeta, the Roman College was again opened, and Father Franzelin was placed on its staff. He was given as assistant to Father Perrone, presided in his place at the circles of the scholastics and also at the Theological Academy of the extern students. He also lectured on the Arabic, Chaldean, and Syriac languages, and was named to take the place of any professor who might be unable to teach from sickness, or some other cause. The giving of such position and work to a man so young, was evidence that his superiors believed he had succeeded, up to the present, in the two purposes of his life, holiness founded in true humility,and learning acquired by great industry.
In the year after, 1851, he made what is called " Third Probation," a year of second
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novitiate, during which the Institute of the Society is studied, and preparation made for the taking of the last vows. On the 2nd of February 1853, Father Franzelin made his solemn profession in the Church of the Gesu, at the altar of St. Ignatius, in the presence of the Very Rev. Father Roothaan, General of the Society. Immediately after, he was placed in the German College, where he remained till the year 1857.
The German College, called by Cardinal Matteo Contarelli " the golden head of the statue," was founded by St. Ignatius. He saw that Germany was in imminent danger of losing the Faith, and of being separated from the Chair of Peter. Hence he sent early into that country his best men. Fathers Faber, Bobadilla, and Le Jay did good service there, and the Blessed Canisius w r on, by his zealous labours, the title of "Apostle. of Germany." But Ignatius had his heart set on a greater work than could be done by a few apostolic men who should soon pass away ; he desired to establish a College of Apostles, which as a moral body would not die ; in which young men, themselves Germans, would first be care fully educated in holiness and knowledge, and
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then return to their own country, to combat error, and to sanctify and save its people, by the example of their lives, the soundness of their teaching, and the zealous discharge of their sacred duties. He had, it is true,- no human means to give effect to his desire ; yet he not only did not despair on this account, but trusted the more in God. And God gave him a good friend in Cardinal Moroni, who himself, as Apostolic Delegate, had seen the sad state of the country beyond the Rhine. His Eminence heartily approved of Ignatius s design, as did also Cardinal Marcellus Cervini. Both brought the matter before Pope Julius III., and begged of His Holiness to favour so useful and meritorious a project. " But," answered the Pontiff, "where are the means ? The work is a heavy one ; the exchequer is empty ; we are in debt : what I could give would not lay the foundations." " Be it so," boldly answered Cardinal Moroni. "The cardinals will do the rest. Let your Holiness set the example, we shall not lag behind. Make some sacrifice to save Germany, and we princes of the Church, as in duty bound, will walk in the footsteps of our Chief." Cervini seconded the words of Moroni, and the Pope bade them consult their 13
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brother cardinals, who all, when spoken to, declared in favour of Ignatius s design. A Consistory was soon held, and Julius III., who presided, drew attention to the critical state of Germany, and invited them all to speak their minds freely as to the best thing to be done in the circumstances. The first cardinal who spoke, fired with a spirit of chivalry, advocated a new crusade, and appealed to the memories of the kings and princes who had taken part in those of old. " It is no longer," he said, "the sepulchre of Christ which is profaned, but His kingdom ; and that which Catholic Europe did for the rescue of that Holy Place, will it not now do for the triumph of its Faith ? "
But the ages of faith had passed away, and with them chivalry, so this proposal was not judged practicable. Cardinal Moroni then ex plained the plan as arranged by himself and Ignatius. Cardinal Cervini gave to it his powerful support, and the thirty-three cardinals who composed the Consistory declared with one voice that a college, according to the mind of Ignatius, was the only thing practicable and likely to be useful. Julius III. then de scended from his throne and wrote : " For a work so holy, pious, and praiseworthy, w r e will
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give five hundred golden crowns a year." The cardinals at once followed, each putting down his name for a certain sum. Cardinal de Lorraine gave the highest, two hundred and fifty, Cardinal Pole one hundred. The total sum would at that time be equal to about twelve thousand pounds of our money. Julius III. published a bull, " Dum sollicita considera- tionis indagine perscrutamur," by which he founded the college and gave it many privileges.
Ignatius lost no time in finding scholars. He wrote at once to persons of influence in Vienna and Cologne in whom he had con fidence, asking them to select fit subjects and send them to him. In October 1552 he had eighteen, and in the following year fifty-four. There is a letter of St. Ignatius to Cardinal Pole extant, in which he offers to receive " at Rome or in the German College " young men from England and Ireland; adding, "We shall take care to have them well educated, that when they return home they may be able by word and example to save others."
The work prospered. The Duke of Bavaria sent his own secretary to Rome to found another such college for his subjects, and the Emperor Ferdinand had young men of promise selected
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out of the students attending the Universities of Prague and Ingolstadt, and sent them at his own expense. to the German College. The heretics became furious, and Kemnitz expressed their rage when he said : " Nothing more can be done by Ignatius. Not content with assailing us through strangers, he now sends against us our own countrymen."
But trials of a severe kind soon came. On the death of Julius III., three years after he had founded this college, Rome suffered so much from war and famine, that its resources failed, and its friends were unable to give help. Temporal difficulties became so great, that Ignatius had to place the students in the houses of the Society, and his great friend, Otho Truschez, Cardinal of Augsburg, and others, advised him to close the college. But worse, the heretics in the Rhenish Provinces took occasion, from this state of affairs, to spread false and scandalous reports, namely, that the students were dying of hunger, and were treated with great severity. But St. Ignatius was equal to the occasion ; he was full of hope and courage when even his friends were without either. He commanded Father Canisius to deny and disprove the charges of the heretics,
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and to his friends he used to say : " If this work be despaired of by others, I myself alone will take care of it, and if I cannot succeed by ordinary means, I will sell myself rather than send my Germans away." More than once he said: U A Sovereign Pontiff will yet found this college with a munificence worthy of the Head of the Church, and make it secure for ever."
St. Ignatius died when the college was in these difficulties. But Father Lainez, who succeeded him as General of the Society, inherited his father s views with reference to it, and under his fostering care things began by degrees to brighten. Pius IV. befriended it ; he gave a home, for some time, to its scattered students in the Roman Seminary which he had established, and also generous aid in other substantial ways. But the Pontiff who fulfilled the prophecy of Ignatius was Gregory XIII., founder of the Roman College, who was elected Pope in 1572. He sent legates to the Emperor and all the Catholic kings and princes, in order to interest them in a college to which all the German States were so much indebted. By two bulls, one published in 1573, the other in 1574, he endowed it with property
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and an annual income of thirteen hundred golden crowns. He made it free of all taxes, gave it a Cardinal Protector, and purchased a villa where the students might spend their vacation ; a munificence truly worthy of a Sovereign Pontiff and the Head of the Church. In 1580 he incorporated with it the Hungarian College, which he had founded three years before ; and from that time to the present, its title is " Collegio Germanico Hungarico." The rules and constitutions of this college had been written by Ignatius, and were afterwards approved by Gregory XIII. And it was so perfectly organised and administered in the first years of its existence, that the Council of Trent, at the suggestion of Cardinal Moroni, Papal Legate, kept many of its rules in mind when drawing up the Decree on Diocesan Seminaries.
The college was a success from the begin ning. Within twenty years from its foundation by Ignatius, years of trial and suffering it sent forth one hundred and sixty priests. These, and the hundreds who followed them, made their mark for good everywhere in Germany, by their apostolic lives, their learning, their sacred ministrations, their reverent care
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of rubric, and their self-sacrificing zeal. At the close of the eighteenth century, it had given to the Church one Pope, twenty-four cardinals, twenty-one archbishops, two hundred and twenty-one bishops, ten martyrs for the Faith, and eleven martyrs of Charity.
This college is doinof its work to-day as then.
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Although the sole purpose of the college is to educate secular priests for the German dioceses, it has always been under the care of the Society, and its students come for lectures to the Gregorian University. They are well known in Rome, being remarkable because of their bright red dress, given to them by Ignatius and Pope Gregory, as a constant reminder, it is said, that they should be ready to shed their blood for the Faith, and that some of them would be probably called on to do so.
In this college Father Franzelin lived for nearly five years. He was Prefect of Studies and " Repetitore " in theology. This last meant presiding at the circles or disputations, listening to and answering any difficulties or objections the students might bring to him not an easy position for one who had to deal with scholars remarkable for their talents and spirit of study.
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He continued, however, to lecture in the Roman College on the Eastern languages, and for a short time on Holy Scripture. He was also one of the university examiners, and for three years confessor of the students.
This last circumstance sets aside a statement which has been made, that he never heard a confession in his life, and was not suited to such work because of his great scrupulosity, which, however, he never showed when lecturing. It was his cross, permitted by God in His pro vidence which is often wisest when strangest in order perhaps to keep him humble and to give him great merit through great suffer ing. It has been said by some that the five years in the German College were the most fruitful in after results of Father Franzelin s life. He had to keep himself perfectly ac quainted with the matter upon which Fathers Perrone and Passaglia were lecturing, that he might preside with authority and power at the circles or disputations of the students, and be able to rightly answer all their questions and difficulties. It was during those years also that he acquired in great part that full and accurate knowledge of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church in which few, if any, excelled him.
CHAPTER VII
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY
IN the year 1857-58 he was named to succeed Father Perrone in the Chair of Dogmatic Theology in the Roman Colleges, a position which he held for nineteen years. He lectured for an hour to the second each school day, and never put a question to one of his students or was asked one by them. Father Canestrelli, who succeeded him as professor, tells us that Father Franzelin " had all the scholastic theologians at his finger ends." He also treated the purely scholastic questions with care and with great reverence for St. Thomas. But as a lecturer he was eminently scriptural and patristic. His great dominant object- never for a moment lost sight of was to give his scholars the fullest, clearest, and most accurate knowledge of the dogmas of the Church, and to prove them from Scripture and the unbroken divine tradition manifested in the 14
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decrees of her Councils and in writings of the Doctors and Fathers in union with her. His manner of teaching in his first years as pro fessor is described as follows by one who sat at his feet and heard him lecture on Scripture, Tradition, and the Incarnation. He had no text, class-book, or lithographed matter. He dictated slowly and distinctly for the first quarter, and lectured for the rest of the hour. In his dictate he laid clown the proposition or thesis, gave the heads of proofs, and mere references to authorities. This might be called a skeleton proof, or be likened to the outline of an edifice. He then lectured till he made it a beautiful and perfect form, in which you could detect neither want nor flaw. He scarcely ever proposed, formally at least, an objection ; this was not necessary, as any of his students, having the proof thoroughly grasped, could answer every objection which could be brought against it.
The present illustrious Pontiff, Leo XIII., in his Encyclical on Holy Scripture writes : " Most desirable is it and most essential that the whole teaching of theology should be pervaded and animated by the use of the Divine Word of God. This is what the Fathers
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and the greatest theologians of all ages have desired and reduced to practice." Such was the mind also of Father Franzelin. His treat ment of Scripture proofs was learned and exhaustive, as well as attractive. He explained clearly the harmony, the continuity of the sacred books, the types, figures, and prophecies of the old law, realised and fulfilled in the new, whilst he most carefully prepared his scholars to meet difficulties arising from different read ings, different interpretations by the Fathers, and the perversion of sense by heretics.
But his manner of equipping them to grapple with difficulties taken from the early Fathers was simply perfection in its way. He explained the system or school of philosophy to which they were addicted a few of them before they became Christians, any terminology arising out of this and special to them, the heresies and phases of heresy which they combated, etc. He showed by numerous examples, and with great impressiveness, that the key to most of the difficulties was to be found either in a misunderstanding or a misrepresentation of some terms of theirs which were capable of another meaning different from that in which they used them ; or in the fact that when
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earnestly, perhaps too earnestly, upholding one dogma, they had no thought of denying or questioning another of which they were not even thinking, and which they had no suspicion would ever be assailed, and if they had, they would have spoken and written with greater caution. Hence, in lecturing on divine tradition and the manner of interpreting the Fathers, he threw great light on the most difficult objections brought from their writings against the Trinity, the Divinity of our Lord, and the Nature of Christ. Father Joseph Kleutgen, S.J., no mean authority, has left it on record that he never proposed a difficulty in philosophy, theology, or Scripture to Father Franzelin without getting a perfectly satisfactory answer.
His lectures were most carefully prepared, and delivered without any use, or apparent use, of notes. They were models of clearness, order, and logical sequence, and easily understood by all who gave them full and studied attention. His Latin was said by those capable of judging to be the best scholastic Latin. He never spoke a useless nor left out a useful word. Hence, to lose a word was to lose something- more. But if a word were lost, it was not his
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fault, for he spoke with great distinctness, in a clear, strong, well - sustained tone of voice, always bringing out the last syllable of the word and the last words of the sentence with marked emphasis ; so much so, that he could be easily and well heard by those sitting in the remotest corner of the large hall. He had only one gesture. When he became, not impassioned, but very near it, he would grasp the outer edge of the pulpit with the left hand, and, leaning forward, stretch out to full length the right hand and arm.
We cannot omit noticing certain effects of his lectures, the result not so much of his great learning as of his great holiness. At times, when lecturing on the Blessed Sacrament, its effects in the souls of men, the teaching of the Church on devotion to the Sacred Heart, the Immaculate Conception and Perpetual Virginity of the Mother of God, the tender piety of his soul flashed out despite himself, and touched others. I say despite himself, for in the chair he was the theologian and nothing else, nor did he ever go out of his way to introduce mere spiritual or pious allusions. It was again and again remarked by his scholars, that he not only satisfied their intellects, but often moved their
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hearts. They came away from his lectures on the Incarnation not merely with an indescrib able admiration of our Lord, but with a new and strange feeling of affection and love for Him, which they never experienced from hearing the best preachers or reading the best spiritual writers on this subject. This was perhaps something more than the outcome of great learning and great holiness ; it may have been the effect of a special grace or unction given by God to one who from his earliest days laboured with constant devotion to prepare himself for whatever work God would give him to do, who loved God s work with all his heart, and did it with all his might.
In this he preaches by example to all a great and important truth. We should never forget that we are servants of God, in the strictest meaning of the word, and nothing more ; servants sent by Him into this world to do His will and His work, at all times and in all things, as settled by Him ; and that real success de pends upon always keeping ourselves in this relation with God and winning from Him the great reward promised to the "good and faith ful servant" This is the teaching of our Lord the teaching of St. Ignatius in the First
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Meditation of the Spiritual Exercises, and well put by Cardinal Newman in his sermon entitled " The Will of God the End of Life." " Why am I here ? How came I here ? What am I to do here ? Everyone who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has a mission, has a work. We are not sent into this world for nothing ; we are not born at random ; we are not here that we may go to bed at night and get up in the morn ing, toil for our bread, eat and drink and laugh and joke, sin when we have a mind and reform when we are tired of sinning, and die. God sees every one of us, He creates every soul, He lodges it in the body one by one for a purpose. He needs, He deigns to need every one of us, He has an end for each of us, we are all equal in His sight, and we are all placed in our different rank and stations, not to get what we can out of them for ourselves, but to labour in them for Him. As Christ had His work, we too have ours ; as He rejoiced in His work, we must rejoice in ours." The servant who has no wish but the will of the Great Master, who prays constantly for grace to do it, and then uses the ordinary means given him, must be a success. God could not allow such a man to
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make a real mistake, hurtful to his own soul or the souls of others.
Father Franzelin was not a professor of rhetoric or of sacred eloquence, and yet it is not too much to say that, without intending, he did much towards forming efficient and effective preachers. He inspired his scholars with admiration and love of Holy Scripture, of the Church, the " Divinum Organum," as he liked to call her, and of the Fathers ; and by his perfect way of treating these subjects, he taught them also how to do so. As proof of this, we may mention that he received countless letters from priests working in every part of the world letters which tried his humility, for they were full of gratitude to him for all he had done for them. They told him that as preachers they utilised most his lectures and published works, that in countries where heresy was rife they found nothing better than a thesis as explained by him popularised and accommodated to their audience. One of the most distinguished Italian preachers of his day, Father Vincent Stocchi, having studied his treatise on the In carnation, wrote to thank him, saying, " You have taught me how to speak of our Lord."
Is there anything a preacher may wish to
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say to his flock which he will not find better said and with greater power by God, by the Church, or by the Fathers, than he could possibly say it ? It would be well for all who are charged with the important duty and grave responsibility of preaching to others, or who are being educated for this work, to study and take to heart the most wise advice given by the highest authority on earth, Pope Leo XIII. in his Encyclical Letter on Holy Scripture. His Holiness writes: " All Scripture inspired of God is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work. That such was the purpose of God in giving the Scripture to men, is shown by the example of Christ our Lord and His apostles. For He Himself who obtained authority from miracles, merited belief by authority, and by belief drew the multitude to Himself, was accustomed in the exercise of His mission to appeal to the Scriptures. At the close of His life His utterances are from Holy Scripture, and it is the Scripture He expounds to His disciples after His resurrection until He ascends to the glory of His Father. Faithful to His precepts, the apostles, although He Himself granted
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signs and wonders to be done by their hands, nevertheless used with the greatest effect the sacred writings. This is plainly seen in their discourses, especially those of St. Peter, which were often little more than a series of cita tions from the Old Testament making in the strongest manner for the new dispensation.
" Let all, therefore, especially those under training for the ecclesiastical army, under stand how deeply the sacred books should be esteemed, and with what eagerness and rever ence they should approach this great arsenal of heavenly arms. They whose duty it is to handle Catholic doctrine before the learned or the unlearned, will nowhere find more ample matter or more abundant exhortation about God or the works which display His glory and His love. Nowhere is there anything more full or more express on the subject of the Saviour of the world than is to be found in the whole range of the Bible. As St. Jerome says, To be ignorant of the Scripture is not to know Christ. And as to the Church, her nature, her office, her gifts, we find in Holy Scripture so many references, and so many ready and convincing arguments, that, as St. Jerome again most truly says, A man who
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is well grounded in the testimonies of the Scripture is the bulwark of the Church. It is the peculiar and singular power of Holy Scripture, arising from the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, which gives authority to the sacred orator, fills him with apostolic liberty of speech, and communicates force and power to his eloquence. For those who infuse into their efforts the spirit and strength of the Word of God, speak not in word only, but in power also, and in the Holy Ghost and in much fulness. Hence those preachers are foolish and im provident, who, in speaking of religion and proclaiming the things of God, use no words but those of human science and human prudence, trusting to their own reasonings rather than to those of God. Their discourses may be brilliant, but they must be feeble, they must be cold, for they are without the fire of the utterances of God, and they must fall far short of that mighty power which the speech of God possesses ; for the word of God is living and effectual and more piercing than any two-edged sword, and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit. All those who have a right to speak are agreed that there is in the Holy Scriptures an eloquence that is wonder-
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fully varied and rich and worthy of great themes. This St. Augustine thoroughly under stood and has abundantly set forth. This is con firmed also by the best preachers of all ages, who have gratefully acknowledged that they owed their repute chiefly to the assiduous use of the Bible and to devout meditation on its pages. The holy Fathers well knew all this by practical experience, and they never cease to extol the Sacred Scripture and its fruits. They apply to it such phrases as an inexhaustible treasury of heavenly doctrine, ( an overflowing fountain of salvation, or, putting it before us as fertile pastures and beautiful gardens, in which the flock of the Lord is marvellously refreshed and delighted. Often read the Divine Scriptures, writes St. Jerome to Nepotian ; yea, let holy reading be always in thy hand ; study that which thou thyself must preach. Let the speech of the priest be ever seasoned with scriptural reading/ Those, writes St. Gregory the Great, * who are zealous in the work of preaching must never cease the study of the written Word of God. St. Augustine, however, warns us that vainly does the preacher utter it exteriorly unless he listens to it interiorly ; and St. Gregory instructs sacred
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orators first to find in Holy Scripture the knowledge of themselves, and then to carry it to others, lest in reproving others they forget themselves ; and St. Chrysostom, speaking of the duties of priests, says, We must use our every endeavour that the Word of God may dwell in us abundantly. Admonitions such as these had indeed been uttered long before by the apostolic voice which had learned its lesson from Christ Himself, who began to do and to teach. It was not to Timothy alone, but to the whole order of the clergy, that the command was addressed, Take heed to thyself and to doctrine, be earnest in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. For the saving and for the perfec tion of ourselves and others there is at hand the very best help in the Holy Scriptures."
These are words full of wisdom spoken to us all by the Supreme Pastor ; words not to be cursorily read, but to be studied reverently and made practical by all who have taken upon themselves the most sacred and responsible duty of feeding the flock of Christ with the Word of life, that they may honour and respect it first in their own lives, and then in their manner of preparing and administering it to others.
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It is not easy, without seeming exaggeration, to write of the admiration Father Franzelin s scholars had for him even as early as 1860; an admiration which went on increasing to the end. His well-known reputation for great holiness, learning, industry, and devotion to his work, alone commanded it. For he was by nature and habit a retiring, silent, solitary sort of man ; he never paid compliments, nor gave words of praise, nor had he any of that easy familiarity, brightness of manner, or humour, which go far to make a man popular. More over, a certain nervousness, aggravated by constitutional delicacy and great scrupulosity, caused him to suffer much from temptations to impatience and irritability which sometimes broke out in severity of word and manner. Being also a man of transparent truthfulness, and devoid of human respect, he sometimes spoke out what he thought and believed on the moment ; and this fault, if fault it be, brought upon him, to his humiliation, on one or two occasions, as we shall see hereafter, a gentle reprimand from the Pope himself.
These faults showed themselves seldom, and mostly when presiding at the circles or disputa tions of the scholastics of the Society. To
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find the cause of this we have not to go far. Theology was his passion, and he had a great horror of vagueness or inaccuracy in this science. Besides, he explained every point so fully and so clearly, that he expected perhaps too much from his scholars, and could not patiently bear the slips and mistakes made by them. He was also so keenly, so scrupulously alive to his responsibility as professor, that he believed that neither he himself nor any one else ought to be spared in order to prevent any of them becoming bad theologians. His impatience was, in part at least, the overflow of zeal. It must, however, be said that his exertions to conquer and crush this temptation were constant, and often visible in certain painful-looking motions of head and lips.
A little scene described by an eye-witness will illustrate what has just been said. " Once, in a circle or disputation, Father Franzelin presiding, the scholastic appointed to object gave an objection in form. The scholastic named to defend asked to have it repeated. This being done, he, in place of taking it up and answering it, rather pertly corrected a false quantity which the objector had made. There was an awful stillness, for all became conscious that a storm
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was brewing, from the efforts which we saw Father Franzelin making to restrain himself, to keep patient. But it was too much, and he gave way ; saying in the most incisive and severest manner, "A good objection and most clearly proposed, but you do not know how to answer it, and let me tell you that you are here to learn theology, and not to air your classics." It was an outburst not only of impatience, but of zeal and charity as well, by which he wished to correct the pertness of the one and to cover the confusion of the other.
For all this, his scholars did not love him the less. His learned lectures won their admira tion, his whole-hearted devotion to his work and to themselves won their affection ; whilst they were not only most considerate but sympathetic with him because of that nervous ness and scrupulosity which were the cross of his life, and, in great measure, the cause of his only fault.
Cardinal Newman, in his historical sketches of the Saints and Fathers of the first ages of the Church, does not conceal or gloss over their faults. And by thus giving prominence to the human element kept under, subdued, or atoned for by the supernatural, he makes them the
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more to be admired, loved, imitated. St. Gregory Nazianzen " was deficient in self- control, and was harassed even in his old age by irritability." St. Cyril and the blessed Theodoret " could be violent and allow them selves to be carried away by private, party, or national feeling, etc." And yet, reasons the great Cardinal, "such faults were not incon sistent with great and heroic virtues which they had, and these virtues, together with contrition for their failings, were efficacious in blotting out their guilt and remitting them from their penal consequences. Such temptations and infirmities in no way interfered with their being Saints, and since they do not, it is con solatory to our weak hearts and feeble wills to find that, being what we are, we nevertheless may be in God s favour. We find in the lives of the Saints that, though they have already turned to God and begun that course of obedience and sacrifice in which they persevere, still for a time, nay, for a considerable time, they have many serious defects and faults. Their lingering imperfections surely make us love them the more, without leading us to rever ence them the less, and act as a relief to the discouragement and despondency which may
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come over those who in the midst of much error and sin are striving to imitate them."
It is very consoling to think that men may have faults and yet be the friends of God and on the road to saintship. Still more consoling to think that many became Saints by patiently and constantly watching, fighting, and over coming themselves in those things in which they were faulty, and this, not without many a humiliating slip or fall. " The life of man is a continual warfare," is the word of God, and St. Austin emphasises this word when he says, " The life of a just man is not a triumph, but a combat." We cannot free ourselves of this strife ; for the source and cause of it is within us, in our very nature, with its strong repugnance to good and its strong inclination to evil. We must have temptations, but never above our strength, and God is always with us, if we allow Him, in order to give us victory. St. Jerome tells us that we are not to watch and pray that we may not have temptations, for this would be to ask an impossibility, but that we may not enter into, that is, allow ourselves to be over come by them. There is not a venial sin in a million of mere temptations, and if we only treat them as we know how and ought, to the end,
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we must increase in holiness and win eternal life by means of them.
A poor wayfarer in this vale of tears often gives as a reason for not doing the right thing, " I am not a Saint." No more were the Saints Saints, when they were similarly placed. They were watching and praying and fighting to become Saints, as we all are bound to do. The difference between the good and the bad is, that the former, in great fear of themselves, and with great trust in God, use the means to conquer all enemies within and without, never yielding, never giving quarter ; or if they fall, up in arms again, more fearful of themselves and more trustful in God, and so on to the end ; sure to win the conqueror s crown. The latter either deliver themselves into the hands of their enemies, or fight them in a weak, cowardly, off and on way ; the natural result of which is that they become the slaves of sin and of him " who hath the power of death, the devil," with the awful eternal consequences of such slavery. The teaching of God on temptations, if care fully studied, is well calculated to give us patience, courage, and comfort in the warfare of life ; a teaching which is embodied in what St. Paul tells us of himself. He was harassed by a
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temptation, about the nature of which there can scarcely be a doubt, and this, when he was overflowing with love of Jesus Christ, and labouring and suffering more than all the other apostles for His honour and glory so harassed, that he prayed to God with his whole heart to take it away from him. But God refused to do so, saying that His grace w r as sufficient for him, and by using it against the temptation, the power of Christ would be manifested in the victories he would gain and in the holiness he would acquire. God would not have said to each of us, " Count it all joy when you shall fall into clivers temptations," if great good could not be gained by means of them. He also tells us the good when He says : "Blessed is the man that suffers temptations, for when he shall be proved, he shall receive the crown of life." "To him that overcometh I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of My God." Father Franzelin was subject to strong temptations of impatience and irritability, but this " made his scholars love him the more without leading them to reverence him the less " ; they knew the cause of them, they saw the constant and generally successful efforts he made to conquer them, and
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believed in his great holiness tested and
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increased by occasion of them.
After a few years, Father Franzelin began to lithograph his lectures, refining and perfect ing them year after year. In 1868 he published his first book, that on " Divine Tradition and Scripture," the last, published after his death, being an unfinished treatise on the Church. For his first five years in the Roman College he was left undisturbed to his work of profess ing theology, but after this he was named Consultor to three congregations, and also one of the Papal Theologians and member of a com mission formed with a view to the approaching General Council. These and numerous other matters, upon which his advice was privately asked, made his nineteen years in the Roman College years of great labour. We know from those memoranda written by Father Franzelin during his novitiate notes which, he believed, would never see the light or be read by others the high standard of religious life he set before himself and determined to make his own. " To become a true Jesuit," first, by the exact observance of rule and discipline ; and secondly, by grounding himself deeply and solidly in those virtues in which
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every religious should strive to be eminent. Amongst these he places before all others "vera humilitas " and " caeca obedientia," "true humility" and "blind obedience," adding, "Judicium proprium est daemonium voluntarium, errorum seminarium et haeresum scaturigo." " Selfwill is a wilful demon, the hot-bed of errors and heresies." " Never to hide my defects from those who ought to know them ; never to appear otherwise than I really am ; if anything should happen to my shame or dis grace, to conquer myself, and not to show signs of depression ; this would be a thing clearly childish, and I was not created or called to the Society for this, but to give glory to God, which is given more by humility than by knowledge and personal distinction ; it appears to me more desirable to be humbled with Christ than to gain all honours." "God certainly wishes that nothing should be wanting on my part in using the means necessary for ground ing myself in these virtues." He then mentions those means and resolves to be faithful to them : "Continued recollection, constant prayer and mortification, unremitting custody of himself, never to receive the sacraments tepidly or without due and careful preparation, in tempta-
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tion to have recourse at once to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, diffidence in himself and trust in God."
We have testimony given by all his superiors as to the unwavering and unflagging zeal with which he kept himself true to his early resolu tions ; but the best way perhaps to learn this is to consider what sort of a man he w r as, thirty years after he had made them, towards the close of his life in the Roman College.
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 Re: Life of John Baptist, Cardinal Franzelin
A religious like Father Franzelin, so con firmed in virtue and so weighted with work, might, one would think, be fairly and safely left a good deal to himself. But he would not allow this, nor seek excuse nor reason for any dispensation. His superiors, and those who lived with him for years in the Roman College, testify that he was never seen to violate a rule, was never absent from or late for a community duty or custom.
His favourite amusement, before real study began, was to read the Holy Scriptures in Hebrew. He admired most the book of Isaias, " so beautiful and sublime," as he said, "from even a literary point of view." He also read Tacitus with peculiar delight. As he was always constitutionally delicate, his
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rector appointed a father to steal him away from the library, or from study, for a short evening walk. The father generally found him buried in his books, but on the moment he left them and went with him. This may seem to some a very small thing, of little moment and of less merit. Not so, if we bear in mind that Father Franzelin loved books and study much more than the evening walk ; that he- often could have given reasons which appeared, to himself at least, good, for not doing what he disliked, and that he was naturally impatient. Great must have been the merit of those every day acts of prompt obedience, since in this important factor of holiness, mortification, God rewards such acts not because of what they are in themselves, but because of what it costs us to overcome ourselves in doing them for love of Him. To keep back a word, to conquer a temptation to impatience, to give up some innocent enjoyment which we like, or to do some little act for another which we dislike, may have greater merit than a fast, a discipline, or an hour s prayer, simply because they cost us more.
In the matter of exterior or corporal morti fication, he would, if not restrained, have been
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guilty of excess. In Lent, and on fast days, his collation, when left to himself, was a mouth ful of bread and half a glass of wine. His love of poverty, according to his vow, was most edifying throughout all his religious life, even, as we shall see afterwards, when he was Cardinal. He showed this, and also his per fect obedience, by his most careful and strict observance of common life which St. John Berchmans called his greatest cross and by his marked dislike to dispensation in anything enjoined by it. From his first novitiate days to his death, he made the most of scraps of paper, always wrote in small letters, closely packed, and never left margin. A fact is told of him which some would smile at and call silly ; but nothing is silly, in the individual at least, if it be the honest outcome of his own conscience, even though this be a scrupulous one. When the Roman College was seized by the Italian usurpers, and he was about to leave, a Government official entered his room, and, pointing to the simple furniture and a few books, asked, "Are these things yours?" Father Franzelin, even when the question was repeated more than once, would give no answer but the following : " I have the 17
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use of them they are given to me for my
use."
He was a truly humble man, and this he proved in a striking manner on two occasions. The first was when he publicly retracted the interpretation of a text of Scripture which he once held and even published in lithograph. Not an easy thing to do, if we consider how indissolubly men, particularly professors, are wedded to their own special opinions and views, how sensitive they are about them, and that opposition too often makes them more fixed, if not obstinate, in upholding them. Nearly all the miseries of the Church, with ruin to millions of souls, have been caused through the want of that humility which Father Franzelin practised. The second occasion was when he bore, with great patience and in sweet silence, the failure of one of his scholars in a public defence or act. Moreover, when far and away and beyond all question the best known and most distinguished professor in Rome " the first of all living Catholic theo logians," as a great authority called him he was in every way one of the simplest and most retiring of men. So well known was his " true humility," that every one felt, to give him praise
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or to show signs of admiration would not only be most distasteful, but annoying and irritating to him.
He used to console himself in his scruples by the saying of St. Francis de Sales : " I must be content with serving God as well as I can, and a little less." He cultivated the closest union with God, and always looked like one who walked in His presence. Although silence was never dispensed with in the refectory of the Roman College, even on the highest feasts, still, on these clays, dinner was prolonged a little. This time Father Franzelin always gave to a quiet prayer ; and when, in the German College, talk was allowed now and then, he cleverly managed to clo the same, without, however, inconvenience to others, or any ostentation.
The number of aspirations he made could be counted, as some one said, by God only, and no one could come in much contact with him and not notice this habit of his. He celebrated mass every day with notable devo tion and fervour. His superiors bear witness to the care and rigid punctuality with which he performed his private spiritual duties, the morning meditation and the two examens of
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conscience. We learn the importance he attached to the particular examen, from the fact that he carried within the fold of his habit the little book in which, according- to the direction of St. Ignatius and the custom of the Society, the daily faults should be noted ; and after his death this book was found marked up to the day before he went to God.
We see from all this how true Father Franzelin was to those truths which at the very start of religious life he formulated, when he wrote : " The perfect praise of a Jesuit is to be not only solidly learned, but also solidly holy. Learning without virtue is only a dead body." Also how faithful he was in using the means necessary in order to make these truths a reality in his life. In this his most edifying fidelity, through a long, laborious, and anxious life, to the great means and helps to holiness and perfection, he is deserving of our admira tion and imitation.
It is an admitted truth it might be called a divine truth, so involved is it in God s provid ence that when God has settled certain means with a view to a certain end, if we use rightly the means, the end must be gained, but if we neglect them, it will not ; and that God, as a
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rule, never steps in to help by extraordinary means, when the ordinary are at hand and available. Now, amongst the ordinary means settled by God, and therefore necessary for us, if we really wish to lead lives worthy of our state, be it the priestly, the religious, or the Christian, prayer, mental and vocal, and examen of conscience, are the most important. And yet, being such, they are in greater danger of being made little of or neglected, than other works of less importance, at least to the man himself, which have certain exterior aspects. A man whose duty it is to preach, profess, lecture, write, minister on the altar, in the confessional, etc., to do works w r hich are for others, which necessarily bring him in contact with men, place him under men s eyes, and subject him to men s judgment and criticism, is generally beset by an insidious temptation the temptation to be unduly influenced by human motives, and to attach undue importance to mere human means.
The wish to be a success before men is of our nature, not in itself bad, but full of evil if we do not keep it within bounds, and super- naturalise it by purity of intention. The eye, the opinion, the judgment of men often have,
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practically at least, a greater power over man than those of God, and he fears "him who can only kill the body, more than Him who, when He hath killed, can cast into hell." Hence the temptation to neglect or make less of those spiritual means in which there are no Jmman helps or motives, in the discharge of which I am my own master, alone, under no human eye, subject to no human judgment, and which are, moreover, either not pleasing, or positively distasteful to my nature, as prayer and self- examination generally are ; and to try to justify this neglect, under the plea or delusion that the external works are of greater import ance, and that the interior ought to be more or less sacrificed to them ; the real reason, if honestly admitted, being, that the exterior works are far more pleasing to our nature than the interior, and that we are influenced much more by what man will say, than by what God will think. To yield to this temptation is to practically ignore what we may call an axiom in the spiritual life, namely, that the man who is best for himself is best for others, that the good we do for others will be the outcome of the good that is within ourselves.
St. Ignatius expresses this truth, when he
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says : " We should give ourselves to the study of solid and perfect virtues and of spiritual things, and account them of greater moment than learning or natural or human gifts, for they are the interior things from which force must How to the exterior." God Himself preaches this truth to us when He says: "Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit." "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good." But more to the point, He tells us how alone the branch can bring forth good fruit, and how the good treasure is to be kept in the heart ; namely, by abiding in, and keeping ourselves closely united with Himself. This is the teaching of that beautiful allegory spoken at the Last Supper, " I am the Vine, and you are the branches." How is this union effected and maintained ? By grace, which alone can do it ; by grace, which purifies, sanctifies, and unites the soul in love with God ; by grace, which keeps eye and hand on and against that temptation, that enemy, from which the greatest danger to this union is to be feared. And what are the means settled by God with a view to my securing this grace ? Is it preaching, teaching, professing, writing, work in the confessional, etc. ? No. Prayer and the
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Sacraments, not administered, but worthily received. By these divinely-appointed channels we get grace grace which should not be allowed to lie idle in our souls, like gold in a miser s coffer ; we should use it in order to preserve and perfect our union with God, and to guard well against our worst enemy, our selves, and all other enemies who could in any way endanger, weaken, or destroy this union.
Besides, the works of a priest, though in themselves holy and sacred, are full of danger and the occasion of spiritual ruin to him who does not use the means for keeping his soul united with Gocl, and disposed, as it should be, for such divine works.
When reading the lives of great missionary saints like our great Apostle St. Patrick, St. Francis Xavier, St. Alphonsus, and many others, we are amazed how they could have done such great work outside themselves, because of the hours every day they gave to prayer and com muning with God. But our wonder will cease, if we bear in mind that they did the great work outside in others, because they had done, and never ceased to do, a greater work within themselves ; they were themselves inflamed with
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the love of God, and so they kindled and cast it around for the inflaming of others. They were themselves fountains, overflowing fountains of living water, and therefore made all around them blossom like the lily. A lump of coal has capability, but no power. A dry fountain is worthless.
The works given us by God to do never clash or displace one the other in the rightly regulated conscience of a really supernatural man. He gives each its proper place and keeps it there, wisely, according to its value and importance. At the head of the book of his life he writes : " Take heed to thyself." "Be thyself a sanctified vessel, and then thou wilt be prepared for every good work," and " wilt save thy own soul and the souls of those who hear thee." If anything must give way, it should not be those spiritual duties which are of the greatest importance to myself and others. There are few more dangerous temptations than one against which the best should be on their guard, namely, that of putting off, neglecting, or doing in a hurried, careless manner, works of great importance, even grave duties, by giving too much of mind and heart and hand to other things which
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are naturally more pleasing, more attractive, which, though in themselves innocent and lawful when taken "in weight and time and measure," are very wrong when they are allowed to interfere with things of greater moment. Nothing needs more the salt of mortification than recreation.
All Father Franzelin s superiors, as well as all who lived with him in the German and Roman Colleges, speak, as we have said before, in admiration of his edifying devotion to his private spiritual duties, and the studied care with which he made his daily meditation and examens of conscience ; and this without a break through all his laborious life, when, we may be sure, he, in his desire to have his lectures as perfect as he could make them, often had the temptation to more study and less prayer. But he was truly wise, and kept everything in place according to its value.
All masters of the spiritual life, St. Ignatius in a very special way, insist on meditation and examen of conscience as the most necessary means for all who really wish to lead lives worthy of their high and sacred calling ; and they give many convincing proofs of this truth from Scripture, the teaching of the Church and
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of the Fathers. It may not be quite useless to develop one of these, the strongest, perhaps, because it conies home to us in the experience we have of ourselves and of others. No one, be he priest, religious, or layman, should or could safely make little of the influence which mere natural motives can acquire in us to the elimination of the supernatural ; or the power for evil which material earthly human things, working through the senses on the sensual element in the soul, can get over the heart of man. The history of sin is the history of this terrible power. " The corruptible body is a load on the soul, and the earthly habitation presseth down the mind." " Man, when he was in honour, did not understand ; he is compared to senseless beasts, and made like to them." We can have some idea of the state to which any man can come, by considering the state to which thousands have come. For the best are men as well as the worst, and are not exempt from those fatal influences which have degraded and ruined thousands. Study the world as it was at all times and is to-day, and what do we see ? We see men, " made little less than the angels," lords of creation, under whose feet all minor creatures are subjected ; men gifted and graced
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and in honour, who, understanding their dignity as men, should and could be masters of their souls, and keep as slaves under whip and sword all low and sensual inclinations, strengthening their own life by giving them death ; men who, even in their fallen nature, are still the grandest and noblest of all visible created things, and capable of winning the beatific vision and the possession of God. And yet, being such, to what do they often come ? To the level of the animal, and below it ; and how ? By allowing something material, earthly, of a lower order than themselves, working through the senses, to get such a mastery over them that it enslaves, degrades, disgraces, and makes them miserable even in this world. Let the best imagine how it would have been with him if, in place of mortifying that concupiscence or inclination in a sensual direction which was dominant within him, he had made little of it, fed, strengthened it, given it its way ; and then ask what he should now be. He must answer, humiliating though it be to clo so, the slave of some vile passion on earth, or paying the just penalty in hell of such wretched, though freely chosen slavery. God tells him, "a joy to his enemies." The pagans believed that when a man allowed the
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animal part of his nature to lord it over him, he ceased to be a man.
All this is confirmed by what has happened day after day, since the world began, that even men who believed in the divine truths of the old and new dispensations, men, priests, or religious, or both, have been yet so overpowered by the concupiscence of the eyes, or of the flesh, or the pride of life, that they have acted and lived as if they did not believe. The devils believe and tremble, man believes and sins. It is clear, therefore, that we need some influence, some power for good within us which will be stronger than the powers for evil within and without us, even when leagued together, and will enable us to hold our own against them. But we can create and maintain this power only by making the divine spiritual truths, the awful, the loving things of God, our relations to Him, etc., great realities in our souls. And this we can do only by studying, reflecting, meditating on, bringing them home to ourselves in a spirit of simple, lively faith. By meditation well made, we make God and the unseen things of God
o
His eye, His judgments, His rewards, His punishments, His many-sided love, manifested most in His sufferings and in His abiding
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presence in the Blessed Sacrament greater realities than those material things which work for evil through the senses ; and a greater power which will enable us to be always master of the position and hold our own against all our enemies.
We do % not meditate to become more learned, but to become better. "Action," says St. Ambrose, "is the end of meditation." Medita tion, it is true, does make and keep us more learned, in fuller knowledge of God, of ourselves, the difficulties and clangers which beset us ; but we are not to rest here, we must reduce this learning and knowledge to practice by resolving to act, and by acting according to its teaching, no matter what it may cost us to do so. Medi tation is nothing if it be not practical, if it be not brought home to self for the bettering of self. The great power of the daily examen of conscience is in the particular examen, which may be called the complement of the meditation. By means of the particular examen we bring the light and knowledge of self, which medita tion gives us, to bear where it is most needed ; we keep eye and hand unsparingly on that which is at once our special danger or occasion of danger in the direction of sin, and our special
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obstacle in the direction of perfection, on that dominant fault or weakness which is the leader of the rebels, which, if given its way, will always have a demon rabble after it, but if kept under strict watch, subdued and conquered, is the occasion of ever-increasing virtue and holiness.
If a man keeps guard on the weak point of the citadel, and takes precautions against the enemy who always secretly or openly masses his strength there, he will always be the stronger man and hold it to the end. But
o
if he neglect this, the enemy as a matter of course will get possession. Now, the very office of the particular examen is to keep eye and hand always where they are most needed and against the enemy most to be dreaded. The particular examen, constantly and well made, prevents a man becoming a traitor to himself and his best interests, by forgetting or neglecting his duty as ruler and defender of "the kingdom of God which is within him," his own soul.
It is worthy of note, the way in which masters of the spiritual life speak of meditation, self-examination, and vocal prayer, as acting and reacting and helping one the other. St. Bernard,
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writing on the means of attaining perfection, says : " No one becomes perfect in a moment ; it is by mounting and not by flying that we come to the top of the ladder. Let us therefore ascend, and let meditation and prayer be the two feet we make use of to do so. For medi tation makes us see our wants, and prayer obtains for us relief from God : the one shows us the way, and the other leads us to Him; meditation makes us clearly discern the dangers that surround us, and prayer makes us happily avoid and escape them." " Prayer," says St. Austin, " is tepid without meditation," for " medi tation is the beginning and ground of all good." Rodriguez, commenting on those words of St. Austin, writes : " The proof of this proposition is easy, for if we do not exert ourselves to know and examine our weakness and misery, we shall be deceived and misinformed of our wants, and hence it will come to pass that in prayer we shall not know what to ask, nor shall w r e ask it with the requisite earnestness and fervour. There are many who, from not reflecting on themselves and from being ignorant of their own defects, presume too much upon them selves, which they would not do if they had right self-knowledge. If you wish, therefore, to
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learn to pray and to beg of God what you most stand in need of, employ yourself in considering exactly your defects and weaknesses. Having obtained perfect knowledge of these, you will then know what you ought to ask of God, and as a man who feels himself pressed with necessity or misery, you will beg with all earnestness and fervour what is best for you." It is evident that these eminent spiritualists suppose that meditation rightly made includes strict and rigid self-study, which study is per fected by means of the particular examen.
Meditation and self-examination are often, if not always, hard, dry, and distasteful works. St. Teresa tells us that the greatest temptation of her life was to give up meditation because of the desolation she suffered in it. But she adds, " Be true to meditation through all desolation, and you will gain heaven." It is by no means a pleasant occupation to study the ugly spots in my soul and life, a study which, when honestly made, necessitates the more unpleasant work of mortification, in order to remove them. Still, both are ordinary means settled by God for our sanctification, and therefore we have always the grace to make them well, with the certainty that the effects intended by God will 19
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be gained. We shall find strength and con solation also in the thought that the harder these works are, and the more they cost us, the more meritorious and effective they will be in keeping us solidly virtuous and holy.
In these important duties Father Franzelin is a pattern worthy of admiration and imitation. He was first of all and before all an eminently spiritual supernatural man, and used the best means for making and keeping himself such. He was a man of prayer. In this was his strength. Hence, through his long years of weak health, hard work, and painful scruples, he never sank ; nay, the patient, brave way in which he faced and bore all the weight of life, and did his work perfectly in even the least detail, might perhaps be deemed heroic.
CHAPTER VIII
CREATED CARDINAL
WE come now to the greatest trial of Father Franzelin s life his elevation to the Cardinal- ate. Pius IX., of holy memory, manifested in many ways not only great love of the Society, but also great sympathy with her, so severely and unjustly treated in Italy, Germany, and France. Hence, in December 1873, he called to the College of Cardinals Father Camillus Tarquini, Professor of Canon Law in the Roman College, and well known for his knowledge of Etruscan remains and antiquities. But he survived his elevation only three months, dying in the February following. Soon after, the Pope, when speaking to Father Cardella, then rector of the community charged with the conduct of the Civiltd Cattolica, hinted that he was thinking of another Jesuit for this high office; and on one occasion said, "I have in mind a certain father who has done much good
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work iii the congregations, and is so humble I offered him one day a little medal, but he began at once to get away from me, making a sign with his hand and saying, No, no, Holy Father. This was Franzelin to the life. After these remarks the Pope remained so long without again alluding to the subject, that it looked as if he had given up the idea. But not so, for in the year 1876 he informed the Very Rev. Father Beckx, General of the Society, that he had determined to raise Father Franzelin to the dignity of Cardinal, binding him at the same time not to mention the matter even to his curia, and saying that opposition would be useless. According to the constitutions of the order, as framed by St. Ignatius, Jesuits make a vow on the day of their profession, not to accept any prelacy or dignity unless commanded to do so, under pain of mortal sin, by the Sovereign Pontiff. Hence Father General went at once to the Holy Father, and, prostrate at his feet, did his best, as far as it was right and becoming, to change his intention. The Pope praised Father General for his zeal in upholding the Institute in its integrity; he would not, however, yield, and commanded obedience to his will.
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The Father General now made an attempt to delay the action of the Pope, by begging His Holiness to leave Father Franzelin as he was until he had finished a treatise on " The Church," just begun. But the Pope refused this request as well; so there was nothing for it but that obedience which Father General gave all the more readily because of the consciousness that he had done his duty to the Society and to his only earthly superior, the successor of St. Peter.
But now came a more difficult phase of the matter, one which all who knew Father Franzelin dreaded the breaking of the news to himself. For this delicate mission Pius IX. selected His Eminence Cardinal Bilio, who, himself a very distinguished theologian, was an ardent admirer and warm friend of Father Franzelin. Cardinal Bilio found him in the German College, where he continued to lecture after the usurpers had seized the Roman. The Cardinal gently told him that he had come bearing an express command from the Sovereign Pontiff, that he should pass from the German College of the Society to the College of Cardinals. "Poor Franzelin" to use the words of His Eminence to the then Provincial,
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Father Carclella "was so stunned by this message that I feared he would get a stroke of some kind. He said at once to me, No, no ; this is impossible, this will never be ; and then began to walk about the room in a most disturbed and agitated manner. Seeing that some words of reasoning did not calm him, I held him for a moment by his habit, and said, * Father, this way of yours does not edify me. I expected of you an act of obedience. It is the Holy Father who commands. This word quieted him somewhat, and he found perhaps some relief in an agony of tears."
It is of man s nature to be pleased when elevated to a dignity or office of trust and power, because it is the tribute of men to his worth, and gives him an honoured position which he naturally likes. He is for the mo ment attracted more by the external grandeur or glory which surrounds the dignity, than by the duties and responsibilities which it entails. Even the humblest and those most afraid of new obligations can scarcely help an involuntary feeling of pleasure in being so honoured. Yet all who knew Father Franzelin might and did say that his elevation to the highest Church dignity was a suffering, pure and simple, un-
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relieved except by the obedience, patience, and resignation with which he accepted and bore it to the end. A Father of the Society who knew Father Franzelin, on hearing of his elevation but not of his repugnance, said at once, " No one deserves the dignity better or hates it more cordially." There were reasons for all this, i. His great humility. 2. As Cardinal he should give up the love of his life, professing theology. 3. His great scrupulosity, which made him dread increased responsibility ; and he rightly considered the position of Cardinal as one charged with the heaviest.
Cardinal Bilio, having delivered the hard message, went away, saying that he would return after an hour or two, in order to bring him to the Holy Father, who wished to see him as soon as possible. On their arrival at the Vatican, Father Franzelin prostrated himself on the ground at the feet of His Holiness, and with tears begged to be released, saying, I could not be a Cardinal, I have no ability for such an office." The Pope, in his ow r n good- humoured way, said, " And what ability had Saint Peter? He knew only how to handle an oar." Father Franzelin made an attempt to press his petition, but the Holy Father
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sternly beckoned silence, and he again broke down and gave way to a burst of grief. On his return to the German College, he went to Father Schroecler, who was ignorant of what had happened. His depressed and troubled look surprised the father, but still more his words, when, sobbing, he again and again said, " I am weary of life, I do not care to live." The father, amazed at his words and his manner, answered, " What is the meaning of this ? You ought to be ashamed to speak so. Do your work, and when you have finished it, then talk about dying." And we read that for weeks, though he never spoke on the subject except when obliged to do so, he could not conceal his troubled and sad state of mind ; he was at times seen in tears. To his Provincial he spoke so strongly of the affair as a castigo di Dio, u a chastisement of God," that he checked him, saying, " Your manner of speaking scandalises me." At the same time, his superiors were kind and full of pity for him, because they knew the cause of all this, namely, his great humility, which made him thoroughly believe that he was utterly unfit for such an office ; and his great scrupulosity, which made him dread and shrink from new and weightier responsibilities. To his
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Provincial he said, more than once, " Others have varied talents and can be safely sent to do various works, I can do only one thing teach, if not very well, perhaps not very badly."
In all this Father Franzelin was intensely sincere, without a shadow of affectation or put-on humility. The holier a man is, the greater his knowledge and insight with reference to God and himself, and therefore the greater his consciousness of his own worthlessness. The greatest saints are the most remarkable for the seemingly exaggerated way in which they depreciate, if not vilify themselves. And this arises not from studying themselves side by side with their fellow - men also sinners, but from their clearer perception of the sanctity, the majesty, the greatness of God.
Beside the reasons already given, there were others which made him heartily dislike the position of Cardinal. His simple, retiring, studious ways caused him to hold in horror the grand dress and surroundings of such a dignity and the distractions inseparable from it. It was also no light cross to be taken away from work which was according to his taste and with which he had become familiar; and to be obliged to begin a new work for which he had
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no taste, and, as he himself believed, no capability. For it is of our nature to feel and to resent the taking from us what we love and the giving to us what we hate.
But some one may ask, Was Father Fran- zelin s " blind obedience " what it ought to have been through all this, to him, so painful an affair? Well, we may fairly hold that it was. He had a perfect right, perhaps a duty, to manifest to superiors, even to the Pope himself, the conviction of his unfitness for and his strong repugnance to the office. He may have done this to them in too strong and blunt a way, and may have shown by look and manner his feeling too much to others to whom he never spoke on the subject. But when the will of God was made clear to him by the decided action of the Holy Father, he bowed his head in agony, and said with all his heart, " Father, not my will, but Thine, be done." His obedience might be called exceptional, if we take into account the trying circumstances in which it was given. We must call it generous, because, for nearly eleven years, he took not only more than his own share of work, but more than a man having prudent thought of self ought to have taken ; and he discharged the
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duties of his office with a care, an exactness, and a labour so great and so remarkable, that the Sovereign Pontiff and his brother cardinals lamented him when dead as the greatest loss to themselves and a great loss to the Church. He put under his feet all per sonal convictions, feelings, and repugnances, and on them he raised himself up to the grand height of self-sacrificing devotion to a work which obedience had given him, and did it all the better because of the natural dislike he had to it. He was in truth what years before in his novitiate retreat he resolved to be when he wrote : " I will be a true Jesuit ; I will be in all things an imitator of my Captain, Jesus."
The Consistory in which Father Franzelin would be proclaimed Cardinal was fixed for Monday, April 3. On the previous Saturday he kissed the feet of the fathers, brothers, and students in the refectory. All were touched and edified by this act, for they knew of his nomination, although he himself had not spoken of it. The same evening he gave his lecture as usual, but for the last time. When he entered the hall, the students stood up and applauded with heart and hand. He, as one unconscious of the scene, entered the
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pulpit and calmly delivered his lecture sad, no doubt, that the loved labour of his life was over for ever.
Although Father Franzelin, when leaving, did not make any studied address to his scholars, he made no secret of the regret with which he parted from them and the work of teaching. Still greater perhaps was the regret of his scholars, to whom he had spoken for the last time, and of many others who had hoped to have the privilege of sitting at his feet for many years. From the very beginning, as early as 1859, the number attending his lectures was about four hundred, of whom only thirty- five or forty were of his own order. These were enthusiastic about his teaching and himself, and took good-humouredly, almost as a compliment, any sharp words which he deemed it his duty to say to them from time to time in the circles. Three or four did not fancy him, as he was very quick in finding out those who thought too much of themselves and in sternly placing and keeping them on their proper level. As the Jesuit students had no intercourse, never spoke with the externs who attended the theological schools of the Roman College, they could not easily find out what the
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latter thought of him. One of them, however, having met some on their way home for vacation in the summer of 1860, delicately led up to the subject, and was delighted, though not surprised, by the extraordinary admiration they had of him, and the strong, earnest way in which they expressed it. This admiration and esteem never waned it went on increasing to the end ; and one of his scholars, afterwards a professor of theology and assistant to the Very Reverend Father General, did not fear to say, "In my opinion the Society has had no greater theologian except Suarez."
We may learn, in great part, the secret of his success as professor, from two resolutions which he made early and kept with scrupulous exact ness and fidelity. These were found formally noted in the memoranda of his novitiate and scholastic days. The first was, "To study solely (unice) for the greater glory of God, to always form this intention before beginning work, and to often make a very strict examination of conscience on this subject." Adding, " By the intention you can, in your labours, give glory to God, or to yourself." The second was, " Never to lose a particle of time." Well is it with the man who imitates Father Franzelin
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in these two important duties. To do so means the using of talents and other gifts, natural and supernatural, with industry and labour, for the very highest purposes.
The obligation of purity of intention, that is, of doing all things for the glory of God, is the necessary and logical consequence of the great principle and fundamental truth taught us in the first study or meditation of the Spiritual Exercises: "the end of man and the end of creatures." God again and again, in very clear and emphatic words, declares His absolute and supreme ownership of all things, and this because He created all things. " He spoke, and they were made. He commanded, and they were created. He made us, not we ourselves ; and His hands formed us. He is the Father who made and created and possesses us. The earth is His and the fulness thereof, the world and all they that dwell therein." He also tells us the end and purpose for which He created us and all things, namely, "for Himself" and "for His own glory." "Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honour and power, because Thou hast created all things, and for Thy will they were and have been created." He also tells us that He has another
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title to this ownership, because He bought us at a great price, not with corruptible things, as gold and silver, but with His own precious blood. He is the great, absolute Owner, Lord and Master of all things; "jealous," too, "who will not give His glory to another." Hence we have no rights in ourselves or in anything else independent of God, but we have the duty and are under a strict obligation to use all for His honour and glory ; so much so, that we cannot without sin of some kind deliberately use once a faculty of the soul, a sense of the body, money, time, or anything else, according to our own will against His, simply because they are not our own to do with them as we like, but His to be used according to His will and law. It is unjust to use the property of another against the reasonable will of the owner. Hence St. Austin calls him a robber who so treats God.
So much is gained by purity of intention, so much lost by the absence of it, and it is so easy, that it is worse than folly not to look carefully to it. A person in the state of grace, who offers up all his actions to God and does them for Him, merits de condigno an increase of grace and glory by each, even by acts which are by their
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nature indifferent or of a low animal order. " Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God." And we read that St. Charles Borromeo and St. Aloysius would have held on to their game of chess even though death were to come to them when at it. Recreation entered into the programme of their supernatural lives, as did their daily meditation and mass, and, done for God, had its reward as these had. Besides, a person who does all things for God, and keeps this thought habitually in mind, will find in it a great stimulus and help to do his work well. In a word, the man of clean heart and pure intention secures beyond all question the only rewards worthy of consideration and desire, grace here and eternal glory hereafter.
On the other hand, if a man be wanting in purity of intention, if he seek himself, not God, if he be solely or principally influenced by vain, selfish, or merely human motives, all his actions so done are vitiated, and the great supernatural reward is lost. This is true even of actions in their nature good and holy, such as prayer, almsdeeds, preaching, etc., which if done for God would have gained great merit, but not done for Him lose all. Such works sometimes,
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it is true, gain a human reward in the praise, applause, or money of men. But what is this? A disgrace to him who puts God aside in the winning of it. What is it worth ? Nothing, for it lasts but the moment, dying as men die. " He," writes St. Gregory, " who by his virtuous actions would gain the applause of the world, sells at a low price a thing of great value ; and, when he might thereby have purchased heaven, he seeks to gain nothing but the passing reward of human praise, which ends with his life." St. Austin says : " Lord, whoever would be praised for Thy gifts, and seeks not Thy glory but his own in the good he does, is a robber, and is like the devil himself, who attempts to rob Thee of Thy glory." Such a man not only deprives God of the glory which he himself should give, but diverts dishonestly to himself the glory which others should give. If a tradesman billed a person for a work he never did for him, or had done for another, he would rightly repudiate it ; so will God repudiate anything not done for Him The Divine Teacher tells us this in the Sermon on the Mount, when He declares that they who clo their deeds to be seen of men will receive no recognition or reward from God. In the words of Father Franzelin,
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"we can by the intention give glory to our selves," and lose all worth having; or " to God," and gain the great eternal reward which He promises to the good and faithful servants. To have this purity of intention is one of the easiest things in the spiritual life. We have merely to offer all our actions to God every morning, or at certain times, and to keep true to this oblation ; not doing the foolish and wicked thing of giving God the second place, or no place at all, by putting Him aside for something far lower. What an amount of labour, industry, energy, and earnestness are often expended on works which are simply as if they were not, as far as eternal life is con cerned, and which would have won a high place in heaven if done under one of the easiest of conditions, done for God. Our divine model, Christ, gives us a perfect example in this matter. "He never sought His own glory." When persons attempted to glorify Him, He at once turned their thoughts from Himself to God ; nor is it too much to say, that He was most sensitive in His dread that any glory would be given to Himself and not all to the Father. Hence St. Ignatius, the end and purpose of whose rules, constitutions, and
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spiritual exercises is to make his children other Christs, insists frequently and in grave words on their endeavouring to have a pure intention in all their acts, in never seeking anything but the will of God and His honour and glory, in being faithful to the motto of the Society, " To the greater glory of God."
All should be well on their guard, ever watchful and full of fear of themselves with reference to temptations which attack this virtue, if I may call it so temptations which come to not only the imperfect, but to those also who are well advanced on the road of perfection, and engaged in the holiest of all works, the salvation of souls. When our Lord said to His apostles, "You are the light of the world : so let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven," did He not insinu ate that works, even the holiest, done for men and seen by them, are generally accompanied by the temptation to glorify ourselves ? These temptations are of a very cunning and insidi ous kind. They act as if they had carte blanche, and were welcome to enter our house and be quite at home with us. And this, because they are of our very nature, which seeks self in
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all things, and which easily forgets God, His rights, and His will, in the strong desire which it has and the great pleasure which it enjoys in things which come to it through the senses, such as the praise, applause, and other rewards of man. These temptations do not break through, but steal through, to thieve, destroying or carrying off those treasures which, by purity of intention, we could easily have laid up where thieves cannot enter.
It is much under this aspect that eminent spiritualists speak of and warn us against these temptations. " Vain glory," writes St. Gregory, "is like a robber, who first craftily insinuates himself into the company of a traveller, pre tending to go the same way he does, and afterwards kills and robs him when he is least upon his guard, and thinks himself in greatest security." St. Basil liken vain glory to " a pirate, that attacks not a vessel sailing out of port to purchase goods, but waits till it is returning home richly freighted, and then fails not to set upon it." "A charming thief," writes the same doctor, " who robs us of all our good and spiritual actions, a mild and peaceful enemy of our souls ; and it is by its sweet and insinuating flattery that it attacks and deceives
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such a multitude of people : for human praise and glory is a thing very delightful and pleasant to such persons as know not what it is."
The means for securing and preserving purity of intention are simple and easy of use. First, be true to that morning offering or oblation of self to God which every good Catholic mother teaches her child. Second, when the cunning and insidious thieving enemies show or begin to make themselves felt, to at once strike them down by an aspira tion renewing my intention, keeping it first and well in the front ; also taking courage from the thought that the aspiration is all the better and more powerful for its purpose when it costs one much to make it, because made in the teeth of and against strong natural motives and feelings. In a word, make the morning oblation, and be true to it, not casting God aside for anything, even the most precious, or anyone, even the greatest, in this world.
The second resolution which had much to clo with Father Franzelin s success in the pursuit of holiness and knowledge was " Nullius temporis particular jactura"- never to lose a moment of time. We know that St. Alphonsus made this the matter of a vow.
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Since God tells us that " the heart of the wise man understandeth time, and that the fool regardeth no time," and as a too common experience bears out the word of St. Bernardine of Sienna, that there is nothing men value less than time, nothing less scrupled than the loss or abuse of it, it would be well for all, particularly the young, to study and meditate often on what God teaches us about time, that we may be wise in under standing and in using it. Time is one of God s most precious gifts to man, a sacred thing, therefore to be sacredly treated, for "God giveth to man the number of his days and time"; He also holds dominion over time, nor can man interfere with His will in reference to it, for " the number of man s days is with God, and He has appointed his bounds, which cannot be passed." " Boast not for to-morrow, for thou knowest not what the day to come may bring forth, nor what shall be on to-morrow." Our Lord speaks of a rich man who had laid up much goods for many years, saying to himself, Take thy rest, eat, drink, make good cheer ; to whom God said, " Fool, this night thy soul will be required of thee." He has also decreed that death, the most
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certain and the most terrible of all things, because the moment upon which depends eternity, should be as to time the most un certain of all things.
God, moreover, very often calls our attention to the shortness and fleetness of time and of man s life, as well as to the truth that there is no going back to use well a second time what of either was lost or abused the first. " Man living a short time fleeth like a shadow, passeth away as the trace of a cloud, and there is no going back, for it is fast sealed, and no man returneth." As time is given to us for the highest purpose, the one thing necessary, the sanctification and salvation of our souls given
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 Re: Life of John Baptist, Cardinal Franzelin
that we may "work our work," and "do good to all men whilst we have time," God com mands us to understand, value, regard, redeem time, not to let a particle of this good gift escape us, to make the most of it when we have it. He also gives as reasons for our doing so, its fleetness and its not returning, that "there is no going back," and that a time will come to each of us when He will say, "Time shall be no more." For, what other meaning have God s words bidding us "to walk whilst we have light, to work whilst it is
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day, for there is no working when darkness and night come " ; to do with all our heart and might, earnestly, the work given us, " because there is no working after death in hell- whither thou art hastening " ; commanding us to lead holy, supernatural, unworldly lives, because " the time is short, and the fashion of this world passes away"; to find, when tried, comfort in the thought that " the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come " ?
Strange, but true, that those who most fully and most painfully realise the value of time are they who have lost it for ever. A Kempis puts this truth well when he says, in the chapter " Of the Thoughts of Death " : " The present time is very precious, now is an acceptable time, now is the day of salvation. But it is greatly to be lamented that thou dost not spend this time more profitably wherein thou mayest acquire a stock on which thou mayest live for ever. The time will come when thou wilt wish for one day or hour to amend, and I know not whether thou wilt obtain it"- would give, one may add, worlds for that day or hour and shall not get it, for "there is no going back, and no man returneth." But God puts it
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better when He describes the damned lament ing in anguish of spirit their badly-spent lives. "What," they cry out, " hath pride profited us ? or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? all these things are passed away, like a shadow, like a ship passing through the waves, and leaving no trace ; like a bird or an arrow flying through the air, and leaving no mark ; and we are consumed in our wickedness. Such things as these the sinners said in hell."
The saints but echo the words of God. " There is nothing," writes St. Alphonsus, " shorter than time, nothing more precious, because the past is no more, the future is uncertain, and the present is but a moment. Oh, time, despised of men during life, how much shalt thou be desired at the hour of death and in the other world ! " St. Bernardine of Sienna teaches that "time is of as much value as God, because in every moment of time well spent the possession of God is merited, in every instant of this life a man can obtain pardon of his sins, the grace of God, and the glory of paradise." This same opinion is at tributed to St. Thomas. Hence St. Bonaven- ture says, "No loss is of greater moment than the loss of time " ; and " all not spent for God is
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lost," adds St. Bernard. Each moment of time carries its weight of good or evil to the great Judge, and will stand for or against us in some form or other through eternity. Father Faber in his Spiritual Conferences makes some very striking remarks on this subject of- time. Speaking not of those who "lead lives of open sin in rebellion against God, or in worldly indifference to Him," but of the lukewarm or tepid, " who range from nearly hot to nearly cold, and have even their seasons of fervour," he says : " These persons are much given to wasting time. Wasting time is the fault of almost numberless varieties of men. Nearly every man has his own way of wasting time. Idling, dawdling, frittering, gossiping, dream ing, procrastinating, sleeping, recreating, playing with our work, trivial activity these are only some of the commoner forms of wasting time. Yet wasted time is a vengeful thing, and stings terribly at the last. It diminishes the chances of a successful end." Again, in the same book, when treating of the advantages of reading, considered as a help in the spiritual life, he remarks : " Reading is of no inconsiderable service simply as an occupation of time. The use of time is one of the chief difficulties of the
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spiritual life. If we may distinguish the one from the other, we should be less frightened of St. Teresa s vow, always to do what was most perfect, than of St. Alphonsus , never to waste a moment of time. When the effort to do this last would be too much for us, there are, in most of our days, gaps of time which would be filled up by inutilities. Then reading, not our regular spiritual reading, which is a more serious and direct intercourse with God, but conscientiously chosen reading, comes in, and not only saves us from evil by being harmless, but does us a positive good in itself. It takes possession of the mind of which the Evil One is always on the watch to take possession. It occupies it, it garrisons it, it peoples it with thoughts which are directly or indirectly of God. Towards afternoon a person who has nothing to do drifts rapidly away from God. To sit down in a chair without an object is to jump into a thicket of temptations. A vacant hour is always the devil s hour. When time hangs heavy, the wings of the spirit flap pain fully and slow. Then it is that a book is a strong tower, nay, a very church with angels lurking among the leaves, as if they were so many niches."
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Since time is the gift of God, very precious and valuable because given by Him to man to work out the only work of life, the salvation of his soul, it is clear we have no rights, independ ent of God, with reference to it, but the duty to use it as best we can for the end and purpose for which it is given. We have no right to use it as we like, as if it were ours, but the duty to use it as He wills because it is His, certain also that He shall on Judgment Day "call against us the time," and make us render an account of every idle moment, as of every idle word. Moreover, so great is the tempta tion to lose or abuse time, and so many yield to it, that great authorities fear not to say, what after all a thoughtful study of the ways of men proves to be true, that there is nothing so despised by men, of so little value with them, so little scrupled, as time, and that wasting it is " the fault of almost numberless varieties of men." For these reasons, all, even the best, should often examine themselves honestly and according to God s mind, fearing that they may have ranked themselves, or are tending to do so, amongst those fools for God so calls them -"who regard no time." All, particularly the young, should, like Franzelin, boy and man, be
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deadly foes to that abuse of time which God tells us brings spiritual and temporal poverty with the swiftness of a runner and the power of an armed man deadly foes to that most attractive and dangerous form of wasting of time, allowing the pleasantly enjoyable things of life to interfere with the more important duties of life deadly foes to a too common delusion, by which the young student tries to justify himself in wasting time in college, seminary, or scholasticate, saying that he will make up for it afterwards. If a student neglect holiness and learning when preparing himself for his active professional life, he will not cultivate one or the other when in the busy fling of it, either through want of time, or disinclination arising from early contracted idle habits, or through both. It may be well, therefore, in my confessions and daily examen of conscience, to give more prominence and thought to this important matter to ask myself, What about time ? Do I lose it ? Do I abuse it ? Do I waste it ?
Father Franzelin delivered, as has been said, his last lecture on Saturday, April 3, 1876. On the following Monday he left the German College, accompanied to the door by the Father
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Rector, fathers, and students, in the habit of a Roman Jesuit, and drove to the Belgian College, which was kindly placed at his disposal, as there was no room large enough in the German for the receptions he should hold. Here he awaited the message from the Holy Father, and observed exactly all the formalities obligatory and usual on such occasions.
After a few days, on Holy Saturday, April 15, his sixtieth birthday, he took up his per manent residence in the house of the Society called St. Andrew s on Monte Cavallo, opposite the Ouirinal Palace, on the high road to the Porta Pia.
In the time of Saint Ignatius and of Father Lainez, his successor in the Generalate of the order, there was no novitiate in Rome. The novices were placed, some in the Roman College, and others in the Professed House. This, though necessary at the time, was found to be very inconvenient, particularly so when year after year the number of postulants in creased. Hence the first and second General Congregations gave expression to the wish that a regular novitiate should be established, and St. Francis Borgia, third General of the Society, carried it into effect. The Bishop of Tivoli
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gave him the small parochial church of St, Andrew. The Duchess Jane of A rragon, mother of Mark Antony Colonna, a distant connection of Francis, asked to be the foundress, and would have endowed it far more munificently than she did, had he not set his face against her doing so. It was his desire "that worldly goods should be wanting to St. Andrew s, and that spiritual blessings and the riches of the grace of Jesus Christ should abound in their stead." St. Pius V. by brief ratified all that they had done. Francis replaced the old church by a new one of larger dimensions, which was consecrated on the Feast of St. Andrew, November 30, 1568, when he formally took possession and opened the novitiate.
Amongst the first trained within its walls
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were St. Stanislaus, Claudius Aquaviva, fourth General of the Society, and his nephew Rodolf, one of the five martyrs lately beatified. Here also is buried Charles Emmanuel IV., King of Piedmont and Sardinia, who resigned his throne in 1802, entered the novitiate, made his vows as a lay-brother, and closed a holy and edifying life by a happy death in 1818. The sacred relics of St. Stanislaus rest in a costly shrine under the altar of the public church, on the
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Gospel side, and nearest to the high altar. The room in which he died was transformed into an exquisite oratory, in which was a reclining figure of the saint, the face, hands, and feet of white, and the habit of black marble. This statue was formerly studded with jewels, the holes in which they were set being still visible, and surrounded by a beautifully designed balustrade of solid silver. The jewels and the silver were carried away by the French when they invaded Rome towards the close of the last century, for, as the Romans wittily said, relics. The chapel itself was rich in sacred and interesting objects connected with Stanis laus, and amongst these a letter which linked together three saints, that which St. Stanislaus brought from the Blessed Canisius, then Pro vincial of Poland, to St. Francis Borgia, who received him into the Society. This chapel was and still is one of the many attractions of Rome.
St. Andrew s ceased to be a novitiate about the year 1870, when the novices were sent elsewhere, and it was utilised as the South American College (which, though founded for the education of secular priests, has been always under the care of the Society) up to
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1887, when the students were transferred to a new house built in the Prati di Castello. The usurping Italian Government took the old novitiate piece by piece, built on its site a residence for the king s household, and finally destroyed the oratory of St. Stanislaus. The statue, sacred objects, and marble flooring were, however, providentially saved, and placed in a small chapel built nearer to the public church.
CHAPTER IX
CARDINAL
IN this house, St. Andrew s, rich in the tradition of countless saints and scholars, who made their novitiate within its hallowed walls, and where the Venerable Cardinal Bellarmine came to end his days and die, Cardinal Franzelin lived for nearly eleven years. He was much attached to this house, and preferred its poor and straitened accommodation to much better which was offered to him elsewhere. When it was told him, three years before he died, that, as the house and site were being taken by the Government, rooms would be prepared for him in the New South American College, he said more than once, " I will never go there; I shall die in San Andrea"; and so he did, a few months before he should have left.
His first act after arriving was to put on the simple dress of the Roman Jesuit. A new one had been prepared for him, but in one
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small point touching the collar different from the ordinary ; this he would not use, and wore a cast-off garment until the one intended for him was exactly according to the old form. A person who visited him in the year 1883, tells us that the only signs of his dignity he could see were the red berrettino or skull-cap, which is de rigiteur, and a very poor-looking ring. In all else, he was like to a Jesuit who had managed to get the poorest and shabbiest habit in the common wardrobe.
We read in the lives of holy apostolic men, some of them canonised Saints, that when placed in positions of high dignity they kept strictly to or improved on the humble ways of their earlier life. This is true, in the fullest sense, of Cardinal Franzelin. As Cardinal he was not subject to any superior on earth but the Sovereign Pontiff, and might have taken, had he wished, a residence of his own. But when he elected to live in a house of the Society, this good Mother desired to treat him, her most dis tinguished son, in a manner befitting his dignity. But this he would not have. He had two rather small rooms in one of which he studied, took his meals, and slept and into the other he went only to receive visitors. He got rid
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of carpets which had been laid down, but allowed them to be replaced by some cheap, rough matting-. He never permitted special or exceptional things to be prepared for him, even when he returned late from a congregation or from the Vatican, and was quick to detect any attempt to do so, showing his displeasure at it, and always insisting on being served with what was given to the community in the refectory. He disliked anything new being bought, or given to him he would use only the ordinary things of the community ward robe, and was ingenious in trying to get the worst, and to make them, by mending, last the longest. A servant, extolling the great virtue of the Cardinal, used to say with emphasis, " His cotton pocket-handkerchiefs are not good enough to clean the lamps." A word from his confessor, and the great respect he had for the Sacred College, obliged him to renew now and then his outer cardinalitial robes. This, how ever, had always to be cleverly managed by a lay brother, who reverently and lovingly looked to his wants. Still, when the Cardinal saw the bill and the expense gone to in his regard, he used to complain of this having been done without his knowledge or consent. The
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brother s ready answer was, " Had I spoken to your Eminence beforehand, nothing would have been done." His breviary was an old, well-worn, small totuin, which he had as a simple Jesuit, nor would he ever accept or use a better one sent or offered to him. He also kept up his novitiate practice of making the most of slips and shreds of paper, and writing as much on them as they could possibly hold.
In proportion, however, to his hard ways with reference to himself were his kindness, gener osity, and charity to others, believing, according to the word of our Lord and the mind of the greatest Fathers of the Church, that the easiest and sweetest way to secure a favourable sentence on Judgment Day is to now make the Great Judge our debtor by being kind of word and generous of heart and hand to the poor, His special representatives. Nearly all the money given to him as Cardinal by the Pope went to religious and charitable pur poses. He had a special devotion to the foreign missions, and gave largely to them. He was generous in his subscriptions on the occasion of any public calamity, also to convents reduced to want by the persecution and injustice of the Government, as well as to
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distressed private families who applied to him, or in some way were brought under his notice. These he relieved, generally through their parish priests. He helped bazaars and lotteries got up for charitable purposes, but never took the tickets. One memorandum found after his death is evidence that on one occasion he gave in charity within a few months nearly ^2000. He did all this, as far as he could, without allowing his name to appear.
Through the whole year, winter and summer, he rose at 4 o clock ; at 5.30, immediately after his meditation, he often went to his confessor, and for the last two years of his life he did so every morning ; nor would he ever allow- though pressed to do so his confessor to come to him, nor go in to confession before others, even the youngest student, if he found him on the corridor awaiting his turn. He celebrated mass every morning at six, and always, kneeling, heard another after his own. Though not
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bound, he was always present at the religious community duties or customs, such as the domestic exhortations, the Litanies, and Bene diction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. He had also fixed times for his two examens, spiritual reading, the Rosary, and other private
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devotions. Although he dined alone, he always had his lay brother to read for him, and insisted on the rules of the Society being read as is the custom at the beginning of each month. He took very little of what was laid before him, and, when urged to take more, used to say, " The student studies better with an empty than a full stomach. He who has the body full, has no wish to labour." He fasted every Saturday through devotion to the Ever-Blessed Virgin, his collation being a cup of black coffee without bread ; for the last two years of his life he did the same on every Friday. He used the discipline and other severe forms of corporal mortification, but in all these things he submitted himself with great humility to the guidance of his confessor.
The fact of a man constitutionally delicate, and always a laborious worker, leading such a life, and living to pass his seventieth year, is rather disturbing to all who, in these easy going days, seek or take, under the plea of health, many dispensations.
Such was Cardinal Franzelin s private life ; a true and perfect religious even when he was not under obedience to any superior of the Society.
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A word now about the way in which he discharged the public duties of his high office, and this will show us that the hardest, most laborious and anxious years of his life were those of the Cardinalate. During the eleven years he took only one recreation day, when he drove out to the College of Mandragone to preside at the distribution of prizes on two other occasions he took a short drive outside the Porta Pia. He gave himself" no real re creation after dinner or supper except on three or four great festival days, when he joined the community for an hour. He never left the house except to attend a congregation, to assist at the Lenten and Advent sermons preached before the Pope and his court in the Vatican, or to discharge some duty of his office ; and from one of these he never absented himself, even after his health began to seriously give way unless on one occasion, in obedience to the Holy Father. Outside of this his manner of life was given in two words by one of his friends " Prayer and study, study and prayer."
He never, however, allowed this solitary recluse sort of life to interfere with what was becoming. He received all who wished to
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visit him, but he quietly retired when the requirements of business and politeness were satisfied ; and all went away not only full of ad miration for his wonderful gifts of mind and vast knowledge, but edified also by his humility, kindness, and charity. When driving to the congregation or to the Vatican, he always said at first a few prayers aloud together with his faithful lay brother, and then gave all the rest of the time, going and returning, to secret prayer. He had also the habit of reciting the " Psalmi Graduales " when going up the steps to the house and to his room. Passing through the city, he always wished to have the blinds of the carriage windows down, like one who was ashamed, as he really was, to be seen in the dress of a Cardinal.
He was Consultor of various congregations, and was named, much against his own will, president of that of Indulgences. And perhaps no cardinal was ever more efficient or helpful than he, because of his great learning, prudence, and industry. Countless were the questions, difficulties, and "causes" given to him to examine and report on. He himself read and wrote his opinion on every one of them, never using a secretary as all cardinals do, and 24
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this, not only because it was his wish, but also through the scrupulous fear he had of violating in any way secrecy. Another very delicate and laborious work, generally given to him, and done with extreme care, was the examination of the rules of many new religious congregations which sought the approbation of the Holy See. Labour with him was always anxiety and suffering as well, on account of his scrupulosity ; but when inclined to be depressed, he found consolation in a word his friend Cardinal Bilio once said to him : " Now that you are a Cardinal, you should work harder than ever you did before for the Church." To labour for the Church, and to suffer in doing so, was his comforting thought. He found comfort also in having recourse to God constantly by short ejaculatory prayers or aspirations. This salutary habit he set himself to acquire early. Within his particular examen book was found a paper on which were written, as early as 1835, a number of aspirations which he was fond of using.
There is perhaps no habit which all of active lives, whether of the sanctuary or of the world, should labour to acquire more than this favourite one of Cardinal Franzelin, nor one
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which will repay better the trouble and labour of acquiring it. Without it, persons busy and occupied with the cares, the worries, and work of life, will scarcely be able to pray enough. The person easiest to speak to in this world is God. He is always with us, our lips as it were at His ears, " in Him we live, and move, and have our being"." It is easier to speak to Him than to a person in the same room with us, as He needs no articulate words ; a thought of the mind, a desire of the heart, the lowest whisper, is as known to Him as the loudest or strongest cry. Besides, a person of a naturally distracted temperament, who cannot say long prayers with a recollected mind, can gather up mind and heart for a moment now and then, and send them straight to God in a few strong words, without any danger of distraction. A word so spoken is a real prayer, for the essence of prayer is to think of God and speak to Him ; as real, even if spoken in railway carriage, crowded thoroughfare, busy mart, on restless couch, or in ballroom, as if said on the knees before the Blessed Sacrament ; a form of prayer which has a clear sanction in Holy Scripture, for we know how the " Lord, save me," of Peter, the " Lord, save us, we perish,"
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of the frightened disciples, " Lord, be merciful to me a sinner," of the publican, and the k< Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom," of the robber, were answered. God is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and we are as much in His mind and as dear to Him as they were. The most occupied of men could, if he have the good will, say any number of such real prayers in his own simple words every day without interfering with his business or his recreation. Some one has said, " If you wish to love God, talk to Him." And the free pouring out of mind and heart, in all one s moods, to any one, is evidence of great friendship, of full trust in, and of love for that person. Man should make God his friend above all friends, and his lover above all lovers, and this he will do if he acquire the habit of going often to God, pouring out his mind and heart ; his doubts, his anxieties, his sorrows, his sufferings, his gratitude, his trust, his resigna tion, his love, etc., to Him who alone is light and strength and comfort, the only safe adviser and the only true consoler.
The habit of making aspirations helps much to keep a man united with God, to make him walk and work as in His presence and under
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His influence ; whilst in the moment of temptation an aspiration shot forth from the heart is defeat to the tempter, and victory to the tempted.
Although Cardinal Franzelin s work in con nection with those congregations, and with numerous and various questions of importance referred to him day after clay, gave him full occupation, he was still careful to keep him self well informed on all current events which touched Catholic countries or the Church. His Italian biographer tells us that he surprised some Irish bishops, who called to pay their respects, by the full and accurate knowledge he had of the state of their country. Speaking of Ireland suggests a little incident and a word spoken by Cardinal Franzelin which shows the high estimate he had formed of the Irish theological student. When acknowledging a copy of an old Irish eighth-century litany extracted from the Leabhar Breac, he writes : " I have read with consolation of soul, and, I may almost say, with admiration, the most devout prayers of ancient Ireland to the Blessed Virgin, translated into English and Latin, which you so kindly sent me." Although he spoke fluently four modern languages, English
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was not one of them ; but we have his own word that he sufficiently understood it to read the works of Cardinal Newman and to enjoy them. Before the year 1848, the students of the Irish College went for lectures to the Roman, where Father Franzelin knew many of them as his fellow-scholars, and spoke of them by name years after. In 1848 the Roman College was closed for two years, the Irish students went to the Propaganda, and never after returned. This was a cause of real regret to Father General Beckx, and of sorrow as well to Father Franzelin, who, as professor, wished to have them in his school. Once, when speaking to a friend, from whom we have the incident, of how much he felt their absence, he added : " I am a German myself, and I hold in high esteem the German students, particularly, for their spirit of hard study, but in all my experience I have never met with any head for theology equal to the Irish." The compliment will be considered all the greater if we bear in mind that Cardinal Franzelin was not given to speaking words of praise or to paying compli ments ; his words, when he did speak, were always the simple expression of his mind and its convictions. He had no human respect, at
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least in its bad sense, nay, at times he was too bold and outspoken. We have seen something of this in the way in which he spoke to his superiors, to Cardinal Bilio and even to Pius IX. We have another instance in a little episode which happened not long before his death. Pope Leo XIII. said to him, in the presence of some members of the Sacred College, and in a most gracious manner, that he was about to elevate another Jesuit, Father Mazzella, to the Cardinalate. Cardinal Franzelin was in the moment on the defensive, saying, "It is against the constitutions of St. Ignatius and against the spirit of the Society " ; but when the Holy Father rejoined, " Is not obedi ence to the Pope part of those constitutions ? " he became at once silent and humiliated. Not, however, without edification to those who wit nessed the little scene.
His life as Cardinal was the same, day after day, for the eleven years prayer, study, and work.
In the Lent of 1886 his health, never robust, began seriously to give way ; so much so, that the Pope commanded him not to attend in person, but to send his vote, opinion, or report in writing. After a fortnight s rest, he thought
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he was strong enough to resume work, and was no longer bound by the command of the Pope. In this mind he asked an audience, and pressed the Holy Father, in a rather free and frank manner, to release him. This came of his scrupulosity, his dread of being- wanting to duty or of being made too much of by others. In the month of October, a month before his death-sickness set in, he fulfilled with extreme care and tender devotion all the conditions for gaining the jubilee. He had his faithful lay brother and servant with him when making the visits to the churches, and he himself instructed the latter how to gain this great indulgence.
CHAPTER X
LAST SICKNESS AND DEATH
WE come now to the closing scenes of his life. Monday, December 6, 1886, was one of the days on which the congregation of the Pro paganda met. The Cardinal, however, seemed so unwell and weak, that the Brother Infirmarian expressed a wish that His Eminence would not go, but he answered, " Brother, if you take from me the congregations, you will take from me my life"; and when his servant most respectfully put in a word, he said, after a few moments of reflection, " Let us go, it is better that we should " ; and he did go. He returned so ex hausted, that he had to be carried to his room, where, however, he went through the day s work as usual.
The next day, the vigil of the Immaculate Con ception, he went to the Vatican, to be present at the sermon. On the feast day he was induced by his confessor to receive a visit from 25
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the physician, whom he begged to tell the whole truth. The latter did so, saying- that he could not cure him, but that with care his life might be prolonged for some time. This word had for effect a resolve on the part of the Cardinal to give the remainder of his life more gener ously than ever to the service of God and His Church. The same evening he wished to give Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacra ment in the domestic chapel, and did so, but with difficulty because of his great weakness. Superiors did not wish to interfere with his pious desire, knowing that it would pain him, as he had a very special devotion to the Blessed Virgin under this title. Years before, when Professor of Scripture and Hebrew in Vals, he lithographed a very learned dissertation on the Scripture proof of this dogma, and he always said the votive mass of the Immaculate Con ception on Saturday, and on nearly all other days when the rubric allowed it. On the gth of December, he attended the congregation of the Holy Office, but returned from it in a very weak and exhausted state. Still he would not give in, or rather, he could not realise the serious ness of his condition, for the same evening about seven o clock he was seen at the door of his
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confessor s room, waiting, as a student was within, according to a custom from which the kindness or politeness of others could never induce him to depart. Two hours afterwards he returned to his confessor, but so weak that the latter did not wish him to kneel, and could secure this only by expressing a fear that if he did not spare himself, he would not be able to say mass next day. Nor was he.
He attempted to get up at his usual hour, four, on the morning of the loth, but was unable to do so. When his confessor, having heard of his state, came to him, the Cardinal said, " I did my best to arise, but, had I not at once lain down, I should have fallen on the floor" ; adding with great simplicity, " I do not know how it is that all in a moment I have lost my strength." The doctor, who was at hand, came immediately to see him, reported that he was suffering from bronchial paralysis, and recommended that he should receive the Last Sacraments. When thequestion of nourish ment was touched on, he insisted on fasting fare, as it was Friday in Advent, and the doctor thought it best to yield somewhat to him. He did not wish to accept a dispensation from the Divine Office, but begged to have it commuted
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into certain aspirations which he and his con fessor said together. He also substituted these for the Rosary and other prayers he was in the habit of saying every day.
He was now well repaid for the care and labour with which he had trained himself to the habit of ejaculatory prayer, for, were it not for this, he would have found himself without the most powerful of helps in the most trying hours of his life, as no other manner of prayer was possible. It is well, therefore, to use patiently the means of acquiring this habit, that we may not be without prayer when we shall need it most.
In the course of the day he asked for writing materials, and with difficulty wrote the address of a poor person who was in want, ordering an alms to be sent; these were his last written words. Owing to a scruple he had of receiving the Holy Viaticum not fasting, he asked to have it deferred till the next morning. But at a word from his confessor he acquiesced, and at once set himself to prepare for it. On the Father Rector informing the community of the Cardinal s alarming state, all assembled in the domestic chapel to pray for him, and to accom pany the Rector when bearing the Blessed
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Sacrament to his room. Just as the latter was about to enter, the Cardinal, making a painful effort, raised himself up, stretched forth his arms as one wishing to fly to the embrace of his Divine Guest, saying again and again with loud voice and the most tender devotion, "O good Jesus, O good Jesus, I believe in Thee, I hope in Thee, I love Thee I love Thee above all, above all." He then said the Con- fiteor and the Domine non sum dignus distinctly and earnestly, but not without difficulty, owing to his exhausted state. Having most rever ently received our Lord, he again broke out into the aspirations, "O good Jesus," etc., ending with the psalm Miserere.
When one thinks of those golden treatises which he wrote on The Incarnation, The Eucharist, and The Sacrifice of the Mass, may we not fairly suppose that in the Sacred Heart of our Lord was the thought, and on His living lips the words once spoken to the angelic doctor, "John Baptist, thou hast written well of me," and that He came to him, with more than ordinary love and joy, to be his "reward exceeding great" for ever.
Leo XIII., on hearing of the Cardinal s critical condition, not only sent him words of
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affection and comfort by telephone, but also sent one of his Monsignori to visit him, to impart the apostolic benediction, and to report to himself of his state. When the Monsignore gave the Papal message, the Cardinal said with great feeling, " 1 cast myself at the feet of His Holiness to thank him for this act of condescension in sending your reverence to inquire for me and to give me his blessing." He then added, "The Holy Father knows that I am Prefect of the Congregation of Indulgences, but as I ^m unable to discharge its duties, may I ask you to beg of His Holiness to appoint another in my place. I am also Consultor of different congregations, and I have private papers belonging to them ; I would not like to make a suggestion, but if the Holy Father wish, he could send a confidential person to take and bring them, each to the dignitary authorised to receive such documents." He also asked him to do the kindness of calling on the Cardinal Secretary of State, and informing him that he could not attend the congregation to be held in the Vatican on the following day. The Monsignore, seeing him so weak, and yet so anxious to impress on him and even to repeat the requests just made, kindly said,
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"Eminence, you may command me not only as Cardinal, but also as my old professor ; but I remember all your Eminence has said to me, and now watch me whilst I repeat them." He did so one by one, and promised to most care fully execute his commissions. The Cardinal was then satisfied, thanked the Monsignore in the most gracious manner for his kindness, and ended by saying, " I cast myself at the feet of the Holy Father."
He passed a sleepless night, suffering much from fits of violent coughing, but pouring forth his soul in frequent aspirations, repeating oftenest " Jesu miserere." At midnight he asked for his beads and struggled through the saying of them. At 5 A.M. the Brother Infirm- arian brought him a soothing draught, which he took, and then begged that the lamp be taken away and that he be left alone. The Brother obeyed, but when a few steps from the room, startled by noise, he returned at once and knocked. The Cardinal answered, "Do not come in, do not come in " ; but the Brother, having partly opened the door, saw him kneeling on the floor absorbed in prayer. Not to sadden him, he left him so, but, returning after a short time, he found that he had of himself returned
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to his bed. Soon after he expressed a wish to receive Holy Communion, but moved not so much a difficulty as a scruple about doing so not fasting ; but the moment his confessor settled the question, his obedience was, as usual, prompt and perfect. He then received Our Lord from the hands of the Father Rector with all the devotion and fervour of the pre ceding evening.
In the course of the day, the Very Rev. Father Beckx, General of the Society, came to visit him. This venerable and venerated father, now well past his ninetieth year, had resigned, a short time before, the government of the Society into the hands of the late Very Rev. Father Anderledy, who was appointed in 1883 Vicar, with right of succession. Father Beckx, on leaving Fiesole, selected as did Cardinal Franzelin St. Andrew s as his home, but when obliged, because of the Government occupation, to leave the house, he retired to the German College. On entering, he wished to kiss the hand of his dying son, but the latter would not allow this, and said at once, " Father General, I ask pardon for all the sins of my life, pardon for all the scandal I have given in my religious life," and then repeated thrice, " God be
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merciful to me a sinner." His Paternity gently answered, saying, " I am certain that all will be well with you; God will be merciful to you and loving." These words comforted him, and turned his thoughts from acts of contrition to acts of love, for he repeated six times the ejaculation, "Good Jesus, I love Thee above all." On the Father General leaving the room, his brother of the Society and of the Sacred College, Cardinal Mazzella, visited him. He re cognised him at once, and said, "Eminenza, come sta?" and on Cardinal Mazzella saying, "I should rather ask how you are," he answered on the moment, " Commend me to the mercy of the Sacred Heart of Jesus." The Father General wished to remain, but was induced to leave by Cardinal Mazzella, who promised to stay until His Paternity would return later, determined, however, not to leave till the end came. He was soon after joined by the Rev. Father Provincial and the Procurator-General of the Society.
Towards ten o clock the dying Cardinal asked for his confessor, and expressed a wish to receive the plenary indulgence in articulo mortis, adding with great simplicity and humility, " But am I rightly disposed? Please assist me to
make the acts prescribed by Benedict XIV."
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He repeated the Confiteor and the other prayers along with his confessor, and then, with painful effort, made the following ejaculations : " Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I love Thee above all." " Abide in me." " Thou hast chosen me." Paler Noster to the end of the prayer. " I believe firmly, fully, perfectly," Pater Noster, etc. " I am sorry, I am sorry, I believe." " Without Me you can do nothing. It is so, O Lord, but with Thy grace and love I can do all things. I love Thee above all." He tried to say the canonical hours, which he had by heart, but this his confessor forbade as too much for him.
After some time his voice failed, but his lips continued to move in prayer. The Holy Father sent him again the apostolic benedic tion, and Cardinal Monaco La Valetta came to visit him, also the Secretary of the Congregation of Indulgences, of which Cardinal Franzelin was President. Cardinal La Valetta, who held him in the greatest esteem and affection, was so sensibly affected by the sight of his dear friend, that he could not speak. When asked to impart the Papal benediction, he could use no form of words, but raised his hand, made the sign of the Cross, and left the room weeping bitterly.
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Towards midday the Cardinal fell into what could scarcely be called an agony. His con fessor began to recite the prayers for a soul departing, Cardinal Mazzella gave him again and again the Crucifix to kiss. The Father Rector held the blessed candle in his hand, whilst the rest of the community and the students of the college joined in the prayers. On the nth of December, at twenty-two minutes after one, Cardinal Franzelin went to God, to receive that eternal rest, peace, happiness, and glory which he had well merited by his life of great labour and great suffering sanctified by great holiness.
One of the last expressed wishes of the Cardinal was, that the funeral honours rendered to car dinals would be dispensed with, and those only of the Society be given to him. But the Holy Father, whilst not interfering with the simple obsequies of the order, commanded that he should be honoured according to his rank.
The reception - room was therefore made a chapelle ardente, and within it was laid the body of the deceased Cardinal, vested as the rubrics required. The students of the college, who begged as a great privilege to be allowed to attend and carry the sacred remains, recited in relays the Office of the Dead ; and fourteen of
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them who were preparing for ordination came again and again to pray, and to look on the face of him who, though dead, spoke to them of the life which those consecrated to God in the sanctuary should lead. Bishops, prelates, dignitaries, and students from the different colleges came in large numbers to pray beside his remains and to kiss his hand in taking leave of him.
The following morning the remains were borne by the students to the domestic chapel, where the Rev. Father Provincial, Father Rector, and community, fathers from other houses, the students of the college, and some from the Gregorian University, were assembled to receive them. The Office of the Dead was recited without chant, and a low mass de requiem, followed by the Absolution, was celebrated by the Rev. Father Provincial, according to the rule of the Society. It was thought prudent not to tell the Very Rev. Father General Beckx of this function, as, notwithstanding his ninety- two years and the severity of the season, he would have insisted on being present. Later on, His Paternity came and prayed for an hour by the side of his dead son.
The body was carried the same evening
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down to the Church of St. Andrew, and left for a short time before the high altar, and thence to the parochial Church of St. Bernard alle Terme, where the Absolution was again given. Finally, it was borne to the Campo Verano, St. Laurence, outside the walls, and laid in the vault of the Society, side by side with the remains of Cardinal Camillo Tarquini, S.J.
On Wednesday the I5th the solemn funeral obsequies were celebrated in the Church of St. Bernard with impressive splendour. There were present sixteen cardinals, the largest number seen for years at such a function, the ambassadors of Austria, Spain, and Belgium, bishops, prelates, members of various orders and congregations, and students from nearly all the colleges of Rome. To the Venerable Father General Beckx was assigned a place of special honour. A very touching sight were the blind children of the Institute of St. Alexius, which was the church of the deceased Cardinal s title, and to which he had been a most generous benefactor.
We read that an Fastern king once pressed a pagan philosopher, who had been witness of his wealth, power, and glory, to say was he not the happiest of men, to whom the sage
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answered that he should wait till he saw the end ; and a Father of the Church has said, " Laudapost vitam, magnifica post consumma- tionem." " Praise and glorify a man after he has died." Cardinal Franzelin was at the Vatican on the Qth, and died on the nth of December. Hence comparatively few knew of his illness, and his death was a surprise and a shock to very many in Rome. This naturally caused a greater flow of thought and word about him than generally sets in when even a remarkable man dies. His brother cardinals, in a very special manner, bore testimony to his having succeeded in the two purposes of his life, great holiness and great learning. They spoke of him as not needing the masses which they celebrated, as they believed him to be with God in heaven ; they spoke of the fact that he was never absent from a congregation or a sermon, also of the full, accurate, minute, and learned manner in which he treated every question submitted to him, and that his death was a great loss to the Church.
The Venerable Cardinal Massaia, the Apostle of Abyssinia, spoke of the perfect way in which he did his work in the congregations, and then said with great feeling, " Oh, what a great loss
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to the Church is the death of good Franzelin ! My great age and infirmities do not allow me to leave my house except two or three times a year, to pay my respects to the Holy Father, although His Holiness has dispensed me even in this : nevertheless, I wished to be present at the obsequies of Cardinal Franzelin." He then broke out in praise of his religious life, ending with the following words : "I have always felt myself fascinated by his holiness and his learning." His confessor and spiritual guide for eight years said openly that he never could find any matter for absolution ; and in writing to the Rev. Father Provincial of Naples, the same Father said : " Oh, how much he suffered ! He was in truth a hidden martyr. Intent solely on promoting the glory of God and the good of the Church, he laboured, heedless of health and of life, up to the very day before his death."
Countless were the letters of sympathy and condolence which the Venerable Father General received, particularly from those cardinals who could not attend the obsequies, as well as from other eminent dignitaries of the Church. The Very Rev. Father Nicholas Canevallo, Abbot General of the Benedictines of the Cassinese
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Congregation of Primitive Observance, wrote as follows :
" MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST REVEREND FATHER, Permit me by this letter to discharge a duty which my great esteem of the Society and gratitude have imposed on me. I have just heard of the death of His Eminence Cardinal John Baptist Franzelin, a most worthy son of the Society, and an illustrious member of the Sacred College. I know what a great loss he is to both, and the great sorrow which his death has brought to your Paternity. Please accept for yourself and the whole order my most sincere sympathy. Although he was ripe for heaven, still the Church, religion, and all good men, who admired his precious gifts of head and heart, expected and hoped to receive help and assistance from him for yet many years. But God has decreed otherwise, and I, adoring in all humility of heart God s Holy Will, wish to share your great sorrow. Our congregation has reasons altogether special for taking part in this mourning for the deceased Cardinal, bound as it is to him by the ties of reverence and gratitude. He was for some years member of a commission of cardinals to which were
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committed the affairs of our congregation, and I cannot tell you the unwearied care and zeal with which he laboured for our good. We must also heartily acknowledge that the favours granted to us by the Holy See were due to his uprightness and influence. He presided with great prudence and wisdom at our general chapter, held in 1880, in circumstances of the highest importance to us. Great therefore is the debt of our gratitude and the sorrow of our hearts. To manifest this I thought it a duty to give His Eminence letters of affiliation to our order, and I have directed that the usual masses and suffrages be offered for the repose of his soul in all our houses. With sentiments of the most profound esteem and reverence, I remain, your humble and devoted servant,
" D. NICOLA CANEVALLO, O.S.B., Abbot General.
Subiaco dal Proto Monastero di S. Scolastica, \4,th December 1886.
The Rev. Father Provincial of Rome, in his circular letter ordering the usual number of masses to be said for the repose of his soul, briefly reviewed his life, and alluded to the
great fame he won as Professor, to the " illus-
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trious monuments of wisdom and sacred learning which he had left after him," to the services he rendered to the Church in various congregations, and in the Vatican Council ; also to the fact that he was called by Pius IX. to the Sacred College on account " of his eminent merits of holiness and learning." The Catholic news papers had very eulogistic articles ; one of which, taken from the Osservatore Cattolico of Milan, December 12, 1886, was as follows: " A great theologian and Cardinal is dead. As theologian he perpetuated the glorious traditions of De Lugo, Vasquez, Bellarmine, Toletus, etc. His theological treatises will never die. That De Traditione is classical, and it would be impossible to tell the great gain it has been to theology. He was a most learned, subtile, and deep examiner of Catholic dogmas, and has thrown new light on some of them by his explanation and treatment. He had so studied and meditated on the Fathers of the Church, that he made them his own. One always reads his treatises, De Sacramentis, De Deo Uno et Trino, with profit and delight, whilst that De Eucharistia is written with such unction that one is tempted to read it kneeling, and to take from it the points of his
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daily meditation. His works reflect at once his vigorous conceptions, his elevated thoughts, his great mind, as well as his intense love of truth, of the Church, and of sacred things. They are also well calculated to nourish these sentiments and feelings in others. The name and works of the deceased Cardinal are not only well known and prized by his many scholars in Italy who admire and love him, but far and wide outside it, particularly in Germany, where they have already produced good fruit and won many victories over heresy."
Ten years before, the following emphatic testimony was borne in the Dublin Review of April 1876, in the article entitled " Tradition and Papal Infallibility," written by one of the greatest men of the century, and though a layman, a distinguished theologian and Professor of Theo logy, Dr. William George Ward. "We have more than once expressed our humble opinion that Cardinal Franzelin is the greatest of living Catholic theologians, and we feel it specially opportune that our article should appear at a moment when his numerous pupils and ad mirers are jubilant at his recent elevation."
The Holy Father, Leo XIII., took Cardinal Mazzella aside a day or two after Cardinal
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Franzelin s death, and said to him : " Eminence, you assisted Cardinal Franzelin when dying. Do tell me all about him. I feel deeply his loss. This morning I celebrated mass for his blessed soul. As Cardinal, I saw him only a few times, and had no intimate knowledge of him, but as Pope I came to know him well. I admired in him the gifts of God, his learning and his prudence ; but these were natural gifts what I admired more was his profound humility. He used to come to me like a child and speak out his scruples, anxieties, and troubles ; but more, he would tell me things to lower and humiliate himself, often saying, Holy Father, I place my soul in your hands, look to the saving of it. I used to do my best to comfort and console him ; but the truth is, this holy man never came to me that he did not increase my esteem and admiration of him."
The moral of Cardinal Franzelin s life is easily read, if we study it side by side with the strict obligation under which every man lies of coming home to the Great Father who created him and placed him in this world for a short time, that he might return to and be happy with Him for eternity. This is not only the solemn duty of man, but in a certain sense his
CONCLUSION 213
only duty ; because all things else should, in some way or other, be directed to the right fulfil ment and accomplishment of it. But more, God has commanded that we merit and secure this coming home to Him by a perfection of life, similar to His own, according to each one s state.
St. Leo the Great in one of his sermons asserts that the natural dignity of man of man made to the image and likeness of God is placed in imitating his Creator and reflecting in himself, as in a mirror, the divine beauty and goodness. St. Gregory the Great expresses the same truth when he writes, that man s true nobility is likeness to God, and the greater the likeness the greater the nobility. St. John Chry- sostom is of the same mind ; for he preaches that all Christians, secular and religious, are bound to strive to be perfect, each in his own state and office : whilst our own St. Malachy puts it well in a few words when he says, "In vain am I a Christian if I imitate not Christ."
These Fathers of the Church prove the truth of this proposition by the highest testimony, that of God Himself, who commands us to be perfect even as "our Father in heaven is perfect," "to be followers of God as most dear children," "to walk even as He walked," "holy
214 CARDINAL FRANZELIN
in all manner of conversation," "without spot before the Lord," and who gives as reason for our being so, that He Himself is perfect and holy.
Those lights of the Church also insist that these and similar divine commands were given to the faithful generally, and made perfection according to their state as obligatory on them as on priests and religious. Perfection does not consist in the state, nor is it worked out by the state, but in such co-operation with grace as will make one do the holy will of God in that state in which He has placed him ; and the more perfectly this is done, the greater the perfection. These eminent teachers prove this, when speaking or writing of the Ever-Blessed Virgin. Some of them do so when com menting on the words which our Lord spoke to the woman who cried out, " Blessed is the womb that bore Thee and the paps that gave Thee suck," " Yea, rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it."
When glorifying the Blessed Mother of God, they assert that she won her crown not by being the Mother of God, an office which she could not merit, and God could not as such reward, but she merited it by so co-operating with grace that she kept the word and did the
CONCLUSION 215
will of God. She came to the highest place in holiness, in power, and in glory, because she most perfectly co-operated with the greatest graces given to her in view of her highest state and office; just as we shall win our places by our co-operation with the lesser graces given to us in view of ours. " More blessed was Mary," says St. Austin, " in receiving Christ s faith than in conceiving Christ s flesh." St. Chrysostom, supposing an impossible case, declares that she would not have been blessed, though she had borne Him in her body, had she not heard the word of God and kept it. And Cardinal Newman, not unworthy to be cited side by side with such men, adds to their words his own when he writes : " Mary has been made more glorious in her person than in her office ; her purity is a higher gift than her relationship with God." Does not the Ever-Blessed Mary seem to say all this, when she speaks of herself as the humble handmaid of the Lord ?
Hence, as the habit does not make the monk, nor the monk the saint, and as personal holiness does not necessarily depend on state, but on grace and co-operation with it, it follows that persons living in the world who have greater temptations and less protections,
216 CARDINAL FRANZELIN
greater trials and less helps, in a word, greater difficulties in the way of perfection and less graces than priests or religious, can become holier than either by a more exact and more perfect co operation with grace, and a more industrious use of the means to increase it, than these others practise. " It is not the religious order," writes St. Vincent de Paul, that makes the saint, but the care persons called to it take to perfect themselves." Priests and religious are bound to be, and as a rule are, holier and more perfect than seculars ; still there is nothing to prevent a secular, who is more earnest and devoted to the work of his own sanctification, from becom ing holier and more perfect than either. What a very consoling and encouraging truth this is, not only for those living in the world, but for those also whose great work it is to make even them " perfect, failing in nothing in all the will of God."
Our Lord speaks rather contemptuously of those who do only things which give them pleasure, or at least cost them nothing, such as saluting and loving only those who salute and love them, of those who hear the word, but do not do it. Nay, more, He declares that the unfailing test of true holiness, perfection, and
CONCLUSION 217
love is not hearing or speaking the word, but doing it, is not knowing the commandments by heart, but keeping them, and that no man can be His disciple who does not imitate Him in self-denial and the bearing of His cross. Speaking and hearing striking things of God s law and will, beautiful and affectionate things of our Lord, are very easy indeed compared to the doing of His word and His will, to the carrying of His cross.
Hard things coming to us through God s ever-blessed providence, permissive or positive, when supernaturally borne, are the great high road to perfection and love as well as the test- proof of both. Our Lord seems to preach this when, being told that " His mother and brethren stood without seeking Him," He answered him that told Him, saying, " Whosoever shall do the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother, and sister, and mother." When He wished to give evidence to all men and all time of His love for God, He gives it in His obedience to the word and will of His Father, the hardest, the most trying, the most suffering, the most terrible, ever imposed upon man. For did He not say at the Last Supper : " That
all men may know that I love the Father, and
28
218 CARDINAL FRANZELIN
as the Father hath given Me commandment, so do I. Arise, let us go hence." Go hence where and for what ? To meet and embrace His passion, and to bear it silently, sweetly, patiently, and resignedly to the end ; to drink without even a look of distaste and to the dregs, the bitter chalice which His Father gave Him ; and at last to lovingly commend His spirit into those very hands which " had struck Him for the sins of His people," struck Him on to death. Keeping this unfailing test of real perfection and love in mind, is there any priest or religious who has come much in contact with souls but must admit, not in mock pharisaical humility, but in very truth, that he has met with some persons living in the world far holier than himself? There is one at least who could safely give an affirmative answer to this question.
As God does not command impossibilities, a perfection divine after the manner and like ness of God is not only possible to fallen man, but it is the dignity and the nobility which he is bound to ambition and to secure. It is not only possible, but in a true sense easy, because God, in His infinite mercy, tenderness, and compassion, came Himself to make it so. He
CONCLUSION 219
came Himself in our lowly nature, " in all things like to us, without sin," " tried even as we are," and " learning" obedience in suffering," the great High Priest who sanctified Himself for His brethren. He is the power of holiness and perfection by the grace He won for us at such cost to Himself, and He is the exemplar and pattern of holiness and perfection to all men by His example. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life ; and no one can come home to the Father except through Him. "To us," writes the inspired apostle, " there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto Him, and our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him." Our Lord said to His apostles, and through them to His Church of all time : "As the Father hath sent me, I send you " to do what ? to reconcile and bring home all men perishing and lost to the Father.
His grace is the power and His life the model of holiness. We know the latter, for He lives " the seen of men " in the New Testament ; and we can get the former by rightly asking for it.
So did Cardinal Franzelin. From the beginning, without a break, to the end he
220 CARDINAL FRANZELIN
most carefully used the means by which he kept his soul filled with the grace of God through Jesus Christ, who is the Life, and in the light and strength of this power he made himself like to his divine exemplar. He lived and walked and worked after the manner of Him who is the Way and the Truth. " He did all things well," even to the drinking of the bitter chalice which his Father gave him.
His life suggests the thought that he carried his baptismal robe without stain to the judg ment seat of God. His brother cardinals seemed to think that the masses said by them on his death were not needed by him, but went in their fruit to the souls in purgatory. May we not therefore think, if not believe, that he who here, though through a glass in a dark manner," looked with more than ordinary in sight and clearness into the nature of God One and Three, and into the nature of His Divine Son in the flesh and in the adorable Sacra ment and Sacrifice, and taught others to do so, now "face to face" intercedes with more than ordinary power intercedes for the Church and the Society of Jesus, both of which he loved, honoured, and glorified, and for his old
CONCLUSION 221
scholars, with whom his name is a sacred and treasured memory, and who owe more than words could tell to the perfection of his teaching and to the perfection of his example ? May he do so for one of them who has had in life no sweeter labour, no greater pleasure, than to place this tribute, poor though it be, with grateful, loving, and reverent hand on his tomb.
THE END
M. H. GII.L AND SON, DUBLIN.
PUBLISHED + WORKS
OF
His EMINENCE CARDINAL FRANZELIN, s.j.
TREATISE DE DIVINA TRADITIONE ET SCRIPTURA. DE DEO UNO SECUNDUM NATURAM.
DE DEO TRINO SECUNDUM PERSONAS. DE VERBO INCARNATO.
,, DE SACRAMENTIS IN GEN ERE.
,, DE SS. EUCHARISTI.-E SACRAMENTO ET
SACRIFICIO.
,, DE ECCLESIA.
,, ON THE GENUINENESS OF THE VERSE OF ST.
JOHN, " TRES SUNT QUI TESTIMONIUM
DA NT IN CCELO" ETC.
EXAMINATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF MACARIUS, RUSSIAN
SCHISMATICAL B IS HOP, AND OF JOSEPH LANG EN
OF BONN, DE PROCESSIONE SPIRITUS SANCTI.
WALSH, Nicholas.
John Baptist Franzelin.
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