Out of many [things] I will note a few briefly. And first, from the first question, we see [that] which the Apostle teaches (1 Cor. 10): [that] “God makes, together with the temptation, an outcome [a way out]” (1 Cor. 10:13). [It] happens not rarely, that where the greatest forces of the flesh, the world, and the devil — [and] the most dangerous battle-lines of all kinds of temptations — were thought [to be] drawn up and armed against us, there, by divine providence, [there] is nothing of enemies: no, or small and few, temptations exist [there]; and thus, beyond [our] expectation, by an easy task and by divine help, we obtain and penetrate the [things] which seemed quite arduous and inaccessible. For instance, in the hour of death, how many does the Lord preserve from the heavier and more troublesome assaults of the demons? In the Religious life, from how many does he take away every appearance, as it were, of enemies, and all sense of all difficulties, so that — glad and tranquil always, even from youth — they bear the yoke of the Lord? From how many — striving toward barbarous nations to announce CHRIST to them, [or] approaching heretics and sinners to persuade them to repentance — does he remove, take away, and scatter all impediments and perils? So also in other [cases] — so that we ought deservedly to be most-persuaded of that [word] (Matt. 10 v. 19): “When they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak. For [it] shall be given you in that hour what you shall speak. For [it] is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father, who speaks in you.” The book of the Soliloquies, which [is] in the volume of St. Augustine (ch. 15): “I know,” he says, “O Lord, and confess — thou teaching [me] — that those only who know themselves [to be] poor, and confess to thee their poverty, shall be enriched by thee; because those who reckon themselves rich, when they are poor, shall be found excluded from thy riches. I therefore confess to thee, O Lord my God, my poverty; and let all the glory be thine, because thine is every good [thing] done through me. O Lord, I confess — as thou hast taught me — [that] I am nothing else than utter vanity, and the shadow of death, and a certain dark abyss, and an empty and void earth, which without thy blessing does not sprout, nor bears fruit, except confusion, sin, and death. If ever I had anything of good, I received [it] from thee; whatever of good I have, is thine, or I have [it] from thee. If ever I stood, through thee I stood; if ever I fell, through myself I fell; and I would always have lain in the mud, hadst thou not raised me up; I would always have been blind, hadst thou not enlightened me. When I fell, I would never have risen, hadst thou not stretched out thy hand to me. After thou hadst even raised me up, I would always have fallen [again], hadst thou not sustained me; I would more often have perished, hadst thou not governed me. So always, O Lord — so always [may] thy grace and thy mercy—
(col. 479 — left column; printed “486”)
—[so always may thy grace and mercy] come before me, freeing me from all evils, saving [me] from the past, rousing [me] from the present, and fortifying [me] against the future; cutting off even before me the snares of sins, taking away [their] occasions and causes: because, unless thou hadst done this too for me, I would have committed all the sins of the world. For I know, O Lord, that [there] is no sin which [some] man has [n]ever done, [and] which another man could not do, if the Creator, by whom man was made, be lacking. But what I did not do, thou didst [it]; that I should abstain, thou didst command; and that I should believe thee, thou didst pour in grace. For thou, O Lord, wast ruling me for thyself, keeping me for thyself; and to me — that I might not commit adultery, and every other sin — thou gavest grace and light. The tempter was absent, and that he might be absent, thou didst [it]; place and time were lacking, and that these should be lacking, thou didst [it]. The tempter was present, place was not lacking, time was not lacking; but that I should not consent, thou didst hold me. The tempter came, dark as he is, and that I should despise him, thou didst strengthen me. The tempter came, armed and strong; and that he should not conquer me, thou didst curb him, and didst strengthen me. The tempter came, transfigured into an angel of light; and that he should not deceive me, thou didst rebuke him; and that I should recognize him, thou didst enlighten me.”
2. From the second question: when [one] has come to the heavenly fatherland, how great and how delightful [are] the greetings of that most blessed soil? What embraces, what kisses? For what is to be thought [of] there, if — while still on the bank of this life — with so great affection these [things] are said by the cited author of the Soliloquies (ch. 35)? “O our fatherland, secure fatherland, from afar we see thee. From this sea we greet thee; from this valley we sigh toward thee, and strive with tears [to find] whether in any way we may come to thee. O hope of the human race, Christ, God from God, our refuge and strength — whose light, from afar, amid the dark mists, above the storms of the sea, like the star of the sea, [its] ray shines upon our eyes, that we may be steered toward thee [as our] harbor. Steer thou, O Lord, our ship with thy right hand, by the tiller of thy cross, lest we perish in the waves, lest the storm of the water sink us, lest the deep swallow us up; but by the power of thy cross draw us from this open sea to thee, our only comfort — [thee] whom, from afar, as [it were] the morning star and the sun of justice, with scarcely-restrained weeping eyes we see awaiting us on the shore of the heavenly fatherland. Behold, to thee we cry, thy redeemed — but now also thy exiles, whom thou hast redeemed with [thy] precious blood. Hear us, O God our Saviour, hope of all the ends of the earth, and in the sea afar. In a turbulent sea we are tossed; thou, standing on the shore, beholdest our perils: make us safe for thy name’s sake. Grant us, O Lord, between Scylla and Charybdis so to hold the middle, that — both perils being avoided — with ship safe and with [our] wares secure, we may arrive at the harbor.” So also, after — through baptism, or the tears of penance — we have come to the Church, to a religious state of life, to the soul’s solid and longed-for tranquillity, [it] is permitted to be filled at times with a holy joy, and to rouse ourselves with various exclamations to various [things].
But 3. From the third question: that [is] most greatly and necessarily to be done — that to God himself, whose grace and kindness has brought us across, we say a greeting and constant thanks, as [did] those who said (Apoc. 5 v. 13): “To him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb, [be] blessing, and honor, and glory, and dominion, forever and ever, Amen.”
4. From the fourth. After the river of baptism and penance, [one] must not stand idly on the bank, but must go on—
(col. 480 — right column; printed “487”)
—further, and advance in the way of the commandments of God — by reaching ourselves out toward the [things] before, and forgetting the [things] behind [Phil. 3:13].
5. But in this journey our leader, whom we are to follow, must be the ark of the Lord — his law and will — [and] also his priests and ministers; and those who, against the ambushes and assaults of the demons, in the first times of the Church were most fully armed — the holy Fathers, Martyrs, Confessors; and, in the first place, the most Blessed Virgin herself, who is wont to be called “the ark of the covenant” — by Blessed Justinian of Venice [Lorenzo Giustiniani], in [his] sermon on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, and by others.
6. And, that we may be safer from enemies, we must dwell in the camp of the Catholic Church — which is indeed on the plain of Christian humility, not on the high and lofty mountains of pride and vainglory; and over against Jericho itself — a voluptuous and “lunatic” city, as was said [in] ch. 2 — toward the eastern quarter, that [it] may the more quickly receive the rays of the heavenly Sun; having the Jordan nearest, so that whatever of filth should befall a man may always and quickly be washed off. But of that camp again elsewhere afterward.
7. Does not the march of the Israelites seem a notable procession? Just as there the ark went before, and the whole clergy of that time, so in our Processions today the Cross is carried before, [and] the sacred pyx [theca] of the Eucharist, and the reliquaries [arks] of the holy relics. See my On Processions (bk. 1 ch. 3 and following).
8. In military camps too [it] must be seen to, that for Christian sacred [things] the first and most honorable place be [given].
9. Lastly, [it] must be guarded [against], lest anyone advance rashly into enemy territory, [and] lest, imprudent and bold, he throw himself into the midst of the occasions of sinning. For if anyone — the former vices not [yet] conquered — should seek those dignities or functions in which [there] are various enticements of various sins, does he not — against all military prudence, and against and beyond the example of our Joshua — seem to leave the adversaries behind [his] back, and to summon others in front? This rashness gives [causes] great slaughters daily in the Church. “I have not yet stormed the Jericho of pride, and yet I wish to be advanced thither where [there is] the highest and daily occasion of being proud. I have not yet burned away the citadel of lust with the sacred flame of the Holy Spirit, and yet I wish to deal with women and others who can build up a danger to chastity. The bulwark of anger stands before me firm and whole; yet where [there] is perpetual matter of quarrels, angers, and hatreds, I desire to dwell.” Is not this — to rush out, beyond Jericho, into the midst of the Canaanites, rashly and ignorantly?