Maxim-ising Our Spiritual Life (7)
An important element of the Exercises of the Oratory — the set of prayers and devotions St Philip devised for his followers — was the reading of the lives of the saints, or spiritual books written by saints. One of the sermons that followed would be based on what was read, or at least, was to contain references and quotations from the saints. In fact, as St Philip tells us this week:
It is very useful for those who minister the word of God, or give themselves up to prayer, to read the works of authors whose names begin with S, such as Saint Augustine, Saint Bernard, &c. (28 August)
Fr Manni, an early Oratorian, says that this is not to learn from the saints “how to work miracles, but how to avoid sin, to submit themselves to the divine law, to bear adversity with fortitude, to hold the world in contempt and to yearn for eternal life.”
The saints are our friends in heaven, who, close as they are to Our Lord in glory, can make intercession for us, asking for the graces we need in this life. But they are also examples for us — not only how to live as faithful disciples, but examples of how God works in men and women to make them holy. They are models for us of lives totally open to grace. And as models and examples they encourage us in our own pilgrimages on earth: after all, if Christ could make saints out of an Augustine or a Jerome, then he can make one out of me.
We do not read the lives of the saints or their writings just for information, no matter how interesting. We read these things to grow in our own relationship with the Lord and to become saints ourselves. Another maxim of St Philip’s states:
To get good from reading the Lives of the Saints and other spiritual books, we ought not to read out of curiosity, or skimmingly, but with pauses; and when we feel warmed, we ought not to pass on, but to stop and follow up the spirit which is stirring in us, and when we feel it no longer then to pursue our reading. (4 August)
The Holy Spirit inspired the saints in their deeds, but also in their thoughts and words. There is holy wisdom, therefore, in such writings, that can inspire us and transform us if we ponder them. The slow reading of Scripture, lectio divina, in which we mull over the words, waiting to see what the Holy Spirit wishes us to take from them, can be used when reading spiritual writings too: not as divine revelation, but as an opportunity we give the Spirit to inflame us with the same fire with which he inflamed the saints. Fr Manni recommended the study of the lives and writings of the saints so that “everyone might be able to say, ‘I have now a thought in my heart which was once in the heart of a saint.’”
We are celebrating the launch of our new edition of St Philip’s Maxims this summer by exploring some of those maxims together each week.