"Do not deceive yourself," he once said to me, "people may be very devout,
and at the same time very wicked." "But," I said, "they are then surely
not devout, but hypocrites!" "No, no," he answered, "I am speaking of true
devotion." As I was quite unable to solve this riddle, I begged him to
explain it to me, which he did most kindly, and, if I can trust my memory,
more or less as follows:
"Devotion is of itself and of its own nature a moral and acquired virtue,
not one that is supernatural and infused, otherwise it would be a
theological virtue, which it is not. It is then a virtue, subordinate to
that which is called Religion, and according to some is only one of its
acts;[1] as religion again is subordinate to one of the four cardinal
virtues, namely justice. Now you know that all the moral virtues, and even
the theological ones of faith and hope, are compatible with mortal sin,
although become, as it were, shapeless and dead, being without charity,
which is their form, their soul, their very life. For, if one can have
faith so great as to be able to move mountains, without charity, and yet,
precisely because charity is absent, be utterly worthless and wicked; if it
is possible to be a true prophet and yet a bad man, as were Saul, Balaam,
and Caiphas; to work miracles as Judas is believed to have done, and yet to
be sinful as he was; if we can give all our goods to the poor, and suffer
martyrdom by fire, without having charity, much more may we be devout
without being charitable, since devotion is a virtue less estimable in
its nature than those which we have mentioned. You must not then think it
strange when I tell you that it is possible to be devout and yet wicked,
since we may have faith, mercy, patience, and constancy to the extent of
which I have spoken, and yet, with all that be stained with many deadly
vices, such as pride, envy, hatred, intemperance, and the like."
"What then," I asked, "is a truly devout man?" He answered: "I tell you
again that, though in sin, one may be truly devout. But such devotion,
though a virtue, is dead, not living," I rejoined: "But how can this dead
devotion be real?" "In the same way," he replied, "as a dead body is a real
body, soulless though it be." I rejoined: "But a dead body is not really a
man." He answered: "It is not a true man, whole and perfect, but it is the
true body of a man, and the body of a true man though dead. Thus, devotion
without charity is true, though dead and imperfect. It is true devotion
dead and shapeless, but not true devotion living and fully formed. It
is only necessary to draw a distinction between the words, _true_, and
_complete_ or _perfect_, which is done so clearly by St. Thomas,[2] in
order to find the solution of your difficulty. He who possesses devotion
without charity has _true_, but not _perfect_ or _complete_ devotion; in
him who has charity, devotion is not only true but perfect. By charity he
becomes good, and by devotion devout; losing charity he loses supernatural
goodness and becomes sinful or bad, but does not necessarily cease to be
devout. This is why I told you that one could be devout and yet wicked.
So also by mortal sin we do not necessarily lose faith or hope, except we
deliberately make an act of unbelief or of despair."
He had expressed a somewhat similar idea in the first chapter of his
Philothea, though I had not then noticed it. These are his words:
"Devotion is nothing more than a spiritual agility and vivacity, helped
by which charity acts more readily; or better, helped by which we more
readily elicit acts of charity. It belongs to charity to make us keep God's
commandments, but it belongs to devotion to make us keep them promptly and
diligently. This is why he who does not observe all the commandments of God
cannot be considered either good or supernaturally devout, since in order
to be good we must have charity, and to be devout we must have besides
charity great alertness and promptitude in doing charitable actions."[3]
In another of his books, speaking to Theotimus, he says:
"All true lovers of God are equal in this, that all give their heart to
God, and with all their strength; but they are unequal in this, that they
give it diversely and in different manners, whence some give all their
heart, with all their strength, but less perfectly than others. This
one gives it all by martyrdom; this, all by virginity; this, all by the
pastoral office; and whilst all give it all by the observance of the
commandments, yet some give it with less perfection than others."[4]
We must remember that true devotion cannot be restricted to the practice of
one virtue only; we must employ all our powers in the worship and service
of God. One of the chief maxims of Blessed Francis was that the sort of
devotion which is not only not a hindrance but actually a help to us in our
legitimate calling is the only true one for us, and that any other is false
for us. He illustrates this teaching to Philothea by saying that devotion
is like a liquid which takes the shape of the vessel into which it is put.
He even went further, boldly declaring that it was not simply an error but
a heresy to exclude devotion from any calling whatever, provided it be a
just and legitimate one. This shows the mistake of those who imagine that
we cannot save our souls in the world, as if salvation were only for the
Pharisee, and not for the Publican, nor for the house of Zaccheus. This
error which approaches very nearly to that of Pelagius, makes salvation to
be dependent on certain callings, as though the saving of our souls were
the work of nature rather than of grace. Our Blessed Father supports his
teaching in this matter by many examples, proving that in every condition
of life we may be holy and may consequently save our souls, and arrive at a
very high degree of glory.
He concludes by saying: "Some even have been known to lose perfection
in solitude, which is often so helpful for its attainment, and to have
regained it in a busy city life which seems to be so unfavourable to it.
Wherever we are, we can and ought to aspire to the perfect life."
[Footnote 1: S. Thomas 2a, 2ae, Quaest, lxxxi., art. 2.]
[Footnote 2: 2a, 2ae, Quaest, lxxxii. to lxxxviii.]
[Footnote 3: _The Devout Life_, Part i., chap. 1.]
[Footnote 4: Book x., chap. 3.]