In the year 1619 our Blessed Father went to Paris where he remained for
eight or nine months. I was there at the same time, having been summoned
for the Advent and Lent sermons.
Many pious persons came to consult him on their spiritual concerns, and
thus gave him the opportunity of observing the variety of methods employed
by God to draw souls to Himself, and also the different ways in which His
Priests guide and direct these same souls.
Among others, he told me of two priests celebrated for their preaching, and
who also applied themselves most zealously to the administration of the
Sacrament of Penance. Both were faithful servants of God and exemplary in
the discharge of their functions, but yet so different in their methods of
direction, that they almost seemed to oppose one another, though both had
the one single aim in view, namely, to promote the service and the glory of
God, "One of them," said the Saint, "is severe and almost terrible in his
preaching. He proclaims the judgments of God like the very trump of doom.
In his special devotions, too, he speaks of nothing but mortifications,
austerities, constant self-examination and such like exercises. Thus,
by the wholesome fears with which he fills the minds of his penitents,
he leads them to an exact observance of God's law, and to an anxious
solicitude for their own salvation. He does not harass them with scruples,
and yet keeps them in a marvellous state of subjection.
"The effect of his direction is that God is greatly feared and dreaded by
them, that they fly from sin as from a serpent, and that they earnestly
practise virtue. This divine fear is coupled with a high esteem for their
Director, and a friendship for him, holy indeed, but so strong and vehement
that it seems to these souls as though, were they to lose their guide, they
must needs go astray.
"The other Director leads souls to God by quite a different path. His
sermons are always on the love of God. He inculcates the study of virtue
rather than the hatred of vice. He makes his penitents love virtue more
because it pleases God, than because it is itself worthy of love, and he
makes them hate vice more because it displeases God than because of the
sufferings which it brings upon those who are slaves to it.
"The effect of this direction is to make souls conceive a love for God
that is great, pure and disinterested; also a great affection for their
neighbour for the love of God; while, as for their sentiments towards their
Director, they approach him with reverential awe, beholding God in him and
him in God, having no affection for his person beyond that due to all our
fellow-men."
Our Blessed Father never told me the name of this Director, nor even gave
me the slightest hint as to who he was, and I therefore sought no further
explanation, contenting myself with admiring the ways of God and His
various desires for the good of the souls whom He calls to His service. I
became penetrated, too, with the conviction that by many different routes
we can reach one and the same goal. _Let every spirit praise the Lord_.