To a Priest whom I know well, and whom our Blessed Father loved much in Our
Lord, he gave most excellent advice, and in a very kindly manner, conveyed
it to him by means of an ingenious artifice.
The Priest was young, and owing to his extreme youth, although he was a
Parish Priest, he dreaded saying Mass often, contenting himself with doing
so on Sundays and holidays.
Our Blessed Father, wishing to lead him to say his Mass every day, devised
this plan. He presented him with a little box covered with crimson satin,
embroidered in gold and silver and studded with pearls and garnets. Before
he actually put it into his hands, however, he said to him, "I have a
favour to ask of you which I am sure you will not refuse me, since it only
concerns the glory of God, which I know you have so much at heart." "I am
at your command," replied the Priest. "Oh, no," said the Bishop, "I am not
speaking to you as one who commands, but as one who requests, and I make
this request in the name and for the love of God, which is our common
watchword." After that, what could the Priest possibly refuse him? His
silence testified his readiness to obey, better than any words could have
done.
Blessed Francis then opening the box showed him that it was quite full of
unconsecrated hosts, and said, "You are a Priest, God has called you to
that vocation, and also to the Pastoral Office in His Church. Would it be
the right thing if an artisan, a magistrate, or a doctor only worked at his
profession one or two days in the week? You have the power to say Holy Mass
every day. Why do you not avail yourself of it?
"Consider that the action of saying Mass is the loftiest, the most august,
of all the functions of religion, the one which renders more glory to God
and more solace to the living and the dead than any other.
"I conjure you, then, by the glory of Him in whom we live and move and have
our being, to approach the Altar every day, and never, except under extreme
necessity, to fail to do so.
"There is nothing, thank God, to prevent your doing this. I know your
soul as well as a soul can be known, and of this you are yourself quite
aware, you who have so frankly unfolded to me the inmost recesses of
your conscience. Far from seeing any impediment, I see that everything
invites you to do what I ask, and that you may so use the daily and
supersubstantial Bread I make you this present, entreating you not to
forget at the holy Altar him who makes you this prayer on the part of God
Himself."
The young Priest was somewhat surprised, and without attempting to evade
the implied rebuke contented himself with submitting to the judgment of the
holy Bishop his secret unworthiness, his youth, his unmortified passions,
his fear of misusing so divine a mystery by not living as they should live
who each day offer it up.
"All this excusing yourself, replied our Blessed Father, is only so much
self-accusing as would appear if I chose to examine your reasons in detail
and weigh them in the scales of the sanctuary. But without entering into
any discussion of them let it suffice that you refer the matter to my
judgment. I tell you then, and in this I think that I have the Spirit of
God, that all the reasons which you bring forward to dispense yourself
from so profitable an exercise of piety are really those which oblige you
to practise it. This holy exercise will ripen your youth, moderate your
passions, weaken your temptations, strengthen your weakness, illuminate
your path, and the very act of practising it will teach you to do so with
greater perfection. Moreover, if the sense of your unworthiness would make
you abstain from it out of humility, as happened to St. Bonaventure, and if
your own unfitness makes the custom of daily celebrating productive in your
soul of less fruit than it should, consider that you are a public person,
and that your flock and your Church have need of your daily Mass. More than
that, you ought to be stimulated and spurred on by the thought that every
day on which you refrain from celebrating you deprive the exterior glory
of God of increase, the Angels of their delight, and the Blessed of a most
special happiness."
The young Priest deferred to this counsel, saying "_Fiat, fiat_," and from
that time for a space of thirty years has never failed to say Mass daily,
even when on long journeys through France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and in
heretical countries. He never failed, I repeat, even under conditions which
seemed to make the saying of Mass impossible.
Such power have remonstrances when tempered with kindness and prudence.
[Footnote 1: Possibly M. Camus himself. [Ed.]]