Fr. Basil W. Maturin - Spiritual Guidelines for Souls Seeking God

Fr. Basil W. Maturin

Spiritual Guidelines
for
Souls Seeking God

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS
Manchester, New Hampshire

Copyright 2016 by John L. Barger

Spiritual Guidelines for Souls Seeking God was formerly published under the title Some Principles and Practices of the Spiritual Life (London: Longmans, Green, 1896). This 2017 edition by Sophia Institute Press includes minor revisions to eliminate anachronisms and other anomalies and to identify sources of the quotations cited.

Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Perceptions Design Studio.

On the cover: Chapter House ceiling (completed 1186) at York Minster (91094684), copyright Phil MacD Photography / Shutterstock.com.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture passages in this book are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Maturin, B. W. (Basil William), 1847-1915, author.

Title: Spiritual guidelines for souls seeking God / Fr. Basil W. Maturin.

Other titles: Some principles and practices of the spiritual life

Description: Manchester, New Hampshire : Sophia Institute Press, 2017. |

Originally published under title: Some principles and practices of the

spiritual life : London : Longmans, Green, 1896.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016046608 | ISBN 9781622823581 (pbk. : alk. paper) ePub ISBN 9781622823598

Subjects: LCSH: Spiritual life. | Spiritual life Catholic Church. |

Beatitudes. | Virtues.

Classification: LCC BV4501.3 .M2885 2017 | DDC 248.4/82 dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046608

Contents

Chapter 1

Cultivate the Virtues That Underlie Holiness

Besides the general effort that every Christian must make to do what is right and to keep from what is wrong, it is important that he should have some special and definite aim that will help to keep him from dissipating his strength.

The end of the Christian life is, of course, holiness , but holiness is rather an indefinite thing to beginners, and it may manifest itself in many forms. And those who would attain to holiness must begin as they are, with their many sins and imperfections and ignorances, and work toward an end that becomes clearer as they advance and yet ever more difficult of attainment.

Indeed, they have to work toward an end that at first they cannot see, for only as the eye of the soul becomes purified does it get to see clearly what holiness means and how imperfect were its first conceptions of it.

It is a good thing, therefore, to concentrate our efforts, to be definite in our aim, to set before ourselves clearly some one purpose, some special virtue to strive after, on the attainment of which we shall have advanced considerably toward holiness of life.

Now, there are two kinds of virtues that we may seek. First, there are particular virtues that may counteract certain specific evil tendencies of the soul and help to overcome individual sins. The acquirement of these virtues is, of course, essential to the advancement of all. One may need to conquer sloth by diligence, or pride by humility, or irritability by patience; but this does not necessarily lead the soul to its end; it needs more than this. One may overcome certain individual sins and never go further or even aim at holiness.

There are, therefore, other more comprehensive virtues that involve in their acquisition much more than merely any one virtue or grace and that lead on definitely and directly to holiness of life. Such virtues cannot be gained, in any degree, without a very manifest growth in holiness; for they attack not merely one sin but the root of all the sin that is in us. In proportion as we acquire them, sin loses its hold upon our whole system: its vigor flags. The old man loses strength because the new man grows stronger; the sun rises over the whole being, the ice-bound nature thaws, and all the seeds of the new life begin to bud and blossom.

There are some people who seem never to get beyond the attack on individual sins and the aim after particular virtues. They do not get a large and comprehensive view of the ailments of their nature or perceive in what its perfection consists: they attack, so to speak, each separate symptom of their disease but they have never made a diagnosis of their state and attacked that which is the cause of all these different symptoms. They resemble the man in the Gospel who asked our Lord, Which is the greatest commandment in the law? as though each commandment stood separate and disconnected from all the others, and as if a person might set himself to keep one perfectly to the neglect of all the others.

The observance of the Law as a whole seems scarcely to have occurred to him as a possibility, for he did not perceive that the details of the Decalogue were the expression in various relations of one great and comprehensive principle.

So our Lord answers him by showing him that the only way to observe them was by striving after the principle that underlay them all. He says: You will never be able to keep the commandments if your aim is to observe them one by one. The spirit that underlies them all is love; strive after that, and you will find that in proportion as you gain that all-embracing virtue, you are observing all the commandments.

So, on the other hand, St. James says, Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all; that is to say, by the deliberate violation of one of the commandments, one shows himself in antagonism to the spirit and principle of the moral law.

Our aim, therefore, should be to strive after those more comprehensive virtues that involve the spirit of holiness and bring in their train a multitude of graces, although this will, of course, necessitate the constant wrestling with individual sins. But it involves more: it involves a positive rather than a negative life. Its method is to aim at a spirit that necessarily protects one from sin.

We do not wish to develop a merely colorless character of which it can be said that it does not display any marked or definite faults. We want to develop a character, on the contrary, that is marked and definite; that shines with bright virtues; that puts itself forth in action, strong and vigorous. We have not in any way got near a definition of God when we say He is not unjust, or cruel, or evil.

God is love and holiness.

And it is the same with man: he is not to be content with eliminating, one after another, those evident faults that disfigure his character. He has done nothing toward a holy life until his character can be defined in positive rather than in negative terms; in stating what he is rather than what he is not . The wise physician sets himself, not merely to cure one ailment or another but to build up the constitution with a vigorous health, strong enough to resist the attacks of disease.

And the soul will do this by building up its spiritual life on principles that undermine all the evil that is in it by developing such virtues that bring it face-to-face with God, such virtues that strike at the root of sin.

It is possible to set oneself to fight against his sins and in the struggle never to get out of himself, never to get really nearer to God. It is possible, perhaps more than possible; for the method of struggle sometimes seems to keep people down rather than raise them up.