CONTEMPLATION OF CHRIST AND OF ONESELF

CONTEMPLATION OF CHRIST AND OF ONESELF

There is nothing like retirement for the soul, if one is occupied with Christ, and not with oneself. Occupation with Christ results in my being more like Him, and more apart from myself. Occupation with myself is like the serpent’s eye, that lures its victim to destruction. The more I am occupied with myself, the more important I make myself in my own eyes, and the more I am interrupting the growth of Christ in me. It is not that I am to be indifferent about my own state, but how am I to judge of it? Is it by feeling and fumbling over everything in the dark, examining the whole case of the patient, without either knowing the state of one in health, or how to produce it; or is it by bringing in One who is the true measure of everything, and who, as He gets place in me, displaces and condemns everything displeasing to Himself? In the latter case there are two things: there is the introduction of One who entirely and transcendingly preoccupies the heart, and who supplies to it, as He does, strength, and fulness of joy; the other is, He repels and rebukes all the lumber and selfishness which He finds in my heart.

Now, when I am occupied with myself, I never get rid of anything, however I may condemn it. All the lumber and incongruities remain as before. I may traverse them dolefully, as one does gravestones, but there they are, and there they remain, registers of sorrow and vexation. I may very truly mourn over them, and afflict myself because of them, but that does not clear my heart of any of them; they meet me at every turn; nay, more, the more my eye rests on them, the more grievous and painful they become to me.

When the stronger comes in, he takes away the goods in which we naturally trusted. The true converse of the heart is with its object, and if I make my own heart the object of my heart, I am like the fool that foldeth his arms, and eateth his own flesh. But if I have Christ in His own place, then the more I am in converse with Him, the more I am capable of being in converse with Him, and the more do I seek to return to it, and to continue it; whereas, in the other case, I am never drawn into it without sorrow.

^[p. 334] I like contemplative souls, but the more contemplative we are, the more we betray what we are occupied with. Is it with myself, or with Him who imparts Himself to me, and exposes and drives away all the noxious weeds which would occupy and damage me? Hence, while the contemplation is most desirable, it is of all importance that there should be a true object before the mind, for whatever the object is will be disclosed in the act.

If Christ be the object of your contemplation, you will find that you really are made ready for acting for Him; whereas, if it is yourself, you will be less and less ready; your gun will be unloaded, and you without energy or inclination for action.

Contemplation with a true object gives a readiness and a power for action; the gun is loaded and ready. But when the object is oneself, one is enervated, inactive, and silenced; the gun is spiked, and the courage gone!