The chapter you MUST read from "The Soul of the Apostolate"

 Importance of the Formation of “Shock Troops” and of Spiritual Direction

Jean-Baptiste Chautard, O.C.S.O

"Returning once more to that striking conversation with Father Timon-David,68 surely, the reader must have been struck by one of the words that fell from the lips of that experienced founder of good works. I refer to the vivid metaphor of “crutches,” with which the Canon summed up his opinion on the use of various modern amusements (like plays, bands, movies, complicated and expensive games, and so on) to attract youths to their clubs and keep them there. These attractions more often than not serve only to wear everybody out, and leave all listless and depressed, instead of resting and expanding the soul. Or else they merely cater to physical health, or flatter vanity, or overstimulate the imagination and the emotions. For the rest, the term “crutches” in no way supplies to those refreshing though extremely simple games which relax the soul and strengthen the body, and which have been found sufficient by so many generations of Christians.89 If one were to make a comparison between the advice of this extremely prudent

Canon with that of other able leaders of Catholic Action, without quite seeing his correct meaning, one might well wonder if he was not too sweeping in his enumeration of the cases when “crutches” can be discarded.

Leaving to one side works that are founded chiefly for the relief of bodily ills, we may divide the others into two classes: those which take only carefully selected members, and those which exclude none but the scabby sheep.

But we also assume that even in the latter case, a nucleus of “shock troops” will be formed, youths who will be able, by their fervor, to bring home to the others what the principal aim of the movement is, and to bring all the other members to lead a life that is Christian not merely on the surface, but deep down in the soul. Otherwise, what have we got? “An ordinary social club, run by a priest,” according to the ironical expression of a state-school teacher of great ability who was able to detect, behind the clerical front, just about as many weaknesses as he deplored in those establishments that were beyond the reach of the Church’s influence.

Directors who do not hesitate to reject from their movements members that are clearly incapable of being incorporated into the shock troops, will find the term “crutches” exactly expresses to what an extent they consider as secondary those means that they can well do without, or which they only tolerate with unfeigned repugnance. And as a matter of fact, they do not easily run short of arguments in favor of their viewpoint.

As far as they are concerned, the regeneration of society, and especially of France, can come only as a result of a more intense radiation of the holiness of the Church. It is by this means, they say, rather than by lectures and apologetics that Christianity developed so rapidly in the first centuries of its history, in spite of the power of its enemies, of prejudices of all sorts, and of the general corruption.

They put an end to all argument by an answer like this: Can you quote any fact, just one fact, to show that during that time the Church needed to think up amusements to turn aside the souls she was going to conquer from the filth of pagan shows?

One of these directors of Catholic Action remarked, in allusion to the thirst for money and the infatuation for the films which keep the bulk of the population in our days in a fever of excited craving for enjoyment: “The Panem et Circenses (Bread and Circuses) of the decadent Romans might be translated into modern terms as ‘Relief and Movies.’” Now look at St. Augustine, or St. Ambrose, for example: what a prodigious attraction they exercised over souls! And yet do we ever see them, at any time in their lives, organizing some movement to provide amusements that would make their flock forget the pleasures held out by paganism?

And when St. Philip Neri set out to convert Rome, lukewarm with the spirit of the Renaissance, do we read that he needed any of those “crutches” that so aroused the scorn of Canon Timon-David?

It is very certain that the primitive Church, as we have already hinted, knew how to organize magnificent and numerous shock troops, in the midst of the faithful, and their virtues both struck the pagans with astonishment and excited the admiration of honest souls, even those most prejudiced against Christianity by their principles, their traditions, and their social background. Conversions were the result, even in circles to which no priest had access...."

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You can find the text to the whole book HERE, as well as find where I left off by searching therein for it. It is absolutely of great importance you read at least the whole of the chapter.

The Interior Life: It gives him Joy and Consolation

The following was taken from the book "The Soul of the Apostolate":

It gives him Joy and Consolation

Only a burning and unchangeable love is capable of filling a whole life with sunlight, for it is love that possesses the secret of gladdening the heart even in the midst of great sorrows and crushing fatigue.

Fr. Jean-Baptiste Chautard

The life of an apostolic worker is a tissue of sufferings and hard work. What hours of sadness, anxiety, and gloom await the apostle who has not the conviction that he is loved by Christ – no matter how buoyant his character may be – unless perhaps the demon fowlers make the mirror of human consolations and of apparent success glitter before the simple bird, to draw him into their inextricable nets. Only the man-God can draw from a soul this su.” In the midst of my inmost trials, the Apostle is saying, the summit of my being, like that of Jesus on Gethsemani, tastes a joy that, though it has nothing sensible about it, is so real that , in spite of the agony suffered by my interior self, I would not exchange it for all the joys of the world.

perhuman cry “I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulation

When trials come, or contradiction, humiliation, suffering, the loss of possessions, even the loss of those we love, the soul will accept all these crosses in a far different manner than would have been the case at the beginning of his conversion.

From day to day he grows in charity. His love has nothing spectacular about it, perhaps; the Master may give him the treatment accorded to strong souls and lead him through the ways of an ever more and more profound annihilation or by the path of expiation for himself and for the world. It matters little. Protected by his recollection, nourished by the Holy Eucharist, his love grows without ceasing, and the proof of this growth is to be found in the generosity with which he sacrifices and abandons himself; in the devotedness which urges him to press forward, careless of the difficulty, to find those souls upon whom he is to exercise his apostolate with such patience, prudence, tact, compassion, and ardor as can only be explained by the penetration of the life of Christ in him. Vivit vero in me Christus.

The Sacrament of love must be the Sacrament of Joy. There is no interior soul that is not at the same time a Eucharistic soul, and consequently, one who enjoys inwardly the gift of God, delights in His presence, and tastes the sweetness of the Beloved possessed within the soul and there adored.

The life of the apostolic man is a life of prayer. And the Saint of Ars says: “The life of prayer is the one big happiness on this earth. O marvelous life! The wonder of the union of a soul with God! Eternity will not be long enough to understand this happiness … The interior life is a bath of love, into which the soul may plunge entirely… And there the soul is, as it were, drowned in love… God holds the interior soul the way a mother holds her Baby’s head in her hand, to cover him with kisses and caresses.”

Further our joy is nourished when we contribute to cause the object of our love to be served and honored. The apostle will know all these joys.

Using active works to increase his love, he feels, at the same time, an increase of joy and consolation. A “hunter of souls” – venator animarum – he has the joy of contributing to the salvation of beings that would have been damned, and thus he has the joy of consoling God by giving His souls from whom He would have been separated for eternity. And finally he has the joy of knowing that he thus obtains for himself one of the firmest guarantees of progress in virtue and of eternal glory.

+JMJ+

Why are so many apostolates fruitless?

Dom Chautard

So many enterprises in our time, and yet so often fruitless: why is it that they have not put society back on its feet? Let us admit it once again: they can be counted in far greater numbers than in preceding ages, and yet they have been unable to check the frightful ravages of impiety in the field of family life. Why? Because they are not firmly enough based on the interior life, the Eucharistic life, the liturgical life, fully and properly understood. Leaders of Catholic Action, at the head of these enterprises, have been full of logic, and talent, and even of a certain piety. They have poured forth floods of light, and have managed to introduce some devotional practices: and that, of course, is already something. But because they have not gone back nearly enough to the Source of life, they have not been able to pass on to others that fervor which tempers wills to their great task. Vain have been their attempts to produce that hidden but powerful devotion to the cause, that active ferment working through whole groups of men. Those centers of supernatural attraction for which there is no substitute and which, without noise, unceasingly spread the fire around about them and slowly but surely penetrate all classes of persons with whom they come into contact. These results are beyond such apostles because their life in Christ is too weak.

Taken from: The Soul of the Apostolate

+JMJ+

When will it be the Church’s turn to win a few battles?

Fr. Jean-Baptiste Chautard O.C.S.O

"When we see the repeated victories of our infernal foes, we may well wonder, in our anxiety, where to look for the salvation of our society. When will it be the Church’s turn to win a few battles?  The answer is easy: we can say with Our Lord, “This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting.” It will be our turn when the ranks of the clergy and of the religious orders will have begun to produce a body of mortified men who will make the great splendor of the mystery of the Cross blaze in the eyes of all peoples: and the nations of the earth, seeing, in mortified priests and religious,  how reparation is made for the sins of the world, will also understand the Redemption of the world by the Precious Blood of Jesus and the ages of human history will no longer echo with the terrible anguished cry of our outraged Lord – that cry that will at last have found some to make reparation: “And I sought among them for a man that might set up a hedge, and stand the gap before Me in favor of the land, that I might not destroy it I found none.”

taken from The Soul of the Apostolate

A Happy Feast of the Sacred Heart! 

The interior life is needed when we fall time and time again - Fr. Chautard

Fr. Jean-Baptiste Chautard, O.C.S.O

Taken from the book: "The Soul of the Apostolate"

"If the interior life did nothing more than procure for us the advantage of realizing our incessant danger, it would already be contributing very much to our protection against surprises along our way; for to foresee a danger is half the battle in avoiding it. And yet the inner life has an even greater utility than merely this. It becomes, the man engaged in the ministry, a complete set of armor (Eph 6: 11-17). It is a divine armor which permits him not only to resist the temptations and avoid the snares set before him by the devil, but also to sanctify his every act (“and stand in all things perfect)…

[In those still in pursuit of sanctity], even fervent souls, the supernatural life seems to suffer loss after more or less time spent in exterior occupations. Their less perfect hearts, too preoccupied with the good to be done to their neighbor, to absorbed with a compassion (for the woes to be alleviated) that is not nearly Supernatural enough, seem to send up to God flames less pure, darkened with the smoke of numerous imperfections.

God does not punish this weakness by a decrease of His grace, and does not demand a strict account for these failings, provided there is a serious attempt at vigilance and prayer in the midst of action, and that the soul is ready, when its work is done, to return to Him and rest and regain its strength. This habit of constantly beginning over again, which is necessitated by the combination of the active with the interior life, gives joy to His paternal Heart.

Besides in those who really put up a fight, these imperfections become less and less serious and frequent in proportion as the soul learns to return, tirelessly to Christ, whom we will always find ready to say to us: “Come back to Me, poor panting heart, athirst with the length of the course. Woe and find in these living waters the secret of new energy for other journeys. Withdraw thyself a little from the crowd that is unable to offer thee the nourishment required by they exhausted strength. Come apart and rest a little. In the peace and quiet thou shalt enjoy being with me, not only wilt thou soon recapture thy first vigor, but also wilt though learn how to do more work with less expense of strength. Elias, disheartened, discouraged, found his strength renewed in an instant by a certain mysterious bread. Even so, My apostle, in this enviable task of co-redeemer that it has pleased Me to impose upon thee, I offer the the chance, both by My word, which is all life, and by My grace, that is by My Blood, to direct thy spirit once again towards the horizons of eternity and to renew the pact of friendship between thy heart and Mine. Come I will console thee for the sorrows and decptions of the journey. And thou shalt temper once again the steel of thy resolutions in the furnace of My love. 

Come to me all you that labor and are heavily burdened and I will refresh you (Matt 9:28)."

He knocks, but only you can answer!

+Pray for Peter+

The Importance of a Good Priest for ones Interior Life

Taken from the book:  The Soul of the Apostolate

 by Jean-Baptiste Chautard, O.C.S.O

Source

If the priest is a saint (the saying goes), the people will be fervent; if the priest is fervent, the people will be pious; if the priest is pious, the people will at least be decent. But if the priest is only decent, the people will be godless. The spiritual generation is always one degree less intense in its life than those who beget it in Christ.


 “The good morals and the salvation of the people depend on good pastors. If there is a good priest in charge of the parish, you will soon see devotion flourishing, people frequenting the Sacraments, and honoring the practice of mental prayer. Hence the proverb: like pastor, like Parish. According to this word of Ecclesiasticus (10:2) ‘Those who dwell in the state, take after their ruler (St. Alphonsus, Homo Apost., 7:16)