Spiritual exercises without faith are worthless

Book 2, Chapter 1

-Part 1-

Father Caussade has been putting into words some of the subtleties of the Christian’s spiritual life. I think it is natural to be a little uncomfortable or suspicious when he makes unfamiliar delineations. Objectifying the movements of the Spirit of God within one’s life is an onerous task. To some extent he is trying to map unexplored territory.

Such is the case here, where Father C discusses two phases of a believer’s spirituality:

_{“there is a time when the soul lives in god and a time when god lives in the soul.” (Page 42)}

Language fails us a little bit here. Further, longer reflection on this opening section of Book 2 will affirm the primary point, which is that what he calls God living in the soul is a more excellent way, and that self-abandonment is crucial to this second, superior spiritual position.

We can understand, I think, that Father C prefers the second phase over the first. If, however, we believe the good father is dismissing or discarding the first as unimportant, we are pushing his meaning too far. Phase one is a needed stepping stone – one beyond which the believer should, but might not, pass.

Here it is important to remember that his immediate audience is the Nuns of the Visitation. Their days and their spiritual disciplines were strictly regimented. When Caussade decries these very legitimate disciplines and structures, he does so with the same offense many of us take whenever we believe ritual and props have taken the place of the very spiritual life they were meant to engage and enhance.

Spiritual disciplines or exercises as an end in themselves merely provide a person a regulated religion. They are intended to be a means to the weightier, most excellent way of knowing God. The warning embedded in Caussade’s guidance here is similar to the one that Jesus presented to the Pharisees. Caussade says:

_{“when the soul lives in god it takes trouble regularly to furnish itself with all the means it can think of in order to attain to union with him. all its paths are marked out, its reading, its examination of conscience; its guide is ever at its side – everything is regulated, even its times for talking.” (Page 42)}

Jesus spoke against the Pharisees because their regulations were lifeless, out of balance and did not bring them closer to God. For example: “Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay your tithe of mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the Law – justice, mercy, good faith! These you should have practiced, those not neglected. You blind guides straining out gnats and swallowing camels” (Matthew 23:23, 24).

Notice here that Jesus neither discards the Law, nor dismisses the detail to which the Pharisees attempted to follow it. Rather, he finds the Pharisees guilty of neglecting the weightier things.

Keenly aware of the bells, the schedules and the rigors of monastic life, Caussade is willing to state that these lighter things fade away when one becomes aware that God lives in the soul. Religious rigors can become just so much potty training after one discovers in his soul the reality of God living there.

In our experience we may have seen a church filled with sincere people who attend services regularly and try to be good neighbors, but their religion does not take them to Jesus the Savior through whom we enter into this abiding relationship with God. They are trying to behave, but they have omitted the faith as it was handed down to us.

Kierkegaard said, "Faith, beckoning, offers to be man's companion on life's way, but turns to stone the impudent who turn about impudently to grasp it." (Works of Love, Page 27)

Just two quick examples here: When in college, my friend Randy Raver and I spoke with a woman who had gone to church all of her life and considered herself a religious person, a Christian. She did not, however, believe that Jesus rose from the grave. This left quite a hole in her creed.

Years later, as a pastor of a small church, I was on one occasion gently challenged by a man in our church who commented, in amazement, “You seem to actually believe what you are saying.” His creed, too, was tattered.

A structure to support the forces of the life within is what Caussade is going for here. This is why he makes the beautiful comparison of God living in the soul as being like the healing work of Christ when the woman touched the hem of his garment (Mark 5:25ff). The movements of the spirit of such a one are hidden and do not take on the appearances of greatness. Still, they have an immeasurable impact.