3 December, Antonio, Cardinal Bacci: Meditations For Each Day

Recollection

1. The Holy Spirit places the following words on the lips of the prophet Jeremias. “With desolation is all the land made desolate, because there is none that considereth in the heart.” (Jer. 12:11) Dissipation is the mark of the worldly and of the mediocre. The worldling is dissipated because instead of seeking happiness in God he looks for it in earthly pleasures and even in sin. The mediocre Christian, on the other hand, oscillates between God and the world. He fails to make a definite choice between virtue and sacrifice on one side and his own comfort and satisfaction on the other.

The dissipated soul is absorbed in many things and has no time to reflect on the eternal truths or to think of God and of spiritual progress. As a result, it is incapable of solid virtue, or if it achieves this for a while it soon evaporates. God does not speak to the dissipated, but only to the recollected. The man who is recollected retires silently into the presence of God whenever he can. He derives consolation from conversation with God and responds generously to His inspirations. The man who is dissipated wastes the graces which God gives him, is deaf to His appeals, and because he is too much in contact with material things ends by forgetting Heaven and by being drawn by His passions towards spiritual destruction. By depriving us of God's grace, dissipation leads to sin and to the death of the soul. Have we not had personal experience of this?

2. There is a perfect picture of the spiritual and recollected man in “The Imitation of Christ.”

"The man of interior life soon recollecteth himself, because he never wholly poureth forth himself upon exterior things. Exterior labour is no prejudice to him, nor any employment necessary for the time; but as things happen, so he accommodateth himself to them. He who is well disposed and orderly in his interior is not concerned about the strange and perverse doings of men.'' (Bk.II, c. 1,7.)

“The Imitation cf Christ” also contains the following passage on the love of solitude.

"Seek a convenient time to attend to thyself; and reflect often upon the benefits of God to thee. Let curiosities alone. Read such matters as may produce compunction rather than give occupation. If thou wilt withdraw from superfluous talking, and idle visitings, and from hearing new things and rumours, thou wilt find time sufficient and proper to spend in good meditations. The greatest Saints shunned the company of men when they could, and chose rather to live unto God in secret. As often as I have been amongst men, said one, I have returned less a man. This we too often experience when we talk long." (Bk. I, c. 20, 1-2.)

"The cell continually dwelt in groweth sweet," the same chapter continues, "but ill guarded, it begetteth weariness.'' (Bk. 1, c. 20, 5)

3. We may imagine that all this applies only to monks, but that is not so. We all need interior recollection, and we can find it even during our work and in the midst of turmoil and confusion. If we fail to find it, moreover, it is too bad for us, as “The Imitation of Christ” warns us. "Peace is not in the heart of the carnal man, nor in the man who is devoted to outward things, but in the fervent and spiritual man.” (Bk. I, c. 6, 2)

Let us make sure, therefore, that we shall not be distracted by worldly affairs. In the midst of all our occupations let us preserve a spirit of detachment and live in the presence of God. May God be our first thought and our first desire, and may He be the true goal of all our actions.