By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
Spiritual Handbook for Catholic Evangelists: How to Win Souls Without Losing Your Own, by Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard (Sophia Institute Press, 192 pages, Amazon paperback and Kindle).
This is a new version of an old spiritual classic, originally written about a century ago, but still valid for today’s Church, and particularly for those involved in evangelization.
The main thesis of the author, a French Trappist monk, is that those involved in a life of active evangelism must develop an interior life of prayer if they are to have any success, and that in fact their active life must be founded on a solid interior life.
For Dom Chautard, it is the interior life which makes fruitful the works of the active life, and to this end he provides guidance as to how best to live this interior life, principally through daily mental prayer and Eucharistic devotion.
The author sees the object of the works of the active apostolate as threefold — first to win souls for Christ, second to ensure the spiritual welfare of the apostles themselves, and third to act in such a way as to please God.
A point that he makes very strongly is that the evangelist should fully understand that it is his or her job to transmit the divine life of Christ, to act as a channel for grace, and not imagine that they can do anything of value on their own.
To do that they have to nurture the life of Christ within them. The more we live the life of Christ the more powerful and spiritually fruitful our external actions will be. This is done by cultivating purity of heart — which involves constant recourse to God in prayer, so that we grow in virtue — and generosity of life.
As an example of this, he points to St. Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine Order, who, according to St. Gregory the Great, his biographer, “lived within himself.” That is, he wasn’t governed by external circumstances, but was in control of his imagination and feelings, in full submission to the will of God.
For St. Gregory, this type of life was arduous — since it involved the hard work of resisting our vices, but at the same time it was the most consoling life possible on Earth.
Dom Chautard sums all this up by saying. “The aim of those determined to live an interior life is to strive with all their energy constantly to govern themselves and their surroundings, so as to act in all things for the glory of God.”
For him, this can only be done by remaining constantly united with Christ, and this “intimate, generous, and humble union of our soul to God can be effected only by means of mental prayer.”
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, those engaged in active evangelization shouldn’t imagine that they are dispensed from the contemplative life, because in fact the two work together, and in reality, the contemplative life is more important. If an evangelist forgets that, then he is on the road to tepidity and worldliness, and the same is true of those who engage in apostolic works from motives of selfishness.
As Pope St. Pius X said, “Without the interior life the necessary strength will be wanting for perseverance,” and “all those who participate in the Apostolate must possess genuine piety.”
In addition, St. John of the Cross had taught centuries before this that it was far more useful for the Church for active workers to devote time to prayer and the exercises of the interior life than to unceasing activity. In particular he said: “Without mental prayer, all they do amounts to mere noise . . . effecting usually nothing good, or even doing harm.”
Another quality which is essential for an evangelist is the virtue of humility, both for their own personal growth in holiness, and for the success of their ministry. And like Christ, they should be meek, since as St. Francis de Sales said, “We can catch more flies with a little honey than with a barrel of vinegar.”
There also needs to be a certain amount of mortification in the life of an evangelist, especially as they are having to deal with a world given over to love of pleasure and enjoyment.
The evangelist, then, if he or she wants to do work which is truly spiritually fruitful, needs to base his or her life on daily mental prayer, daily Mass where possible, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and recourse to the Blessed Virgin. Without those foundations, their words, however eloquent they might be in natural terms, will not have any real interior spiritual power.
It’s also necessary to have an interior life if we want our work to have lasting results, if we are to really come across in a Christ-like way, to show Christ in our life, to other people. One of the principal ways by which this can be done is for the evangelist to live a Eucharistic life — that is, to have the Blessed Sacrament as the focus of his life. This was why Pope Pius X encouraged frequent and even daily Communion.
Custody Of The Heart
And equally, Dom Chautard laid a great deal of emphasis on the importance of daily mental prayer, since this is one of the principal ways by which an evangelist/apostle can sanctify themselves, and thus fulfill their desire to sanctify others.
To this end he maintained that they had to make a very firm resolution to make mental prayer every morning. He goes so far as to describe this as the “keystone of the arch of our spiritual edifice and the principal means of securing God’s blessings on our apostolic labors.” He also said that, “the most indispensable means for forming our interior life after Jesus, our Model, is mental prayer faithfully practiced.”
Without this, there is a great danger of lapsing into tepidity, or worse. He acknowledges that mental prayer is hard work, but the effort of devoting at least half an hour every morning to it will lead over time to a closer union with Christ. Mental prayer well-made prepares us for the day, makes our participation at Mass more fruitful, and helps to make everything we do a means of becoming more united to God.
Dom Chautard also laid emphasis on custody of the heart, which he described as an “essential requisite for the apostolate.” It requires us to perform all our actions with a pure intention. As he says, “The custody of the heart requires a certain degree of recollection. [But] by frequent exercise it becomes a habit.”
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 2849), in connection with the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “And lead us not into temptation,” this “custody of the heart” is described as a vigilance of the heart in communion with Christ’s.
The final chapters deal with the priest’s liturgical life and the necessity of devotion to Mary for every priest, but the ordinary reader can also benefit from some of the advice given in them.
The language of this book is from an earlier time, but the reader shouldn’t allow that to put them off, as there is much solid material here which has not lost its value.
In sum, the Spiritual Handbook for Catholic Evangelists, is surely a book that anyone involved in promoting the Gospel will find very helpful.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian Apparitions, and maintains a related website at www.theotokos.org.uk. He has also a written two time-travel/adventure books for young people — details can be found at: http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk/.)
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