Clerical Investiture
Rule of Life
Having made up my mind to enter the seminary, I took the prescribed examination. I prepared carefully for that most important day because I was convinced that one’s eternal salvation or eternal perdition ordinarily depends on the choice of a state in life. I asked my friends to pray for me. I made a novena, and on the feast of St Michael (October 1834) I approached the holy sacraments. Before the solemn high Mass Doctor Cinzano, the provost and dean of my region, blessed my cassock and vested me as a cleric.
He instructed me to remove my lay clothing, praying:
May the Lord strip you of your old nature and its deeds.
As he did so, I thought,
Oh, how much old clothing there is to cast off.
My God, destroy in me all my evil habits.
When he put the clerical collar round my neck, he said:
May the Lord clothe you with the new nature,
created after the likeness of God
in true righteousness and holiness.
Deeply moved, I thought to myself,
Yes, Oh my God, grant that at this moment I may put on a new nature. May I henceforth lead a new life in complete conformity with your holy will. May justice and holiness be the constant objects of my thoughts, words, and actions. Amen.
Oh Mary, be my salvation.
After the ceremonies in church, the provost wanted another, more worldly celebration. He brought me to the celebration of St Michael at Bardella (a district of Castelnuovo). He meant well, but I looked on it as a kindness misplaced. I felt like a newly-dressed puppet on public display.
After my weeks of preparation for that long-awaited day, I now found myself sitting down to dinner amongst people of every sort, men and women, who were there to amuse themselves, to laugh and chatter, to eat and drink. These people, for the most part, spent their time in pleasure-seeking, sport, dancing, and amusements of every kind. Could such people, such society ever identify with one who that very morning had put on the robe of holiness to give himself entirely to the Lord?
The provost saw that I was ill at ease. When we got home he asked me why I was so thoughtful and reserved on a day of such public rejoicing. I replied quite frankly that the morning’s ceremony in church contrasted in gender, number, and case with the evening ceremony.
Moreover, I added, seeing priests the worse for drinking and indulging in buffoonery with the guests, aroused in me almost a revulsion for my vocation. Should I ever turn out to be a priest like them, I would prefer to put this habit aside and live poorly as a layman but a good Christian.
That’s the world as it is, answered the provost, and you must take it as you find it. You must see evil if you are to recognise it and avoid it. No one becomes a battle-tried warrior without learning how to handle arms. So must we do, who are engaged in continual war against the enemy of souls.
I kept quiet then, but in my heart I said,
I will never again attend public festivals,
unless obliged because of religious ceremonies.
After that day I had to pay attention to myself. The style of life I had lived up to then had to be radically reformed. My life in the past had not been wicked, but I had been proud and dissipated, given over to amusements, games, acrobatics, and other such things. These pursuits gave passing joy, but did not satisfy the heart.
I drew up a fixed rule of life. To impress it more vividly on my memory, I wrote up the following resolutions:
1. For the future I will never take part in public shows during fairs or at markets. Nor will I attend dances or the theatre, and as far as possible I will not partake of the dinners usual on such occasions.
2. I will no longer play games of dice or do conjuring tricks, acrobatics, sleight of hand, tightrope walking. I will give up my violin-playing and hunting. These things I hold totally contrary to ecclesiastical dignity and spirit.
3. I will love and practise a retiring life, temperance in eating and drinking. I will allow myself only those hours of rest strictly necessary for health.
4. In the past I have served the world by reading secular literature. Henceforth I will try to serve God by devoting myself to religious reading.
5. I will combat with all my strength everything, all reading, thoughts, conversations, words, and deeds contrary to the virtue of chastity. On the contrary, I will practise all those things, even the smallest, which contribute to preserving this virtue.
6. Besides the ordinary practices of piety, I will never neglect to make a little meditation daily and a little spiritual reading.
7. Every day I will relate some story or some maxim advantageous to the souls of others. I will do this with my companions, friends, relatives, and when I cannot do it with others, I will speak with my mother.
These are the resolutions which I drew up when I took the clerical habit. To fix them firmly on my mind, I went before an image of the Blessed Virgin and, having read them to her, I prayed and made a formal promise to my heavenly benefactress to observe them no matter what sacrifice it cost.