The Duty of Happiness: Thoughts on Hope

By J. M. Lelen

In this remarkable work, J.M. Lelen attempts to prove that one can attain true happiness by listening to God's call and fulfilling God's desire. Instead of compelling the readers to blindly follow what he says, Lelen gives them hope by telling them to have faith in the Lord and experience pure bliss themselves. The literary touches, the lofty style, and the beautiful quotations from both poetry and prose add to this book's charms.
Lelen was a French American priest and a gifted writer of prayer books throughout his life. His unique way of presenting his views with enthusiasm and articulateness appealed to a large group of readers, including those who were rarely interested in religious texts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: e-artnow
• Release date: May 3, 2022
• ISBN: 4066338124623

Book preview

PREFACE

Table of Contents

Many times, notwithstanding our unworthiness, we have been invited to address those many souls whom God wants to embrace the religious life and who know it not. Reluctant as we are to comply with such request, because we believe that when God calls a soul, His voice is mighty enough to dispense with a human echo, we however offer the following pages, wherein we have tried to prove that by listening to God’s call and fulfilling God’s desire, souls merely bind themselves to the Duty of Happiness, here-now and here-after. Far from endeavoring to compel them to come in, we simply tell them: O, taste and see that the Lord is sweet: blessed are those that hope in Him. We believe that this is the only permissible way to awaken a vocation and to display the Happiness of Duty.

To-day, perhaps more than ever, recently said The Boston Pilot, we are dealing with the problem of vocations. The field is white in every direction we turn our eyes, and the pity of it is that we stand in need of so many priests and sisters to do the work of harvesting souls. One of our great communities of women has been obliged to decline within the past year scores of institutions because it did not have the sisters to take charge of those places. Should therefore this booklet be the instrument of one vocation, we shall be more than rewarded.

We have based our work on Gay’s Esperance, on Newman’s Sermons, and on Faber’s Conferences. We gladly and gratefully credit to them all the fruits of life which will be found in The Duty of Happiness.

J. M. L.

FOREWORD

Table of Contents

by the Rev. Francis Finn, S. J.

Cincinnati, May 2, 1911.

My Dear Father Leien: I wish to tell you how very pleased I was with your MSS: The Duty of Happiness. There are a fervor and an eloquence running throughout it which is seldom found in spiritual books. Also, the literary touches, the elevated style, and the excellent quotations, both poetry and prose, give it a charm which will cause it to appeal to a large class of readers seldom. interested in spiritual books.

Finally, the subject itself, while most con-soling, has, so far as I know, never been handled before in a manner and style so popular.

With kindest regards, I am

Yours in X°.

F. J. Finn, S. J.

MY GOD!

Table of Contents

I AM INTIMATELY CONVINCED THAT THOU DOST WATCH OVER ALL THOSE WHO HOPE IN THEE, AND THAT WE CAN WANT FOB NOTHING WHILST WE EXPECT ALL FROM THEE: THEREFORE I AM RESOLVED FROM HENCEFORTH TO LIVE WITHOUT ANXIETY, AND TO CAST ALL MY CARE UPON THEE. MEN MAY TURN AGAINST ME; SICKNESS MAY TAKE AWAY MY STRENGTH AND THE MEANS OF SERVING THEE; I MAY EVEN LOSE THY GRACE BY SIN; BUT I WILL NEVER LOSE MY HOPE. I WILL KEEP IT EVEN TO THE LAST MOMENT OF MY LIFE; AND ALL THE DEMONS IN HELL SHALL TRY IN VAIN TO TEAR IT FROM ME. OTHERS MAY LOOK FOB HAPPINESS FROM THEIR RICHES OR THEIR TALENTS; THEY MAY RELY UPON THE INNOCENCE OF THEIR LIVES, THE RIGOR OF THEIR PENANCE, THE NUMBER OF THEIR GOOD WORKS, OR THE FAVOR OF THEIR PRAYERS; BUT FOB ME, O LORD, MY CONFIDENCE SHALL BE MY CONFIDENCE ITSELF. THIS CONFIDENCE HAS NEVER DECEIVED ANY ONE. NO ONE HATH HOPED IN THE LORD AND BEEN PUT TO SHAME. I AM SURE, THEN, THAT I SHALL BE ETERNALLY HAPPY, BECAUSE I HOPE FIRMLY TO BE SO, AND IT IS FROM THEE, O LORD, THAT I HOPE IT. I KNOW THAT I AM FRAIL AND CHANGEABLE; I KNOW THE POWER OF TEMPTATION AGAINST VIRTUES THE MOST FIRMLY BASED; I HAVE SEEN THE STABS OF HEAVEN AND THE PILLARS OF THE FIRMAMENT FALL; BUT NOT EVEN THIS CAN MAKE ME FEAR. AS LONG AS I HOPE, I AM SAFE FROM EVERY EVIL, AND I AM SURE OF ALWAYS HOPING, BECAUSE I HOPE FOB THIS UNCHANGING HOPE. IN FINE, I AM SURE THAT I CAN NOT HOPE TOO MUCH IN THEE; AND THAT I CAN NOT OBTAIN LESS THAN I HOPE FOB FROM THEE. THUS I HOPE THAT THOU WILT UPHOLD ME IN THE GREATEST DANGERS, PROTECT ME IN THE MOST VIOLENT ASSAULTS, AND MAKE MY WEAKNESS TRIUMPH OVER MY MOST FORMIDABLE ENEMIES. I HOPE THAT THOU WILT LOVE ME ALWAYS, AND THAT I ALSO SHALL LOVE THEE WITH UNFAILING LOVE; AND TO CARRY MY HOPE AT ONCE AS FAB AS IT CAN GO, I HOPE FOR THEE FROM THYSELF, MY CREATOR, BOTH IN TIME AND ETERNITY.

PART I.

HOPE AND HAPPINESS IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.

Table of Contents

1. Hope is the Soul of Human Life. It seems that were the sun no longer to give us heat and light, existence in this world were impossible. However, we could live more easily without the sun than without hope.

Our greatest good and what we can least spare Is hope.

Hope is the deepest, the most absolute, the most constant, the most universal of all our wants.

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast.

Man never is, but always to be blest."

Where there is hope there is life; where hope languishes all gives way; where hope dies all becomes frozen and still as death. ¹ ‘Where there is no hope there can be no endeavor." Hope is a spur to all our enterprises, a stay in all our labors, a source of patience, an aroma without which even our joys turn into vexation and disappointment:

"Hence the most vital movement mortals feel

Is hope, the balm and life-blood of the soul."

If hope did not smile at our birth, cursed should be the coming of the new-born babe into the world; and if its sweet ray did not gild our grave, none, except the very few who die without having been loved, could die without causing others to die of sorrow.

"Auspicious hope! In thy sweet garden grow

Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe!"

Always and everywhere we need hope; we like even its shadow; and rather than have none, we accept even that proposed by illusions. A sad resource assuredly is vain hope; it is, however, less sad than despair. Moreover, if we speak of the very root of our hope, and of that invincible instinct which makes us believe in future good and happiness, this is never, absolutely speaking, deceptive and false; no, it is not even then the dream of those that wake; for such instinct is right in itself; it answers a law; it is the echo of the Divine' Will; and if man, in what state soever he be, followed it legitimately (all things being providentially disposed as they are now), he could ascend the blessed summit where God has placed our last end. The fact is that hope belongs to the essence of our earthly life; the place irrevocably dark from which it is forever banished is hell; for

"Where peace

And rest can never dwell, hope never comes

That comes to all."

2. It was impossible that hope should not have played a considerable part in the polity of the Christian religion. The natural order contains no power that Christianity does not recognize, accept, consecrate, and employ. It could not neglect this force which is the mainspring of all others. But it has done for it what it has done for all things else; in appropriating it, it has divinely transformed and ennobled its object, enlarged its horizon, strengthened its basis, and increased its capacity. It has put into it bright shoots of everlastingness and elements of divineness. The very substance of God, that is, His life, glory, bliss, has become through Christ the regular daily bread that satisfies this hunger for happiness which we feel so keenly. Thus constituting Himself as the proper object of our hope, He has made Himself the Guarantor of it. Placing Himself as the perfect Bliss wherein all our desires shall find their actualness, He has willed that we take Him as our Help er, so that we may derive directly from Him the boldness to aim at our destiny, the courage to march towards it not-withstanding the length and difficulties of the way, and the strength sufficient to attain it.¹

3. Again, O! the happy and admirable device, God