As Holy Images are very profitable, in that they put us in mind of God and His Saints, and move the will to devotion when we use them in the ordinary way, as we ought; so also are they occasions of great delusions if, when they are the subjects of supernatural effects, we know not how to conduct ourselves as we ought to do in our progress onwards towards God. One of the means by which the devil makes an easy prey of incautious souls, and impedes their progress in true spirituality, is the exhibition of strange and unusual things in connection with images; whether they be those material images which the Church has sanctioned, or those fantastic images represented to the mind, of some particular Saints, or the image of himself transformed into an angel of light,* in order to delude our souls. The devil, in his cunning, hides himself within those very means which are given us as a
remedy and support, that he may seize upon us when we are
least upon our guard. Holy souls will therefore be ever circumspect in regard to good things, for that which is evil carries its own witness always with it.
I give but one direction, and that is sufficient, for the avoidance of those evils into which souls may fall with regard to images, and for the purgation of the will from joy in them, and for the guidance of the soul to God by means of them,
* 2 Cor. xi, 14,
301which is the object of the Church in the use of images. The
evils to which the soul is liable are either that it is hindered
by them in its flight upwards unto God, or that it uses them in a mean and ignorant way, or that it falls into delusions with reference to them. Now the direction I wish to give is this: we should strive, seeing that images are but motives to invisible things, to move, affect, and gladden the will only in the living spirit which the image figures. Let the faithful soul, therefore, take care that, while contemplating an image, the senses be not absorbed in it, whether that image be material or in the imagination, of beautiful workmanship or of rich adornment, and whether the devotion it excites be spiritual or sensible. Let him not regard these outward accidents, nor dwell upon them, but venerate the image, as the Church commands, and lift up his mind at once from the material image to the living spirit whom it figures, with the sweetness and joy of the will resting on God, or on the Saint invoked, devoutly, in mental prayer; so that what is due to the living and the spiritual may not be wasted on material and sensible objects. He who shall do this will never be deluded, and the mind and senses will not be hindered from advancing onward with great freedom unto God. The image, too, which supernaturally excited devotion, will do so the more abundantly when our affections are thus elevated instantly to God. For whenever He grants us these and other graces, He does so by inclining the affection and joy of the will to that which is invisible. It is His Will also that we should do the same ourselves, by annihilating the powers and satisfaction of our faculties in all visible and sensible things.