Another indirect means in the service of our striving for perfection consists in the endeavor to keep our minds away from everything that is apt to deflect them from God. To avoid certain unnecessary conversations, to do without the entertainment provided by shallow readings (which cannot but focus our attention on matters peripheral), to shun everything that panders to our delight in sensations; in general, to steer clear of whatever is calculated to draw us away from God and impale our minds on worldly concerns, thus interfering with simplicity and a collected attitude of mind—here, again, is an important means at the disposal of our will, of contributing to our transformation.

Nay, so far as possible we must avoid contact with everything that has an air of triviality. Not that we should shrink from intercourse with trivial people or a trivial milieu in all circumstances: considerations of charity or apostolic tasks may well make it a duty for us to frequent them.

But we must never, as it were, set up our quarters in such an atmosphere, nor even rest at ease in its midst. While dwelling there we must remain a stranger to it, keeping ourselves impermeable to its infiltration, nor ever cease to experience our sojourn in such a medium as a sacrifice.

An orderly life aids our transformation

To ordain our daily lives according to some definite rule constitutes a further method in the service of our inner transformation. Apart from the specific importance which the single provisions of that rule may possess for our progress in virtue, a certain wholesome effect proceeds from order as such. It pervades life with a certain rhythm of composure and continuity, which makes it easier for us to collect ourselves; it protects us from being absorbed by the succession of varying events and impressions, so apt to interfere with our concentration upon essentials.

An orderly regulation of our lives relieves us from the temptation to let our attention to prayer, contemplation, and work, our avoidance of peripheral concerns, depend on chance and circumstance; it enables us to provide systematically for the meaningfulness and depth of our existence. It makes it possible for us to acquire constancy without which all good endeavors are condemned to sterility.

Finally, an established outward order also raises us above our dependence on our own arbitrary whims and momentary dispositions; it commits us from the outset, and enduringly, to our direction towards God. The last-named advantage is more perfectly attained, of course, in the case of a rule followed—as in monastic life—from holy obedience, as contrasted to merely self-devised and self-imposed regulations.