In his book The Soul of the Apostolate, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard pointed out that it is the will of God that active work should be a means of sanctification. For that to happen, the interior life is indispensable. Dom Chautard listed six main features of the way the interior life filters into a soul to establish it in genuine virtue.

1. The interior life protects the soul against the dangers of the exterior ministry. St. Thomas Aquinas said, “It is more difficult to live well, when one has care of souls, on account of the dangers from without.” 

 Dom Chautard wrote, “While the active worker who has no interior spirit is unaware of the dangers arising from his work, and thus resembles an unarmed traveller passing through a forest infested with brigands, the genuine apostle, for his part, dreads them and each day he takes precautions against them by a serious examination of conscience which reveals to him his weak points.” 

According to Dom Chautard the interior life not only helps us to realize dangers but also equips us to fight them with following spiritual weapons: purity of intention, charity, discretion, reserve, and faith. 

2. The interior life renews the strength of the apostle. A serious attempt at vigilance and prayer in the midst of action and the habit of returning to God after work to rest and regain its strength are very pleasing to God. Dom Chautard added: “Imperfections become less and less serious and frequent in proportion as the soul learns to return, tirelessly, to Christ.”

3. The interior life multiplies energies and merits. Dom Chautard wrote, “The mind and the will are strengthened by the interior life, because love is strengthened…. Thus, it is easy to judge what an increase of merit will flow from the multiplication of energies given by the interior life, when one remembers that merit depends less upon the difficulty that may be entailed by an action, than upon the intensity of charity with which it is carried out.” 

4. The interior life gives joy and consolation. Dom Chautard pointed out that “only a burning and unchangeable love is capable of filling a whole life with sunlight, for it is love that possesses the secret of gladdening the heart even in the midst of great sorrows and crushing fatigue.” An interior soul is also a Eucharistic soul and a man of prayer. The Holy Eucharist is the sacrament of love and the sacrament of joy. St. John Vianney said, “The life of prayer is the one big happiness on this earth.” This happiness is the result of union with God. 

5. The interior life refines purity of intention. Knowing that God often uses failure even better than success to bring about the good of souls, the interior soul remains in a state of holy indifference with respect to success or failure. Dom Chautard wrote, “The genuine apostle makes use of everything, success as well as failure, to increase his hope and expand his soul in confident abandonment to Providence.” 

6. The interior life is a firm defense against discouragement. Dom Chautard pointed out the interior soul “knows that often God wants from him nothing more than the seeds of success. Others will come, who will reap rich harvests, and perhaps they will think themselves entitled to all the credit. But heaven will be able to see the cause of it all in the thankless and seemingly sterile work that went before ‘I have sent you to reap that which you did not labour; others have laboured and you have entered into their labours.’” 

As St. John Vianney said, “The heart of an interior soul stands in the middle of humiliations and sufferings like a rock in the midst of the sea.”


內修生活建立真實的德行

在『使徒靈魂』一書中，若翰肖塔爾院牧指出，按天主的意願，積極的工作應該是聖化的方法。要能實現，內修生活是不能缺少的。肖塔爾院牧列出了內修生活能夠在靈魂內建立真實德行的六個特徵。

1. 內修生活保護靈魂於外來的危險中。聖多默、亞奎納說：『當有照顧靈魂的職責時，因為由外來的危險，是更難活得好。』

肖塔爾院牧寫道『當一積極的工作者，他沒有內在的情操，他不會察覺在他工作中可能引進的危險，一如一位沒有武裝起來的游人，經過盜賊滿佈的森林，真實的使徒，在自己的方面，為此感到恐懼，每天以認真的良心省察作好一切的慎防，這樣他可看見自己的弱點。』

根據肖塔爾院牧，內修生活不單可令我們明瞭危險所在，也裝備我們以以下的精神武器作抵抗：純正的意向，愛德，慎重，保留和信德。

2. 內修生活更新使徒的力量。在作業中，一嚴正的警惕和祈禱的嘗試，工作後回歸到天主處休息並重整力量是最為天主喜悅的。肖塔爾院牧補充說：『按靈魂不倦地回歸到基督處的比例，缺點是變得少一點嚴重和頻繁。』

3. 內修生活倍添能量和德行。肖塔爾院牧寫道：『思想和意願為內修生活所加強，因為愛是被增強了…由此，很容易判斷到，德行所得的增強，是源自內修生活倍增的能量。我們記得功勳不是按執行工作所遇的困難，卻是工作時所付出的愛。』

4. 內修生活給我們喜樂和安慰。肖塔爾院牧指出：『只有一燃燒著的和不變的愛可以把整個生命注滿陽光，因為，甚至在最憂傷和極度疲倦時，愛是能擁有令人心悅的秘密』一個內修的靈魂也是一個愛聖體和愛祈禱的靈魂。聖體是愛的聖事和喜樂的聖事。聖約翰、維雅納說：『祈禱的生命是世上一件喜樂的大事。』這喜樂是與天主結合的結果。

5. 內修生活精煉意願的純潔。我們知道為做福靈魂，天主有時利用失敗更甚於成功，內修靈魂因此保持對成功與失敗的不介意。肖塔爾院牧寫道：『真實的使徒利用所有的事物，成功和失敗，去增加他們的望德和擴展靈魂的信念完全依靠於天主的照顧。』

6. 內修生活是對抗失望堅強的保護。肖塔爾院牧指出，內修的靈魂『知道天主有時只願從他得到成功的種子。其他人會來，他們會收割這些豐收，或許他們以為應完全歸功於他們。但上天，在那以前不知感激，看似貧瘠的工作之中能看見成功的原因。「我派遣你們在你們沒有勞過力的地方去收割；別人勞了力，而你們去收獲他們勞苦的成 果。」聖約翰、維雅納說：『內在靈魂的內心站在羞辱和受苦之中，像一塊石立於海中』