Volume I, Treatise VII, Chapter XI

That the Examen of Conscience Is a Means to Assist Us in Practising All Other Helps that Regard Our Spiritual Progress; and that the Reason Why We Profit So Little by I Ts, Because We Take not Sufficient Care to Make Tt Well

St. Basrt, after he had given several spiritual advices to his religious, concludes all by earnestly recommending to them the making their examen of conscience every night before they went to bed. This great saint judged this practice sufficient to keep them in the observance of all other things, which he had recommended to them. I intend, therefore, to finish this treatise in the same manner, by recommending to all persons to apply themselves seriously to this examen of conscience; since, by the grace of God, it is sufficient to enable us to put in practice all other spiritual advices, and to repair all our defects. If you relax and grow tepid in your prayer; if you are become negligent in what regards obedience; if you give yourself too great a freedom of speech; if you begin to take too many liberties, this examen of conscience will easily check the progress of these evils, and will apply a speedy remedy unto them. Whoever takes care daily to make his examen of conscience well, may be assured that he carries with him a director, a master of novices, and a superior that continually requires of him an account of what state and condition his soul is in—who instructs him in what he is to do, and reprehends him when he is faulty in anything. You will not remain long in your ill habits, says father Avila, if you are diligent in making your examen after this manner, in exacting an account of your behaviour, in reprehending yourself for your faults; but if you always persevere in them, and at the end of many days, yea at the end of many years, you find yourself very little or not at all mortified, but your passions as lively, strong, and violent as ever they were; it is because you have not made use of those remedies given for this end. For if you had undertaken to correct any ill habit, or to acquire any particular virtue, and for this end had endeavoured three times a-day, morning, evening, and night, to renew the purpose and resolution of amendment, and compared the faults of the night with those of the day, and those of each week with those of the week before; and made as many acts of confusion and sorrow, as you found yourself faulty, and lastly implored God’s and the saints’ assistance, to be able to correct your faults, it would be impossible you should not, after so long a time, have gained a perfect victory over yourself, in what you aimed at. But if we make our examens negligently and out of custom, without having any true sorrow for our faults or making any firm purpose to amend them; this is no true examen, but only a piece of formality, and a mere empty ceremony that signifies nothing at all. Hence it happens, that after many years spent in religion, oftentimes we retain the same defects, the same vicious inclinations we brought out of the world with us; and if then we were subject to pride and vanity, we are so still; if we were then impatient and choleric, we are still the same; if we were easily provoked to give sharp and mortifying language, we give the same still; and, in fine, we are still as irregular as we were the first day, as much addicted to our own will, and attached to our own ease and convenience. And God grant that many, instead of correcting themselves and making progress in virtue, have not grown worse, and even increased their vicious habits; and that the long time they spent in religion serves them not to become more irregular and unruly; and that instead of being more humble than others, they are not become arrogant and presumptuous, and give not cause to‘have those words of St. Bernard applied to them: ‘ What is to be lamented,” says he, ‘‘is, that many who would have been despicable had they stayed in their own houses, cannot suffer the least contempt even in God’s house. And such as would have even wanted necessaries in the world, in religion often seek superfluities and delicacies.” (Hom. iv. sup. missus est.)

We may also easily perceive, by what has been said, how little those persons are to be excused who cast the fault of their irregular life upon their natural temper and constitution, or inclination; for, on the contrary, they deserve a more severe check than others, because knowing to what sins the viciousness of their nature inclines them, and being obliged to fortify themselves against this weakness they find in their nature, whereby the devil gets more free and easy entrance into their souls; yet neglecting this, after many years, they are as irregular, and as little masters of themselves, as they were the first day they entered religion.

Let all, therefore, who seriously resolve to serve God (for here we speak as well to secular as religious persons) reflect upon themselves, and let them begin again seriously to apply themselves anew, and to endeavour, for the time to come, to make their examen of conscience so well that the fruit they will reap from it may be visible to all. We are men, and consequently have our defects, and shall have them as long as we live; but notwithstanding we must endeavour to gain three things by the help of our examen. The first is, that if hitherto we have had a great many faults, we should henceforward have fewer. The second, if hitherto they were great, they must in future be smaller. The third, that we do not relapse daily into the same faults; because that is a mark of great want of application and of negligence.

Evagrius, in one of the books he composed, on the conversation of religious persons, and their corporal exercises, makes mention of a holy hermit, that said, he did not remember that the devil had ever made hin fall twice into the same fault. Without doubt, this man made his examen of conscience very well; he had true repentance; and also firm resolutions of amendment. It is thus we ought to do; and it was by this means that St. Ignatius raised himself to such a high degree of perfection. We read in his Life a very remarkable passage, which is, that comparing one day with another, and the present state of his soul with the past, he found that he had daily made a greater progress in virtue, and in the gaining of heaven, insomuch that he said in his old age, that the state in which his soul was in at Manreze (for the time of his studies he ordinarily styled his primitive church) was as it were his noviceship, and that God, by the lively colours of his grace, beautified and perfected the picture in his soul, of which he had at Manreze only made a rough draught, or drawn the outlines. Let us, therefore, make good use of so profitable a means, that God has vouchsafed to bestow upon us; let us have a firm confidence, that hereby he will lead us to that height of perfection, to which, by the assistance of his grace, we aspire.

VOL. I.. 2c

About ReligiousBookshelf.com · A Supernerd Media project