Volume III, Treatise VII, Chapter I

How Necessary It Is to Make Ourselves Known to Superiors Exactly as We Are

CASSIAN says, that the first thing the ancient fathers proposed to those who began to serve God was, that they should take great care presently to discover to their superiors whatsoever temptations or bad thoughts they had, or, in fine, whatsoever passed within themselves. And it was this, says he, that these men of God looked upon as a kind of first principle amongst them, and as the base and foundation of the whole spiritual building. “religious”, says the great St. Anthony, “should not, if possible, make one step, or drink one drop of water in his cell, without immediately declaring it to his superior, that there may be no irregularity even in his least actions, but that all things may be rectified by the spirit of obedience”—in Vit. Patr., part 2, §. 104. St. John Climacus says, that he found in a very regular and holy monastery, several religious who carried a little book-at their girdle, in which they daily wrote all their thoughts, to give an account of them to their superior, who had obliged them thereunto. St. Basil, St. Jerom, St. Ambrose, and St. Bernard, expressly prescribed the same thing; and it is this which St. Ignatius, resting upon their authority and the examples of the ancient fathers, in like manner recommends to us, even in the gravest terms we can find in his whole constitutions. “After”, says he, “having well examined this thing before God, it seemed to me in the presence of his divine majesty, that it was very much to the purpose that all religious should make themselves perfectly known to their superiors” —Exam., §. 34. He was not wont to speak in this manner in other matters how important soever; and yet he does not content himself with this, but goes still farther, proving by solid reasons the advantage and necessity of this practice.

The first reason he gives is, that by this means it will be more easy for superiors to direct those under their charge, and in effect it belongs to the superior to take care of them. His office obliges him to it, and it is for this reason that he was made superior. Now, how shall he be able to do this if he does not know you, and if you do not discover yourself unto him? “He that hides his crimes”, says the wise man, “can never be well directed”—~ (Proverbs 28:13) A sick man can never be cured, if he discovers not his disease to the physician. “For the physician”, says St. Jerom, “cures not that which he does not know”. You must therefore entirely discover your sickness to the physician, and if you have many diseases you must discover them all. For if you hide one of them, the physician may, perhaps, give you such remedy as will make worse the disease which you concealed, and perhaps will not help that you discovered. We know that what is good for the liver, is not good for the spleen; wherefore all is to be told, that the remedies may be so prepared, that what relieves you on one side may not hurt you on the other. The same reason ought oblige us to discover in the same manner all the infirmities of our soul unto our superior, who is our spiritual physician. It contributes much to the cure of a patient to know perfectly his constitution and various complaints. For then it is easy to find the true cause of the disease, and to apply apposite remedies thereunto. It is for this reason that princes have always a physician to accompany them, not indeed to tell them constantly what they are to eat, and what they are to abstain from, as such never-ending prescriptions would be very unpleasant; but it is, that being present whilst they eat, and at the greatest part of their exercises, and seeing what does them hurt or good, the physician may be able to know their constitution, and upon this knowledge to regulate the quality of the remedies necessary to be given them when they shall fall sick. Now, our holy founder wishes us to enjoy the same advantage. He wishes us to have always our spiritual physicians with us, to the end that they may know the interior disposition of our souls, and also our strength and weakness, and thereby be the better able to conduct us. ‘The government established in the society entirely regards

the spirit and the interior; it is not a government of fear or punishment, and therefore superiors are seldom wont to proceed by the way of juridical informations or accusations therein. They have nothing else in view than the salvation and advancement-of your soul. They wish to cure it of all infirmities, but you must assist them yourself to make this cure, by discovering all things to your superior, who is your spiritual physician, and who holds God’s place. But if you do not this, you will remain exposed to very great dangers, and will tempt God, who desires to conduct you by putting a man in his own place, and consequently would have you discover your interior to this man. For as it is impossible, morally speaking, that this man should lead and conduct you well, if he does not know you, and that he cannot know you but by yourself, it is certain that you tempt God as often as you will not submit to this practice. The second reason St. Ignatius rests on, and which is only an extension of the first, is, that the more perfect knowledge superiors shall have of the interior of their subjects, the more they will be able to preserve them from the inconveniencies into which they may cause them to fall, if, through want of knowing their temptations, inclinations, strength, and weakness, they should place them in certain offices and engage them in certain employments prejudicial to them. Above all, says he, since according to our institution we ought always to be ready to go to any part of the world whither it shall please the pope or our superiors to send us, “it imports not only much, but even very much”, in order to succeed well in the choice to be made in missions of this kind, that the superiors should have an entire knowledge of the inclinations and temptations of all those under his charge, and that he should know to what faults or sins they are most subject, that by this means he may conduct each religious in the way most convenient for him, and that he do not command anything above his strength, or lay a burden on any one who is not rationally supposed to be able to carry it. One of the things which contribute to render the interior government of the society sweet, easy, and comfortable, is the knowledge it has of all the subjects that compose it, of their different talents, of their good and bad qualities, of the things for which they are fit and not fit. For by this means they know what is to be done to each person in particular, and how he ought to be employed, and will not command anything beyond his power to perform, or expose him to the danger of falling under too heavy a burden, but conformably to the words of the gospel, they will distribute employments and labours “according to each one’s strength”—Mat., xxv. 15. The third reason why it exceedingly behoves superiors to know their religious thoroughly is, says St. Ignatius, that by this means they consult the interest of the whole society, whose welfare they are to have in view as well as yours. For when you discover to them the bottom of your soul, they can, without exposing your honour, or putting you in any danger or hazard, consult the general good of the whole society; but if you should not do this, it may happen that they would give you an employment wherein you would risk your salvation, and wherein your honour and that of the whole society, which depends upon yours, would be exposed to very great danger. | It is good to remark, by the bye, how conformable to the end of its institution those means are which the society makes use of to procure the advancement of each religious. Were it according to our institute to live shut up in our cells, and not to go out of them but to the choir or refectory, it would not be so necessary that our superiors should have so complete a knowledge of our consciences. But since amongst us subjects are put into so many different employments, that the care of several things of importance is often entrusted to them, and that they are sent to all parts of the world, amongst infidels and heretics, and sometimes alone and for a very long time, it is therefore necessary that superiors should know all of them perfectly well, that they may not expose them to dangerous occasions, nor expose the honour of the society with them. It likewise very much imports all religious, for the discharge and security of their own consciences, to let the superior see the bottom of their souls, otherwise they will render themselves accountable for all the misfortunes that may happen, since it is certain that had they made known their weakness as they ought to have done, and their want of the spiritual strength required, superiors would have taken care not to have exposed them to occasions so full of danger. The poor, says Plutarch, who wish to appear rich, soon render themselves more poor than they were, and in a short time effect their own ruin; for on account of their wish to imitate rich persons, they incur greater expenses than their state can bear. We may say the same thing of those that are poor in virtue, and have not a great stock of humility. Ifa religious who is in this condition should hide his poverty, and pass for being rich in spiritual goods, he will become still more poor, and perhaps will bring on his utter ruin, because they will treat him as a man filled with the treasures of

e, and upon this account expose him to dangerous occasions, for which he will not have a sufficient stock of virtue. And it was because he would not discover himself entirely to his superior that he has brought all these miseries upon himself. So that if we look only upon our own security and the discharge of our conscience, and that we may have nothing to reproach ourselves with, we must be glad to discover ourselves to our superiors, to be such as in reality we are, and thus we shall] avoid those inconveniencies I have just now spoke of, and shall by this means draw upon ourselves the blessing and help of God in all the occasions in which it shall please obedience to engage us.

A religious who has thus discovered all his imperfections and infirmities to his superior, and is afterwards sent on some mission, or given some employment, ought to be in great quiet and repose of mind, and have a great confidence that God will happily extricate him from all the dangers he may meet with therein. It is not I, O Lord, may he say, who put myself into this office or into that employment; I represented my own incapacity and the little spiritual strength I had to acquit myself herein as I ought; it was yourself deigned to place me in it, and it is you who are to supply what is wanting to me to succeed therein. With what a plenitude of confidence may not he also say these words of St Austin—“Give me, O Lord, means to perform what thou commandest, and command me what thou wilt”. It justly seems to him that God in these circumstances is obliged to grant him all the graces he shall stand in need of in the employment in which he has engaged him. But he that will not make himself known, and who neglects to discover his temptations and weaknesses, for fear he should not be put into such an employment as he desires, or should be taken out of that which pleases him—what comfort can he have, since it is not God that has called him to this function, and it is no longer obedience that engages him therein? For though his superior has placed him there, yet it was out of ignorance; and ignorance, as philosophers say, renders our actiuns involuntary, and consequently it was not the will of his superior, but his own, that established him therein. It is he that installed himself and introduced himself into this employment of his own accord; he was neither called nor sent to it, but entered into it by stealth; and therefore we can justly apply to him what our Lord says by the mouth of the prophet Jeremias—“I did not send them to act as prophets; they went of their own accord as if they had been sent. I said nothing to them, and yet they prophesied” (Jeremias 23:21) Can we after this be astonished, if such persons as these do not succeed? For though they should in some measure do so, yet they have great reason to live in fear. Moreover, let them not think that they have satisfied their conscience or their duty by begging of their superior not to engage them in such or such an employment, representing to him in a general manner that they have not sufficient virtue and capacity to acquit themselves of it. This is not sufficient, since they ought, as I shall show hereafter, have more particularly explained themselves; for the superior attributes these general expressions to their humility, and even the greatest saints are wont to excuse themselves in this manner. All the considerations I have here set down influenced St. Ignatius so powerfully, and induced him to think this practice of so great importance to the general good of the society, that in his constitutions he frequently recommends the adoption of it. His mind was so engaged with it, that in one place, after he had said that a religious ought not keep his door, or his coffer, or any- ° thing else locked, he added, ‘no not even his own conscience”, though it should seem that was not a proper place to speak of it. The same spirit caused him to say in another place, that religious ought to have nothing hid from their superiors, neither without nor within—in a word, it is a thing he esteems so necessary, that he insists upon it both “opportunely and importunely”, as St. Paul says, and frequently endeavours to revive in us the memory thereof upon all occasions. ’ In the fifth general congregation, when they came to examine what were the most essential things in our constitutions, it was said that they were those which were contained in the formule of our institute, which was presented to Julius III., and which were approved and confirmed by him and his successors. It was moreover said, that they included in this number all those things, without which the former could not aé all subsist, or could not subsist without very great difficulty; and in the list of the latter was placed the obligation of rendering an account of conscience to superiors. It was judged therefore that if was an essential rule, without which the society could not be preserved; and to say this is to leave nothing more to be said. Some historians have observed in regard of certain religious orders, that so far as this holy practice is observed, so far the purity of religious discipline is maintained in them; and experience likewise teaches us that the non-observance of this rule is ordinarily the gate through which a religious enters into the high way of perdition. He begins by little and little to fall into remissness and tepidity—he neglects to resist some bad inclinations—he either leaves off, or performs very ill his spiritual exercises—he then falls into one fault, and from that into another. Yet instead of discovering the wound, he endeavours to hide it; thus it augments and corrupts; and a wound, which would have been easily cured in the beginning, afterwards becomes incurable. In a word, the spiritual edifice falls to the ground, because not having repaired it for a long time, they permitted it to run to ruin of itself. St. Dorotheus knew very well the cause of this evil. Some, says he, are wont to say that such a thing is the cause of the fall of this religious; another, they say, went out for such a reason; it is his disposition caused another to quit the monastery; it was his parents influenced such a man to go out; and I answer, it was nothing of this, but it was because he concealed from his spiritual father the beginnings of his temptations, and because he would not discover to him the bottom of his heart.

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