Volume III, Treatise VII, Chapter IX

That We Are Under Great Obligations to God for Having Rendered This Account of Conscience Amongst Us So Easy: the Cause of This Fucility

CERTAINLY we have great reason to give thanks to God for the practice he has established amongst us of entirely discovering our conscience to our superior, and for the sweet and easy manner in which we acquit ourselves of a thing which in itself is far harder than all other penances and exterior mortifications whatsoever. We may easily judge of this difficulty by that which is found in the sacrament of penance, which all Christians, generally speaking, feel to be more distressing than all the rest of their obligations. To render the pain of confession more supportable, it was found necessary to oblige the confessor by the divine law, even under pain of sacrilege, to keep it an inviolable secret, and yet confession ceases not to give such pain to many people in the world, that rather than confess their sins they choose to deliver themselves up to everything that is most terrible in remorse of conscience and in the dread of futurity—nay, to all that is most pungent in the eternal pains of Hell! Now, what you do, when you discover the bottom of your soul to your superior, is still something more than what is practised in confession; because we not only declare to him our sins, and all that which is matter of confession, but discover also many other things, and oftentimes such weaknesses as we have a greater repugnance to make known, or to accuse ourselves of, than of our sins themselves; and what is still more, all this is done out of confession. That a thing then which is of itself so hard, and at the same time so profitable and useful, should become, by the mercy of God, so sweet and easy, is a favour for which we can never give him sufficient thanks.

But let us see what is the cause that this practice is so easy amongst us. The first and chief cause is the grace of the religion to which we have been called; because God, as I have said elsewhere, gives to each religious order those particular helps that are necessary, to the end for which he has instituted it; and it is this which I call the grace of religion. Since therefore we are obliged by our institute to be always ready to go to any part of the world where obedience shall employ us for the help of souls, and to converse with all sorts of people, that the superior may not be deceived in the choice of those subjects he shall make use of for this effect, it is necessary that he should have an entire knowledge of us, which he can never have, if we ourselves do not entirely discover ourselves to him. From hence also it happens, that though this manifestation of conscience be a thing very painful of itself, and very troublesome, yet God, by a particular help of his grace, renders it very easy and comfortable.

The second reason of the sweetness and facility we find in it is, the manner wherein superiors treat such as address themselves to them for this end. They receive them as their children, with the tenderness and kindness of a father; so that their sole occupation seems to be to give them comfort; and, without doubt, it is of very great importance that they do so, and that the subjects be firmly persuaded that as-often as they shall have recourse to them, they shall thus be treated with bounty and sweetness. For this being so, they will address themselves to them with all kind of confidence; whereas, if they apprehend to meet with harshness from them, this apprehension might discourage them. But they may be assured they will always receive kind treatment. For to this superiors are bound by their office; and if they neglect it, they will violate one of their principal obligations. |

St. Bernard, upon these words ofthe Canticles, “we will rejoice and exult in thee, remembering thy breasts, which are more excellent than wine”—(Canticle of Canticles 1:3),—gives a very profitable advice to superiors, touching the conduct they ought to observe towards their inferiors. ‘Let superiors”, says he, ‘who always seek to make themselves feared by those that are under their charge, and seldom make themselves pleasing or profitable to them, hearken to this. Come hither and learn instruction, ye that judge the Earth, learn here that you ought to become like mothers, and not masters, to your inferiors—study to make yourselves beloved rather than feared; and if it is necessary sometimes to use severity, let it be the severity of a father, and not of a tyrant. Show yourselves mothers in your tenderness, and fathers in your correction; render yourselves affable; lay aside what may appear austerity; be not forward in chastising; reach out your helping hand to those in necessity; be filled with the sentiments and affection of a mother, and not puffed up with the tumours of pride and the authority of command”—Serm, xxii. in Cant. The same saint recites upon this subject the words of the Apostle:—‘ My brethren, if any one falls into any defect, ye that are spiritual, reprehend him with the spirit of sweetness, each one making reflection upon himself lest he himself come also to be tempted” (Galatians 6:1) And these others of Ezechiel, ‘the wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require of thee an account of his blood” (Ezechiel 3:18) Wo be to the superiors, adds he, who receive not their subjects with sweetness when they address themselves to them in their temptations and weaknesses! Wo be to them who reject or check them, and show not the bowels of a father towards them. For if any one comes to grow worse by your harshness, as it often happens, and thereby comes to perish, God will require an account of his soul of you! Hence, though the superior should have regard only to himself, yet he ought to apply himself to perform his duty well, that you may do yours in like manner, and that he may not make himself accountable for your faults. Thirdly, what renders this practice easy amongst us 1is its frequent and general use; so that we may avail ourselves of a consideration like to that St. Austin made use of when the difficulty of observing chastity opposed in his mind the design he had of turning to God. He says that he then represented continency to himself under the figure of a venerable matron, who, surrounded by many chaste persons of every sex, age, and quality, showed them to him, mocking him, and saying thus to him: Are you not able to do this, which so many persons practise? Or do you believe that what they are able to do, they do by their own strength, and not rather by his, who is all-powerful? And he assures us that this consideration helped exceedingly to give him courage. Do you the same in order to the manifestation of conscience which you ought to make to your superior; and when the Devil shall represent it to you as difficult, say you to yourself: What then! am not I able to do what others do? Must I dispense with myself in doing what so many other religious, who are more learned, more elderly, more prudent and more enlightened than myself, daily practise? This consideration will readily remove all difficulties. It will not only hinder us from feeling pain while We practise things, but it will make us feel pain at our not practising them; for we will find it shameful and disedifying not to do what every ‘one else is in the habit of doing. Hence we ought all of us endeavour to maintain in force and vigour so holy a practice as this is, that the example of some may encourage others.; and in particular, as those that are more ancient in religion, and more advanced in knowledge, are capable of doing much hurt or good by their discourse or example; so it is chiefly their duty to endeavour by these two means to maintain practices of this sort, because all take notice of what they say and what they approve, and ordinarily regulate themselves by their example. I add that it very much imports each one in particular to exercise himself in this manifestation of conscience; because hereby the practice will become easy, whereas if he does not exercise himself therein, in a short time he will find it very hard. It is this which happens in regard of other exercises of humility and mortification, and even in regard of confession, which ordinarily gives great pain to those who confess but once a-year, and, on the contrary, gives great comfort and sweetness to those that confess often.

One thing which likewise contributes very much to render this practice easy, is to know that in giving an account to our superior, or prefect of spirit, of our consciences, we give it not toa judge from whom we apprehend punishment, but to a father from whom we expect comfort and consolation, and in whose good counsel we hope to find a remedy for our disease. Hence, whatever we can declare in this manner, we run no risk of punishment any more than we do by what we declare in confession; because these two tribunals are of the same nature, and what is practised in the one is consequently practised in the other.

In fine, what extremely facilitates manifestation of conscience, and what confirms very much all I have said, is that our superior is expressly obliged by our constitutions to keep in inviolable secrecy whatsoever is said to him. You may be therefore assured that what you shall say to your superior, in giving an account of your conscience, will remain in his own breast without any one else ever knowing it, and without your ever receiving any prejudice thereby. Besides, though they are already obliged, under pain of mortal sin, to keep a secret of this nature, yet Father General Aquaviva has taken care, by his most wise and most severe regulations, still more to oblige them to secrecy in this point; for he orders that a superior who shall violate this secret, shall be rigorously punished and deposed from his office; and he not only desires that, all the religious be advertised of this order, but that they should also know that there is a precise order for the punctual execution thereof against any person whomsoever. Just as, in order to remove the difficulty which people felt in confessing, it was necessary to oblige confessors by all ways imaginable religiously to keep the secret thereof, even so, that we might have no difficulty to discover our conscience to our superior, Father Aquaviva judged that he could not take too many precautions to prevent superiors from revealing what was confided to them in this manner. I know not, says he, if anything could ever happen more prejudicial than this to the society, which proposes to draw its subjects to perfection rather by the interior way of spirit than by that of exterior penances and mortifications. And by these his words it is easy for superiors to judge what prejudice they will do their order, if ever they permit anything to escape their lips of what has been declared to them in manifestation of conscience.

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