Volume III, Treatise VIII, Chapter I

That Correction Is a Mark of Charity: How Useful Tt Is

St. Bernarp says, that when God chastises us, it is a mark that he loves us as his children; and the holy Scripture abounds in proofs of this truth. “The Lord chastises whom he loves”, says the wise man, “and takes pleasure in him as a father does in his son” (Proverbs 3:12) The Son of God also, by the mouth of St. John, says, “that he reprehends and chastises those whom he loves” (Apocalypse 3:19) And St. Paul teaches us the same thing, when he says, “The Lord chastises him whom he loves, and scourges every son he receives; for what son is there whom his father does not chastise?” (Hebrews 12:6) and 7. It is for this reason that all the saints hold for certain, that one of the greatest favours God bestows upon a soul that falls into sin, is presently to chastise him by remorse of conscience. It is therefore a mark that God loves you, and that you are of the number of his elect; because he does not quite forsake you, but, on the contrary, invites and calls you at the very time you forsake him. But when a sin is not followed, either by remorse of conscience, or some other chastisement, it is, say they, a very great mark that God is extremely provoked, as this is one of the greatest chastisements with which he punishes sinners in this life. The same St. Bernard upon this subject alleges these words of Ezechiel, “My indignation shall cease against thee, and my zeal shall be taken away, and I will acquiesce and be angry no more” (Ezechiel 16:42); and these other words of Isaias, “I have sworn that I will be no more angry with thee, and will not reprehend thee any more” (Isaias 54:9) “Take notice”, says he, “that God is never more angry than when he appears not to be so. If his zeal has then forsaken you, believe that his love has done so too, for you are certainly unworthy of his love, if he judges you not worthy of his chastisements, which are the favours he bestows upon those he loves”— Bern. serm. viii. Cant. But as the chastisements of God are a mark of his love towards us, so it is a mark also of the paternal love that superiors bear towards their subjects, when they reprehend them for their faults, and advertise them of them, that they may correct them. ‘“An open reprehension is better than a hidden love” (Proverbs 27:5),—says the wise man. And in effect the charity and affection which they have interiorly for you is very good, but it is only good for him who loves you, and it is very prejudicial to you, if he does not give you some proof of it. This is what causes that earnestness in your superior when he charitably admonishes you of some fault, which you yourself either do not perceive, or else do not look upon as a fault. For hereby he loves you with profit and advantage to yourself, and loves you with the love of a father, who desires nothing more than the advantage of his children; because, had he not the true feel- _ ings of a father for you, he would not reprehend you for your ‘faults. It is in this manner that, when a father detects his son in a fault, he reprehends and chastises him, because he is his son, and because he loves him as his son, and would fain see him accomplished in all perfections. But if the same person surprises another child in the same fault, he says nothing to him, and is not uneasy about him because he is not his son. Let his father, says he, look to him and correct him—it belongs not to me to give myself pain about what does not at all concern me.

Moreover, when the superior reprehends you for your faults, he shows not only that he loves you as his son, but is also persuaded of your affection for him, and that you are likewise persuaded of his, and of the zeal he has for your good. Nay, even hereby he signifies to you that he has a good opinion of your virtue; because if he did not believe you had sufficient humility to receive in good part his advice and correction, he would have abstained from saying anything to you. On the contrary, when he is not so free with you, but keeps certain measures, and says nothing to you of your faults, or of what was told him of you, it is because either he loves you not as a child, or believes you love him not as your father, or because he thinks you have not sufficient humility to make you profit by his admonitions and reprehensions; and in a word, it is always either want of love or want of esteem. It may happen, it is true, that externally he will show both the one and the other for you, whilst he will have neither in effect, but only a feigned

esteem and affection. For what signify these exterior appearances of esteem and good-will of the superior, if in the bottom he has so bad an opinion of you as that he dares not take upon him to admonish you of your faults? It is acting a double part, to testify exteriorly sentiments different from our interior sentiments; and it is thus people of the world behave, because they dare not freely tell one another what they think, for it will often happen that they will praise and flatter you, to make you believe they have an esteem for you, and yet they have quite different sentiments in their hearts. ‘Their words”, says the prophet, “are sweet like oil, yet they carry darts along with them; their mouths give a blessing to those whom they curse in their heart; they are deceitful in their discourse, and the poison of asps is under their lips’ (Psalms 54:22), etc. We ought to be far from such proceedings as these; the charity we make profession of requires a sincere and open manner, and admits not of such dissimulation. What! I have defects which perhaps I do not perceive, or that seem to me not to be so, and yet the superior, who sees them, and knows that my brethren are scandalized at them, does not admonish me of them. This would be to have no charity at all. If you wore your cloak with the wrong side out, or if your face were besmeared, is it not certain that it would be a great charity to tell you of it, and you would not only thank him who did so, but on the contrary, you would take it ill if any one saw it and would not tell you of it? We ought with @ great deal more reason have the same sentiments in regard of those faults which blemish the virtue of our soul, and which scandalize our brethren. And it is a great advantage for us, that there is any one who has the care with charity to admonish us of them; because the love which we bear to ourselves, and which blinds us, is the occasion that we perceive not our faults, or that we know them not to be what they are. As the tenderness which a mother has for a child makes her believe it handsome and beautiful, though it be in itself ugly and deformed; so the dangerous tenderness we have for ourselves makes even our defects appear to us as good qualities, and we always set them out in the best colours. Hence philosophers say very justly, that a man is not a good judge in what regards himself; for if the law has a suspicion of a judge who is a friend to one of the parties, how much more ought the love which we have for ourselves render us suspected to ourselves in our own cause! A third person, who is not prejudiced in our regard, perceives our faults more clearly, and is far more capable of judging of them, than we ourselves are. Moreover, as the common saying is, “‘two persons see more than one”. Plutarch says, that we ought to give money for an enemy, because it is but our enemies that tell us truth; for from our friends we must expect nothing else but praises and flatteries. They will tell you that nothing can be added to your good qualities, though perhaps they find not so much as one in you; there is no language more common in the world than this, and God grant it be not introduced amongst us. Nay, what is still very bad, our vanity and weakness cause us to listen with pleasure to these sorts of flatteries, and even to believe them, instead of doing as the Royal Prophet did, who said, “The just shall reprehend me with charity, and give me a severe correction, but the perfumed oil of a sinner shall not anoint my head” (Psalms 140:5) St. Austin says, that by the perfumed oil of a sinner flattery is to be understood, and that the prophet hereby signifies to us that he detests it, and that he had rather charitably and sincerely be reprehended by a virtuous man, than be loaded with praises and flatteries from the wicked. They serve, says he, for nothing else but to increase our folly and error, according to the words of Isaias: “My people, those who call ye blessed, deceive ye”—Isa., iii. 12. And on the contrary, those that severely reprehend us do us a great deal of good, according to these other words of the wise man: “The wounds that are made by one who loves, are far better than the deceitful kisses of him that hates us’ (Proverbs 27:6) ‘And it is better to be reprehended by a wise man, than to be deceived by the flattery of fools’—Zecl., vii. 6. What gives us pain for a short time is what cures us; whereas we become but so much the harder to be cured when we are too much flattered; for then we imagine that there is nothing that deserves reprehension in us, and therefore we never think of correcting ourselves. Diogenes said, that we stand in need either of a good friend that will admonish us of our faults, or of a bad enemy that will reproach us of them; because the admonitions of the one and the reproaches of the other may help to correct us. The second means is but too much in use in the world, where ordinarily only hatred and enmity speak sincerely of other’s faults, and where truth is only to be heard from the mouths of enemies. But in religion it is neither through hatred nor jealousy, nor through malice nor ill will, that they tell us of our faults, and it is only out of goodness, out of charity, and out of a desire of our salvation. It will therefore be our own fault, if we who have them do not make very great profit by them, having in the person of our superior a true and faithful friend, who charitably admonishes us of our faults; and, without doubt, we ought to believe ourselves happy when he reprehends us, because without that we should perhaps never be able to perceive our faults, nor consequently ever think of correcting them.

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