A Dominican soul, even more than others, must shun falsehood and
dissimulation. What could be more illogical than a lack of truth on the
part of one who displays Veritas as his motto and claims kinship
with St. Dominic, of whom Blessed Jordan of Saxony declares that in him
was never seen the faintest shadow of deceit or dissembling?
Simplicity, straightforwardness, frankness, sincerity, these must be
the characteristics of our conduct. In a Dominican soul they should
spring up as from their very source. Our danger will probably lie
elsewhere, and we shall rather need to take care that humility and
charity temper what may easily become an exaggeration of those
qualities. Sincerity must beware of being self-assertive. Frankness
must avoid degenerating into a harshness which is wounding to the
feelings of others.
"Tell the truth courteously," was the advice given to a penitent by Fr.
Antoine Chesnois (1685). "Tell it without heat, without dealing out
blame ; and renounce every form of self-love. We must uphold sweetly
the truth for which Jesus Christ died, and this we must do for the love
of God Who cherishes it, and for the love of our neighbor, to whom it is
useful."
If veracity is a moral obligation we owe to others, it is also, and
primarily, a duty of fidelity to oneself. We are endowed with reason,
that is to say, designed for the truth by our very nature; we owe it to
ourselves to act accordingly, to be true. Now this fidelity to reason
is not limited to our relations with others, as, for instance, when we
are speaking to them or when we assume some significant attitude before
them. Always and everywhere our life must bear its stamp. Through our
reason, reinforced by faith, we are in a position to know the principles
which regulate life, and therefore under the obligation of conforming
our whole conduct to them. If we do this we shall walk in the truth.
Do I seem to be setting my readers on a road opposed to the one along
which I was leading them before? In the earlier part of this work it
was definitely stated that all perfection consists in charity. We have
heard St. Paul reduce to this primary virtue the sum total of Christian
virtues: to his eyes they appeared only as divine manifestations of
charity in a soul. Has not the love of God a sort of instinct which
discerns what ought to be done and deters from evil? Ama et fac quod vis. Love, and do as you will !
Yes, charity is the starting point for everything in Christian conduct;
it is the foundation which nothing can replace. But with St. Thomas we
must definitely maintain that it does not suffice. One cannot abandon
oneself exclusively to general inspirations of the love of God.
Moreover, it is so very certain that such and such an inspiration is the
outcome of charity ? It is for our reason to discriminate between the
genuine inspirations of divine love and those natural instincts which
are its counterfeits. How often human passions are mixed up with divine
inspirations, and even simulate them in order to supplant them. Some
day there will come One Who, as His forerunner has told us, will have a
fan in His hand to winnow the grain from the chaff. But the divine
Judge has endowed us with reason to enable us to exercise that judgement
beforehand on ourselves.
Thanks to Him, our reason is qualified through the supernatural gift of
prudence, not only to exercise the necessary discernment, but also, and
herein lies its chief rôle, to organize and direct all the powers
for good which God has given us. It is our faculty of government. It
is impregnated with the tendencies communicated to it by divine love.
It sees everything from the point of view of God Whom it seeks to
please in all things. It strives ever to maintain itself on a high
plane, beyond the reach of spurious forms of prudence, carnal prudence,
worldly prudence, natural prudence. And this super-natural prudence of
ours, itself regulated by charity, will endeavor unceasingly by its
injunctions to bring all our conduct into conformity with charity. It
is the menas through which the good impulses of divine love are realized
in the details of daily life. Veritatem facientes in caritate. In charity, it says to us, let us do the truth.
To that end it seeks the happy medium between the extremes to which our human passions are ever tending.
Do not be afraid that the happy medium implies mediocrity. For the ends
are ever in view, those magnificent ends which charity prescribes.
Prudence selects the means of attaining those ends. To be proportioned
to their supernatural goal they must necessarily transcend the natural
means which will satisfy the sage of this world. What a difference
there is between the temperance of a Greek philosopher or an ordinary
plain man and the life of that disciple of Christ who "chastises his
body to bring it into subjection," who practises perpetual virginity.
And yet even in the use of the very best means exaggeration is quite
possible. Here again our reason will find the happy medium, whilst
never losing sight of the end to which all these means are subordinate.
"The excellence of a religious rule," writes St. Thomas, "lies not in
the rigour of the observances practiced, but in the perfect adaptation
of these observances to the end aimed at. Take poverty for instance:
what constitutes its religious value is the release it gives from
earthly anxieties and the consequent facility it affords for
concentration on divine and spiritual things. Poverty is therefore not
necessarily the better for being more strict, seeing that it is not good
in itself, it is not our goal. Holy poverty is but a means; its
value depends upon the measure of its success in freeing us from the
anxieties and thus making us better disposed to practice our
contemplative and apostolic charity." For the same reason the ideal
does not mean wearing oneself out by mortifications and prolonging pious
exercises to an extra-ordinary extent. All that should be regulated by
the holy virtue of prudence.
It is not always easy to apply these principles. To do so successfully
in the various cases in which we become involved will require much
refelection on our part. Rectitude is essential, but by itslef it is
not sufficient. We shall recall personal experiences, happy or unhappy,
in the past. If necessary we shall seek advice, and this is where
spiritual direction has its place. It would be an abuse to be for ever
running after a director and to expect him to make all our decisions for
us. But often, especially in the early stages of the spiritual life,
he will assist our deliberations so that we shall be able to judge and
decide. If we think we have obtained the light of the Holy Spirit
without having reflected very much, we must most certainly submit those
inspirations to scrutiny, because they may quite possibly have no such
exalted origin.
We must then decide upon our course of action, taking special care not
to allow any prejudice, any movement of passion to cloud that singleness
of vision mentioned in the gospel and thus warp our judgement.
Finally, when once our decision is taken, we must insistently and
constantly school ourselves to bring about its practical realization.
These are, all of them, intellectual acts. Of course, charity is always
necessary; it is necessary at the outset, as we have seen, and it
remains essential to the very end, because if we lacked the fervour of
love we should neglect to take the decision and to abide by it, in spite
of all the excellent reasons which support it. Prayer and communion,
which stimulate prayer, are also of a primary importance. But it is by
the acts of prudence that we are enabled to introduce truth into our
life.
Let us every morning foresee and plan our day; let us relentlessly watch
and control our behavior throughout the day; and at night, in a final
examination of conscience, let us review the past hours to judge them
and to make the necessary amends.
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