Of the Special Need That There Is to Beware of the Vice of Vainglory in Those Who Have the Office of Helping Their Neighbor —

LTHOUGH, as we have said, all need to be watchful against this temptation of vainglory, yet we whose office it is by our institute to help to the salvation of souls, need more particularly to be forearmed against it. For our ministries are very exalted and open and manifest to the whole world; and the greater and more spiritual they are, so much greater on the one hand is our danger, and the greater our offense on the other, if we seek ourselves therein and want to be regarded and esteemed by men. This would be exalting ourselves with that which God most prizes and esteems; namely, His graces and spiritual gifts. So St. Bernard says: “Woe be to them to whom it has been given to conceive and speak well of God and spiritual things and understand the Scriptures and preach eloquently, if that gift which has been given them to gain souls and extend and spread the honor and glory of God, they turn to the purpose of seeking themselves and being regarded and esteemed by men! Let them fear and tremble at what God says by the Prophet Osee: J have trusted them with my riches; I have given them my silver and gold and the precious jewels that I most valued, and they have made of them an idol of Baal (Osee ii. 8).” They have fabricated with it an idol of honor. Vae qui bene de Deo et sentire et loqui acceperunt, si quaestum aestiment pietatem, si convertant ad inanem gloriam quod ad lucra Dei acceperunt erogandum, si alta sapientes humilibus non consenttant. St. Gregory applies to this purpose what St. Paul says to the Corinthians: Let us not be as many who adulterate the word of God (II Cor. ii. 17). He gives two explanations of this passage. The first is when one understands and explains Holy Scripture in another manner than what it really means, engendering and extracting therefrom by one’s own spirit false and adulterous senses, the lawful husband and author thereof being the Holy Ghost, and the true and lawful sense that which He has declared to His Church through her saints and doctors. The second explanation of adulterating the word of God is what makes to our purpose. There is this difference between the true and lawful husband and the adulterer, that the former intends to beget and have children, while the latter intends only his own lust and satisfaction. In the same way he who by the word of God and the office of preaching which he holds does not intend so much to beget spiritual children to God —which is the end for which preaching is ordained, according to the saying of St. Paul, J have begotten you by the Gospel (I Cor. iv. 15)—as his own gratification and satisfaction, seeking to be regarded and esteemed, such a one adulterates the word of God. And therefore also the saints call vainglory a spiritual lust because of the great delight that is taken in it, as greater than the other carnal delight and lust as the soul is greater than the body. Let us not, then, adulterate the word of God; let us not in our ministries aim at anything else than the honor and glory of His Divine Majesty, according to what Christ our Redeemer says: I seek not my own glory, but the honor and glory of my heavenly Father (John viii. 56).

Holy Scripture relates an action of Joab, Captain General of the Army of David, an action worthy of being recounted and imitated by us. It says that Joab with his army was besieging the city of Rabath, the capital city of the Ammonites, where their king resided with his court. When he was pushing the siege with advantage and was on the point of entering and taking the city, he dispatched couriers to King David letting him know how the matter stood, that he might come and enter and take it. And he gives this reason: That the honor of the victory may not be attributed to me, if I enter and take it (II Kings xii. 28) ; and so it was done. This is the loyalty that we should observe with God in all our ministries, never seeking to have the fruit and conversion of souls or the good success of enterprises attributed to us, but all to God. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to thy name give glory (Psalm cxiii. 1). All the glory should be given to God Who is in heaven, as the angels sang: Glory be to God on high (Luke ii. 14).

Of St. Thomas of Aquin we read in his Life that never in his career had he any vainglory amounting to a fault. He never took any complacency or satisfaction in the great learning and angelic understanding and other gifts and graces that God gave him. And of our blessed Father Ignatius we read that for many years before he died he never had so much as a temptation to vainglory; so illuminated was his soul by light from heaven and so great his knowledge and contempt of himself, that he used to say there was no vice that he feared less than vainglory. There is the model that we should imitate; we should blush and be ashamed when we allow vanity to arise in us even in mean things. How would you be if you saw yourself a great doctor and preacher, gaining great fruit of souls and highly valued by princes and prelates and all the world? We need to accustom ourselves in small things to make no account of the praises and esteem of men, nor regard human considerations, that so we may be competent to do the same in great things.