How Much It Behooves Us to Exercise Ourselves in Self-Knowledge

HALES of Miletus, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, being asked what of all the things in nature it was most difficult to know, answered that the most difficult thing was for man to know himself, because our self-love is so great as to bar and hinder this knowledge. Hence that saying, celebrated among the ancients, “Know thyself’ — Nosce teipswm; and again, “Live by thyself”—Tecum habita. But to leave external authorities and come to our own, who are better masters of this science, St. Augustine and St. Bernard say that this science of self-knowledge is the highest and most profitable of all that man has invented and discovered. Men greatly esteem, says St. Augustine, the knowledge of the things of heaven and earth, astronomy, cosmography, the study of the movements of the heavens, the courses of the planets, their properties and influences; but the knowledge of oneself is the highest science and most profitable of all. Other sciences puff wp and make people vain, as St. Paul says (I Cor. viii. 1), but this edifies and humbles. So the saints and all masters of spirit insist much on our occupying ourselves at prayer in this exercise; and blame the delusion of those who pass lightly over the knowledge of their own defects, and occupy themselves in other devout thoughts more to their taste, finding no relish in the consideration of their own defects and faults and not liking to present such an ill appearance to themselves, just as an ugly man dares not look at himself in the looking-glass. The glorious St. Bernard says, speaking in the person of God: “O man, if thou wouldst look at thyself and know thyself, thou wouldst be displeasing and disagreeable to thyself, and pleasing and agreeable to Me; but now since thou dost not see nor know thyself, thou art pleasing to thyself and displeasing to Me. A time will come when thou wilt please neither Me nor thyself; not Me, because thou has sinned; not thyself, because thou wilt burn forever’—O homo, si te videres, tibi displiceres et mihi placeres. Sed quia te non vides, tibi places et mihi displices. Veniet tempus cum nec mihi nec tibi placebis; mihi, quia peccasti, tibi, quia in aeternum ardebis.

St. Gregory on this subject says: There are some who, when they begin to serve God and aim a little at virtue, fancy at once that they are good and holy people; so they fix their eyes on their good points in utter forgetfulness of their sins and evil deeds in the past, and sometimes also in the present. Taken up in regarding what is good in them, they disregard and fail to see the many evil deeds that they do. But the good and the elect do just the opposite. While they are really full of virtues and good works, they constantly fix their eyes on the evil that besets them, regarding and considering their faults and imperfections. Now it is readily seen what becomes of the one and the other; since in this way it comes about that those who look at their bad points, preserve their good points and their great virtues, dwelling ever in humility, while on the other hand evil men lose their good points by looking at them, becoming proud and vain of them. Thus the good help themselves by their weak points and make profit out of them; while evil men take harm from the very good that is in them, making bad use of it. So it happens in our daily experience in regard to food, that, though it be good and wholesome, it will make one ill who eats without order and without rule; and, contrariwise, the poison of the viper, taken with a certain measure and moderation, will be a healthful remedy [triaca, O. E. triacal, our treacle, from the Greek Syovaxy from dyeiov, a beast.] And when the devil brings to your memory the good deeds you have done, to make you think highly of yourself and be proud, set over against them your evil deeds, remembering your past sins, as did the Apostle St. Paul. Not to be puffed up and grow vain over his great virtues, and his having been rapt to the third heaven and the greatness of the revelations that he had heard, he says: I who before was a blasphemer, and a persecutor of the servants of God and of the name of Christ! Ah, I am not worthy of the name of Apostle, since I have persecuted the Church of God (I Tim. i. 3; 1 Cor..xve 9) This is an excellent counterpoise and very good countermine against this temptation.

On those words that the Archangel St. Gabriel said to the Prophet Daniel: Son of man, understand what I wish to say to thee (Dan. viii. 17), St. Jerome says: “Those holy prophets, Daniel, Ezechiel, and Zachary, with the high and continual revelations that they had, seemed to be already enrolled among the choirs of angels; but that they might not exalt themselves therein above their station and become proud and vain, taking themselves now for beings of an angelic superior nature, the angel warned them on the part of God to remember the frailty and weakness of their natural condition, calling them sons of men.” Thus they were to recognize that they were weak and miserable men like the rest, and so humble themselves and take themselves for what they were indeed. And we have many examples in ecclesiastical and secular history of saints and illustrious men, kings, emperors, and pontiffs, who practised this method, keeping an attendant to remind them at times that they were but men, that so they might dwell in humility and escape being vain.

It is told of our Father Francis Borgia that while he was Duke of Gandia a holy man counseled him, if he wished to advance greatly in the service of God, not to let any day pass without thinking for some time of something that might make for his shame and self-abasement. He took the advice so much to heart that, from the time that he gave himself to the practice of mental prayer, he spent daily the two first hours of his prayer in this knowledge and depreciation of himself; and all that he heard or read or saw served him to this purpose of self-humiliation and confusion. And besides he had another devotion that helped him very much. Every morning that he rose, the first thing he did was to kneel down and kiss the ground three times, to remember that he was earth and dust, and to that must return. The good that he drew down from this practice is apparent in the great example of humility and holiness that he has left us.

Let us, then, follow this counsel; let no day pass without our spending some portion of our meditation in thinking of something that may turn to our shame and confusion. And let us not stop or grow weary of this exercise until we feel that we have drunk into our very soul a hearty depreciation and disparagement of ourselves, and confusion and shame before the majesty of God at sight of our baseness and misery. We have great need of this, inasmuch as our pride is so great and the inclination we have to be regarded and made much of so strong, that, if we do not go on continually with this practice, every hour we shall find ourselves lifted up above ourselves like a cork on water, since we are puffier and lighter than any cork. We must always go on repressing and putting down this swelling of pride in ourselves, by looking at our feet, at our foul and lowly condition, for thus is drowned all the noise of vanity and pride. Let us remember that parable of the fig tree in the Gospel, how the master wished to cut it down because for three years it had borne no fruit, and the gardener said: “Sir, leave it alone for this year at least, till I dig and spread dung about it; and if then it bear not fruit, thou shalt cut it down.” Do you, then, dig round about this dry and barren fig tree of your soul and spread about it the dung of your sins and miseries, since there is plenty of that, and therewith it will bear fruit and become fertile.

To animate us more to this exercise, and that none may take occasion to abandon it on any false apprehensions, two things are to be observed. First, let no one think that this exercise is only for beginners; it is also for ancient and advanced and very perfect men, since we see that they practised it, and even the Apostle St. Paul practised it. Secondly, we must understand that this is no sad or melancholy exercise, nor a cause of trouble and uneasiness; rather it brings with it great peace and quiet, content and cheerfulness, how many soever be the faults and miseries that one knows in oneself, even though one clearly knows oneself to be so worthless as to deserve the abhorrence and contempt of all, because when this knowledge comes of true humility, the pain is accompanied by such sweetness and satisfaction that one would not wish to be without it. Other pains and annoyances that people feel at seeing in themselves so many faults and imperfections are a temptation of the devil, whose aim it is on the one hand to make us think that we have got humility; and on the other hand, if he could, he would also wish to make us lose our trust in God and go jaded and discouraged in His service. If we had to stop short at the knowledge of our weakness and misery, we should find occasion enough to be sad and disconsolate; but we must not stop there, but pass on at once to the consideration of the goodness and mercy and liberality of God, and to the great love that He bears us, and all that He has suffered for us; and in that we must put all our confidence. And thus what might have been an occasion of discouragement and sadness when you looked at yourself, serves to strengthen and animate you, and becomes an occasion of greater joy and comfort, when you look at God. A man looks at himself and sees nothing but matter for weeping; but looking at God, he trusts in His goodness, without fear of seeing himself abandoned for all the many faults and imperfections and miseries that he sees in himself, because the goodness and mercy of God, on which he fixes his eyes and his heart, exceeds and surpasses infinitely all that. And with this consideration rooted in his innermost being, he despairs of himself as of a broken reed, but has ever a firm hope and confidence in God, according to that saying of Daniel: Not in confidence of our own righteous doings, do we prostrate and lay our prayers before Thy face, but in confidence of Thy many mercies (Dan. ix. 18).