How We Are to Make the Particular Examen on the Virtue of Humility

THE particular examen, as we have said in its place, should always be made on one thing alone because in that way it is a more efficacious means and of greater effect than if we made it on many things together, and therefore it is called particular because it is made on one thing alone. This is of so much importance that even with one vice or one virtue oftentimes, and indeed most ordinarily, it is necessary to take it by parts, and little by little, to gain what is desired. So also with this virtue: if you desire to apply your particular examen to the rooting out of pride from your heart and the gaining of the virtue of humility, you must not take it in general, since pride and humility include a great deal; and if you take it thus in the lump and in general—not to be proud in anything, but humble in all—that is a wide-embracing examen and includes more than if you took it on two or three things together, and so you will get no forwarder; you ought to have taken it little by little, by parts. See where it is that you most of all feel a want of humility and the hold that pride has on you, and begin there; and when you have done with one detail, take to heart another and then another, and in this way little by little you will go on rooting out from you the vice of pride and gaining the virtue of humility. These things, therefore, we will now proceed to divide and dismember, that so we may be able to make better and more profitably our particular examen on the virtue of humility.

Be it the first thing not to utter words that may turn to our own praise and commendation. As this desire of honor and esteem is so natural to us and so rooted in our heart, it comes on to our tongue, almost without our thinking or noticing it, to say words that may redound to our praise either directly or indirectly: for from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh (Luke vi. 45). When any creditable action comes up in conversation, we at once seek to have had our part in it. “I happened to be there; indeed, it was through me that the thing turned out as it did; if it had not been for me, and so forth.” I'll warrant that if the thing had gone otherwise, though you had been there and had your part in it, you would have found not a word to say. Of this sort are many words that often escape us without our seeing their bearing until we have said them. Thus it will be a very good thing to make our particular examen on this matter, that, by having an eye to this danger and forming a good habit, we may get rid of the evil and almost continual habit that we have of acting otherwise.

The second thing is what St. Basil advises us, and also Saints Jerome, Augustine, and Bernard, not to listen willingly to another praising and speaking well of us, for in this also there is great danger. St. Ambrose says that, when the devil cannot upset us by pusillanimity and discouragement, he aims at our overthrow by presumption and pride; and when he cannot compass our ruin by insults showered upon us, he tries to get people to honor and praise us, to effect our overthrow in that way. Of the blessed St. Pacomius it is related in his Life that he used to go out of the monastery to go to more solitary places to pray; and when he returned, often there came devils, and like the coming of a great army with its commander and a great escort, they went before him making a great din; and as it were to make room and remove obstacles they cried: “Stand aside, stand aside; make room, make room; let the saint come, let the servant of God come,” to see if they could thereby move him to elation and pride; and he laughed and made game of them. Do you the like when you hear yourself praised; and when thoughts of your high reputation occur to you, make account that you hear the devil saying these things and laugh and make game of him, and so you will deliver yourself from this temptation. St. John Climacus relates a very notable thing. He says that once the devil discovered to a monk the bad thoughts wherewith he assailed another to the end that, when the person so assailed heard from the other’s mouth what was passing in his heart, he might take him for a prophet and praise him for a saint, and so the man might become proud. Hence we see how much store the devil sets by pride and vain complacency arising in us, since he tries to set it up by so many arts and stratagems. And so says St. Jerome: “Beware of the Sirens of the sea, that enchant men and rob them of their judgment.” So sweet and pleasant in our ears is the music of human praise that no Sirens are such enchanters or so potent to make a man lose his head. Therefore it is necessary for us to make ourselves deaf and stop our ears. St. John Climacus says that, when people praise us, we should set before our eyes our sins and find ourselves unworthy of the praises given us, and thus we shall draw from them more humility and confusion. Let this, then, be the second thing on which we may make particular examen, not to rejoice when another praises you and speaks well of you. And with this there may be conjoined the practice of rejoicing when they praise and speak well of another, which is another detail of much importance; and when you find any sentiment or movement of envy at their praising and speaking well of another, or any complacency or vain satisfaction when they speak well of yourself, to mark it as a fault.

The third thing that we may make particular examen on is not to do anything to be seen or esteemed by men, according to the warning of Christ our Redeemer in the Gospel. See to it that ye do not your good works before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye shall have no reward from your Father who is in heaven (Matt. vi. 1). This is a very profitable examen, and may be divided into many parts. First it may be made on not doing things on mere human motives, and afterwards on doing them purely for God, and after that on doing them right down well, as one working in presence of God and serving God and not men, until we come to do our actions in such manner as to seem in them to be rather loving than working, as we said at length in the treatise of the rectitude and purity of intention that we ought to have in our actions.

The fourth thing on which we can make particular examen is never to excuse ourselves; for that also comes of pride, whereby in committing a fault or having a fault told us, we at once seek an excuse and unconsciously throw one excuse on the top of another; and are ready even to find an excuse for having excused ourselves, to excuse excuses in sins (ad excusandas excusationes in peccatis, Psalm cxl.

4). St. Gregory on those words of Job: If in human fashion I have hidden my sin, and concealed in the fold of my vest my evil doing (Job xxxi. 33), makes good reflection on this phrase, in human fashion. He says it is just like man to seek to gloss over and excuse his sin, that bad habit being in our blood and an inheritance from our first parents. The first man, on sinning, at once went to hide himself among the trees of Paradise; and when God reproved him for his disobedience, he thereupon threw the blame on his wife: The woman that thou gavest me for companion made me eat (Gen. iii. 12). The woman, to excuse herself, threw the blame on the serpent: The serpent deceived me and I ate. God asked them about their sin, that knowing it and confessing it they might obtain His pardon. So, says St. Gregory, He did not ask the serpent, for that creature He was not to pardon. But they, instead of humbling themselves and acknowledging their sin in order to obtain pardon, increased it and made it greater by excusing it and even trying in some way to throw the blame on God. “Lord, the woman Thou gavest me was the cause of this;” as if he would say: “If Thou hadst not given me her for a companion, I should have done nothing of the sort.” “The serpent that Thou didst create and let enter into Paradise was what deceived me. If Thou hadst not let it come in here, I should not have sinned.” St. Gregory says that, after they had heard from the mouth of the serpent that they should be like unto God, now that they could not be like Him in Godhead, they sought to make Him like themselves in fault, and so the fault that they had committed they made greater by defending it. We, then, as children of such parents, in fact as men, lie under this infirmity, this vice and evil habit, that, when we are reproved for any fault, we at once seek to cloak it over with excuses, as under so many leaves and branches. And sometimes, not content with excusing ourselves, we seek to throw the blame on others.

A saint (Peter Damian) compares those who excuse themselves to a hedgehog, that, when it feels that people want to catch or touch it, with the greatest nimbleness tucks in its head and feet and makes itself into a ball surrounded on all sides with pricks, so that you cannot seize or touch it without first pricking yourself—ut prius videas sanguinem tuum quam corpus suum. In this way, says the saint, those are who excuse themselves. If you seek to touch them and tell them the fault they have committed, they at once defend themselves like the hedgehog. And sometimes they will prick you, giving you to understand that you also have need of correction: sometimes telling you that there is a rule that one should not reprove another; at other times saying that others have committed greater faults, and no notice taken. Come to touch the hedgehog, and you will see if it pricks. All this springs from our excessive pride, in that we are unwilling to have our faults known or to be taken for men who have their defects, and we are more sorry for our faults’ being known and the loss of credit that we incur thereby than for having committed them, and thus we try to cloak them over and excuse them as far as we can.

And there are persons so unmortified on this point that, even before anything is said to them, they take the first step and excuse themselves, and seek to give a reason for what may be objected against them: if they did this, it was for that reason; and if they did the other, it was for that other reason. Who is pricking you now, that you rear up thus? It is the goad and spur of pride that you have within the very marrow of your constitution, that pricks you and makes you rear up at this even before the time. If, then, you feel in yourself this vice and evil habit, it will be well to make the particular examen thereon until you cease to have any desire to cloak over your fault, but rather rejoice, now that you have committed it, that they take you for a person who has his faults, in reparation and satisfaction for it. And even though you have not committed the fault, and are reproved for it, do not excuse yourself; because when the superior wants to know the motive and cause that you had for doing that, he will know how to inquire; and haply he knows already, but wants to test your humility, and see how you take rebuke and admonition.

Fifthly, it is also a good examen to cut short and retrench thoughts of pride. A man is so proud and so vain that there occur to him many vain and proud thoughts, imagining himself in high posts and ministries to correspond; and there you find yourself preaching in your native place very taking sermons, and sermons, so you imagine, productive of much good; there you are again lecturing, or maintaining theses with great applause of the audience, and the like things. All this comes of the great pride that is seated in us, sprouting out and bursting forth in these thoughts. Thus it makes an excellent particular examen to abridge and cut short at once these vain and ambitious thoughts, as you would stop and cut short at once impure thoughts and rash judgments, and thoughts of any other vice whereby one is molested.

Sixthly, it will be also a good examen to hold all others for our superiors, as the rule tells us. Let us incite ourselves to humility by contriving and desiring to give preference to others, reckoning them all in our mind as if they were our superiors and externally showing all respect and reverence that the condition of each admits of, with religious plainness and simplicity, which advice is taken from the Apostle (Phil. ii. 3; Rom. xii. 10). Although externally deference must be paid according to variety of status and persons, yet in point of true humility and the interior attitude of our soul, our Father wishes that, as he applies the word “least” to this Society and religious order, so each member of it should take himself for the least of all and hold all the rest for his superiors and betters. This, then, will be a very good and profitable examen, provided that it be not a mere speculative view, but in practice and behavior you conduct yourself to all with the same humility and respect as if they were your superiors. If you took such and such a person for your superior, you would not take liberties in talking to him, nor be rough with him, much less use words that might grieve or mortify him, nor would you be so ready to pass judgment on him, nor resent his dealing or speaking with you in this way or that. So all these things you must note and mark down as faults, when you make examen on this point.

The seventh thing on which we may make particular examen in this matter is to take well all occasions of humility that come in our way. You are apt to resent it when another speaks to you a scornful word, and when they give you orders in peremptory and imperious tones, or when it looks as though they did not make so much account of you as of others. Make your examen on taking well these and the like occasions that offer, occasions that may go to putting you down. This examen is one of the most proper and profitable that we can make to gain the virtue of humility; for besides our thereby going in readiness to meet all that may come in our way and must be met day by day, we may also in this examen grow and mount up by those three degrees of virtue that we have already stated. First you may make your examen on bearing all these things with patience; afterwards on bearing them with readiness and ease, until you come not to dwell on the thing or make any account of it; after that you may make it on bearing them with joy, and delighting in your own humiliation, in which we have said the perfection of humility consists.

The eighth thing on which one may make one’s particular examen in this and other matters is to do so many acts and practices of humility (or other virtue on which the examen is made), as well interior as exterior, bringing oneself to act therein so many times in the morning and so many times in the afternoon, beginning with fewer acts and gradually increasing them until one is quite habituated and accustomed to this virtue. In this way, by dividing one’s enemies and taking each by itself, self-conquest is better effected and the end desired gained in a shorter time.