That the Ordinary Faults into Which We Fall Should Not Be Enough to Make Us Abandon This Cheerfulness

THE saints set so much value on our keeping up our courage and cheerfulness that they say we should not be discouraged even over our falls, nor lose heart, nor go about sad and melancholy. Sin being one of the things for which we may reasonably be sad, as we shall say presently, nevertheless, says St. Paul, this sadness should be tempered and allayed by the hope of forgiveness and the mercy of God, so as not to cause discouragement and disheartenment, lest perchance it happen that such a one be overwhelmed with excess of sadness (II Cor. ii. 7). So the blessed St. Francis greatly disliked seeing any such sadness among his friars; and said to one of his companions who was looking sad: “A servant of God ought not to be sad except for having committed some sin; if you have committed one, repent and confess it, and beg God’s pardon and mercy, praying with the prophet that he will restore to you your former joy” (Psalm 1. 14). “Give me back, O Lord, that cheerfulness and alacrity that I felt in Thy service before I sinned, and sustain and strengthen me with the magnificent and powerful spirit of Thy grace.” So St. Jerome explains this passage. Father Master Avila with much reason blames sundry persons who walk in the way of God full of useless sadness, with hearts embittered, without taste for the things of God, disagreeable to themselves and disagreeable to their neighbors, out of heart and disconsolate. And many of them there are, he says, who do not commit mortal sins, but say that they behave in this manner for the venial sins they commit, and for not serving God as they ought and desire. This is a great mistake; for much greater are the losses which ensue upon this distress and unmeasured sadness than upon the fault itself; and when they might have cut the evil short by some exercise of prudence and decision, these people make it grow, and tumble from one pit into another. That is just what the devil wants to bring about by this sadness, to rob them of all energy and strength for work and not suffer them to succeed in doing anything well.

The lesson that we should learn from our faults and falls should be, in the first place, a sense of shame and humiliation, recognizing that we are weaker than we thought. Secondly, to beg more grace of the Lord, seeing that we need it. Thirdly, to live henceforth with greater care and caution, taking warning from what we have done once how to behave another time, anticipating occasions and removing them betimes. In this way we shall do more than by outbursts of discouragement and sadness. Father Master Avila says very well: “If for the ordinary faults that we commit we are to go crestfallen, sad, and disheartened, which of us men shall have rest or peace, seeing that we all sin?” Aim at serving God and doing what in you lies; and if you do not do all you might and fall into some faults, be not astonished at that nor discouraged, for so are we: you are a man, and not an angel; weak, and not confirmed in grace. God knows well our weakness and misery, and would not have us discouraged at that, but only that we should get up again promptly after a fall and beg more strength of the Lord, as the child that falls gets up at once and runs as before.

St. Ambrose says the falls of children do not make their father indignant, but arouse his tenderness. In this way, he says, God behaves with us, according to the saying of the prophet: As a father hath compassion on his children .... because he knoweth the clay of which we are made; he remembereth that we are dust (Psalm cii. 13-14). God knows well our weakness and misery, and loves us as His weak and feeble children; and so these falls and weaknesses of ours rather move Him to compassion than to indignation. One of the great comforts that we have, weak in the service of God as we are, is to understand that God is so rich in love and mercy as to bear with us and love us although we do not answer to His love so entirely as in reason we should. God is rich in mercy (Eph. ii. 4); His mercy surpasses our sins. As wax melts before a fire, so do our faults and sins vanish before the infinite mercy of God. This should greatly encourage us to live always in much content and cheerfulness, to understand that God loves us and wishes us well, and that for all these ordinary faults that we commit, we lose not one point of the sanctifying grace and love of God.