Of the Source and Origin of Judgments Contrary to Obedience, and the Means Whereby We May Help Ourselves against Them

THE root whence judgments and reasonings against the orders of obedience spring is our want of mortification. But someone will say: “That is as though we asked the origin of pride, and got the answer that it comes of want of humility.” It is quite clear that, if my judgment were mortified, my obedience would be simple and I should have no judgments against it. But that is not what I say; what I say is, that from our not keeping our passions and appetites mortified, from our being great lovers of our own ease and the accomplishment of our own will, from our not being indifferent and resigned to all that may be commanded us—from thence it is that many reasons and judgments arise in our minds when anything is commanded us against our will and appetite. If you do not believe me, let anyone enter into himself, and see whence it is that judgments and answers back against obedience are wont commonly to present themselves, and he will find that it is when something is commanded to which he has a repugnance. When something is not granted which you want, when you are disappointed and touched to the quick on a sore point, then it is that apparent reasons against what is ordered come up in shoals; but when the order is something to your taste, something that you smack your lips over, then no judgments or reasons to the contrary present themselves; rather you think that what comes is just the thing, and is the most reasonable order in the world.

St. Jerome, on those words of the Prophet Osee (vii. 11): Ephraim is as a misguided dove, that hath no heart, asks why Ephraim is not compared to other birds, but to the dove. And he answers: Other birds do their best to defend their offspring, even at the risk of their lives; and when they see a kite or a hawk, a raven or a snake, approach their nest, they fly up and down, defending their young as best they can; and when they can do no more, they show the grief they feel by their plaintive laments. But the dove does not defend her offspring, nor utter any plaintive cries, nor show any feeling, when they are taken away, nor go after them to look for them; therefore Ephraim is compared to a dove. And for this Christ our Redeemer tells us to imitate the dove, so that, when they take away our little ones that we love and are fond of, we should be as the dove, offering no resistance or contradiction, nor complaining, nor showing any resentment thereat (Matt. x. 16). Therefore it is from our want of mortification, and the difficulty and repugnance that we feel over things contrary to our will, that these judgments arise. So the principal means that we can take on our part against this temptation is to be sure and mortify ourselves, and not have any will of our own, nor any desire of our own liking and convenience, but to be quite indifferent and resigned to all that the superior shall chose to make of us, and not care whether they order us this rather than that.

Therefore those ancient Fathers, as good masters of spirit, exercised their disciples greatly, commanding them things that seemed not to the purpose, to try their obedience and curb their will and judgment. And this purposeless procedure was much to the purpose; for it is much more important that you should mortify yourself, and that your will and judgment be curbed by being bent the other way about, than any advantage that could be gained by doing the thing in another fashion. Oftentimes the superior’s mind is that this or the other advantage be forfeited for your gain and advancement; and so it is not loss but gain. And as those who break in wild colts make them sometimes gallop, now go slow, now right about, now in the midst of an evolution to wheel round the other way, now to stop suddenly in mid career, that they may get accustomed to obey the bit, and not follow their own impetuous motions, so good masters of spirit act. So we read that the great Anthony dealt with his disciple Paul; he would make him sew a garment and immediately go back and unsew it, and weave a basket and immediately unweave what he had woven. Others made their disciples draw water from a well, and empty it back at once into the same well. We read of the blessed St. Francis that he made his companion Friar Maseo spin round so many times in the middle of the road that he grew giddy and fell fainting to the ground. Others who sought entrance into his order he made plant lettuces or cabbages wrong way up, root upwards, to try their obedience and uproot from them all self-opinion, and not leave in them any token of private judgment or self-will. Would to God that this exercise were more in practise to this day; because if one gets accustomed to have what is well done undone, he will not feel it when they rebuke him for what is badly done.

But since this entire mortification and resignation requires great perfection, in the meantime, while we do not attain to it, we may aid ourselves by our very want of mortification, recognizing and putting all down to that. This will be a very good means to prevent the judgments and reasonings that occur against obedience from doing us any harm; for once you understand that it is the fault of your imperfection, you will make no account of it. A sick person who knows that he is ill, is quite aware that, though he feels thirsty, it is not proper for him to drink, and though the purgative draught is bitter, and the leech hurts him, that is just the thing for him; therefore he does not believe his appetite nor put any trust in it, but subjects himself to the doctor, following his prescription and taking that for the better thing. Thus we are sick, full of selflove and disorderly passions; like a sick man, we have no appetite but for what does us harm, and what is good and profitable shocks and disgusts us. Let us, then, use the expedient which the sick man uses who wishes to get better; let us have no belief in ourselves, but believe the superior, who has the care and direction of us, and take for certain what he commands and ordains, making no account of the judgments that occur to us, but holding them for a sick man’s fancies. In this way not only will the judgments and reasonings that occur to you against obedience do you no harm, but you will gather fruit from them, and conform yourself more to obedience, because you will at once return upon yourself, saying: ‘As I am sick, what is good and to my advantage offends me; and I need no other sign to understand that this is what befits me and is the better thing than the fact of its offending me and difficulties’ occurring against it, because I am sick and my taste is all awry.”

This is a great remedy against all judgments that occur, not only against obedience, but also against our brethren, to turn them at once against yourself. “I am the blind man who goes astray, so that what is well done seems to me evil; what judgment have I got that I should seek to lay down the law for others?” And when the manners of your brother offend you, and his way of going on, you should throw the blame upon yourself. “I am the ill-mannered man, and therefore this and that offends me; the fault is in me, and not in the other man.”

Against all temptations it is a great remedy to understand that it is a temptation; therefore, when the devil tempts us, he labors all he can that his temptation may not appear a temptation, but right reason, so that we may fall into it. As the hunter, when he sets a trap, always tries to make it appear not a trap, but a good offer of food, since nor beast nor bird would fall into it if they took it for a trap, so the devil acts. Satan transforms himself into an angel of light (II Cor. xi. 14), that we may take that to be light and brightness which is gloom and darkness. God deliver you from the temptation that appears not a temptation, but a reasonable course of action. When judgments of your own making get such a mastery over you as to impress you with the belief that you are not influenced by passion, nor under temptation, and that you do not speak from any personal motive, but because the case is clear and any man of sense will see it, then your temptation is great, and the remedy hard to apply. These temptations that come under the appearance of good are the gravest and most dangerous of temptations. When a barefaced temptation comes, you may help yourself by many means to overcome it; but when it is not known for a temptation, but is taken rather for a reasonable proposal, how shall we manage to throw it off? When it is not known for an enemy, but taken for a friend, how are we to guard against it? A great servant of God used to say that he was not afraid of the defects that he knew, but of those that he did not know, or made no account of, or excused.

But to come back to the point, I say that, when reasonings and judgments occur against obedience, it will be a great remedy to turn against ourselves and make up our minds that this is a weakness and want of mortification and a shortcoming of ours, and so take no notice of them. We have abundant reason for doing this, because it is the nature of our flesh and sensuality at once to invent and find many apparent reasons for what pleases and satisfies us, and many inconveniences attending on the contrary. We are so blinded by our self-love and passions as easily to believe and judge a thing to be quite the contrary of what it really is. Thus to a very thirsty man water seems to be the best and pleasantest and most delicious thing in the world, because he judges according to his present disposition. So to anyone laboring under any violent emotion, the disorderly affection that he has represents the object as something very different from what it really is, and makes him judge of it contrary to the truth. When a man knows himself not to be clear of earthly affections, and to have many lively passions, he should not easily trust his own judgment, but rather look upon it as a disorder and an enemy to be on his guard against.

Not content with not letting ourselves be carried away by these judgments, we should further endeavor to make our profit out of the temptation to our greater confusion and humiliation, saying: “What? Can I be so proud as to harbor judgments against my superior? Did I not enter religion to be at everybody’s service? And shall I seek now to prefer myself to him who is my head, and superior of us all? I did not come to command, nor to rule and govern, but to obey and be commanded; I have no business to judge my guide, but he should judge me.” This is a general remedy, very useful for gathering fruit from all temptations. From that very pride and vanity which assails us we should take occasion to humble ourselves the more. As the devil tries to convert the antidote into poison, getting us to take pride in our virtue and in the very act of humility that we do, so it should be ours to convert the poison into an antidote by humbling ourselves the more for the pride that comes over us. To think that pride should come over me, such a weak and imperfect creature asI am! To think that I should be vain of what I do badly, and wish to be regarded and esteemed on that account! There it clearly appears what Iam. It is a wondrous countermine to the artifices of the devil, to contrive to make gain out of what he intended for our ruin. Salvation from our enemies (Luke i. 71).

There are many other considerations to aid us not to give credit to our own reasonings, nor take account of our own judgments, but always hold them in suspicion. The first is, because the wise commonly say that in all things it is true prudence not to trust one’s own prudence; how much more will this hold good in our own affairs, where we are an interested party. It is clear, and it is a first principle in moral philosophy, that no one is a good judge in his Own cause, because passion and self-love blind us. Thus we have no reason to trust our own judgment, but rather to follow the judgment of our superior, and persuade our- Selves that whatsoever he decides is the best course.

A second consideration to aid us to this effect is that the subject sees sundry particular reasons that occur, while the superior sees them and many others, which the subject does not know nor can know. And though in view only of those particular reasons the course that suggests itself to you might possibly be the better, yet in view of all the reasons together, which the superior knows, it is not the better. And thus not only in the way of religious life and perfection, but also according to the law of prudence, it is a great piece of impertinence and pride to set oneself to judge and pass sentence on the order of the superior for one or two reasons which occur to you, reasons which the superior has examined repeatedly, while he has others which make it appropriate to do something else. St. Augustine draws a good comparison from the head, the upper part of man. The soul, he says, animates and gives life to our whole body, but in the head all the five senses stand out, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. In the other members there is only the sense of touch; and for that reason all the members are subject to the head, which is above them all as a higher power to guide and govern them. So in the superior, as in the head, all the five senses have their marked place, but in you, as a member, only one. You touch only one particular reason, while the superior touches them all; he hears, sees, and knows all that there is in each case; thus it is reasonable that the members be subject to the head. Even in the world they say that the fool knows more in his own house than the wise man in the house of a stranger; how much more will the wise man know more in his own house than the other in the house of a stranger! The Wise Man says: Judge not against the judge, because he judgeth according to what is just (Ecclus. viii. 17). See what an impertinence it is to seek to be judge of what you do not know what way it comes, nor whither it goes, nor can know, nor is it well that you should know.

A third consideration that will aid us to give up our own judgment and submit to that of the superior, is to reflect that the superior looks to the common good of the whole house and the whole order, while you, as an individual, look just in the direction of your own finger, and give ear to your own particular conveniences. Now the common and universal good is to be preferred to the particular. We see even that natural things cease to act according to their particular inclinations when it is for the common and universal good, as the water ceases to run down in the syphon, and at other times mounts up, that there may be no vacuum, for the perfection of the universe, as the philosophers say— propter perfectionem universi. Thus each individual must abate somewhat of his own convenience and inclination for the accomplishment of the common good, which is what the superior regards.

A fourth consideration that will also help us not to give credit to our own judgments is the experience that we have of ourselves. How many things have we believed, and taken to be right well assured, and affirmed them as certainties, and then we have found that we have been mistaken, and have changed our opinion and been ashamed afterwards of having believed as we did believe and judged as we did judge! If a man had deceived you twice or thrice, you would never trust him again; how, then, is it that you trust your own judgment, having been deceived by it so many times? This experience, which everyone has of his own ignorance and of his having been mistaken on other occasions, is commonly the reason why in things on which the youngest easily make up their minds, the oldest proceed with great reserve and consideration, as being men of ripe judgment, prudent and experienced.