That Obedience Does Not Prevent Our Exposing Our Wants, and of the Conduct to Be Observed in Such a Case

NOT only is it no fault or imperfection to propose a difficulty to the superior, but it is a point of greater perfection, and it would be a fault not to propose it in due season. So we have a rule about it, which bids us expressly: “As excessive solicitude for what regards the body is reprehensible, so a proper care of preserving health and bodily strength for the service of God is praiseworthy, and all ought to have it; and, therefore, when anyone feels that anything is doing him harm, or that something further is necessary as regards food, clothing, lodging, office, or exercise, or anything else, all ought to admonish the superior thereof, or him whom the superior shall appoint for that purpose.” Our Father had good reason for giving us this rule; for, though it is true that the chief care, and in a way the whole care, of things necessary for health falls on superiors, yet after all they are men, not angels, and, being such, they cannot know if you have need of anything beyond the common, nor remember all particular cases; so it is needful for you to help them in the matter, reminding them and exposing your want that they may provide. The difficulty is in exposing your want in the proper way, for there is great danger of self-love and private judgment coming in. To proceed without suspicion of that, our Father says there are two things to observe. The first is, before making your statement, to have recourse to prayer, and after that if you judge you ought to represent the case to the proper authority, to do so. That does not mean that you are just to say a Hail Mary, and straightway state anything that your fancy suggests; “prayer” here means that before any statement you should recollect yourself first, and look whether this exposition of your wants is in accordance with the greater glory of God, or whether you are seeking yourself therein. If the second is the case, you should expose nothing; but if it seems to you to be in accordance with the greater glory of God to expose your want, expose it accordingly.

The second thing to be observed is that, when you have represented your case by word of mouth or by a brief memorandum not to have it forgotten, you should leave the whole care of the matter to the superior, holding that to be the better thing which he shall ordain, without further statement, without importunity coming from yourself or from another, whether your request be granted or not; since each should persuade himself that what the superior, being informed of the situation, shall ordain, will be that which is most in accordance with God’s service and our Lord’s greater glory. Thus, as well after as before your proposal and representation you must be in a state of great indifference, not only in point of execution for taking or leaving the thing in question, but also in point of being more satisfied and taking that for the better course which the superior shall ordain.

This is the main thing to be observed in exposing our wants, that the petitioner shall be so indifferent about his petition as to remain quite satisfied and pleased, whether the thing be granted or refused. Hereby it will be clearly seen whether he was seeking therein the glory of God, or whether he was seeking himself. If he was seeking purely the will and glory of God, he will rejoice in anything that the superior shall ordain, knowing that to be the will of God declared by the superior. But if he complains and is dejected or murmurs interiorly at a refusal, it is a sign that he was not indifferent nor purely seeking God, but was seeking himself and his own comforts; it was on that account that he was dejected and troubled at being balked of his wish. Thus one of the beneficial results that you should endeavor to draw from the prayer that you make before exposing your wants, is to bring yourself to an attitude of perfect indifference as to whatever reply may be given you, so that it shall make no more matter to you if the answer be Yes, than if it be No. This is the best disposition that you can bring with you to this exposure of your wants, for in this way you will be as happy and as pleased over a No as over a Yes. It would even be a good plan when the answer is Yes to your request, to reflect and consider whether you would have been as satisfied if the answer had been No. If so, it will be an excellent sign, and you will have every reason to believe that, acting upon this Yes, you are doing the will of God. I say, then, that it is not against the perfection of obedience to expose your wants in this way, since there is in that no departure from indifference and resignation. On the contrary, it argues greater perfection and greater mortification, and to fail to expose them would be manifest imperfection and want of mortification, to say nothing of its being express disobedience to the rule aforesaid. A man feels that something is doing him harm, and that he has need of something else; yet he persists in saying nothing about it, thinking within himself: “If they give it me, so much the better; and if not, all right still.” Perhaps such a one will think that this shows mortification and desire of suffering. No, it is not mortification and desire of suffering, since he would feel greater difficulty and repugnance in exposing his wants and going with his request to the superior than in suffering what he suffers at present, for he fancies that the superior will take him for a man who has a great eye to himself and his own comforts. At other times you get this specimen of want of mortification, and lack of indifference: “The other day I exposed some want or other, and the superior blew me sky-high, and answered me in such a decisive way that I went off with my mind made up never more to darken that man’s door, nor state any want, except in the case of impossibility to stand the thing any longer.” All this comes of your not going about the business of exposing your wants with indifference, and your not having virtue enough to take a refusal, and so you prefer to suffer rather than expose anything.

Here should be observed the deceit of the devil and the strength of self-will, that makes us prefer to suffer the need we are under, according to our own will and fancy, rather than represent it, for fear of being met with a refusal. Even in point of self-love and self-interest, this is an error and a blindness. Let us put the matter at the worst according to your ideas, and suppose the superior does say No. Pray tell me, would it not be better to take your present suffering under obedience and in submission to the will of God rather than of your own will, as you are suffering now? Reflect, besides, on the merit that you would have gained by having exposed your wants and kept your rule, which would be no small merit. Nor would you have any reason to fear the awkward consequences that might ensue after you had exposed your case. They would not then stand to your account, as they would have stood if you had not exposed your wants; but they would be put down to your superior, and put down to God, Who directs and governs you through him. To prevent, then, all these ill consequences, and rid us of all the difficulty and shame that might otherwise have occurred to us in the matter, our Father lays us down a rule about it. Whoever does what the rule commands him, what has he to fear and what has he to be ashamed about? A superior cannot take it ill, but must take it well, that one keeps his rule. And the practice that there is in the Society, so common and ordinary, of having recourse to the superior in very small things, makes it very easy; let not your want of mortification make it difficult.

The whole difficulty of this business lies in exposing our wants with due indifference and resignation, wherefore it is necessary to enlarge upon it a little further. A man should not go to expose his wants with his mind made up that what he asks is suitable for him; that would be a source of disquiet and trouble in case of things’ not going as he thought. But he must go to expose his wants in a state of doubt, awaiting the resolution and determination of the superior with indifference; and in this way he will be at rest, whatever answer he gets. A student going to ask a speculative doubt of his professor, remains content and satisfied with the answer given because he went as a disciple and with a doubt to one who was his master, and so takes it for the truth and the solution of his doubt. In like manner the truly obedient subject should propose to his superior the practical doubts which occur to him, doubting what is best for him, and not having his mind made up one way rather than another until the superior declares what. has to be done; and that he must take for the best and surest course, and as such follow it and rest satisfied with it. So, in the prayer that we make before exposing our wants, we must not make up our minds that this or that is more in accordance with the glory of God. The only thing that we have to make up our minds about is that it is a proper thing to lay before the superior, and that in laying it before him we should let it appear that we are not seeking self, but God. But what we should always continue to doubt is whether in sober reality it is a suitable thing or not, until the superior resolves and determines the question.

This is a point to take great notice of, for hence depends our exposing our wants rightly, and quietly acquiescing in any answer that the superior may give. And as this is a thing of such frequent use and practice here in religion, it is very important that we should hit upon the right way of doing it. It would be a great prejudice to religion, and a thing greatly to be deplored, if we got so much out of hand in this matter that superiors could hardly refuse anything to their subjects without there ensuing bitterness, distrust, and complaints on their part that little love is shown them, they meanwhile remaining obstinate in their view of the matter, and grumbling perhaps at the superior as being rigid and hard, and a man who will go out of his way for nobody. We should reflect that, if we bore with our natural parents’ refusing us many things that we asked, and did not take them to be severe on that account, nor lose the love that was due to them—and that while we did not profess at the time to be making war on our will, or gaining the victory over ourselves—now that we do profess all that, it is all the more to be expected that we shall observe the same conduct to our spiritual fathers.

In the days of old, superiors used sometimes to refuse on purpose their subjects’ requests, though they might have granted them without inconvenience, simply to practise them in mortification and make them take refusals well; and subjects seized with cheerfulness and alacrity upon the occasion thus offered them of doing violence to their own will. Such was the great desire they had of their spiritual advancement. But how would it be now if not only that which might be granted in reason, but even what is not good for us, cannot be refused us without bitterness and _ complaints ensuing on our part? How would it be if things came to this pass, that superiors had at times to condescend to their subjects, granting them what they would rather not grant, to avoid greater evil?—a state of things which, as we have said above, a subject ought greatly to dread.

For greater perfection in this representing of our wants, our indifference and abandonment of self should not be confined to the interior, but should also be shown exteriorly in our words and way of putting the thing, that words may march with desires and the exterior aid the interior. That is a good way of exposing our wants, which shows on our part indifference and inward self-abandonment; and the more it shows this disposition, the better will it be. And if the thing be presented in such a way that even the superior cannot make out to which side the proposer inclines, his only object being that upon the case as stated the superior may see what is fitting, that will be a very excellent way of exposing a want. This may be well understood from the following. There is a rule of the Provincial that at consultations, when he proposes anything to the consultors for them to give their opinion on, he shall propose it in such manner as not to show more inclination one way than the other, that so the consultors may speak their minds more freely, and their seeing their superior inclined one way may not give them occasion to incline to that also. This, then, also is a very good way of exposing our wants to the superior—to expose them in words so plain and simple that the superior may scarcely understand which way your inclination lies, that so you may not give him any occasion of condescending to your wish in view of your weakness, but that he may see for himself the more appropriate course to take, without regard to your inclination and desire.

We have two excellent examples of this in the holy Gospel. The first is the way in which Our Lady put before her dear Son the shortage there was of wine at the marriage-feast to which they had been invited. They have no wine (John ii. 3). She did not say: “Supply, Lord, this need, as Thou canst, that they may not be put to the blush,” but simply represented the shortage. The second example is the way in which Mary and Martha put before Christ our Redeemer the illness of their brother Lazarus. The holy Gospel says that they sent a message of this tenor: Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick (John xi. 3). St. Augustine there well observes: ‘They did not say, Come, Lord; they did not dare to say, Come and heal him; nor so much as to say, Give command, and it will be done, as the centurion said (Matt. viii. 8); they said only: Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick.” To him who loves, no more is necessary than to signify the fact. This is the way in which we should lay our wants before our superior, in words so plain and simple as to declare the need, but not the desire, nor personal inclination. In this way we shall be quite safe of his not condescending to us, and of our not seeking our- Selves.

The way of exposing our wants is expressly laid down by our Father in the Constitutions, where, treating of invalids who find that the climate of a particular region is hurtful to them, he says that such an invalid is not to ask for a change, nor show an inclination that way, but merely to lay before the superior his ailment and indisposition and the inability he feels to do the work, and all the rest he must leave to the superior, who will see whether it is fitting to send him elsewhere, where he will be better and able to do more, or whether it will be to the greater glory of God for him to stay where he is though doing less or even nothing at all, that being more expedient for him. Now if in a matter like this which seems to touch us so closely, our Father requires such indifference and resignation, calling upon us not to ask for any change or show any inclination that way, how must it be in other things which are not of such consequence? But because sometimes we cannot or do not know how to lay open our wants without giving the superior to understand what we desire or are inclined to, there is an excellent and praiseworthy way of doing things which some have, which is, after making their statement clearly and plainly, earnestly to beg the superior not to mind what they say or try to give them satisfaction, but to seek solely the greater service of God, declaring at the same time that this will be to them the greatest charity and consolation, to let them feel therein that they are doing the will of God; whereas it would be a great distress to them to feel that he was humoring them, for then they would think that they were doing their own will and not that of God or of obedience.