Some First Answers to the Difficulties That Usually Hinder This Openness in Manifestation

WE have spoken of the importance and necessity of dealing openly with superiors. But the more important a thing is, and the more necessary, and the higher the perfection that it involves, the greater the repugnance apt to arise in our nature, set all awry as that nature is by sin. And the devil, envious of our good, is wont to come in, making difficulties out to be greater than they are, to stop our way. It will be well, then, to satisfy these difficulties. It will be not a little but a great thing done, if in a matter so main and necessary as this we succeed in smoothing the way. Though we are here addressing religious, every Christian may apply the doctrine to himself, since it is a thing that concerns all. So Gerson here addresses all generally, speaking of confession, as we shall presently see. In the first place, since naturally we like to avoid trouble and difficulty, and what we are now speaking of is apt to present itself to us as a difficult and troublesome business, we will begin with that, showing and proving that a man will suffer incomparably more trouble in keeping his secrets under lock and cover than by discovering and declaring them to the superior. And let this point be noted, because it is a thing that tells strongly against lovers of themselves, who leave undone the works of virtue and perfection on account of the difficulty and trouble they feel in them. I confess that there is some trouble and mortification in discovering to the superior all one’s temptations, inclinations, and defects; but I say that a man will carry about him a much greater load of trouble and pain by covering and cloaking these things over than he would have in discovering and manifesting them. Experience shows us this well, and anyone can bear good witness to it whose policy at any time has been to be close and reticent with his superior. Oh, what anxieties, what sudden thrills of remorse, does he suffer whose habit it is to cover and cloak things over! He is ever in the pangs of childbirth, thinking whether he shall speak out or be silent. Now he has a mind to speak, and then he veers round and changes his purpose. Now he gets as far as the superior’s door to tell him, and then he turns on his heel, not daring to tell him. The iniquity of Ephraim is tied up in a sack, his sin is hidden away, the pains of one in childbirth shall come upon him (Osee xiii. 12). He was on the point of exposing to the light the temptation and evil thought that the devil, father of darkness, had put into his breast, and he had not virtue or strength enough to do it. The children have come to the point of birth, and there is not strength to bring them forth (Isaias xxxvii. 3). He remains always in labor: and the longer he delays the discovery, the greater the pains he feels, because he has made it matter of greater difficulty and shame to tell it after all. Now it comes to pain him that he did not reveal it at the beginning, and the greatest difficulty he feels is in this reflection: “How can I go to the superior now after the lapse of so much time? If the thing were just starting, I would tell him; but now with what face can I appear before him? After I have kept myself close from him for so long a time, what will he say? He will say that I had no confidence in him, since I would not tell him of it at the beginning.” A man will know no rest or repose so long as he keeps his secret thought barred and covered up. Conscience will be ever tormenting him with remorse and beating him, because he will not do a duty of the first importance; whereas on but discovering and declaring himself, all this tempest will be appeased at once, and he will find himself very peaceful and comfortable.

When one dares not confess a sin for shame, his life is one of perpetual fears and fits of grave uneasiness; but on confessing it he feels as happy and as much relieved as though he had thrown off a great tower that he was carrying on his back. Festering wounds, says St. Gregory, while they are closed, notoriously give greater pain, the purulent matter burning there within; but when they are opened, all that filthy accumulation oozes out, and naturally the pain is appeased. So it is when one confesses his sins and declares his temptations and weaknesses. The confession and manifestation of faults and temptations is like lancing an inflamed wound; or as when the stomach is charged with bad humors or excess of food, and the man goes retching and hiccuping to throw it up, and finds no quiet or repose until he succeeds in throwing it up, but is at once quiet and at ease when he does throw it up. Hence it will clearly be seen how much greater is the pain and torment of keeping one’s secret thoughts close and covered up than would be felt in discovering and manifesting them, for all that is involved in doing that is a little shame and mortification that passes away in the time that you could recite a Credo, and leaves behind much peace and satisfaction at having made the disclosure. Thus to one who, to escape difficulty and trouble, will not declare himself, we may well reply that just for that very reason he should declare himself. His closeness will bring him in more trouble; he will rot away, gnawed and consumed with pain, whereas in speaking out he will find much peace and tranquillity.