That Correction Is a Mark of Love, and the Great Good There Is in It

4 blessed St. Bernard says that it is a great mark of God’s loving us as sons when He rebukes and chastises us. And Holy Writ is full of the same thought. Whomsoever God loveth, He chastiseth, and taketh pleasure in him as a father in a son, says the Wise Man (Prov. iii. 12). And St. John in the Apocalypse: Those whom I love, I rebuke and chastise (iii. 19). And the Apostle St. Paul: Whomsoever God loveth, he chastiseth, and scourgeth everyone whom he receiveth as a son: for what son is there whom his father doth not correct? (Heb. xii. 6-7). And so the saints say that it is one of the special benefits and favors that God does to a soul, when He rebukes it and strikes it with heartfelt remorse of conscience upon its falling into sin and committing a fault. It is a great sign of the love of God, and of your being of the number of the elect, that He does not abandon you entirely, but calls and invites you by this remorse. Where this rebuke and heartfelt remorse are wanting, and God sends no chastisement, they say that it is a sign of His great anger, and that this is one of the greatest punishments that God inflicts in this life. St. Bernard applies to it the words of Ezechiel: And my indignation at thee shall cease, and my jealousy of thee shall be taken away; I will no more show my displeasure at thee by rebuking thee (xvi. 42); which is what the Lord had said by Isaias: J have sworn no more to be angry with thee, and I will rebuke thee no more (liv. 9). God utters this as a great threat. It shows God’s greatest anger, says St. Bernard, when He ceases to be angry and ceases to rebuke. If God’s jealousy of you and His rebuking of you has not abandoned you, neither has His love; for such is the kindness which God shows to His friends.

Now as in God this is an indication and sign of His loving us as sons, so also in the superior, one of the things that most shows his love for a subject is his charitably correcting him and admonishing him of the faults that are observed in him, that he may amend them. Better is plain correction than a love that maketh no show (Prov. xxvii. 5). Excellent is the inward charity and love that you bear me, but that is your affair; little good will it do me if you do not come to show it in deeds. But when the superior’s love goes so far as to admonish me of a fault which I had not seen or did not take to be a fault, that I may amend it, that is the greatest love and the most profitable for me. This is love shown in act; the true love of a father, desirous of the good of his son. For if the superior did not love you as a son and desire your spiritual good and improvement, he would not take you in hand nor warn you of your fault. We see here in life how, when a father catches his son playing some prank, he at once rebukes and chastises him, because he is his son, and he loves him as a son and wants him to be good and virtuous; whereas, if he were not his son, though he saw him doing something that he had better not, he would leave him alone and say nothing to him and take no notice of him. “Let his father look to him and teach him better; he is no concern of mine.” Moreover, not only does the superior hereby show that he loves you as a son, but he shows also his conviction that you love him as a father, and are convinced that he loves you, and speaks thus to you with the affection of a father and for the desire that he has of your good. He shows also that he is satisfied with you, that you have virtue and humility enough to receive the correction and admonition, since otherwise he would not give it you.

On the other hand, when the superior does not deal with you so openly and plainly, admonishing you of your faults and of what shocks people and makes them complain of your conduct, it is because he does not love you as a son, or because he has made up his mind that you do not love him as a father, or because he thinks that you have not virtue enough to take admonition and correction well, all of which shows lack of love and esteem on his part. There is no true love there. Possibly there may be some outward show of it; but it will not be true love, only apparent and put on. What is the use of giving you outward marks of love and regard, if at heart he takes you for a defaulter and deficient in this and that respect and dares not tell you of it? This is duplicity and pretense, making an outward show of sentiment and putting on a face different from what you feel interiorly. This is the behavior and language of the world. There in the world people go on in this manner because they dare not say what they think, and so they put on a countenance which belies what they feel at heart. They will often praise and flatter you, and make a show of thinking well of your conduct, while at heart they think quite otherwise, according to the saying of the prophet: His words are smoother than oil, but they stab (Psalm liv. 22). With their mouth they blessed me, but they cursed me at heart (Psalm lxi. 5). Their tongues are flattering (Psalm v. ii), but the poison of asps is under their lips (Psalm cexxxix. 4). But here in religion there should be nothing of this double-dealing. Everything should be clear and smooth; the charity and union that we profess does not allow of anything else. What? Have I got a fault, or many faults, which perhaps I do not see, or do not take them for faults, nor have any idea that they shock other people; and the superior sees them, and knows that others are shocked and complain of them, and yet there is none to tell me of them? That is not charity. Our Father Francis Borgia says very well: “If you had your cloak wrong way on, or a black smudge on your face, evidently anyone would do you a charity who warned you of it, and you would thank him; while on the other hand you would resent it, and take it for an ill turn, if another saw and did not tell you. With much more reason should we be of that same mind and sentiment in regard of deficiencies in virtue which disedify our brethren.”

So we ought to take it for a great blessing to have someone lovingly and charitably warning us of our faults, for with the great love that we bear ourselves we often fail to see them, or do not take them for faults. Affection and self-love blind us, as in the case of the mother, who for the great love that she bears her own will take the ugly child for beautiful and call the negro ruddy. So there are never wanting to us colorable pretexts for coloring and covering over our faults. That is why philosophers say that no man is a good judge in his own cause; since, if the laws hold in suspicion any judge who is a friend of either party to a suit, how much more should a man be suspect in his own cause, being such a friend of himself! A third party, viewing our case with dispassionate eyes, will be better able to see our faults and a better judge of them. Besides, as they say, two pair of eyes see better than one.

Plutarch says that we should give money to buy an enemy, since enemies are they who tell us the truth; while friends nowadays are all adulation and flattery, telling you that there is nothing left to desire, while there is nothing in you that they think well of. We see how usual this is at the present day in the world, and God grant that the usage may not come into religion! We men are so vain that we hear these things with relish, and even believe them, where we ought to do the contrary, as did the Royal Prophet when he said: Let the just correct me in kindness and rebuke me, but let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head (Psalm cxl. 5). The blessed St. Augustine says that by the smooth unction of the sinner is understood adulation and flattery, which the prophet holds in abhorrence, and would rather be corrected by the just with severity and mercy than praised and flattered with these smooth adulations, since they serve for nothing but to make a greater fool of a man and add to his illusions. He quotes the saying of Isaias (ili. 12): My people, they who praise and say wonderful things of thee are they who deceive and ruin thee. Contrariwise, they who correct and admonish us do us a great favor. Better the wounds of a friend than the false kisses of an enemy (Prov. xxvii. 6). Better be corrected by the wise than led astray by the flattery of fools (Eccles. vii.6). That which gives pain is that which heals; the other is no treatment at all, but makes the cure more difficult, because we persuade ourselves that there is no fault, and so never set to work amending it.

Diogenes used to say that for the correction of your faults you should have a right true friend to admonish you, or else a bitter enemy to scold you; thus between the warning of the one and the scolding of the other your vice and fault is got rid of. The second is the way of the world, where faults are not told except where there are enmities; then true faults are discovered. But here in religion faults are not told, nor rebuke and admonition given, in hatred or rancor, or out of animosity and ill-will that they bear against you, but with true love and desire of your good. We rejoice in the former of those two advantages, in that we have in the superior a faithful and true friend, who with great love warns us of our faults. We should set great store by that, and reckon that he discovers to us a treasure when he warns us of some defect which, if we did not know of, we should never amend.