Book II. Dialogue I: On purity of conscience

Q. In what do you say it consists ?

A. In a firm disposition of the will never to consent, at least deliberately, to the least offence to God; a habitual disposition which may subsist strongly, in spite of many contrary acts which are let slip from time to time but which are immediately retracted.

Q. Why is this disposition necessary to the prayer of simple recollection ?

A. Because even if it were only a matter of acquiring active recollection with the help of ordinary graces, is it not evident that these graces will be more abundant and more efficacious the more faithful one is in wishing to avoid even the least sin which might sully the conscience ? But if we are concerned with infused recollection, how should we dare expect this special grace of God, when we bear him so little love and filial fear that we only fear to offend him because of our self-love? That is, only when the offence leads to our ruin and damnation, and not when it tends to displease him without risk to our salvation ?

Q. How is this purity of conscience acquired ?

A. In the first place, by all the ordinary means that books and directors teach; 2 but above all by great attention to interior movements, so that a continual

1 See the Imitation of Christ, Book II, Ch. IV. Of a pure mind and simple intention; and Ch. VI, Of the joy of a Good Conscience.

• Namely: the sacrament of penance, the frequent usage of the Holy Eucharist, frequently repeated acts of faith, hope and charity, and of contrition, the serious examination of the conscience, the mortification of the senses, and above all war against our chief fault.

feeling of our weakness leads us to have recourse to God in all disasters, and to repent and humble ourselves before God over the least of our sins.

Q. Why this continual recourse to God ?

A. Because, say the theologians, often and on many occasions we have only power to make certain efforts and to pray for a more mighty aid, in order to teach us thus, says S. Augustine, both to do what little actually lies within our power, and to ask for what we cannot do without new aid; Ut discos et facere quod possis, et petere quod non possis.

Q. What should our repentance be like after faults ?

A. It should never be either anxious or violent, but moderate and peaceable; thus S. Francis de Sales said: ‘ Even our sorrow for sin should contain peace. For since God dwells and acts only in peace, anxiety and trouble make us lose his sweet presence, which makes all our strength; and thus our souls become ever more feeble and languishing.

Q. How must we humble ourselves for our faults before God ?

A. This interior humiliation must be free from all anger and spite against ourselves, for apart from the fact that these unruly movements cure nothing, they themselves involve fresh faults often more dangerous than the original one. For they spring from injured self-love and from a pride angered at seeing oneself still so imperfect. S. Francis de Sales continues i¹ ‘ Cast off all these injured, unquiet and angered and consequently proud humilities; learn to tolerate yourselves patiently, as you should support your neighbour and with the same charity: practise gentleness towards yourselves, as towards others, reproving yourselves without anger, bitterness or spite. 5

Q. After these moments of repentance and of this peaceable humiliation, what should one do ?

A • Return at once to God and to one’s pious exer- cises, with the same confidence as if nothing had happened. This is the great secret of soon acquiring great purity of conscience, and at the same time perfect knowledge of oneself, and true humility of the heart, founded on frequent experiences of our wretchedness, and of our pitiable weakness.

Q. But is it not rash and presumptuous to hope for immediate pardon of our frequent daily faults ?

A. Here is what is said in The Spiritual Combat, which is generally esteemed and was especially valued by S. Francis de Sales: ‘ I suppose 5 (says the writer 1 )

‘ that you have fallen not occasionally but a hundred times in a day, not through neglect but entirely consciously; having asked his pardon and humbled yourself the hundredth time as the first, lose no time in returning to God, to yourself, to your ordinary occupations and exercises, with the same confidence as if you had not fallen. Imitate in this manner the wise conduct of a traveller who is as brave in mind as he is feeble in body: if he happens to fall, he arises immediately and continues his journey without wasting time in useless lamentation. If a few steps further he falls again, his one thought is to rise once more, and bravely pursue his journey; thus despite trials and disasters he at last finishes his journey, though later than those who have fallen only seldom if at all. 5

Could you give me some good reason for similar conduct on the road of salvation and perfection ?

A. Inasmuch as we have to return to God some time, can one do so too promptly ? Besides, does not this promptitude show a good will in great weakness, and a confidence worthy of God ? In him alone can we imagine a goodness which will always surpass the number and enormity of our offences; whereas to behave otherwise is a criminal defiance of the infinite pity of God, or the hardness of a heart insensible to the pain of having displeased him, or the evil shame of a * Ch. XXVI.

vain soul which cannot bring itself to acknowledge its infidelity so often and so promptly, or the love of personal liberty which regards these frequent returns as pledges to do better, and takes care not to bind itself thus nor to pledge itself to anything. And what is the result of this ? One becomes ever more distant from God, one becomes weaker and falls more often, and more heavily, and the return becomes ever more difficult. Ah ! if certain spirituals understood the reason of these prompt returns to God, they would not despair so vainly after certain falls as to abandon most of their exercises of piety, on the ground that they dare not present themselves before God after such infidelity, flattering themselves withal as if such feelings came from true grief and humility. Truly spiritual people have very different feelings, and behave quite differently; though sharply pricked by their faults, which make them feel the whole weight of their unhappiness and weakness, they are neither discouraged, nor broken, nor even astonished. They learn from them to know themselves better, to be even more deeply humble before God, and to think so little of themselves that they despair in all things of their own weakness, thus placing their confidence in God alone. This was why Bossuet said in speaking of the miseries of man that his weakness, by humbling him, was itself part of the remedy. S. Francis de Sales went further, and said that to rise again continually, never being discouraged or losing the firm resolution to belong wholly to God, is a mark of heroic virtue.

&. What you have just said would seem to point more to rejoicing in one’s faults than grieving at them.

A. Let us distinguish the faults, which always deserve our regrets, from their happy sequels, as the Church does in speaking of the fall of the first man: c O happy fault, 5 she cries; 0 felix culpa; happy, not in itself, but in meriting such a Redeemer: Qyae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem; in the same way, to avoid misunderstood grief and false humility after our falls, let us rouse at once our courage and hope at the sight of so mighty and pitiful a God, to find in the very midst of our sins the precious treasure of true humility of heart, which is the foundation and guardian of all the virtues: the precious treasure of total neglect of ourselves and perfect confidence in God alone,² which are the two poles of the spiritual life.

d- When a soul has attained to this by knowing itself well and feeling always humbled before God, what usually happens to it ?

A. God soon advances it and causes it to make great progress, overwhelming it with his gifts and most precious graces. For he no longer risks that this soul shall rob him of any of his glory, in attributing the least part of it to herself; this is why one of the greatest spirituals of the last century said: ‘ Our own miseries if we really know them are worth more than an angelic virtue which one appropriates to oneself by vain complacency,’ and that for this reason God sometimes leaves in the most exalted souls certain defects which are much beneath their spiritual level, so that it may stimulate the exercise of humility in these great souls and faith and charity in those who observe them.

Q. But how could souls so loved of God have such faults, without marring their own perfection ?

A. Because these faults are not in them, as in the imperfect, cherished, fomented or tolerated, but on the contrary hated, detested and fought against. Thus there is nothing in them of that which most displeases God, namely, the affection and attachment to sin of

‘ Take, then, this rule and method in all the falls you shall make, be they great or little; yea, though ten thousand times in the same day you shall have incurred the same crime, and that not occasionally, but voluntarily and deliberately; observe, I say, inviolably this prescription. That as soon as ever you find yourself in fault, you trouble not nor disquiet yourself, but instantly, as soon as you are aware what you have done, with humility and confidence, beholding your own frailty, cast an amorous glance on God, and fixing there your love, say with heart and mouth, “ Lord, I have done that which is like what I am, nor can anything else be expected at my hands but these and the like transgressions; nor had I stopped here, but plunged myself further into all wickedness, if thy goodness had permitted it, and left me wholly to myself. I give thee infinite thanks that thou didst not thus leave me, and for what I have done I am sorry. Pardon me for thy own sake, and for what thou art, and give me grace to offend thee no more, but admit me again to the favour of thy friendship.” Having done this, lose neither time nor quiet of mind, imagining that perhaps God hath not pardoned you, and the like, but with full repose proceed with your exercise as though you had committed no fault; and this, as I have said, not once but a hundred times, and, if there were need, every moment, with as much confidence and tranquillity the last time as the first.... This I would gladly inculcate upon, and persuade scrupulous and disquieted souls of, and then they would soon see how different a state of tranquillity they would find themselves in, and pity the blindness of those who, so much to their cost, go on still losing so much precious time.’ (John of Bonilla: Pax Animae, Chs. XIV and XV.)

the heart. There remains by divine permission only weakness, the pure frailty of nature, which is so useful in keeping the greatest souls always humbled inwardly, and often outwardly as well. Moreover, these faults, which are in a sense involuntary, are marvellously compensated by heroic virtues, always accompanied in such cases by the deepest humility, by means of those very faults which the soul tries ever unsuccessfully to correct. This is an admirable procedure of God, and in itself alone should make us more cautious in our judgements on certain people whose inner life is entirely unknown to us, and is often hidden under such deceptive appearances that it should be enough for us to see or hear a single example of such a case quoted in order to suspend, at least, the iniquity of our precipitate judgements and even more of our indiscreet remarks.

Footnotes

1. Ninth dialogue, Vol. V, p. 137 ff. ↩

2. If at any timo your weakness precipitates you into a neglect of what you ought to do, or into want of caution in what you say, into passion upon some accident, into detraction, or, at least, into consent to hear others detract, into immoderate laughter, curiosity or suspicion, or any failing whatsoever, be it once or oftener or frequently the same fault, and that after most formal and solemn purposes to be watchful and fall no more —yet let nothing of all this trouble or discomfort you, or make you reflect upon what is past with anxiety, or procure new motives of grief to reproach and confound yourself with, as concluding you shall never gain ground in your endeavours to amend;... one amorous conversion prevails and gains more than all the sadness, reflection, and examination imaginable about the fault or guilt, especially in venial and ordinary sins. And if any extraordinary disorder happens, it is enough to take the advice of some learned persons, or of one’s ghostly father. Nay, I will be bold to go further, and affirm that this amorous conversion and confidence in God hath not only place in venial and daily sins, but also in great ones, if God permit us at any timo to fall therein; yea, though it were frequently, and that not of frailty, but malico, since contrition and affliction alone with a troubled and scrupulous heart can never raise a soul to perfection if it be not assisted with this loving confidence and confiding love in the goodness and mercy of God. And the necessity of this is much greater in those who aim not only to escape the miserable state of sin, but to arrive at virtue and perfect union with God; and this many cannot comprehend, having their spirits so dejected and comfortless as hardly to bo able to think a good thought, leading a life worthy of much pity and com- passion because, following their own imagination, they bid adieu to this true and wholesome doctrine. ↩