42 — NOT EXCUSING ONESELF

Presence of God. — O Jesus, who willed to keep silence before those who condemned You to death, teach me the art of not excusing myself.

Meditation

1 — Before any personal defect, fault, or error, our ego instinctively runs in search of excuses: this is the tactic of pride, which does not want to recognize its own wrongs and industriously tries to cover them with a more or less false cloak, always finding a way to attribute them either to other persons or to circumstances. Such was the conduct of Adam and Eve after their sin; such is the instinctive behavior of every man as soon as he falls into some failing. But this brings great harm to the soul, since it is impossible to correct defects one does not want to acknowledge; therefore one must have the courage to dismantle the ingenious but inconsistent constructions of self-love, to lay bare one’s own defects and look them in the face, as they are, without attributing them to anyone but oneself. “When we commit a fault - said St. Teresa of the Child Jesus - we must never attribute it to a physical cause, such as illness or weather or other circumstances, but to our imperfection. Occasions do not make a man weak; they show him what he is” (CR.).

Excusing one’s own faults may satisfy pride, but in reality it is a voluntary blinding of oneself, a making oneself incapable of grasping the truth of one’s condition, and thus the poor soul not only cannot advance, but is condemned to grope in darkness, without a way out. Instead, sincerely acknowledging one’s own faults is already taking the first step to correct them. Yet it is not enough not to excuse oneself inwardly; one must also not excuse oneself before others, that is, after acknowledging before God our failings, one must acknowledge them also before men, in order humbly to accept correction and to repair the bad example one may have given. Besides, it would be worth very little to accept in silence an accusation or rebuke when the soul did not renounce - even at the cost of struggles and efforts - excusing itself within.

2 — Often you feel resentment before corrections, because you do not find them fully proportioned to your defects and faults. And do you not think this is an unavoidable consequence of human limitation? God alone, who reads the heart, can judge our actions with perfect justice; men see only the exterior, therefore, even when they have the duty to correct us, they do not always strike exactly the mark, but may err by excess or by defect. If you want to accept only observations that fit your defects perfectly, too often you will find yourself exposed to excusing yourself, to protesting, to stating your reasons; and if you cannot do it outwardly, you will do it at least inwardly, thus losing all the benefit you might draw from corrections if you received them with humility of heart.

St. Teresa of Jesus invites souls who wish to reach union with God to great generosity on this point, that is, to accept without excusing themselves any correction or rebuke, even if not wholly deserved and even if completely unjust. “To keep silence when one is unjustly accused - says the Saint - is a great act of humility, and one imitates our Lord more closely, who took upon Himself all our sins. The truly humble must desire to be despised, persecuted, and condemned without cause, even in grave matters. If he wishes to imitate the Lord, in what can he do so better, if not in this? He has no need of bodily strength, nor of help from anyone, except from God.” And then she adds with great fineness: “All things considered, we are never blamed without reason, being always full of defects... If we are innocent of what is attributed to us, we are never so free of fault as good Jesus was” (Cam. 15, 1 and 4).

“Jesus remained silent” (Mt. 26, 63), says the Evangelist, presenting the Lord accused before tribunals. The soul that aspires to intimate union with Jesus must know how to unite itself to His silences before accusations, even the most unjust. And when particular motives - such as avoiding scandal or displeasure to neighbor - require that it excuse itself, it will do so only to the strict extent necessary, with great measure and prudence, so as not to lose the grace of humiliation.

Colloquy

This I ask of You, O Lord: that Your light be in me so abundant as to dissipate, like mist before the sun, all those excuses with which my self-love seeks to cover my failings, my defects. This I ask You: that I may know well how to recognize all my wrongs and know how to judge them as You Yourself judge them. Restrain my heart, that it may not slip away in search of deceitful reasonings to procure excuses for my faults. And if, by my weakness, it is so easy for me to fall, grant that at least I may know how to confess it humbly before You and before men. Free my conscience from the mask of vain and pitiable excuses that prevent me from seeing myself as You see me, as You know me, as in reality I am before You. And then, O Lord, give me the humility needed to accept gladly the corrections of others. Extinguish with Your sweetness my susceptibility, so quick to flare up and resent, and grant me the grace to imitate Your meekness and humility before the tribunals.

“O my Lord, when I remember Your manifold torments that You deserved for no reason, I do not know what to say of myself, nor where I am when I claim to excuse myself. You already know, my Good, that if there is in me anything good, it came only from You. And should I now desire that of so bad a creature as I, no evil be spoken, when so much was said of You, who are the Good above all good? It cannot be borne! And I would wish that You would not bear it either, and that You would permit nothing in Your servant that might displease Your gaze. I am blind, Lord, and content myself with too little. Give me light and grant that I may truly desire to be despised by all, since I too have despised You who have loved me with such fidelity!

“What is this, my God? What does it matter to us to be blamed even by all creatures if You do not blame us?” (T.G. Com. 15, 5 and 6).