VI — DO NOT JUDGE

Presence of God. — O Lord, preserve my mind from judging and criticizing my neighbor, and give me for all thoughts of goodness and love.

Meditation

1 — “Do not judge, that you may not be judged” (Mt. 7:1). Charity toward neighbor begins in thought; many failures in charity have their root precisely in our judgments. We do not esteem others enough, we do not take sufficient account of their good qualities, we are not benevolent in interpreting their way of acting. Why? Because almost always we judge neighbor based on his defects, and especially on those that jar our sensibility, that clash with our way of seeing and doing, while we give little or no weight to his good sides.

It is a grave error to judge persons and things from a negative point of view, and it is also illogical, because if the negative exists, it exists only as a defect of something positive, of something good, just as a tear in a garment exists only because the garment exists. When we stop to criticize the negative sides of a person or an environment, we do destructive work: destructive for our personal virtue and for our neighbor’s good. To do constructive work, instead, we must go beyond the defect and know how to value the good qualities and good sides that are never lacking in any person.

Besides, do we not also have many defects, perhaps more serious than those of our neighbor? “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, and do not notice the beam that is in your own eye?” (Mt. 7:3). Let us seriously consider these words of Jesus because, unfortunately, it is not difficult that, even while desiring to become saints, something of this detestable critical spirit may still lurk in our heart, this double standard in considering our own defects and those of others. What progress we would make in fraternal charity and in the acquisition of personal perfection if, before others’ defects, instead of criticizing them, we examined ourselves to see whether there might be in us something similar or perhaps worse, and applied ourselves to correcting it! St. Teresa of Jesus said to her nuns: “When you discover in your sisters some defect... seek to practice with every possible perfection the virtue contrary to the fault you have observed in them” (Way 7, 7); this is indeed one of the best ways to help others also to correct themselves.

2 — Judgment is a thing reserved to God alone, because God alone sees the interior of hearts, knows the intentions and motives that move us to act: “man sees appearances, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). Therefore, whoever judges — unless he is obliged by office, as superiors are — in a certain sense usurps God’s right, puts himself in God’s place. Setting ourselves up as judges of our brethren always includes an attitude of pride before God and neighbor. Moreover, by judging others easily we expose ourselves to committing gross mistakes precisely because, not knowing others’ intentions, we lack sufficient elements for formulating a right judgment.

Evidently, before an action that is reproachable in itself we are not bound to judge it good; nevertheless we must know how to excuse the intention of the one who performs it, not immediately attributing it to bad will. “If our neighbor’s actions had a hundred faces, we should consider them according to the best; and if the action is blameworthy, let us at least excuse the intention” (St. Francis de Sales, Spirit, p. 413).

In fact, I too commit many faults every day, I too fall into many defects; but this does not mean that everything depends on bad will. Often these are faults that escape me through inadvertence, through fragility; and the Lord, provided I detest these weaknesses of mine, wants me to continue to have full trust in his love, and He continues to love me. As it is for me, so it is for others. Therefore I have no right to doubt my neighbor’s good will just because I see him commit faults, nor do I have the right for this reason to lessen my benevolence and esteem toward him. Perhaps that person whom I blame so much has already detested and wept in his heart over his defects more than I do over mine; the Lord has already forgiven him and continues to love him. Shall I then want to be more severe than the Lord? Then I must remember that the severity I use toward neighbor, God Himself will use toward me, because Jesus said: “You will be judged with the judgment with which you judge, and measured with the measure with which you measure” (Mt. 7:2).

Colloquy

“You are the one who judges, O Jesus! And in order to render your judgment favorable to me, or rather not to be judged, since You said: ‘do not judge and you shall not be judged,’ I want always to nourish indulgent thoughts. Therefore, whenever I happen to see something irregular, I will immediately try to excuse the guilty one and attribute to him good intentions which he certainly has.

“O Jesus, You make me understand that the principal plenary indulgence is that which all can gain without the usual conditions: the indulgence of charity that covers a multitude of sins” (cf. St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, St. 9 and 10; CR).

“Teach me, O Lord, not to judge my neighbor for any fault I may see him commit; and if I should see him sin, grant me grace to excuse his intention, which is hidden and cannot be seen. But even if I should see that the intention was openly bad, grant me grace to excuse my neighbor because of temptation, from which no mortal is excluded” (St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi).

“O Lord, help me to consider in my neighbor nothing but virtues and good works, and to cover others’ defects with my own great sins. In this way You will lead me little by little to a virtue so solid as to consider others always better than myself. But to arrive at this your help is absolutely necessary to me: without You, in fact, my efforts are all useless; therefore I beg You that You yourself place this virtue in me” (cf. St. Teresa of Jesus, Life 13, 10).