Chapter XXXVI

On the words 'Forgive us our trespasses'.¹

1. 'Forgive us our trespasses.' On forgiving injuries. 2. Forgiveness of others a debt we owe to God. 3. False and true honour. 4. Honour in religious houses. 5. Humility obtains true honour, while pride forfeits it. 6. The merits of mutual forgiveness. 7. Forgiveness of injuries a mark of true contemplatives. 8. Humility and patience of contemplatives. 9. Union always accompanied by forgiveness and longsuffering, though in a less degree than in contemplatives. 10. The divine example. 11. The prayer of contemplation is not genuine unless it produces these two virtues.

1. Our kind Master sees that, unless the fault be our own, this heavenly Bread renders all things easy to us and that we are now capable of fulfilling our promise to the Father of allowing His will to be done in us. Therefore, continuing to teach us the prayer, He says: 'Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.' Notice, daughters, He does not say, 'as we are about to forgive our debtors', because we are to understand that we must have already done this before we beg for so great a gift (as this Bread) and the surrender of our own will to that of God. Therefore Christ's words are: 'as we forgive our debtors.' Whoever wishes to be able to say to God in all sincerity: 'Thy will be done!' must have forgiven others beforehand, at least in intention.

2. Now we see why the saints rejoiced in injuries and persecutions, for thereby they had some payment to offer God when they made this petition. Otherwise, what could such poor sinners as myself do, who have so little to forgive and so much to be forgiven? We ought to think over this very seriously, sisters; it is so grave and so important a matter that God should pardon us miserable creatures our sins which merit eternal fire, that we must pardon all offences committed against us,² which are not really affronts nor anything at all. For, how is it possible to wrong, either by word or deed, such a one as I am, who in simple justice deserve to be treated unkindly in this world and tortured by the devils in the next?³ Thus it is, O my God! that I have no other gift to offer Thee whereby I might plead that Thou shouldst remit my debts. Thy Son must forgive me, for no one has done me any real injustice, therefore I have nothing to pardon in return.⁴ Accept my wish to pardon others, O God! for I believe that I could forgive my neighbour anything since Thou dost pardon me, or that I might fulfil Thy will unreservedly — yet, when it comes to the test, if I were unjustly accused, I know not what I might do. But in Thine eyes I am so guilty that all the evil men could say of me would fall far short of the truth, although those who see not all which Thou knowest might think that I had been injured. Therefore, O my Father! Thou must indeed forgive me freely, which demands from Thee mercy. All praise is due to Thee for bearing patiently with one so poor as I am. When Thy most blessed Son promised Thee this repayment from other men, He left out my name because I am utterly destitute. But, O my God! are there not other souls which, like mine, have never grasped this truth? If there are, I beg them in Thy name to remember it, and to ignore the trifling matters which they call affronts, lest, in their care for points of honour, they resemble children building houses out of straw.

3. Ah, my sisters, would that we realised what such 'honour' means, by which true honour is forfeited! I am not speaking about what we are at the present moment: it would indeed be shameful if we did not recognise this. I apply it to myself in the days when I prided myself on my honour, as is the custom of the world, without knowing what the word really meant.⁵ Oh! how ashamed I feel at recalling what used to annoy me then, although I was not a person accustomed to stand on ceremony. Still, I did not realise where the essential point of honour lay, for I neither knew nor cared for real honour, which is of some use because it benefits the soul. How truly has some one said: 'Honour and profit do not go together'! I do not know whether he applied this meaning to it, still, quoting his words as they stand, the soul's profit and what men call honour can never agree. The perversity of the world is most astonishing: thank God for taking us out of it! May He always keep its spirit as far from this house as it is now! Heaven defend us from monasteries where the inmates are sensitive as to their fancied rights: they will never pay much honour to God there.⁶

4. What can be more absurd than for religious to stand upon their dignity on such petty points that I am absolutely surprised at them! You know nothing about such things, sisters: I will tell you so that you may be on your guard. The devil has not forgotten us — he has invented honours in religious houses — he has settled the laws by which the dwellers rise and fall in dignity (as men do in the world), and they are jealous of their honour in surprisingly petty matters. Learned men must observe a certain order in their studies which I cannot understand: he who has read theology must not descend to read philosophy. This is a point of honour which consists in advancing and in not retrograding. If obedience obliged any one to do the contrary, he would secretly take it as an affront and would find others to take his part and say that he had been ill-used: the devil would easily find reasons, even from the holy Scriptures, by which he would appear to prove this. Even among nuns, she who has been Prioress must not afterwards fill any lower office: deference must be shown to the first in rank and she takes care we do not forget it; at times this even seems a merit because the Rule enjoins it. The thing is absurd, and enough to make one laugh — or rather cry, and with better cause than can be told. I know the Rule does not forbid me to be humble: the regulation is made to maintain order, but I ought not to be so careful of my dignity as to insist on this point being obeyed as strictly as the rest. And perhaps I keep those injunctions very slackly, while I will give up no jot or tittle of this one. Let others see to what concerns my rank and let me take no notice of it. The fact is, we are bent on rising higher although we shall never mount to heaven by this path, and we will not dream of descending.⁷

5. O my Lord! art Thou not our Pattern and our Master? Indeed Thou art. And in what did Thine honour consist, O ever honoured Master and King? Didst Thou lose it in being humbled even unto death? No, Lord, Thou didst thereby gain it and didst win graces for us all. Therefore, sisters, how far we shall err from the right path if we follow this way, for it leads us wrong from the very beginning. May He grant that no soul may be lost through observing these miserable points of etiquette, without realising in what true honour consists. At last we come to believe that we have done a great thing when we forgive some trifle which was neither an affront nor an injury nor anything of the sort, nor gave us any just cause for resentment. Then afterwards, as if we had done some virtuous action, we petition God to forgive us because we have forgiven others. Give us grace, O Lord! to know that we do not understand what we are saying, and that all such souls come to Him as empty-handed as I do myself. Grant this for the sake of Thy loving mercy. Indeed, O Lord! I see nothing that I can offer worthy to obtain from Thee so great a gift, for all earthly things perish, but hell is eternal: yet I plead to Thee for souls who think that others are always injuring and insulting them.

6. What value God places on our loving and keeping peace with one another! for when once we have given Him our will we have given Him the right to it, and this we cannot do without love. See, sisters, what need there is for us to love and to agree with each other. The good Jesus places it before anything else. He does not mention the many things we gave Him on one single occasion, nor does He offer them in our name to His Father. He might have said: 'Forgive us because of our many penances, or prayers, or fasts, or because we have left all for Thee and love Thee fervently, and have suffered for Thee and long to suffer more.' He never says: 'Because we would lay down our lives for Thee', or recounts the many other things the soul does for God when it loves Him and gives Him its will. He only pleads: 'As we forgive our debtors'. Perhaps this was because He knew of our attachment to this miserable 'honour', so that we will overlook no slight upon it. This being the most difficult thing for us to overcome, our Lord put it in the first place, so that, after having asked such sublime graces for us, He offers this for our repayment.⁸

7.⁹ Notice, sisters, that Christ says, 'As we have forgiven our debtors,' to show that it is a thing we have already done, as I said. Be sure of this — when a soul, after receiving some of the special favours in prayer which I have described and after having been raised to perfect contemplation, does not come away with a firm determination to forgive others, and if occasion offers, does not actually pardon any injury, serious as it may be — unless these fruits are left in the soul, the graces never came from God but were illusions and delights caused by the devil to make such a person think herself holy and therefore worthy of greater honour. I am not speaking of the trifles people call injuries, for these do not affect a soul that God raises to so high a prayer, nor does it care whether it is highly esteemed or no. I am wrong in saying that 'it does not care,' for honour troubles it far more than contempt, and it dislikes rest much more than toil. The good Jesus, knowing that these results remain in the soul that has reached this state of prayer, assures His Father that we forgive our debtors, for when God has really given His kingdom to a person she no longer wishes for any kingdom in this world: she understands that this is the way to reign in a far higher manner, experience having taught her what benefit accrues from it and that the soul makes rapid progress through suffering for God. Only in very exceptional cases does He bestow sublime favours on souls which have not willingly borne many severe trials for His sake, because, as I have already told you in this book, contemplatives have heavy crosses to bear,¹⁰ so our Lord chooses hearts which have been thoroughly tested.

8. You must know, sisters, that such souls, having learnt the worth of all created things, do not pay much heed to any transitory matter — if they experience a first movement of pain at some serious injury or suffering, they have hardly felt it before reason comes to their aid, and, as it were, erects the standard of faith for them and overthrows their pain by the joy of seeing that God has given them an opportunity of gaining, in one day, more graces and lasting rewards than they could have earned for themselves in ten years by any self-sought labours undertaken for Him. From what I have been told by many contemplatives, I believe this is very usual: they prize afflictions as other people prize gold and jewels, knowing that sorrows will make them rich. Such souls have no self-esteem — they are glad that their faults should be known,¹¹ and reveal them to any one who they know feels esteem for them.¹² It is the same as regards their parentage: they recognise that it will avail them nothing in the eternal kingdom. If they felt any pleasure in being of noble birth, it would only be when it enabled them to render God greater service. If they are not well-born, they are distressed when people over-rate them, and, if they take no pleasure in undeceiving their friends, at any rate they feel no reluctance in doing so. This must be because the souls on whom God has bestowed such great humility and love for Him so entirely forget themselves in all that concerns rendering Him greater service that they cannot believe any one can be troubled by certain annoyances which they themselves do not resent as injuries.

9. These last mentioned effects are proper to persons who have arrived at a high degree of perfection,¹³ to whom our Lord often grants the favour of uniting them to Himself by sublime contemplation. But the first degree of this virtue, that is, a firm resolution to bear injuries and the suffering of them although they wound one, is obtained in a very short time by the soul to whom God grants the grace of union. If these effects are not found, and are not greatly increased by this prayer, we must conclude that this was no divine favour but a delusion of the devil sent to increase our self-esteem. The soul may possibly be lacking in this strength when God first bestows these favours on it, but if He continues doing so it will soon gain vigour, if not in the other virtues, at least in this of forgiving injuries.

10. I cannot believe that one who has approached so near to the Source of all mercy, which has shown the soul what it really is and all that God has pardoned it, would not instantly and willingly forgive, and be at peace, and remain well-affected towards any one who has offended her. For the divine kindness and mercy shown her prove the immense love felt for her by the Almighty, and she is overjoyed to have an opportunity of showing love in return.

11. I repeat that I know a number of people on whom our Lord has bestowed supernatural favours, such as the prayer or contemplation I have described, and, although they have other faults and imperfections, yet I never saw one who was unforgiving, nor do I think such a thing possible if these really were divine graces. If any one receives very sublime favours, let her notice whether the right effects increase with them: if these are not found, there is cause for great fear. Let no one fancy that such feelings were graces from God, for He always enriches the souls He visits. This is certain, for although the grace or consolation may pass away quickly, it is detected later on by the benefits it has left in the soul. The good Jesus is well aware of this and therefore deliberately assures His Father that we forgive our debtors.

Footnotes

1. Valladolid edition, ch. xxxviii.; Escorial, ch. lxiii. ↩

2. Life, ch. xxi. 12. Way of Perf. ch. xii. 8, 9.; ch. xiii. 1-4. Concep. ch. ii. 15, 16, 32, 33. ↩

3. Excl. xiii. 3. Rel. i. 28. Life, ch. xxxi. 13. ↩

4. Mother Isabel of Jesus once said to the Saint: 'Mother, how can you bear their saying such things about a nun?' (people were speaking very ill about her at the time). She replied: 'They have good reason for it. I am surprised at their not flogging me. What do you suppose I care for their words? No music could be sweeter to my ears.' (Fuente, vol. vi. 306. n. 7. Deposition of Damiana of Jesus.) ↩

5. Life, ch. ii. 4. ↩

6. Escorial edition, ch. lxiv. Denounces superfluous honours. ↩

7. So far was the Saint from caring for honours that not only did she wish to leave Avila because she was held there in high esteem, and retire with her dowry to another house of the Order far away where she would be unknown (Life, ch. xxxi. 16), but she also wanted to become a lay sister so as to do the meanest and hardest work. She would have executed this design had she not been prevented by authority. (Ribera, bk. iv. ch. xv.) ↩

8. Escorial edition, ch. lxv. Treats of the effects left by perfect prayer. ↩

9. St. Teresa wrote against this paragraph on the margin of the original manuscript: 'Effects produced by the good Spirit,' ↩

10. Way of Perf. ch. xviii. 1. ↩

11. A devout person, while talking to our holy Mother, said: 'Well, Mother, you may be a saint, but you don't seem one to me.' St. Teresa was delighted, and answered: 'God reward you for those words. You tell the truth, and you know what I really am.' (Deposition of Damiana of Jesus. Fuente, vol. vi. 305, nn. 5, 6.) ↩

12. Life, ch. xxxi. 17. ↩

13. Castle, M. vi. ch. viii. 5. Life, ch. xix. 2, ↩