THAT was quite a reminder I got while
I was reading
recently on the life and work of St. Gregory the Great (540-604), Pope
and Doctor of the Church. A native of Rome who became its mayor, he
later became a monk, an ambassador, a deacon and then a Pope during a
very turbulent period of Rome and Europe in general.
He was both a fervent contemplative and a highly educated
person active in secular affairs, immersed both in the sacred and
mundane things. It must have been precisely due to this background
that he also became a very good reader and guide of souls.
Virtue, he said, can mask a hidden vice that one may be
suffering. It’s a most relevant insight that, I think, explains very
well that increasingly common phenomenon of people who appear very
good and holy, seemingly advancing north, when all of a sudden we hear
that they have gone south instead.
Sad to say, cases of sudden and surprising defections and
infidelities are heaping up. Seminarians, for example, who have
already spent many years in seminary formation and who appear
brilliant and promising, decide not to pursue priesthood. The high
expectations of many people are abruptly thwarted.
Or priests and married people who appear to be good, holy
and faithful, already with significant accomplishments, suddenly fall
into some compromising predicament, often causing scandal and painful
break-ups.
We all know that we actually need to be in constant
vigilance and interior struggle against our own weaknesses and
temptations. We have to get real and acknowledge that we have feet of
clay, our own version of the Achilles’ heel.
Temptations also abound and have in fact become systemic.
We have to contend with the classical “lust of the eyes, lust of the
flesh and the pride of life” that have worsened with the coming of the
new things. While they give us a lot of good, they can also occasion a
lot of evil. Besides, we are ranged against powerful spiritual
enemies.
We cannot be naïve and just attend to these challenges
with half measures. We need to be thorough, seeing to it that our
efforts are earnest and authentic. We have to be wary of the
temptation of coming up simply with decoys, making use of our other
talents and good qualities to cover a weakness or a vice that is
actually festering.
This is when we can appear to have virtues that actually
are not virtues. We can mislead not only others but also our own
selves. We can get the sensation that we are just ok, when in fact we
are not.
Yes, we can make use, for example, of our good looks, our
speaking talents, our affable personality, etc., to cover our being a
calculating person, or our bad trait of disorder, superficial
treatment of our duties and responsibilities.
Nowadays, this deceptive kind of mind-frame seems to be
fostered, since there is a trend toward mere image-making that may not
correspond to reality. We have to be most careful with this
development.
It’s important that we really would make it a habit to
have regular examination of conscience so we can take stock of the
current status of our spiritual life, aware of the deficiencies and
mistakes that we have committed, and prompt in providing the
appropriate remedies, solutions and resolutions.
Yes, we also need to have regular confession and spiritual
direction, being brutally sincere in these occasions, without shame or
fear, calling a spade a spade, so that the fitting advice and help can
be given to us. With trust in the providence of God and in the
competence of the human instruments, we can only gain from these
recourses.
We have to aim at making our virtues truly second nature
to us, and not just reactive responses to our defects and mistakes.
This can happen when we notice a stable consistency between what is
theoretical and practical about these virtues, between what is ideal
and actual.
In other words, we should notice that in a particular
virtue, while we start with having to struggle all the time, there
should come a time that the struggling gets less and less, because it
has become an integral part of our life. It comes out automatic,
spontaneous and with great ease and joy. The anguish part of the
struggling should diminish.
We have to help one another in this struggle of making our
virtues real virtues, and not a mask for vices that are not properly
addressed. We have to get real! Away with simply projecting false
images of ourselves.
recently on the life and work of St. Gregory the Great (540-604), Pope
and Doctor of the Church. A native of Rome who became its mayor, he
later became a monk, an ambassador, a deacon and then a Pope during a
very turbulent period of Rome and Europe in general.
He was both a fervent contemplative and a highly educated
person active in secular affairs, immersed both in the sacred and
mundane things. It must have been precisely due to this background
that he also became a very good reader and guide of souls.
Virtue, he said, can mask a hidden vice that one may be
suffering. It’s a most relevant insight that, I think, explains very
well that increasingly common phenomenon of people who appear very
good and holy, seemingly advancing north, when all of a sudden we hear
that they have gone south instead.
Sad to say, cases of sudden and surprising defections and
infidelities are heaping up. Seminarians, for example, who have
already spent many years in seminary formation and who appear
brilliant and promising, decide not to pursue priesthood. The high
expectations of many people are abruptly thwarted.
Or priests and married people who appear to be good, holy
and faithful, already with significant accomplishments, suddenly fall
into some compromising predicament, often causing scandal and painful
break-ups.
We all know that we actually need to be in constant
vigilance and interior struggle against our own weaknesses and
temptations. We have to get real and acknowledge that we have feet of
clay, our own version of the Achilles’ heel.
Temptations also abound and have in fact become systemic.
We have to contend with the classical “lust of the eyes, lust of the
flesh and the pride of life” that have worsened with the coming of the
new things. While they give us a lot of good, they can also occasion a
lot of evil. Besides, we are ranged against powerful spiritual
enemies.
We cannot be naïve and just attend to these challenges
with half measures. We need to be thorough, seeing to it that our
efforts are earnest and authentic. We have to be wary of the
temptation of coming up simply with decoys, making use of our other
talents and good qualities to cover a weakness or a vice that is
actually festering.
This is when we can appear to have virtues that actually
are not virtues. We can mislead not only others but also our own
selves. We can get the sensation that we are just ok, when in fact we
are not.
Yes, we can make use, for example, of our good looks, our
speaking talents, our affable personality, etc., to cover our being a
calculating person, or our bad trait of disorder, superficial
treatment of our duties and responsibilities.
Nowadays, this deceptive kind of mind-frame seems to be
fostered, since there is a trend toward mere image-making that may not
correspond to reality. We have to be most careful with this
development.
It’s important that we really would make it a habit to
have regular examination of conscience so we can take stock of the
current status of our spiritual life, aware of the deficiencies and
mistakes that we have committed, and prompt in providing the
appropriate remedies, solutions and resolutions.
Yes, we also need to have regular confession and spiritual
direction, being brutally sincere in these occasions, without shame or
fear, calling a spade a spade, so that the fitting advice and help can
be given to us. With trust in the providence of God and in the
competence of the human instruments, we can only gain from these
recourses.
We have to aim at making our virtues truly second nature
to us, and not just reactive responses to our defects and mistakes.
This can happen when we notice a stable consistency between what is
theoretical and practical about these virtues, between what is ideal
and actual.
In other words, we should notice that in a particular
virtue, while we start with having to struggle all the time, there
should come a time that the struggling gets less and less, because it
has become an integral part of our life. It comes out automatic,
spontaneous and with great ease and joy. The anguish part of the
struggling should diminish.
We have to help one another in this struggle of making our
virtues real virtues, and not a mask for vices that are not properly
addressed. We have to get real! Away with simply projecting false
images of ourselves.
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