Question
“You do wrong to find fault, and to try to make everyone see things from your point of view. We desire to be as little children. Now, little children do not know what is best. Everything is right in their eyes. Let us imitate them.”
This quote, above, is from St. Therese on being little. Is she is saying that it is better to keep one’s opinion to oneself? How does this balance with trying to give advice to help people, as I thought she did with some of the Novices?
Answer
First, let us see if the quote is an original quote:
This quote comes from the book written by her sister, Céline (Geneviève), after Therese's death, called: “Conseils et souvenirs” ("Advice and Memories"). This book is not a primary source, but one can reasonably accept the quote as coming from Thérèse. The book is not often read today. But still, I don’t see how or why we would deny this thought to Thérèse.
Understanding Thérèse's Advice
Let us try to understand it. She was in charge of the Novices, teaching them all the time, being extremely vigilant with them! As you can see, she has been caught out doing what she seems to deny to others: giving advice, spotting something that is not right in one of her novices.
The first stage of the answer is to observe what is the duty of state. It is not the responsibility or duty of a nun (who is not the Prioress or the Mistress of Novices) to pay attention to other nun's behaviour (unless it is visible and serious). Her duty of state asks her to be just a nun, totally dedicated to God and paying attention to Him by looking inwardly.
So Sister Thérèse, as having the responsibility (and not the title) of Mistress of Novices, spotted a young novice putting her nose in other nuns’ business, and not paying attention to what God is asking of her. Thérèse points out the fact that we human beings can’t know what is happening in the heart of our brothers and sisters, hence the strong commandment given by the Lord: “do not judge”, the reason being that we can't see into the workings of the heart. Or in other places in the Bible we read: who knows what is in the heart of a human being (see Jeremiah 17:9)?! So to invite the nun to humility and to focus on her task (to be there for God) she advises her to imitate little Children. Thérèse here is doing her duty of state. It wasn’t the nun’s duty of state to find fault in other persons!
One can add two similar pieces of advice:
1- A nun (here not a novice) was scandalised and was suffering because of what was happening in another Monastery. Thérèse on the contrary was very calm and focused on God. Surprised, the nun asked Thérèse how come she could be so calm and was not concerned by what was happening in that other monastery. Thérèse's reply was that this was not their community and that it therefore couldn't in any way trouble her.
One can easily remember the "pagan" philosophical advice, which was very early on adopted by Monasticism:
Don't worry about what you can't change.
Worry only about what you can change.
In fact, we can't change any human being. We can change only ourselves.
2- St. John of the Cross, in his advice given to a religious (see Minor works) says that the monk has to live in the monastery as if he were alone with God, paying attention only to God. Of course this advice today can very easily be felt to be harsh and not even correct, or worse still: against charity etc.
If, instead of boldly criticising a saint of this stature, we try to understand what he says we will find his advice to be very evangelical. The Lord himself, as stated above, is asking us to mind our own business and never judge our brothers or sisters - again, unless it is our duty and responsibility, i.e. unless it is our duty of state (being a parent, a superior, or a spiritual director, etc.). The fundamental reason is: we don't see the human being's heart.
On the other hand, I hear the objection: it is true that if we see our brother committing something serious the Gospel asks us to talk to him or her and invite them to repent (Fraternal Correction see Mt 18:15-18). And later, if they don't repent, we are asked to report it to the Community. But at the same time the Lord asks us to focus on our own sins, business, problems: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" (Luke 6:41)
We should focus on what we can change! This is our primary duty.
Let us also admire the continuation of the advice:
"You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." (Luke 6:42). The Lord however seems to retain the possibility that later, having greater clarity, one is able to "remove the speck"; He never explains how.
In fact, when the hypocrisy (the double standards) fades and goes, when the powerful light of the Holy Spirit sheds its insights into our very depths, we discover our nothingness, and we discover the fact that the only exit or solution for us, when face to face with God, is to rely purely and utterly on His Mercy. When the "hypocrisy" goes, after having focused for years on removing the big plank from our eye, we discover that our main duty is to forgive, to exercise mercy on our brothers and intercede for them.
Thérèse gives this advice to a nun: God doesn't want us to be judges of our sisters but agents of God's mercy toward them. God understand our weakness. We can excuse them, find excuses for them. Have a merciful attitude. We can in fact imitate God.
Referring even to the greater Monastic tradition, and the Desert Fathers, we read in their stories that an Elder saw a young monk committing adultery, but remained in peace. Another young monk, who saw the whole thing, was scandalised and troubled, and was surprised to see the Elder remaining peaceful. He asked the Elder, challenging him: didn't you seen the whole thing? The Elder answered: no.
The story here could seem very confusing to many. But each one of the short stories and advice of the Fathers of the Desert bears a lesson, and here is the lesson: do not to lose your inner peace. Why? Because the work of God can only be achieved when one is at peace! Being troubled caused by being scandalised doesn't allows to fulfil God's will and bear good fruits.
So what do you do? You choose a higher value (i.e. peace) over a lower or even a sinful one: forfeiting one's inner peace. Again, it is the Lord's advice: "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." The monk preferred to shed tears over his own sins than to spend one minute noticing a grave sin committed by his brother and being troubled by it.
It is possible that this logic won't dawn on many. Time and humility will tell.
When Saint Paul writes to his disciple and spiritual son, Timothy, and gives him advice for the organisation of the Community (see first letter to Timothy). He asks the latter not to appoint as Leader (Bishop) somebody who has been recently converted, because such a person is often still reacting under the influence of the Old Man. As a consequence humility will be lacking, violence will still be there, harsh judgement, etc. Humility and holiness are still a long way from where he is. The experience of God's Mercy and of one's nothingness hasn't sunk in yet. The experience of perceiving that we are all in the same box and that we all need His Mercy and that the only exit for us is his Mercy is not there yet.
We live in a world where everybody thinks they know everything: each person thinks they know about politics, economics, history, etc. Each person seems to have an opinion about everything, people judge their superiors very easily, the Pope for example is constantly being judged and criticised by many and even condemned. This is utterly bad and sinful behaviour. We are not focused on what we can change: ourselves! We do not mind our own business! God will judge each person, God is the judge. We are not. Sometimes we might be called to report something we have noticed to our superior, the one who is in charge, ok, fine, but after reporting it, we should completely forget about it: it does not depends on us, it is not our duty of state, it is not our own business. Otherwise we will spend 80% of our energy on things that are not part of our duties. Once reported, the responsibility falls into the hands of those in charge and not on us! God will not condemn us. We have reported; that's it. Now we can be at peace, it is not our duty anymore.
Summing up
We need to remember that we have two worlds (sometimes called "forums") or two areas in our life: the internal one and the external one. The external one is the world in which we live, people who surround us and we meet, the external events. The internal one is the secret of our heart, of our thoughts, of our conscience and of our relationship with God. The two worlds are not separated but often we pay attention rather to the external one only. All our acts come from our internal world. The visible acts are the ones which cross the line and become visible, noticeable to others, and the other ones, remain in our heart and no-one sees them. This fundamental distinction helps us discern two areas in our duties and two areas wherein our Peace lies.
We can distinguish two aspects in our duties:
a- The external ones: the duties of our state of life (single, married, consecrated) and the duties of our work. ('external forum' duties: they are often public and verifiable by others.)
b- The internal ones: our spiritual life, and our responsibility to answer Jesus' Call and grow spiritually everyday. ('internal forum' duties)
God's will manifests itself to us in two forms: internal duties (our spiritual life) and external ones. Both duties are important and necessary. We often forget our internal duties, i.e. our spiritual life.
Also, since we have talked above about the importance of having peace in our heart, we can distinguish two types of outcomes regarding peace:
a- The external one: we are not promised necessarily to have peace in the following areas: our community, neighbourhood, family, work place, congregation/order, city, country. Our passive thoughts (Temptations). God allows them for our own good in order to strengthen us spiritually. "Lead us not into temptation" doesn't mean keep at bay all challenges and trials. It means, give us the grace to be victorious over temptation when it comes.
We often don't have peace in these external areas because life on earth is not a "paradise" but a type of warfare which challenges us to grow spiritually and as human beings.
b- The internal one: peace with God, peace in the heart, and peace in our active thoughts. Our goal should be necessarily to reach this peace in order to accomplish both our duties, inner and outer. One has to be very vigilant in this regard. We can't accomplish God's duties, our external duties, if we don't have vital inner peace. Of course it doesn't come easily, and one needs to make an effort of conversion. But the paradox is that one can be totally at peace and live in a very difficult outer situation where there is no peace. On one hand we are vigilant to keep the peace in our heart, or regain it, and on the other hand we work and fulfil our external duties.
As we can see only the internal one should be sought after and kept in order to do God's will.
Of course external trouble around us doesn't give us licence to join in, rather we should try to be peacemakers (Rm 14:19: "Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification."). But if we fail, it is still ok, we are not supposed to succeed always because the freedom of other persons and situations doesn't depend only on us.
It is true also that sometimes we feel in our conscience that God is asking us to witness to the truth, be witnesses to Jesus (and it could create trouble without meaning to); this has to be done with discernment. We can witness to the truth but be unable to convince others about it, and even less to force them to accept it.
Often, despite the fact that we seek peace, we find that there are always difficulties, struggles, misunderstandings, trials. Even if we have done all that we can, we can't change the situation we can't change others. If we still have doubts we can always consult our Spiritual Director.
I think all the above needs long extensive moments of prayerful silence face to face with God.
