Fr Faber on recreation, chess, and St Charles Borromeo

Everyone remembers the story of St. Charles Borromeo and his game of chess. When others were saying what they would forthwith begin to do if they knew they should die within an hour, the saint said he should go on with his chess; for he had begun it simply for God's glory, and he desired nothing better than to be called away in the midst of an action begun for the glory of God.

All For Jesus

God's love of men - Fr Faber

Verily, God's love of men is a simple wonder. Yet how He must love them, seeing that He became not an angel for angels, but He did become a man for men!

All For Jesus

True reverence - Fr Faber

What is more necessary to true worship than a deep and calm reverence? Nay, what is more sweet to hot-hearted love than to be hushed and awe-smitten in the presence of the refulgent attributes of God? Familiarity in religion would be a simple impertinence if reverence did not mingle with it. What more familiar than the relation between father and son, yet what love more reverent than filial love? Truly, while it was true reverence which made Peter tell his Master to depart from him because he was a sinful man, it was no true reverence which made the craven men of Gadara beseech Jesus to withdraw His importunate blessings from their coast. But it was reverence, perhaps a deeper reverence than Peter's, which made Magdalene strive to hold the Risen Jesus by His feet, though it was not His will to suffer it. Too often, alas! we mistake coldness for reverence, and stiffness for respect. How sweetly did Jesus reprove that spirit when St. Gertrude complained to Him of one of her nuns who, out of reverence, as she fancied, kept away from a community Communion. "What would you have Me do?" said our Blessed Lord, "these good people tie the bandage of their own unworthiness so tightly over their eyes that they cannot see the tenderness of My Paternal Heart."

All For Jesus

Hindering mortal sin - Fr Faber

And, lastly, if you wish to press on toward the prize of Christian perfection, and to become a saint, listen to this story, listen to what happens to a man who has done no more than this, hindered two mortal sins from being consummated in outward acts. St. Paphnutius had dwelt in the desert for many a long year, and by weary penances had toiled for his sanctification. At last a strange thought came into his mind, and he ventured to express it in prayer to God. He desired to know to whom on the earth he was equal in sanctity. He asked it in simplicity and true humility, and God vouchsafed to speak to him. He told him he was now equal to a certain piper in an Egyptian village that He named. At once the saint set forth to seek him. When he came to the village he asked for the piper, and was told he was piping in the tavern for the amusement of those who were drinking there. Strange ! thought St. Paphnutius. However, he sought the piper out, led him aside, and spoke to him of his spiritual state. What good works had he done ? Good works ! rejoined the piper ; I know of nothing good that I have ever done ; but once, when I was a robber, I saved from violence a virgin consecrated to God ; and once, also, I gave money to a poor woman, who, out of poverty, was offering herself to sin. And then Paphnutius understood how God had given to that piper graces equal to his own, because for his Maker's glory he had in his rough robber-days hindered two mortal sins.

All For Jesus
(Cf. Mortal sin prevention!)

Increasing God's accidental glory - Fr Faber

It is the interest of Jesus that the glory of the most Holy Trinity should be increased in every possible manner, and at every hour of night and day ; and this glory, which is called God's accidental glory, is increased by every good work, word, and thought, every correspondence to grace, every resistance to temptation, every act of worship, every sacrament rightly administered or humbly received, every act of homage and love to Mary, every invocation of the saints, every bead of the Rosary, every sign of the Cross, every drop of holy water, every pain patiently endured, every harsh judgment meekly borne, every good wish, though it end only with the wishing, and never sees fulfilment — provided there be a devout intention along with all these things, and they are done in union with the merits of our sweet Lord.

The devil's interests - Fr Faber

The devil also has his interests in the world. He has been allowed to set up a kingdom in opposition to God, and, like all sovereigns, he has a multitude of interests. Thus he has agents everywhere, active, diligent, unseen spirits, swarming in the streets of the cities, to push on his interests. They canvass the labourers in the field. They see what they can do with the monk in his cloister and the hermit in his cell. Even in the churches, during Mass or Benediction, they are hard at work, plying their unholy trade. Our fellow-men also, by thousands, let themselves out to him as agents ; nay, numbers work in his interests for nothing ; and, what is more shocking still, many do his work, and almost fancy it is God's work they are doing, it looks so good and blameless in their eyes. How many Catholics oppose good things, or criticise good persons ; yet they would never consent to be the devil's agents, if they really knew what they were about. These interests of the devil are very various. To cause mortal sin, to persuade to venial sin, to hinder grace, to prevent contrition, to keep back from sacraments, to promote lukewarmness, to bring holy people and bishops and religious orders into disrepute, and to stand in the way of vocations, to spread gossip, to distract people at prayer, to make men fall in love with the frivolities and fashions of the world, to get men to spend money on comforts, furniture, jewels, nicknacks, parrots, old china, fine dress, instead of on the poor of Jesus Christ, to induce Catholics to worship great people and put their trust in princes, and fawn upon political parties in power, to make them full of criticism of each other, and quick as children to take scandal, to diminish devotion to our Blessed Lady, and to make people fancy divine love is an enthusiasm and an indiscretion : these are the chief interests of the devil. It is amazing with what energy he works at them, and with what consummate craft and dreadful ability he advances them in the world. It would be a thing to admire, if it did not make us afraid for our own souls, and if all things which are against God were not simply abominable, and to be hated. The dark enemy of the Creator is mysteriously allowed a marvellous share of success in that creation which the All Holy once looked down upon, and blessed in His unspeakable complacency. Men's interests put the interests of Jesus on one side, partly as troublesome, more often as insignificant. The devil's interests are directly opposed to those of Jesus, and where they are successful, either debase them, or kill them altogether.

All For Jesus

Virtue: a means, not an end - Fr Faber

"Virtue itself is a means, not an end; for virtue is not God, nor union with God. Do not think this admonition strange. It is one that was constantly in the mouth of St. Francis of Sales. We are so bad that we can make even our pursuit of virtue a hindrance to our love of God."

Growth in Holiness

Results - Fr Faber

Thus you must not look too much to visible fruits and to public results. What the world calls misfortunes often turn out to be the good fortune of Jesus. For instance, a man is suffering a great injustice because he happens to be a Catholic. You pray for him. The injustice goes on; the Protestants outwardly have the best of it, and are as cruel and triumphant as ever. You fancy your prayer has not been answered. There could not be a greater mistake. Jesus wants to make that man a saint. It is better for him to be the helpless victim of that injustice. Meanwhile, because of your prayers, Jesus has granted him additional grace, which he has corresponded to. So that, actually, for your Pater and Ave he will be higher in heaven to all eternity than he would have been. There will be a gem sparkling in his crown that would not else have been there; you will see it and admire it in heaven, and you will know it was your Pater and Ave that put it there. So it is with the Pope, and the Church, and religious orders, and in fact every thing that has to do with Jesus. His interests do not follow the rules of the world, but the rules of grace. We must measure them by different measures, and not use the measures of the world. Our measures, weights, and coinage must all be of the sanctuary. Jesus was never so triumphant as when He let Himself be nailed to the Cross; yet the silly world thought it had it all its own way then, and had carried the day completely.

All For Jesus

Jesus's love for us - Fr Faber

He has kept nothing back from us. There is not a faculty of His Human Soul which has not had to do with our salvation. There is not one limb of His Sacred Body which has not suffered for us. There is not one pain, one shame, one indignity, which He has not drained to its last dreg of bitterness on our behalf. There is not one drop of His most Precious Blood which He has not shed for us ; nor is there one beating of His Sacred Heart which is not an act of love to us. We read wonderful things in the Lives of the Saints about their love of God, wonderful things which we dare not think of imitating. They practised fearful austerities, or they spent years in unbroken silence, or they were ever in ecstasies and raptures, or they were passionately in love with contempt and suffering, or they pined and wasted away in holy impatience for death, or they courted death, and expired in the long tortures of an excruciating martyrdom. Each one of these things separately fills us with wonder. Yet, put them all together, conceive all the love of Peter, Paul, and John, of Joseph and of Magdalen, of all the apostles and martyrs, the confessors and virgins of the Church in all ages, thrown into one heart made, by miracle, strong enough to hold such love ; then add to it all the burning love which the nine choirs of multitudinous angels have for God, and crown it all with the amazing love of the Immaculate Heart of our dear Mother ; and still it comes not near to, nay, it is but a poor imita,tion of, the love which Jesus has for each one of us, however lowly and unworthy and sinful we may be!..

All For Jesus

Self-improvement vs the Will of God - Fr Faber

There are two views of growth in grace, the self-improvement view and the will-of-God view. In these views - for what is more operative than a view - is the root of all the error and of all the wisdom of the matter. If a man puts self-improvement before him as the end of life, almost every step that he takes will be wrong. If he works away at himself, as a sculptor finishes off a statue, he will get more out of proportion, and bring out more black marks and gray blotches, the longer he chisels. Not a motive will be right, not an aim true. If he takes up his particular examen and his rule of life, and his periodical penances, as merely medicinal appliances, if he shuts himself up in a reformatory school of his own, if he models his whole spiritual life upon the complacent theory of self-improvement, his asceticism will be nothing better than a systematizing and a glorifying of self-will. Under such auspices he can never be a spiritual man, and he will hardly be a moral man. Yet how common is this miserable view, even among men living right in the heart of a system so intensely supernatural as that of the Catholic Church.

The will-of-God view, on the contrary, refers everything, but diligence and correspondence, to Him. A man follows God's lead, and does .not strike out a road for himself. He models himself in his measure and degree on the imitation of Jesus. He seeks to please God, and acts out of love. His inconsistencies neither astonish nor tease him. An imperfection annoys him, not because it mars the symmetry of his character, but because it grieves the Holy Ghost. Sacraments, and scapulars, and beads and medals, relics and rites, all find their places in his system; and the natural and the supernatural form one whole. God is always pleased when a man seeks humbly, and in appointed ways, to please Him. Hence this man is quieted, cheerful and hopeful with his faults. The gaiety of endless success is in his heart. God is his Father. Whereas the self-improvement man either does not succeed in improving himself, or he does so too slowly, or he loses on one side what he gains on the other, or people will persist in being scandalized at his edifying deportment, for with such men edification is the crown of virtue, and if they do not edify, they have failed. Hence he is unquiet, sulky, and desponding about his faults. The bitterness of endless piecemeal failure is in his heart.

After death we shall have many revelations. I suspect the hiddenness of our spiritual growth here on earth will give rise to some. How surprised many humble spirits will be at the extraordinary beauty of their souls, when death has disengaged them! So much more is always going on than we in the least suspect!

 Growth in Holiness

What to do having succumbed to temptation - Fr Faber

"One more question remains about temptations. How shall we behave when we ourselves are overcome? There is but one answer, one advice: it is childish: but is there any other? When we fall we must rise again, and go on our way, wishing ourselves, after a Christian fashion, better luck another time."

(Growth in Holiness)

Sarcasm - Fr Faber

"We must come to esteem very lightly our sharp eye for evil, on which, perhaps, we once prided ourselves as cleverness. It has been to us a fountain of sarcasm ; and how seldom since Adam was created has sarcasm fallen short of being a sin ! We must look at our talent for analysis of character as a dreadful possibility of huge uncharitableness. We should have been much better without it from the first. It is the hardest talent of all to manage, because it is so difficult to make any glory for God out of it."

(Kindness, Spiritual Conferences)

Fraternal correction - Fr Faber

(By posting this, I might seem to be fraternally correcting people who are in no position to correct others, which would include myself! Oh well...)

"We must bear in mind that there are very few, who, by standing or advancement, are in any way called upon to correct their brethren, fewer still who are competent to do it sweetly and wisely, and none whose holiness is not tried to the uttermost by its perfect discharge. While, on the other hand, those who have rashly assumed to themselves this delicate responsibility have net only sinned themselves by disobedience, disrespect, conceit, bitterness, assumption and exaggeration, but have caused sin in others, and made the things of God an offence to them, and a stumbling-block in their road. Hence, before we attempt fraternal correction, we should be quite sure that we have a vocation to it, and we should have made quite sure of it by the judgment of others as well as our own; and when we are clear of the vocation, we must still preface our correction with prayer and deliberation."

 (Growth in Holiness)

Lukewarmness and generosity with God - Fr Faber

We are quite capable of conceiving a man, a saint be could not be, exempt from all actual sin, and observing to the full all the Commandments in the letter, and yet without generosity to God. It is, of course, a theological impossibility; but we are capable of conceiving it. This sinless man might, without breaking any Commandment, be occasionally dull-hearted with God, grudging Him heroic service and counsels which did not oblige. He might be sometimes inclined to bargain with God, and to think he had now done quite as much as was discreet. Now and then he might give way to the feeling that his obedient life was irksome, because of the unwearied and unremitting sacrifice which it entailed. At intervals he might even have fits of lukewarmness, in matters plainly short of sin. He might look on Jesus without any glow of enthusiasm, and his acts of love might up to a certain point be remiss. All this is possibly and imaginably consistent with entire sinlessness. Yet what is the disposition of this unsinning monster, but the portrait of a devil, or something very like it? And why, except for the absence of all generosity with God? It is just this which stamps, not the unchristian, but the anti-Christian character upon it...

From Growth in Holiness.

On Taking Scandal - Fr Faber

On Taking Scandal, Fr Faber (Spiritual Conferences)

To give scandal is a great fault, but to take scandal is a greater fault. It implies a greater amount of wrongness in ourselves, and it does a greater amount of mischief to others.

Nothing gives scandal sooner than a quickness to take scandal. This is worth our consideration. For I find great numbers of moderately good people who think it fine to take scandal. They regard it as a sort of evidence of their own goodness, and of their delicacy of conscience; while in reality it is only a proof either of their inordinate conceit or of their extreme stupidity. They are fortunate when this latter is the case; for then no one but inculpable nature is to blame. If, as some have said, a stupid man cannot be a saint, at least his stupidity can never make him into a sinner. Moreover, the persons in question seem frequently to feel and act as if their profession of piety involved some kind of official appointment to take scandal. It is their business to take scandal. It is their way of bearing testimony to God. It would show a blamable inertness in the spiritual life if they did not take scandal. They think they suffer very much while they are taking scandal; whereas in truth they enjoy it amazingly. It is a pleasurable excitement, which delightfully varies the monotony of devotion. They do not in reality fall over their neighbour's fault, nor does it in itself hinder them in the way of holiness, nor do they love God less because of it, ---- all which ought to be implied in taking scandal. But they trip themselves up on purpose, and take care that it shall be opposite some fault of their neighbour’s, in order that they may call attention to the difference between him and themselves.

There are certainly many legitimate causes for taking scandal, but none more legitimate than the almost boastful facility of taking scandal which characterizes many so-called religious people. The fact is that an immense proportion of us are pharisees. For one pious man who makes piety attractive, there are nine who make it repulsive. Or, in other words, only one out of ten among reputed spiritual persons is really spiritual. He who during a long life has taken the most scandal has done the most injury to God's glory, and has been himself a real and substantial stumbling-block in the way of many. He has been an endless fountain of odious disedification to the little ones of Christ. If such a one reads this, he will take scandal at me. Everything that he dislikes, every thing which deviates from his own narrow view of things, is to him a scandal. It is the pharisaic way of expressing a difference.

Men marvellously like to be popes; and the dullest of men, if only he has, as usual, an obstinacy proportioned to his dullness, can in most neighbourhoods carve out a tiny papacy for himself; and if to his dullness he can add pomposity, he may reign gloriously, a little local ecumenical council in unintermitting session through all the four seasons of the year. Who has time enough, or heart enough, or hope enough, to try to persuade such men? They are not sufficiently interesting to us to be worth our persuading. Let us leave them alone with their glory and their happiness. Let us try to persuade ourselves. Do not we ourselves take scandal too often? Let us examine the matter and see.

Now, here is a thing which I have often thought upon. Certainly no one can remember every thing in the voluminous lives of the saints; for it would take a lifetime to read them all. But I do not remember to have read of any saint who ever took scandal. If this is even approximately true, the question is decided at once. Big men, swollen with self-importance, who see the faults of others with eyes of lynxes, and criticize them with clever sarcasms, and delight in the pedantry of a judicial frame of mind, can only humorously apply to themselves the name of the little ones of Christ. Yet books tell us there are two kinds of scandal, ---- the scandal of the little ones of Christ, and the scandal of pharisees. It follows, then, that these men must be pharisees. But I say that, if this remark about the saints is even approximately true, it must give us a check, and make us very thoughtful, if we are earnest men, although we are not saints, and what belongs to saints is by no means safely applicable to us in all respects. Let us suppose it not to be strictly true. Let us suppose it only a rare thing for saints to take scandal. We can draw a sufficiently broad conclusion from this to be very practical to ourselves. For we may infer that it is a matter about which persons aiming at being spiritual are not sufficiently careful. Every time we take scandal we run a great risk of sinning, and a manifold risk as well as a great one. We run the risk of impairing God's glory, of dishonouring our Blessed Lord, of giving substantial scandal to others, of breaking the precept of charity ourselves, of highly-culpable indiscretion, and, at the very least, of grieving the Holy Spirit in our own souls. Here is enough to make it worth our while to inquire.

Let us see, first of all, how much evil the habit of taking scandal implies. It implies a quiet pride, which is altogether unconscious how proud it is. Pride is the denial of the spiritual life. Spiritual pride means that we have no spiritual life, but the possession of that evil spirit instead of it. Pride is hard enough to manage even when we are conscious of it; but a pride which has no self-consciousness is a very desperate thing. It often seems as if grace could only get at it through a fall into serious sin, which will awake its consciousness and at the same moment turn it into shame. Now, the habit of taking scandal indicates that worst sort of pride, a pride which believes itself to be humility. Any thing like a habit of taking scandal implies also a fund of uncharitableness deep down in us, which grace and interior mortification have either not reached, or failed to influence. If we pay attention to ourselves, we shall find that, contemporaneously with the scandal we have taken, there has been some wounded feeling or other in an excited state within us. When we are in good humour, we do not take scandal. It is an act which is not for the most part accompanied by kindness. A genuine gentle sorrow for the person offending is neither the first thought nor the predominant thought in our minds when we take the offence. It is the offspring generally of an unkindly mood. Sometimes, indeed, it springs from moroseness, brought on by assuming a seriousness which does not become us because it is not simple. We precipitate ourselves into recollection, and find that we have fallen over head and ears into sullenness. Neither can taking scandal be very frequent with us without its implying also a formed habit of judging others. With a really humble or a naturally genial person the instinct of judging others is overlaid and, as it were, weighted with other and better qualities. It has to exert itself and make an effort before it can get to the surface and assert itself; whereas it lies on the surface, obvious, ready, prompt, and predominating, in a man who is given to taking scandal. Is it often allowable to judge our neighbour? Surely we know it to be the rarest thing possible. Yet we cannot take scandal without, first, forming a judgment; secondly, forming an unfavourable judgment; thirdly, deliberately entertaining it as a motive power inclining us to do or to omit something; and, fourthly, doing all this for the most part in the subject matter of piety, which in nine cases out of ten our obvious ignorance withdraws from our jurisdiction.

It also indicates a general want of an interior spirit. The supernatural grace of an interior spirit, among its other effects, produces the same results as the natural gift of depth of character; and to this it joins the ingenious sweetness of charity. A thoughtless or a shallow man is more likely to take scandal than any other. He can conceive of nothing but what he sees upon the surface. He has but little self-knowledge, and hardly suspects the variety or complication of his own motives. Much less, then, is he likely to divine in a discerning way the hidden causes, the hidden excuses, the hidden temptations, which may lie, and always do lie, behind the actions of others. So it is in spiritual matters with a man who has not an interior spirit. There is not only a rashness, but also a coarseness and vulgarity, about his judgments of others. Sometimes he only sees superficially. This is if he is a stupid man. If he is a clever man, he sees deeper than the truth. His vulgarity is of the subtle kind. He puts things together which had no real connection in the conduct of his neighbour. Base himself, he suspects baseness in others. If he saw a saint, he would think him either ambitious, opinionated, or hypocritical. He sees plots and conspiracies even in the most impulsive of characters. He cannot judge of character at all. He can only project his own possibilities of sin into others, and imagine that to be their character which he feels, if grace were withdrawn from him, would be his own. He judges as a man judges whose reason is slightly unsettled. He is cunning rather than discerning. To clever men charity is almost impossible if they have not an interior spirit.

We shall also find that, when we fall into the way of taking scandal, there is something wrong about our meditations. There are times when our meditations are inefficacious. With some men it is so nearly all through their lives. The fact is, that the habit of meditation will not by itself make us interior. When a man's spiritual life is reduced to the practice of daily meditation, we see that he soon loses all control over his tongue, his temper, and his wounded feelings. His morning's meditation is inadequate to the sweetening of his whole day. It is too feeble to detain the presence of God in his soul until evening. Like general intentions, it has theological possibilities which are hardly ever practical realities. It is like a shrub planted in the clay; if we do not dig around it and let in the air and moisture, it will not grow. Its growth is stunted and impeded. This is a perilous state of things, when our meditation is but an island in a day which is otherwise flooded with worldliness and comfort. For we must remember that comfort is one of the worst kinds of worldliness, and is most at home in our own rooms, at a distance from the gay, noisy, and dissipated world. We are not far from some serious mishap when mortification and examination of conscience have deserted our meditation and left it to itself. A habit of taking scandal often reveals to us that we are in this state, or are fast tending to it.

It also poisons much else that is good, and desecrates holy things, almost making them positively unholy. It infuses somewhat of censoriousness into our intercessory prayer. It turns our spiritual reading into a silent preachment to others. It charms away the arrows of the preacher from ourselves, and aims them with a pleased skill at others whom we have in our mind's eye. It plays into the hands of whatever is unkindly and unlovely in our natural dispositions; and it makes our very spirituality unspiritual by making it uncharitable. All this complicated evil it implies as already existing in us; and it fosters and increases it all for the future, while it is implying it in the present. It is plain, therefore, that it would be well for us to take scandal at our taking scandal, seeing what a degrading revelation it is to us of our own misery and meanness. We are aiming at a devout life. We have only just extricated ourselves from the swamps of mortal sin. We know something of the ways of grace. We have the models of the saints. We are more or less familiar with the teaching of spiritual writers. We are not obliged, either because of our ignorance or because of our weakness, to look to the conduct of others as the rule of our own. Hence, in our case, taking scandal is neither more nor less than judging, and we must treat the temptation to it as we would treat any other temptation against charity, ---- namely, check it, punish it, detest it, resolve against it, and accuse ourselves of it in confession. We must beware also of its artifices. For it has many tricks, and they are often successful. Masters, parents, and directors are quite familiar with a device of those under their care and control, and who criticize, suggestively at least, their government or direction: this trick consists in their accusing themselves of having taken scandal at the conduct of their superiors and directors. It is ingenious, but soon wears out. Directors learn early to stifle their own curiosity, and not allow their self-deluded critics to tell them what has scandalized them, as they cannot even listen to it without compromising their dignity and forfeiting their influence. In a word, we shall find it the truest and the safest conclusion to come to, that we must regard the temptation to take scandal as wholly and unmitigatedly evil, a temptation to which no quarter should be allowed, and to whose eloquent pleadings of delicacy of conscience no audience should be given but that of calm contempt.

Now that we have considered the existing evil which a readiness to take scandal implies in us, we may consider the way in which it hinders us in the attainment of perfection. It hinders us in the acquisition of self-knowledge. Watchfulness over ourselves is nothing short of an actual mortification. We eagerly lay hold of the slightest excuse for turning our attention away from ourselves, and the conduct of others is the readiest object to which we turn. No one is so blind to his own faults as a man who has the habit of detecting the faults of others. It also causes us to stand in our own light. We ourselves actually intercept the sunshine which would fall on our own souls. A man who is apt to take scandal is never a blithe or a genial man. He has never a clear light round about him. He is not made for happiness; and was ever a melancholy man made into a saint? A downcast man is raw material which can only be manufactured into a very ordinary Christian. Moreover, if we have any sort of earnestness about us, our taking scandal must at last become a source of scruples to us. If it is not quite the same thing as censoriousness, who shall draw the line between them? We know very well that it is not at our best times that we take scandal, and it must dawn upon us by degrees that it is so often contemporary with a state of spiritual malady that the coincidence can hardly be accidental. At the same time, the act is so intrinsically ungenerous in itself that it tends to destroy all generous impulses in ourselves. No one can be generous with God who has not a great, broad love of his neighbour.

Furthermore, it destroys our influence with others. We irritate where we ought to enliven. To be suspected of want of sympathy is to be disabled as an apostle. He who is critical will necessarily be unpersuasive. Even in literature, what department of it is less persuasive, and thus less influential, than that of criticism? Men are amused by it, but they do not form their judgments on it. There are few things in the literary world more striking than the little weight of criticism compared with the amount and the ability of it. We like to find fault ourselves; but we are never attracted to another man who finds fault. It is the last refuge of our good humour that we like to have a monopoly censure, Then, again, this habit entangles us in a hundred self-raised difficulties about fraternal correction, that rock of narrow souls; for a man's presumption is mostly in proportion to his narrowness. Men awake sometimes, and find that they have almost unconsciously worked themselves into a false position. This is a terrible affair in spirituality, It is harder to work ourselves right than to recover our balance after a sin. Yet the supposed obligation of fraternal correction is always enticing us into false positions. It also calls our attention off from God, and fixes them with a sort of diseased earnestness upon earthly miseries and pusillanimities. It is bad enough to look off from God by looking too much on ourselves; but to look off from God in order to look upon our neighbours, is a greater evil still. It deranges the whole interior world of thought, upon which the exercise of charity so much depends. It hinders us in acquiring the government of the tongue. It prevents our succeeding in good works where zealous and free co-operation with others is needed. It is the cloak which jealousy is forever assuming and calling it by the name of caution. Finally, we think all these things virtues, while they are in reality vices of the most unamiable description.

I do not think I have exaggerated the evil of this quickness to take scandal. I confess it is a fault which vexes me more than many others, and for many reasons. Its victims are good men, men full of promise, and whose souls have been the theatres of no inconsiderable operations of grace. It seizes them for the most part, just at the time when higher attainments seem opening to them. Its peculiarity is, that it is incompatible with the higher graces of the spiritual life, that it defiles that which was now almost cleansed, and vulgarizes that which was on the point of establishing its title to nobility. When we consider how many are called to perfection, and how few are perfect, may we not almost say that we do well to be angry with that evil which so opportunely and so effectually mars the work of grace?

In what does perfection consist? In a childlike, short-sighted charity; charity which believes all things; in a grand supernatural conviction that every one is better than ourselves; in estimating far too low the amount of evil in the world; in looking far too exclusively on what is good; in the ingenuity of kind constructions; in an inattention, hardly intelligible, to the faults of others; in a graceful perversity of incredulousness about scandals, which sometimes in the saints runs close upon being a scandal of itself. This is perfection; this is the temper and genius of saints and saint-Iike men. It is a life of desire, oblivious of earthly things. It is a radiant, energetic faith that man's slowness and coldness will not interfere with the success of God's glory. Yet all the while it is instinctively fighting, by prayer and reparation, against evils, which it will not allow itself consciously to believe. No shadow of moroseness ever falls over the bright mind of a saint. It is not possible that it should do so. Finally, perfection has the gift of entering into the universal Spirit of God, Who is worshipped in so many different ways, and is content. Now, is not all this just the very opposite of the temper and spirit of a man who is apt to take scandal? The difference is so plain that it is needless to comment on it. He is happy who on his dying bed can say, "No one has ever given me scandal in my life!" He has either not seen his neighbour's faults, or, when he saw them, the sight had to reach him through so much sunshine of his own that they did not strike him so much as faults to blame, but rather as reasons for a deeper and a tenderer love.

Kind Thoughts - Fr Faber

Fr Faber's spirtual conference, Kindness, can be read online here, and it is full of wisdom that should revolutionise the way we think, speak, and act.

... Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or kind deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they imply also a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still. Active-minded men are naturally the most given to criticise, and they are also the men whose thoughts are generally the most exuberant. Such men, therefore, must make kind thoughts a defence against self. By sweetening the fountain of their thoughts they will destroy the bitterness of their judgments.

But kind thoughts imply also a contact with God, and a Divine ideal in our minds. Their origin cannot be anything short of Divine. Like the love of beauty, they can spring from no baser source. They are not dictated by self-interest nor stimulated by passion. They have nothing in them which is insidious, and they are almost always the preludes to some sacrifice of self. It must be from God's touch that such waters spring...

Mortal sin prevention!

What a work then will it be for the interests of Jesus to prevent one mortal sin! Yet how easy! If every night, before we go to sleep, we begged our dear Lady to offer up to God the Precious Blood of her dear Son for grace to hinder one mortal sin, somewhere in the world, during that night, and then renewed the same offering in the morning for the hours of daylight, surely such an offering, and by such hands, could not fail to win the grace desired; and then each one of us might probably hinder seven hundred and thirty mortal sins every year...

So suggested Fr Faber in his book All For Jesus.

Well, it can't hurt and it's worth getting into the habit of doing!

O Mary, Immaculate Mother of Jesus, offer, we beseech thee, to the Eternal Father, the Precious Blood of thy Divine Son to prevent at least one mortal sin from being committed somewhere in the world this day.

(Or evening, or night, etc.)