TELL-TALES, nasty names, cold answers, lies, mockery, harsh words, etc., are all contrary to charity. St. John Chrysostom says: "When anyone loads you with injuries, close your mouth, because if you open it you will only cause a tempest. When in a room between two open doors through which a violent wind rushes and throws things in disorder, if you close one door the violence of the wind is checked and order is restored. So it is when you are attacked by anyone with a bad tongue. Your mouth and his are open doors. Close yours, and the storm ceases. If, unfortunately, you open yours, the storm will become furious, and no one can tell what the damage may be." If we have been guilty in this respect, let us humble ourselves before God.
"The tongue," says St. Gertrude, "is privileged above the other members of the body, as on it reposes the sacred body and precious blood of Jesus Christ. Those, then, who receive the Holy of Holies without doing penance for the sins of the tongue are like those who would keep a heap of stones at their doors to stone a friend on arrival."
In order to keep ourselves and others in a state of moderation, we must remember that all persons have some fad, mania, or fixed ideas which they permit no one to gainsay. If we touch them on these points, it will be like playing an accompaniment to an instrument with one string out of tune.
[XIV]
NINTH CHARACTERISTIC
Care of the sick and infirm
CHARITY lavishes care on the sick and infirm, on the old, on guests and new-comers. It requires that we visit those who are ill, to cheer and console them, to foresee their wants, and thereby to spare them the pain or humiliation of asking for anything.
Bossuet says: "Esteem the sick, love them, respect and honour them, as being consecrated by the unction of the Cross and marked with the character of a suffering Jesus."
Charity pays honour to the aged in every respect, coincides with their sentiments, consults them, forestalls their desires, and attempts not to reform in them what cannot be reformed. Charity receives fraternally all guests and new-comers, and makes us treat them as we would wish to be treated under similar circumstances. It also causes us to lavish testimonies of affection on those who are setting out, and warns us to be very careful of saying or doing anything that may in the least degree offend even the most susceptible.
Religious must ever feel that they can bless, love, and thank religion as a good mother. But religion is not an abstract matter; it is made up of individuals reciprocally bound together in and for each other.