Rarely, without doubt, but too often, nevertheless, we calumniate at first secretly or with one or two friends, afterwards openly and in public. We speak of the mistakes, shortcomings, and defects, great and small, and sometimes transmit them as a legacy. Sometimes we use a moderate hypocrisy by purposely letting ourselves be questioned, and sometimes brutally attack our victim without shame.
"Have I, then," may the religious thus attacked say, "in making my vows renounced my honour and delivered my character to pillage? Has my position as religious, has the majesty of the King of Kings, of whom I have become the intimate friend, in place of ennobling me, degraded me? You call yourselves my brethren, and yet there are none who esteem me less! You would not steal my money, and yet you make no scruple of stealing my character, a thousand times more precious. You pay court to your Saviour and persecute His child! The same tongue on which reposes the Holy of Holies spreads poison and death! Is this to be the result of your study and practice of virtue? Has not Jesus Christ, by so many Communions, placed a little sweetness on your tongue and a little charity in your heart? By eating the Lamb have you become wolves? as St. John Chrysostom reproached the clergy of Antioch. And you, who fly so carefully the gross vices of the world, have you no care or anxiety about damning yourself by slander?"
[XXII]
THIRD PRESERVATIVE
To guard the tongue
THIS must be done especially in five circumstances: (1) At the change of Superiors. Do not criticize the outgoing Superior nor flatter the new one. (2) When you replace another religious. Never by word or act cast any blame on him. Inexperience, or a desire to introduce new customs, sometimes causes this to be done. (3) When you are getting old. Because then we are apt to think— erroneously, of course—that the young members growing up are incapable of fulfilling duties once accomplished by ourselves. (4) When religious come from another house do not ask questions which they ought not to answer, and do not tell them anything which might prejudice or disgust them with the house or anyone in it. Lastly, in our interviews with our particular friends we must be very cautious. There are some who, when anything goes amiss with them, always seek the company of their confidants. These should seriously examine before God whether it is a necessary comfort in affliction or a support in weakness, or the too human satisfaction of justifying themselves, giving vent to their feelings, or getting blame and criticism for the Superior or some one else. They should also examine whether on such occasions they speak the exact truth, and whether they seek a friend, who knows how to take the arrow sweetly from the wound rather than to bury it deeper.
The way to find out the gravity of the sin of detraction is—(1) To consider the position of him who speaks and the weight which is attached to his words; (2) the position of him who is spoken about, and the need he has of his reputation; (3) the evil thing said; (4) the number of the hearers; (5) the result of the detraction; and, lastly, the intention of the speaker, and the passion which was the cause of it.