Do you not say even about some of these matters: "Oh! I do not think the same about that as the priests do; they are welcome to their opinion but I claim the right to mine"? It may be some question of morals; then you say: "The priest say so-and-so is not right; but I don't see any harm in it. I have got a conscience of my own."
Did it ever occur to you that as God knows more, and has told more to his church about himself than you could have found out, so he may have enlightened it rather more about some other matters in its own sphere than he has enlightened you, even though they are not of faith? And even setting that aside, is it not possible that those who have studied a subject know more about it than those who have not?
I think there is only one answer to these questions. Try, then, to have the same humility which you have about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in other things too. You believe that the officers of a ship know a little more about her position and proper course than you do; make the same presumption in favor of those who are in charge of the bark of St. Peter. It is only reasonable to think so; only showing a little of the same common sense which you show in other things.
Sermon LXXXIV.
Why seest thou the mote in thy brother's eye,
but the beam that is in thy own eye
thou considerest not?
—St. Luke vi. 41.
These words, my dear brethren, are taken from the Gospel of the first Sunday after Pentecost, which is always read at the end of Mass on this day. Of all those which our Divine Lord spoke during his ministry on earth, there are none more practical, none which have a more immediate bearing on our daily lives.
There is nothing which shows the perversity of our fallen nature more clearly than the common habit, in which even many persons who are pious in their way continually indulge, of criticising and commenting on the actions and character of others.
Some people, indeed, seem to think that there is no harm in talking about the character and conduct of their neighbors, as long as they do not say anything which is not true. This is a great mistake; one hardly needs to stop and reflect for a moment to see that it is a grievous injustice to speak of a sin which another person has actually committed, if it be not known, or at least certain soon to be known in some other way, by the one to whom we speak. So there are many who have sense enough not to make this mistake and who do hold their tongues about the secret sins of others. But there are comparatively few who seem to realize that it is against charity, though not against justice, to speak even of well-known and evident faults of one's neighbors, when there is no good object to be gained by so doing; and, in fact, even to think of them and turn them over in one's mind, for which there can never be any good object.