"If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be
lightsome."
Matt. 6: 22
Christian prudence or holy discretion, of which we have
spoken, should be accompanied by a virtue, simplicity, which is to all
appearances quite different. Christ Himself expressed this when He
said to His apostles: "Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of
wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves." (1)
Sending His apostles as sheep in the midst of wolves, Christ
recommends to them prudence especially toward the wicked, that they
may not be deceived by them, and simplicity in reference to self and
to God. The more simple the soul is in regard to God, the more He
Himself, by the gift of counsel, will inspire the prudence to be
observed in difficult circumstances, in the midst of the greatest
obstacles. Consequently Christ announces immediately afterward to His
followers that the Holy Ghost will inspire them with what they must
reply to persecutors.
Where this simplicity does not exist, prudence begins to become
false and to turn into cunning. The crafty or the shrewd man makes
sport, says Holy Scripture, of the simplicity of the just: "The
simplicity of the just man is laughed to scorn," says Job.(2) People
try to make simplicity pass for naivete and lack of penetration; it
may indeed be accompanied in some by artlessness, but it is
essentially something superior.
To get a correct idea of the virtue of simplicity and of veracity
and uprightness which it makes us preserve, we should note first of
all the defects opposed to it. God permits evil only for a greater
good, in particular to bring virtue into greater relief. We have a
better understanding of its value through the aversion inspired in us
by the contrary vices.
DEFECTS OPPOSED TO SIMPLICITY
According to St. Thomas,(3) simplicity is attached to the virtue of
veracity, which puts truth into speech, gestures, manner of being and
of living. Simplicity, in fact, is opposed to duplicity, by which we
interiorly wish something other than what exteriorly we pretend. A man
wishes other people's money and pretends to render them service; in
reality, he wishes to make use of them or of what belongs to them; or
again, he wishes power and honors, and to obtain them pretends to
serve his country; he pretends to be magnanimous, when in reality he
is only ambitious. This defect of duplicity, which may become
Machiavellianism or perfidy, inclines a man to be two-faced, according
to the people he is addressing, like the Roman god Janus that was
represented with two faces. A two-faced man pretends to be your
friend, tells you that you are right, and he tells your adversaries
that they are not wrong.
Duplicity inspires lies, simulation, which leads a man to make
himself esteemed for something other than he is, hypocrisy, by which
he affects a virtue, a piety which he does not have. It also inspires
boasting, because one prefers appearance to reality; one seeks to
appear rather than to be what one should. It also inspires raillery,
which turns others into ridicule in order to lower them in their
neighbor's esteem and to exalt oneself above them.
All these defects, which are frequent in the world, show by
contrast the value of uprightness or veracity in life.
VERACITY AND THE INTERIOR LIFE
Veracity, a virtue attached to justice, leads a man to tell the
truth always and to act in conformity with it. This does not mean that
every truth should be told to everybody, sermonizing right and left
and boasting of a frankness which borders on insolence or lack of
respect. But if every truth is not to be told, if there are truths
which it is expedient to suppress, we should avoid speaking against
the truth and falling into an officious lie, which we are tempted to
tell in order to escape from an embarrassing situation. If we have
committed this sin, we must accuse ourselves frankly of it, instead of
seeking by false principles to justify this manner of acting. Thus to
act would gradually bring about the loss of all loyalty and would
destroy all confidence in human testimony, which is indispensable to
the life of society.
It is indeed difficult at times, when faced with an indiscreet
question, to keep a secret which has been entrusted to one and at the
same time not to speak contrary to the truth.(4) But if the Christian
is habitually docile to the inspirations from above, the Holy Ghost
will inspire him in such difficult circumstances as these with the
reply to make or the question to ask, as He did the first Christians
when they were led before the tribunals. Christ foretold this when He
said: "When they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to
speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. For it is
not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in
you." (5) This prediction was often verified during the French
Revolution when priests were hunted down and when, to prevent them
from bringing the last sacraments to the dying, they were asked all
sorts of insidious questions. The Holy Ghost often inspired their
answers, which, though not opposed to the truth, permitted them to
continue their ministry.
Every Christian in the state of grace has the seven gifts of the
Holy Ghost, which render him docile to receive His inspirations, given
especially in difficult circumstances where even our infused prudence
is insufficient. St. Thomas says even that for this reason the gifts
of the Holy Ghost are necessary to salvation as the complement of the
infused virtues.(6) The casuists should have remembered this great
truth instead of having recourse to theories that occasionally were
hazardous, in order to permit certain mental restrictions which were
so slightly manifest that they bordered singularly on falsehood. It is
better to recognize that one has committed a venial sin of lying than
to have recourse to theories which falsify the definition of a lie, in
order not to admit it there where it is. It is of great importance to
preserve the spirit of uprightness of which our Lord speaks when He
says: "Let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and
above these, is of evil" (7) He spoke in this manner to those who, in
order to make their testimony believed, swore without reason by heaven
or by the temple at Jerusalem. Disrespectful oaths expose one to
perjury; if a man is accustomed always to tell the truth, others will
believe his speech.
In treating of veracity, St. Thomas makes a remark which
particularly concerns the interior life. This virtue, he says, (8)
inclines a man to keep silent about his own qualities, or not to
manifest the whole good that is in him; this is done without prejudice
to the truth, since not to speak of it, is not to deny its existence.
St. Thomas even quotes on the subject the following reflection of
Aristotle: "Those who represent themselves as being greater than they
are, are a source of annoyance to others, since they seem to wish to
surpass others: whereas those who make less account of themselves are
a source of pleasure, since they seem to defer to others by their
moderation." (9) St. Paul also says: "For though I should have a mind
to glory, I shall not be foolish; for I will say the truth. But I
forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth in
me, or anything he heareth from me." (10)
The virtue pf veracity thus practiced, not only in speech but in
action, in our whole way of living, brings truth into our lives. And
when our life is established in the truth, then God, who is supreme
Truth, inclines toward us by His divine inspirations, which gradually
become the principle of a higher contemplation. To let ourselves fall
into the habit of lying is to turn away from the truth and to deprive
ourselves of the higher inspirations of the gift of wisdom. Habitual
living in the truth prepares us to receive these inspirations, which
make us penetrate and taste divine truth that we shall someday
contemplate unveiled.
SUPERIOR SIMPLICITY, THE IMAGE OF THAT OF GOD
Another aspect of veracity, the superior simplicity of the saints,
prepares the soul even more for contemplation. Simplicity is opposed
not only to duplicity, but to every useless complexity, to all that is
pretentious or tainted with affectation, like sentimentality which
affects a love that one does not have. What falsity to wish to talk in
a glowing style as if one were already in the seventh mansion of the
interior castle, when one has not yet entered the fourth! How far
superior is the simplicity of the Gospel!
We say that a child's gaze is simple because the child goes
straight to the point without any mental reservation. With this
meaning Christ says to us: "If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall
be lightsome"; that is, if our intention is upright and simple, our
whole life will be one, true, and luminous, instead of being divided
like that of those who try to serve two masters, God and money, at the
same time. In the presence of the complexities, the pretenses, the
more or less untruthful complications of the world, we feel
instinctively that the moral virtue of simplicity or of perfect
loyalty is a reflection of a divine perfection.
The simplicity of God is that of the pure Spirit who is Truth
itself and Goodness itself. In Him are no thoughts that succeed one
another; there is but one thought, ever the same, which subsists and
embraces every truth. The simplicity of His intellect is that of a
most pure gaze which, without any admixture of error or ignorance, has
unchangeably as its object every knowable truth. The simplicity of His
will or of His love is that of a sovereignly pure intention ordering
all things admirably and permitting evil only for a greater good.
The most beautiful characteristic of God's simplicity is that it
unites in itself perfections which in appearance are most
contradictory: absolute immutability and absolute liberty; infinite
wisdom and the freest good pleasure, which at times seems arbitrary to
us; or again infinite justice, which is inexorable toward unrepented
sin, and infinite mercy. All these perfections are fused and
identified without destroying each other in the eminent simplicity of
God.
We find a reflection of this lofty simplicity in the smile of a
child and in the simplicity of the gaze of the saints, which is far
superior to all the more or less untruthful intricacies of worldly
wisdom and prudence.
What a false notion of simplicity we sometimes form when we imagine
that it consists in telling frankly all that passes through our minds
or hearts, at the risk of contradicting ourselves from one day to the
next, when circumstances will have changed and the persons whom we see
will have ceased to please us! This quasi-simplicity is instability
itself and contradiction, and consequently complexity and more or less
conscious untruth; whereas the superior simplicity of the saints, the
image of that of God, is the simplicity of an unchanging wisdom and of
a pure and strong love, superior to our impressionability and
successive opinions.
St. Francis de Sales often speaks of simplicity.(11) He reduces it
to the upright intention of the love of God, which should prevail over
all our sentiments, and which does not tarry over the useless search
for a quantity of exercises that would make us lose sight of the unity
of the end to be attained. He says also that simplicity is the best of
artifices because it goes straight toward its goal. He adds that it is
not opposed to prudence, and that it does not interfere with what
others do.
The perfect soul is thus a simplified soul, which reaches the point
of judging everything, not according to the subjective impression of
the moment, but in the divine light, and of willing things only for
God. And whereas the complex soul, which judges according to its
whims, is disturbed for a trifle, the simplified soul is in a constant
state of peace because of its wisdom and its love. This superior
simplicity, which is quite different from naivete, or ingenuousness,
harmonizes perfectly, therefore, with the most cautious Christian
prudence that is attentive to the least details of our acts and to
their proximate or remote repercussion.
The soul of a St. Joseph, a St. John, a St. Francis, a St. Dominic,
or a Cure of Ars gives us an idea of the simplicity of God; still more
so does the soul of Mary, Morning Star, Queen of virgins and of all
saints, Queen of peace. Higher still the holy soul of Christ reflects
most purely the simplicity of God.
In Christ we find harmonized in a simple way the holy rigor of
justice toward the hypocritical Pharisees and immense mercy toward all
souls of which He is the Good Shepherd. In Him are united in the
simplest manner the deepest humility and the loftiest dignity. For
thirty years He lived the hidden life of a poor workman; He tells us
that He came to serve, not to be served. On Holy Thursday He washed
the feet of His disciples; He accepted the utmost humiliations of the
Passion; He said simply to His Father: "My Father, if it be possible,
let this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as
Thou wilt." (12) Before Pilate He proclaims simply His universal
royalty: "My kingdom is not of this world. . . . Thou sayest that I am
a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that
I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth,
heareth My voice." (13) He dies simply, saying: "Father, into Thy
hands I commend My spirit. . . . It is consummated." (14) In this
simplicity is such grandeur that the centurion, seeing Him die, could
not refrain from exclaiming: "Indeed this was the Son of God." (15)
The centurion had the gaze of a contemplative; he sensed in the
dying Christ, who seemed to be definitively conquered, Him who was
winning the greatest victory over sin, the devil, and death. This
light of contemplation was given to him by the dying Christ, by the
Savior, who inclines more particularly toward the simple who are clean
of heart.
This superior simplicity, even in souls without learning, is a preparation for the profound understanding of divine things. The Old
Testament had already declared: "Seek Him [the Lord] in simplicity of
heart.' (16) "Better is the poor man that walketh in his simplicity,
than a rich man that is perverse in his lips." (17) "Let us all die in
our innocency," (18) said the Machabees, under the injustice which
afflicted them. "Obey," says St. Paul, . . . "in simplicity of heart."
(19) And he exhorts the Corinthians to beware lest they "fall from the
simplicity that is in Christ." (20) Simplicity must be observed toward
God, superiors, and self. It is the truth of life.
This simplicity, says Bossuet,(21) is what permits limpid souls "to
enter the heights of God," the ways of Providence, the unsearchable
mysteries at which complex souls take scandal, the mysteries of the
infinite justice, the infinite mercy, and the sovereign liberty of the
divine good pleasure. All these mysteries, despite their obscurity,
are in their loftiness simple for the simple.
Why are these mysteries simple for some and obscure for others? The
answer lies in the fact that in divine things the most simple, like
the Our Father, are also the loftiest and the most profound. We forget
this fact because the inverse is true in the things of the world, in
which good and evil are intimately mingled. Hence they are often very
complex, and then he who wishes to be simple in this domain lacks
penetration; he remains naive, ingenuous, and superficial. In divine
things, on the contrary, simplicity is united to depth and elevation,
for divine things that are highest in God and deepest in our hearts
are simplicity itself.
We have an example in the profound simplicity of the Blessed Virgin
Mary and also in that of St. Joseph, who, after our Lord and Mary, was
the most eminently simple and contemplative soul the world has ever
seen. His simplicity was the effect of his unique predestination as
foster father of the Savior together with the habits of life of a
humble carpenter. Leo XIII, in his encyclical on the Patronage of St.
Joseph, says: "There is no doubt that more than anyone he approached
that supereminent dignity by which the Mother of God so highly
surpasses all creatures." (22)
St. Thomas Aquinas also had in a very eminent degree the virtue of
simplicity, which is an aspect of veracity, of the truth of life.
In recent times God has given us a lofty example of the simplicity
of the saints united to the contemplation of the mysteries of faith in
the person of St. Teresa of the Child Jesus.(23) She says: "Far from
resembling those beautiful souls who, from their childhood, practiced
all sorts of macerations, I made mine consist solely in breaking my
will, in withholding an answer, in rendering little services without
drawing attention to them, and many other things of this kind." (24)
"In my little way, there are only ordinary things; little souls must
be able to do all that I do." (25) "How easy it is to please Jesus, to
ravish His heart," she used to say; "one has only to love Him, without
looking at oneself, without too greatly examining one's defects.
Consequently, when I happen to fall into some fault, I pick myself up
at once. A glance toward Jesus and the knowledge of one's own
wretchedness make reparation for everything. He calls Himself the
'Flower of the fields' (Cant. 2: I) in order to show how greatly He
cherishes simplicity." (26)
Speaking of her way of training the novices, she remarked on the
subject of disputes which may arise between two persons: "Nothing is
easier than to cast the blame on the absent. I do just the contrary.
My duty is to tell the truth to the souls entrusted to me, and I tell
it." (27)
Again she states: "It is an illusion to think that one can do good
outside obedience." (28) And we see to what a degree in her own life
were realized these words of hers: "The Lord is often pleased to give
wisdom to little ones." (29) It is not therefore surprising that His
Holiness Pius XI should have declared in his homily for the feast of
her canonization: "It has therefore pleased the divine Goodness to
endow and to enrich Sister Teresa with an entirely exceptional gift of
wisdom. . . . The Spirit of truth showed her and taught her what He
ordinarily hides from the wise and prudent and reveals to the humble."
(30) Pope Benedict XV had spoken in like terms: "This happy servant of
God had herself so much knowledge that she was able to indicate to
others the true way of salvation." Her life and doctrine show how
greatly the superior simplicity of the saints opens their intellect
and renders it docile to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, that they
may penetrate and taste the mysteries of salvation and attain to union
with God.(31)
The saints know well what this union demands that it may be
preserved in the midst of circumstances often unforeseen and painful.
Superior simplicity united to discretion reminds them, no matter what
happens, that "to them that love God [and persevere in this love], all
things work together unto good."
To some it seems useless in a treatise on ascetical and mystical
theology to insist on virtues such as these, and they are in a hurry
to deal with questions on infused contemplation that are disputed
among theologians and psychologists. We think, on the contrary, that
it is extremely necessary to insist, as all the saints have done and
as is done in every cause of beatification, on these Christian virtues
which have so profound an influence on thought and life. Then the
traditional doctrine on infused contemplation appears as a resultant
of all that has been said about the progress of the acquired virtues,
the infused virtues, and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost in interior
souls truly detached from themselves and almost continually united to
God. Under the pretext that the doctrine relative to the Christian
virtues and the seven gifts is known by all, some never examine it
deeply. Contemplation is, nevertheless, in the sweet and profound
intuition of the divine truths known by all Christians, for example,
of those expressed in the Our Father. The virtue of simplicity,
conceived as a reflection in us of the divine simplicity, reminds us
of this fact.
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1. 1 Matt. 10: 16.
2. Job 12: 14.
3. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 109, a.2 ad 4um: "Simplicity is so called from its
opposition to duplicity, whereby a man shows one thing outwardly while
having another in his heart: so that simplicity pertains to this
virtue. And it rectifies the intention, not indeed directly (since
this belongs to every virtue), but by excluding duplicity, whereby a
man pretends one thing and intends another."
Cf. ibid., q. III, a.3 ad 2um: "Wherefore it belongs directly to
simplicity to guard oneself from deception, and in this way the virtue
of simplicity is the same as the virtue of truth. . . . There is,
however, a more logical difference between them, because by truth we
mean the concordance between sign and thing signified, while
simplicity indicates that one does not tend to different things, by
intending one thing inwardly, and pretending another outwardly." It is
a virtue annexed to justice. Ibid., q.109, a.3.
4. Let us remember, moreover, that often it is our own fault if we
are asked indiscreet questions. If we were more recollected and
silent, people would not ask them of us, or at least they would do so
only rarely.
5. Matt. 10: 19 f.
6. Cf. Ia IIae, q.68, a.2.
7. Matt. 5: 37.
8. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 109, a.4.
9. Ethica, IV, chap. 7.
10. Cf. II Cor. 12:6.
11. Introduction to a Devout Life, Part III, chap. 30.
12. Matt. 26: 39.
13. John 18:36f.
14. Luke 23:46; John 19:30.
15. Matt. 27:54.
16. Wisd.1:1.
17. Prov. 19: 1.
18. Cf. I Mach. 2:37.
19. Col. 3:22.
20. Cf. II Cor. 11:3.
21. Cf. Elevations sur les mysteres, 18e semaine: les
elevations sur les paroles du vieillard Simeon.
22. Encyclical Quanquam pluries, August 15. 1899: "Ad illam
praestantissimam dignitatem, qua naturis creatis omnibus longissime
Deipara antecellit, non est dubium quin accesserit ipse, ut nemo
magis."
23. Cf. L'Esprit de sainte Therese de l'Enfant-Jesus, 1923.
pp' 163-86.
24. Ibid., p. 169.
25. Ibid., p. 183.
26. Ibid., pp. 185 f.
27. Quoted by Father H. Petitot, O.P., Sainte Therese de Lisieux (1925), p. 173.
28. Ibid., p. 176.
29. Ibid., p. 178. Cf. Sainte Therese de L'Enfant-]esus,
histoire d'une ame par elle-meme, chap. 9, reduced edition, p.
185.
30. Quoted by Father H. Petitot, ibid., p. 178.
31. Cf. The Imitation, Bk. II, chap. 4: "Of a Pure Mind and
a Simple Intention. Simplicity aimeth at God. . . . If thou wert
inwardly good and pure, then wouldst thou discern all things without
impediment, and comprehend them well. A pure heart penetrates heaven
and hell."
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