Maxim-ising Our Spiritual Life (6)
He who wishes to advance in spirituality, should never slur over his defects negligently without particular examination of conscience, even independent of the time of sacramental confession. (21 August)
At school one of our science masters had had a brief stint as a professional sportsman before taking up teaching. During some international contest he visited what was then Yugoslavia and picked up a bit of communism which made him somewhat cynical towards religion (to put it mildly). Catholics came in for particular ridicule, especially the idea of confession: “Catholics can do what they like and then just go to confession and everything is fine.” That is not an uncommon view of the sacrament — that we can commit whatever sins we like and then just be told it’s alright. We know this to be false, of course, because confession requires not only the confession of sins, but contrition and a firm purpose of amendment — not an “Oh dear, that was awful, but can everything be fine now?” but instead “By my sins I have forfeited the friendship of God, I am sorry, truly I am, and with the help of his grace I really will, really will try, really am resolved, never to do it ever again, so help me God.”
If you have been to confession at the Oratory of late, you might have noticed a stack of booklets in the confessionals. This is a marvellous text full of useful advice for those who go to confession regularly by one Fr Henri-Charles Chéry O.P. They are there, free, for people to take away (another reason to come to confession!) and so to be helped with how to make a good confession. Fr. Chéry points out that we go to the sacrament not to enumerate our sins, but to confess them. We are there to seek the forgiveness of God and the grace of conversion, not simply to rattle off an exhaustive list. On the whole, if our conscience is well formed, we know our sins. We know what those things are which at that moment stand between us and God.
At least we should know. This is why the Church recommends to us that each night before going to bed we should make a good examination of conscience, looking over the day which has passed and seeing if and how and why we have had the misfortune to sin, and then to make an act of contrition, really to be sorry for them and resolve to avoid them, especially on the morrow. It is not always a pleasant thing to look at our soul in the mirror of our conscience. We can excuse ourselves, “Well, I’ve not killed anyone” — it is a good thing that we are not, most of us, serial killers but just not killing people isn’t exactly what God asks of us. “Well, yes I might have gossiped a bit but at least I’m not like Aunt Joan who is always stealing things” but God isn't going to ask us about whatever Aunt Joan has or has not been up to when we stand before him at the end. The real and proper examination of our conscience allows us to see, in fact, where we still need God’s grace to live in us. If we know our sins, and are honest about them before God, then we know what our work is — what we need to try to overcome, where we stand in particular need of God's grace.
Our Christian life can never be reduced to simply not sinning. We are called to be saints, called to be not just ‘un-sinful’, but to be men and women of virtue. So when we examine our conscience we do not come to think just “Oh dear!” much less “Oh well, never mind” but we see rather what virtues we need to work on and then with the help of God’s grace get on with cultivating them.
“The great thing,” Saint Philip used to say, “is to become saints.” And a proper examination of conscience is indispensable for becoming one.
We are celebrating the launch of our new edition of St Philip’s Maxims this summer by exploring some of those maxims together each week.