"After you have once given yourself to Jesus in religion, you should, in the spirit of faith, consider each member of the community as being charged by Jesus Christ to train and form you." (St. John of the Cross.)
There are certain official exercises that require others to point out my faults. I must lend myself to this with good grace; in certain convents these exercises are beautifully and fittingly termed exercises of charity. I will show myself very grateful to those who are willing to point out my faults.
But aside from these official exercises, there are many occasions when my companions, intentionally or unintentionally, make me feel my deficiencies, pointing out my eccentricity, my faults, my thoughtlessness. They may do it in my office, or in the course of a recreation; they may make just a passing reference or a direct reproach.
And these little jabs and comments are likely to wound me much more intensely than the official exercises at which I am expecting corrections. It is understood that I will be told my failings in chapter. But in recreation? Or while passing through the hall, even without having asked for it? Oh no! I have more than once felt like flying into a passion.
Let me remember the words of St. John of the Cross and, instead of fretting or getting peevish, remedy my fault interiorly. Jesus Christ it is who trains and forms me and I can only gain by accepting all with a smile.
I will never call others' attention to their faults if I bave not been commissioned to do so, but should someone even without authority correct me for my faults and irregularities, I will keep my soul in peace and profit by the admonition.
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)
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