GENERAL TIPS (Continued)
In recommending my readers to imitate them by bringing to mind, before speaking, the presence of God, there will be someone who will reply: “That constant caution and recollection, the continuous thought that God sees everything and has to judge each one of us. the words of the conversation, constitute a habit and exercise proper and peculiar to the saints, a state of mind characteristic of holiness”.
This is undoubtedly very true. For this reason I do not recommend such a practice to all my readers indiscriminately: that would be like whipping the air, and the advice would also be completely useless for people with a more or less dissipated life who do not have some practice of recollection and interior life. There is an intimate relationship between the habit of recollection and the practice of the advice in question. It would really be asking too much of a dissipated soul to always reflect before speaking; but it would not be for one who is already somewhat familiar with recollection. She will be able to withdraw within herself without much effort and ask herself if she approves of what she is about to say. How many faults and blunders will he be able to avoid with this laudable norm!
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The prior examination is the second recommendation, applicable almost exclusively to fervent souls, which are available with prayer and the presence of God for the occasions and dangers that may arise in common life. These delicate and far-sighted souls, in the offering of works they do in the morning, ask themselves: How will I be able to properly govern my tongue today? In fact, they do the due examination, because they aspire to perfection, knowing, as they do, that the sins of the tongue are among the greatest obstacles that oppose it, and to avoid them it is important to take all possible precautions.
Although it seems too demanding, I would advise truly ardent souls who strive for perfection even more, strongly recommending not just one, but several previous tests during the day: as many as are necessary to ward off all the dangers of this species. There are certain critical moments in which they will be more exposed to sin with the tongue: at a reception, for example, during a visit, in this or that family meeting and conversation. If those pious people are not solidly entrenched in the resolution to avoid at all costs any detected fault, no matter how slight, and if they have not thought about the attitude they must have or the words they must pronounce in this or that circumstance dangerous, it is very much to be feared that, by surprise, bow down and do not have the strength of will to resist the incitement of bad example. You will agree, then, with me, pious souls, that the more you multiply the previous and careful examinations, the stronger and more masters of yourselves you will feel to preserve in your conversations the just supernatural and Christian note.
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The third recommendation that I consider to be of practical interest, although it is not – of course – to everyone's taste, consists in avoiding frequent dealings with people who promote sins of the tongue and who may incite us to them.It is necessary to oppose the instincts of vitiated human nature. There is a kind of magnet between two people who are attracted to each other to deal with the same faults in the conversation. Two good friends, two or more comrades who have just spent time after dinner gossiping about each other, will part with these moving words: "How well we always understand each other in everything!" Admirable intelligence, indeed, and very reassuring in terms of breaking God's law, and it has as its fruit a series of faults whose seriousness is not easy to determine! It would be a thousand times preferable if such harmony did not exist under such conditions.
Distrust, therefore, yourselves, and avoid frequent dealings with anyone who could constitute a danger of perversion . It is true that you will not be able to refuse attendance at all meetings where there is occasion to sin with the tongue; but, at least, danger should not be sought directly; friendship with the person who has the same tendencies as us to slander or frivolity should be avoided. That her witty conversation or her witticisms please and attract us is nothing special: the question is whether, by leaving her, we feel or are not some remorse and perhaps ashamed of ourselves. For now, the test is done, exposing us to the danger that, surely, dealing with solidly virtuous people would not have offered.
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By nature we are all inclined to imitation. We instinctively copy the models that are usually offered to us. It is convenient, then, that for our conversations we know how to choose good models.
In the circle of relationships there is never a lack of some discreet, prudent and good person, who excites and attracts our admiration and moves us to deal with her, always drawing some fruit for the soul from her conversation. The pious person must, therefore, focus her attention on the way she proceeds in her judgments and appreciations about people and things, to accommodate her in her behavior, patiently and energetically correcting her own errors and defects.
If Our Lord still lived in mortal flesh, we would have to imitate Him as the most perfect model. Fortunately, there are privileged creatures here below, saturated with the spirit of Christ and influenced by Him in such a way that, seeing and hearing them, one would believe to see and hear the Savior conversing with his own in the days of his mortal life. Imitating, then, the virtues of those, we will imitate the supreme model, Christ Jesus, to Whom the cult of imitation should ultimately be directed.
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As a conclusion to this chapter, pious reader, receive what yes, by way of final advice. The path along which I intend to lead you is bristling with obstacles. In the course of the trip there will surely be trips and falls. Will you be discouraged by it and stay on the ground, giving up continuing the march? No, certainly; Not the one who has never stumbled or fallen, since we all fail and fall, reaches the end of his journey sooner, but the one who would have risen sooner and set out again with humble self-doubt and full trust in God.
THE IDLE WORDS
Apparently already at the time of the great French moralist La Bruyére it was common to mix idle words into conversation as a hobby. That is why he wrote the same: “If we seriously looked at what is said of frivolous, puerile and vain in ordinary conversations, we would feel ashamed to speak or listen,”.
The reader will believe, without a doubt, that, if La Bruyére returned to this world, he would have nothing to modify in that appreciation and judgment, unless he found in our days the waste of ingenuity that shone in the conversations of his time.
If I am asked why I dedicate a preferential chapter to idle words, I will reply that these give rise or occasion to most of the sins of the tongue. It is, therefore, logical and opportune to begin by pointing out the cause that generates these sins.
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Let's start by giving an exact idea of the word idle. Is it so called because it implies some sin, be it backbiting, indecency, or lying? No way. The malice of the idle word is not there. He is only reproached for being superfluous, unnecessary or inopportune. As St. Gregory defines it, "it is a word that is justified neither by necessity nor by utility."
However, it is advisable to avoid excessive severity, since certain words may seem idle and yet, in the eyes of God, they are highly meritorious. The intention is here a factor of capital importance. We see, for example, that a person maintains animated conversation with apparently superfluous expressions and words; Well, if you have that conversation with the healthy intention of doing some good to your interlocutor or a third party, what seems reprehensible idleness turns out to be a meritorious and virtuous action. Or we also observe that such a person talks at length with a sick person using apparently useless words, which he could safely omit; Is there a right to condemn immediately, saying that said person wastes time in sterile speeches? This would be getting too far ahead. Who assures me that his intention is not to entertain and distract the patient in his loneliness, making him forget his sorrows a little? Blessed conversation, worthy of praise, that which, under the guise of useless and vain talk, is of indisputable utility for a generous and noble purpose! Let it be well established, then, that when the intention is straight, it can communicate to a conversation or word, apparently idle, a supernatural merit. Therefore, one should not blame that mother of a family who, at the table, for example, tells stories with grace and wit to liven up the family meal and make home life pleasant for her husband and children. What else do you want? A serious attitude is neither possible nor convenient. Constantly talking about literature, science or history, that woman would pass among her people for an insufferable know-it-all; Speaking of morals and religion, she would give them the effect of a disgruntled nun. She is, by the way, worthy of praise that she uses her ingenuity in honestly livening up family gatherings with her talk. The art of narrating comic strips strikes me as an art, moralizing and Christian in such circumstances. Therefore, words of this kind purified by a laudable intention should not be described as idle.
Let us reserve the adjective for the chatter that has no justification, for the futile conversation moved only by the itch to talk.
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Defined in such a way, the word idle undoubtedly constitutes a true sin. From the mouth of the Supreme Judge comes this sentence: "I assure you: men will have to render an account, on the day of Judgment, for every idle word that has come out of their lips." “We have, then,” says Álvarez de Paz, “an act that is prohibited by a law of God himself; And what name deserves such an act if not that of sin? No matter how little respect we have for the Holy Spirit, who dwells in our soul, we should not want to grieve that divine Guest under the pretext that we only offend him in a light thing." (i)
Perhaps the reader will ask, for what reason does God show himself so severe for a word that in itself does not seem to contain any malice? To which Saint Basil replies: “By speaking without benefit of one's own or of one's neighbor, the word deviates from the object that God, in the plan of his Providence, has assigned to it. Instead of making her an instrument for good, he makes her serve for futile things. One speaks in order not to say anything, and for this very reason the act is reprehensible." (1 2)
Is it necessary to add that idle words do not constitute a mortal sin? Certainly, it is not easy to stop on this slippery slope, and without realizing it, one reaches slander, lies, and even beyond; but in such cases our words are no longer simply idle: they have served, rather, as an introduction to sins of an entirely different kind. As long as these words have not gone beyond useless talk, they will be nothing more than venial faults.
Moralists strive to show the fatal fertility of idle speech, the ease with which it degenerates into many other serious sins, which is one of the reasons they invoke to warn us against all useless talk. But, when it comes to determining what sin constitutes the idle word that does not amount to slander, obscenity or slander, there is no doubt in classifying it among minor faults.
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