Explanation of Catholic Morals Part 5

CHAPTER XV.

ENVY.

WHEN envy catches a victim she places an evil eye in his mind, gives him a cud to chew, and then sends him gadding.

If the mind's eye feeds upon one's own excellence for one's own satisfaction, that is pride; if it feeds upon the neighbor's good for one's own displeasure and unhappiness, that is envy. It is not alone this displeasure that makes envy, but the reason of this displeasure, that is, what the evil eye discerns in the neighbor's excellence, namely, a detriment, an obstacle to one's own success. It is not necessary that another's prosperity really work injury to our own; it is sufficient that the evil eye, through its discolored vision, perceive a prejudice therein. "Ah!" says envy, "he is happy, prosperous, esteemed! My chances are spoiled. I am overshadowed. I am nothing, he is everything. I am nothing because he is everything."

Remember that compet.i.tion, emulation, rivalry are not necessarily envy.

I dread to see my rival succeed. I am pained if he does succeed. But the cause of this annoyance and vexation is less his superiority than my inferiority. I regret my failure more than his success. There is no evil eye. 'Tis the sting of defeat that causes me pain. If I regret this or that man's elevation because I fear he will abuse his power; if I become indignant at the success of an unworthy person; I am not envious, because this superiority of another does not appear to me to be a prejudice to my standing. Whatever sin there is, there is no sin of envy.

We may safely a.s.sume that a person who would be saddened by the success of another, would not fail to rejoice at that other's misfortune. This is a grievous offense against charity, but it is not, properly speaking, envy, for envy is always sad; it is rather an effect of envy, a natural product thereof and a form of hatred.

This unnatural view of things which we qualify as the evil eye, is not a sin until it reaches the dignity of a sober judgment, for only then does it become a human act. Envy like pride, anger, and the other vicious inclinations, may and often does crop out in our nature, momentarily, without our incurring guilt, if it is checked before it receives the acquiescence of the will, it is void of wrong, and only serves to remind us that we have a rich fund of malice in our nature capable of an abundant yield of iniquity.

After being born in the mind, envy pa.s.ses to the feelings where it matures and furnishes that supply of misery which characterizes the vice. Another is happy at our expense; the sensation is a painful one, yet it has a diabolical fascination, and we fondle and caress it. We brood over our affliction to the embittering and souring of our souls.

We swallow and regurgitate over and over again our dissatisfaction, and are aptly said to chew the cud of bitterness.

Out of such soil as this naturally springs a rank growth of uncharity and injustice in thought and desire. The mind and heart of envy are untrammeled by all bonds of moral law. It may think all evil of a rival and wish him all evil. He becomes an enemy, and finally he is hated.

Envy points directly to hatred.

Lastly, envy is "a gadding pa.s.sion, it walketh the street and does not keep home." It were better to say that it "talketh." There is nothing like language to relieve one's feelings; it is quieting and soothing, and envy has strong feelings. Hence, evil insinuations, detraction, slander, etc. Justice becomes an empty word and the seamless robe of charity is torn to shreds. As an agent of destruction envy easily holds the palm, for it commands the two strong pa.s.sions of pride and anger, and they do its bidding.

People scarcely ever acknowledge themselves envious. It is such a base, unreasonable and unnatural vice. If we cannot rejoice with the neighbor, why be pained at his felicity? And what an insanity it is to imagine that in this wide world one cannot be happy without prejudicing the happiness of another! What a severe shock it would be to the discontented, the morosely sour, the cynic, and other human owls, to be told that they are victims of this green-eyed monster. They would confess to calumny, and hatred; to envy, never!

Envy can only exist where there is abundant pride. It is a form of pride, a shape which it frequently a.s.sumes, because under this disguise it can penetrate everywhere without being as much as noticed. And it is so seldom detected that wherever it gains entrance it can hope to remain indefinitely.

Jealousy and envy are often confounded; yet they differ in that the latter looks on what is another's, while the former concerns itself with what is in one's own possession. I envy what is not mine; I am jealous of what is my own. Jealousy has a saddening influence upon us, by reason of a fear, more or less well grounded, that what we have will be taken from us. We foresee an injustice and resent it.

Kept within the limits of sane reason, jealousy is not wrong, for it is founded on the right we have to what is ours. It is in our nature to cling to what belongs to us, to regret being deprived of it, and to guard ourselves against injustice.

But when this fear is without cause, visionary, unreasonable, jealousy partakes of the nature and malice of envy. It is even more malignant a pa.s.sion, and leads to greater disorders and crimes, for while envy is based on nothing at all, there is here a true foundation in the right of possession, and a motive in right to repel injustice.

CHAPTER XVI.

SLOTH.

NOT the least, if the last, of capital sins is sloth, and it is very properly placed; for who ever saw the sluggard or victim of this pa.s.sion anywhere but after all others, last!

Sloth, of course, is a horror of difficulty, an aversion for labor, pain and effort, which must be traced to a great love of one's comfort and ease. Either the lazy fellow does nothing at all--and this is sloth; or he abstains from doing what he should do while otherwise busily occupied--and this too, is sloth; or he does it poorly, negligently, half-heartedly--and this again is sloth. Nature imposes upon us the law of labor. He who shirks in whole or in part is slothful.

Here, in the moral realm, we refer properly to the difficulty we find in the service of G.o.d, in fulfiling our obligations as Christians and Catholics, in avoiding evil and doing good; in a word, to the discharge of our spiritual duties. But then all human obligations have a spiritual side, by the fact of their being obligations. Thus, labor is not, like attendance at ma.s.s, a spiritual necessity; but to provide for those who are dependent upon us is a moral obligation and to shirk it would be a sin of sloth.

Not that it is necessary, if we would avoid sin, to hate repose naturally and experience no difficulty or repugnance in working out our soul's salvation. Sloth is inbred in our nature. There is no one but would rather avoid than meet difficulties. The service of G.o.d is laborious and painful. The kingdom of G.o.d suffers violence. It has always been true since the time of our ancestor Adam, that vice is easy, and virtue difficult; that the flesh is weak, and repugnance to effort, natural because of the burden of the flesh. So that, in this general case, sloth is an obstacle to overcome rather than a fault of the will. We may abhor exertion, feel the laziest of mortals; if we effect our purpose in spite of all that, we can do no sin.

Sometimes sloth takes on an acute form known as aridity or barrenness in all things that pertain to G.o.d. The most virtuous souls are not always exempt from this. It is a dislike, a distaste that amounts almost to a disgust for prayer especially, a repugnance that threatens to overwhelm the soul. That is simply an absence of sensible fervor, a state of affliction and probation that is as pleasing to G.o.d as it is painful to us. After all where would the merit be in the service of G.o.d, if there were no difficulty?

The type of the spiritually indolent is that fixture known as the half-baked Catholic--some people call him "a poor stick"--who is too lazy to meet his obligations with his Maker. He says no prayers, because he can't; he lies abed Sunday mornings and lets the others go to ma.s.s--he is too tired and needs rest; the effort necessary to prepare for and to go to confession is quite beyond him. In fine, religion is altogether too exacting, requires too much of a man.

And, as if to remove all doubt as to the purely spiritual character of this inactivity, our friend can be seen, without a complaint, struggling every day to earn the dollar. He will not grumble about rising at five to go fishing or cycling. He will, after his hard day's work, sit till twelve at the theatre or dance till two in the morning.

He will spend his energy in any direction save in that which leads to G.o.d.

Others expect virtue to be as easy as it is beautiful. Religion should conduce to one's comfort. They like incense, but not the smell of brimstone. They would remain forever content on Tabor, but the dark frown of Calvary is insupportable. Beautiful churches, artistic music, eloquent preaching on interesting topics, that is their idea of religion; that is what they intend religion--their religion--shall be, and they proceed to cut out whatever jars their finer feelings. This is fashionable, but it is not Christian: to do anything for G.o.d--if it is easy; and if it is hard,--well, G.o.d does not expect so much of us.

You will see at a glance that this sort of a thing is fatal to the sense of G.o.d in the soul; it has for its first, direct and immediate effect to weaken little by little the faith until it finally kills it altogether. Sloth is a microbe. It creeps into the soul, sucks in its substance and causes a spiritual consumption. This is neither an acute nor a violent malady, but it consumes the patient, dries him up, wears him out, till life goes out like a lamp without oil.

CHAPTER XVII.

WHAT WE BELIEVE.

OUR first duty to G.o.d, and the first obligation imposed upon us by the First Commandment is Faith, or belief in G.o.d--we must know Him.

Belief is solely a manner of knowing. It is one way of apprehending, or getting possession of, a truth. There are other ways of acquiring knowledge; by the senses, for instance, seeing, hearing, etc., and by our intelligence or reason. When truth comes to us through the senses, it is called experience; if the reason presents it, it is called science; if we use the faculty of the soul known as faith, it is belief.

You will observe that belief, experience and science have one and the same object, namely, truth. These differ only in the manner of apprehending truth. Belief relies on the testimony of others; experience, on the testimony of the senses; science, on that of the reason. What I believe, I get from others; what I experience or understand, I owe to my individual self. I neither believe nor understand that Hartford exists--I see it. I neither understand nor see that Rome exists--I believe it. I neither see nor believe that two parallel lines will never meet--I reason it out, I understand it.

Now it is beside the question here to object that belief, or what we believe, may or may not be true. Neither is all that we see, nor all that our reason produces, true. Human experience and human reason, like all things human, may err. Here we simply remark that truth is the object of our belief, as it is the object of our experience and of understanding. We shall later see that if human belief may err, faith or divine belief cannot mislead us, cannot be false.

Neither is it in order here to contend that belief, of its very nature, is something uncertain, that it is synonymous of opinion; or if it supposes a judgment, that judgment is "formidolose," liable at any moment to be changed or contradicted. The testimony of the senses and of reason does not always carry certain conviction. We may or may not be satisfied with the evidence of human belief. As for the divine, or faith, it is certain, or it is not at all; and who would not be satisfied with the guarantee offered by the Word of G.o.d!

And the truths we believe are those revealed by G.o.d, received by us through a double agency, the written and the oral word, known as Scripture and Tradition. Scripture is contained in the two Testaments; Tradition is found in the bosom, the life of the Church of Christ, in the constant and universal teachings of that Church.

The Scripture being a dead letter cannot explain or interpret itself.

Yet, since it is applied to the ever-varying lives of men, it needs an explanation and an interpretation; it is practically of no value without it. And in order that the truth thus presented be accepted by men, it is necessary, of prime necessity, that it have the guarantee of infallibility. This infallibility the Church of Christ possesses, else His mission were a failure.

This infallibility is to control the vagaries of Tradition, for Tradition, of its very nature, tends to exaggeration, as we find in the legends of ancient peoples. Exaggerated, they destroy themselves, but in the bosom of G.o.d's Church these truths forever retain their character unchanged and unchangeable.

If you accept the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as revealed by G.o.d and delivered to man by the infallible Church from the Bible and Tradition, you have what is called ecclesiastical, Catholic or true faith. There is no other true faith. It is even an open question whether there is any faith at all outside of this; for outside the Church there is no reasonable foundation for faith, and our faith must be reasonable.

However, granting that such a thing can be, the faith of him who takes and leaves off the divine Word is called divine faith. He is supposed to ignore invincibly a portion of revealed truth, but he accepts what he knows. If he knew something and refused to embrace it, he would have no faith at all. The same is true of one who having once believed, believes no longer. He impeaches the veracity of G.o.d, and therefore cannot further rely on His Word.

Lastly, it matters not at all what kind of truths we receive from G.o.d.

Truth is truth always and ever. We may not be able to comprehend what is revealed to us, and little the wonder. Our intelligence is not infinite, and G.o.d's is. Many things that men tell us we believe without understanding; G.o.d deserves our trust more than men. Our incapacity for understanding all that faith teaches us proves one thing: that there are limits to our powers, which may be surprising to some, but is nevertheless true.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WHY WE BELIEVE.

BELIEF, we have said, is the acceptance of a truth from another. We do not always accept what others present to us as truth, for the good reason that we may have serious doubts as to whether they speak the truth or not. It is for us to decide the question of our informant's intellectual and moral trustworthiness. If we do believe him, it is because we consider his veracity to be beyond question.

The foundation of our belief is therefore the veracity of him whose word we take. They tell me that Lincoln was a.s.sa.s.sinated. Personally, I know nothing about it. But I do know that they who speak of it could know, did know, and could not lead us all astray on this point. I accept their evidence; I believe on their word.

It is on the testimony of G.o.d's word that we believe in matters that pertain to faith. The idea we have of G.o.d is that He is infinitely perfect, that He is all-wise and all-good. He cannot, therefore, under pain of destroying His very existence, be deceived or deceive us. When, therefore, He speaks, He speaks the truth and nothing but the truth. It would be a very stultification of our reason to refuse to believe Him, once we admit His existence.

Now, it is not necessary for us to inquire into the things He reveals, or to endeavor to discover the why, whence and wherefore. It is truth, we are certain of it; what more do we need! It may be a satisfaction to see and understand these truths, just as it is to solve a problem two or three different ways. But it is not essential, for the result is always the same--truth.

But suppose, with my senses and my reason, I come to a result at variance with the first, suppose the testimony of G.o.d's word and that of my personal observations conflict, what then? There is an error somewhere. Either G.o.d errs or my faculties play me false. Which should have the preference of my a.s.sent? The question is answered as soon as it is put. I can conceive an erring man, but I cannot conceive a false G.o.d. Nothing human is infallible; G.o.d alone is proof against all error.

This would not be my first offense against truth.