Salesian Literature

Chapter 7:  How to preserve our good name while practising humility

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Praise, honour and glory are not given to men for ordinary virtue but for outstanding virtue.  For by praise we wish to persuade others to appreciate the excellence of someone.  By honour, we declare that we ourselves esteem him.  In my opinion, glory is nothing else than a certain brilliance of reputation which flows from a combination of many praises and honours.  In fact, honours and praises are like precious stones from the accumulation of which glory shines forth like that of a sparkling enamel.

 

Now humility does not allow us to have any desire of excelling others or of having the right to be preferred to others.  It will not permit us to seek after praise, honour and glory which are due only to excellence.  But it agrees with the warning of the Wise man who admonishes us to have care for our good name (Sirach 41:15) because good name is an esteem not of excellence but only of a simple honesty and integrity of life.  Humility does not prevent us from recognizing them in ourselves and as a consequence desiring a reputation for it.  It is true that humility would despise a good name if charity had no need of it.  However, a good name is one of the foundations of human society and without it we are not only useless but harmful to the public because of the scandal it would cause.  Charity requires and humility agrees that we must desire to have it and preserve it preciously.

 

The leaves of the trees are of no great value in themselves.  All the same they are of great use not only to beautify the trees but also to protect the fruits when they are still tender.  So too, a good name not very desirable as such is very useful.  It not only adorns our life but also preserves our virtues, especially those which are tender and weak.  The duty of keeping our good name, and being such as we are esteemed, urges on us a generous courage and a powerful and gentle violence.  Let us preserve our virtues, my dear Philothea, because they are pleasing to God, the great and sovereign object of all our actions.  Those who want to preserve fruits are not satisfied with covering them with sugar but put them in jars suitable for their preservation.  In the same way, although divine love is the principal preservative of our virtues, we can still make use of our good name as very suitable and useful for that purpose.

 

However, we are not be very eager, exacting and too formal in preserving our good name.  For those who are very touchy and sensitive about their reputation resemble those who take medicines for every little discomfort.  While thinking of preserving their health, they ruin it utterly.  In the same manner, those who wish to keep their reputation with such concern lose it entirely.  By such touchiness they render themselves queer, obstinate, unbearable and provoke the malice of detractors.  Disregard and contempt of the insult and calumny is usually a much more wholesome remedy than resentment, strife and revenge.  Contempt makes them vanish, but if we become angry we seem to admit them.

 

Crocodiles harm only those who fear them and similarly calumny hurts only those who are troubled about it. The excessive fear of losing our good name indicates a great lack of confidence about its foundation which is the genuineness of a good life.  Towns that have wooden bridges over large rivers fear that they will be carried away by any sort of flood.  Those that have stone bridges are troubled only about extraordinary floods.  In like manner, those who have a solid Christian spirit generally despise the floods of insulting tongues.  Those who feel themselves weak are disturbed at every instance.  Philothea, he who wishes to be esteemed by all, loses the esteem of all.  He deserves to lose his honour who wishes to be esteemed by those whose vices make them truly infamous and dishonoured.

 

Reputation is like a signboard which indicates where virtue resides.  Virtue then, should be preferred always and everywhere.  Therefore, if they say: You are a hypocrite because you are devout, if they think of you to be a man of little courage because you have pardoned an insult, you just laugh at it.  Moreover, such judgements are made by silly and foolish people.  Even if we are to lose our good name, we are not to leave virtue or turn away from the path of virtue.  In fact, fruits are to be preferred to leaves, that is, interior and spiritual good to all the external.  We should be jealous but not idolaters of our good name.  Just as we should not offend the eyes of the good, so too we should not wish to satisfy those of the malicious.

 

The beard is an ornament on the face of a man and the hair on the head of a woman.  If the beard is plucked out by the root from the chin and the hair from the head, they will hardly grow again.  But if it is only cut or shaven close, it will soon grow again stronger and thicker than before. Thus even if our good name is cut off or even shaved away altogether by the tongue of the detractors, which David says is like a sharp razor (Ps. 51:2), we should not be disturbed at it.  It will spring up again not only as beautiful as before but also stronger.  If our vices, evil deeds and evil life destroy our reputation it will be more difficult than before for it to grow up again because it is uprooted. For the root of a good name is goodness and integrity. A s long as the root is in us, it can always regain the honour which is due to it.

 

We must give up this vain conversation, this useless practice, this frivolous friendship, this foolish intimacy if they hurt our good name.  For a good reputation is better than all kinds of empty satisfactions.  If they murmur, grumble and slander against the exercises of piety, growth in devotion and progress towards our eternal good, let us leave them to bark at the moon[1].  If they can raise some bad opinion against our reputation and thus cut off and shave the hair and beard of our good name, they will soon grow up again.  The razor of slander will serve our honour, as the pruning knife increases and multiplies the fruit of the vine.

 

Let us always fix our eyes on Jesus Christ crucified.  Let us go forward in his service with confidence and simplicity, with wisdom and discretion.  He will be the protector of our good name and if he allows it to be taken away from us, either it will be to give us a better one or to make us progress in holy humility of which one ounce is better than thousands pounds of honour.  If we are unjustly blamed, let us peacefully oppose calumny with the truth.  If it lasts, let us continue to humble ourselves, thus entrusting our reputation and ourselves into the hands of God.  We will never be able to secure it better.

 

Let us serve God in good and bad reputation (2 Cor. 6:8) following the example of St. Paul so that we can say with David, O My God, it is for you that I have borne reproach, and confusion has covered my face (Ps. 68:8).  I except, however, certain crimes so atrocious and infamous regarding which no one should endure calumny and slander and if possible acquit himself of them.  I except also some persons of good reputation on whom the edification of many depend.  In such cases, following the opinion of theologians, we must tranquilly ask for the reparation of the wrong done.

 

 

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[1]  To complain uselessly.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE

PART III: 

Several Counsels for the Practice of Virtues