On Making Judgments, Only as Necessary to Our State in Life, Only as Coming from Our Union with Jesus - Aye, aye and nay, nay; and more than this is Sin
COMMENT: You were speaking of making right judgments and you said that our peace is in our own judgment if that judgment is in Jesus.
It is not merely "our" judgment if we're united with Him.
COMMENT: Therefore we can't be wrong if we judge things in Jesus.
The only way you can be wrong is getting lost in your own judgment.
COMMENT: That whole question of judging situations and others is another thing. I mean judging as condemning.
The motive for judging others in that sense is to justify yourself. When the Pharisees took the woman in adultery they said, she is not pure like us, therefore she should be stoned.(Jn 8: 1-11) So if you feel justified by Jesus, you don't judge others because the motive for judging just isn't there. You're not trying to justify yourself. That is why charity sees no evil: since you see there is nothing in yourself to justify you why would you judge someone else?
COMMENT: Then there are objective judgments you have to make, even though judgments like those of the Pharisees would be self-justifying.
The only judgments you would make would be those necessary to your state of life. If you have to build a house you have to make a judgment that you need wood of a certain kind.
COMMENT: So if you have to make judgments about such or such a person or situation which might interfere with your relation to Jesus...
You have to make a judgment about what the person does objectively, but you don't interpret the motive of the person.
COMMENT: That kind of judgment is unacceptable to people because they feel you're judging their motives.
The reason you're told not to judge is because you don't know. How can you know their motives? But you can judge this thing is objectively wrong. You never make a judgment that would be "yours" absolutely, because the certitude of your judgment is based on your union with Jesus, not on your own dispositions. So even if you’re convinced objectively that something is wrong, the ultimate judgment belongs to Jesus. But the most important point in this matter of judging is to see the misery that comes from wanting to justify yourself by judging others: at least I'm not like her! Or as the Pharisee said, "Thank God I'm not like other men."(Lk 18:11) The reason for a judgment like that is that you're justifying yourself so if you're justified by Jesus you don't have any motive to judge others that way.
COMMENT: Justifying ourselves can be such a habit that we don't even recognize it. But if you're united with Jesus He will show you.
Also, it is important to have a spiritual father. Because if you're united with a spiritual father whom you trust, you can entertain the reality of what he says because with him behind you, you'll be able to face it. There's a saying, "Correct a wise man and he’ll love you; correct a fool and he’ll hate you,"(cf Prov 9:8) because the fool is trying to justify himself.
COMMENT: So we're really called upon to make very few judgments, when you come right down to it.
That's right. And since you make judgments with your mouth, that's why Jesus said, "Say 'aye, aye' and 'nay, nay' and more than that is sin."(Mt 5:37) That's why superfluous talking is a sin. Also, whenever you murmur against God you're judging that you know what you need better than He does. The right disposition would be to say, I need what He is giving me. Of course, your emotions won't always go along with that, but when you turn to Jesus realizing your emotions want to rebel, you're doing all you can, and your purification is in the very turning to Him.
COMMENT: The way to be peaceful is to believe that when you're united to Jesus you're infallible and so whatever happens is up to Him.
In faith you want what God wants and what God wants is what happens. So you always want what happens. Even if it is a sin, you want it, not in such a way as to justify the sin, but rather embracing God's will permitting you to sin. So you don't say, I could be happy if only I hadn't done that. Because then you would start getting worried and probably do it again. As soon as your pace depends on something which isn't the infallible will of God, it is the start of anxiety.
At the same time, since God is moving you to become what you're not, there is a certain tension. For example, you could do something wrong and make the mistake of saying, well it isn't wrong because God willed it; or you could make the other mistake of saying, well it is wrong and God can't possibly love me until I change it. What is right is to have the conviction that you're loved and out of that conviction there arises a right tension; you want to overcome what is contrary to God's will because He loves you. That is a healthy state. The wrong state also shows itself in touchiness: if you're not supported by God, as soon as someone says something derogatory, you say, there it is, now they know the worst.
COMMENT: So few people are able to make that distinction between judging that a situation isn't right for you and judging the other person and his motive.
If you're not supported by the merciful love of God you can't do that with people, because you are seeking your peace when you justify yourself by the judgments you make of others. So even if you can see it is wrong, without the assurance that you're loved, you can't do anything about it. Man being rational seeks a rational order, so if the order is blocked by disbelief in God's goodness, you’ll try to convince yourself you're good because the other person is bad.
COMMENT: The moment you take issue with something it is said you're judgmental.
Persons say that because they don’t want to be judged. They're afraid of any judgment because they might turn out to be wrong; and they're afraid of that because they're not supported by the conviction that God loves them.
COMMENT: And that is where the spiritual father comes in.
In the formation of the right conscience when your spiritual father repeatedly corrects in a way that shows he loves you and doesn't reject you, you begin to regard yourself that way. There is a certain natural identification of the child with the father so if the natural parents say to the child you're very bad and you won't change, the child, and the adult that child becomes, will believe that God is saying that too.
COMMENT: The more intimately you are united with Jesus the more objective you would be.
The more you're united with Jesus the more perfectly you judge. It is always necessary to be correcting yourself otherwise you're just a slob or a pseudo-mystic. But the question is what the right order is in the correction. First you have to know that you're loved and then there is the spontaneous desire for correction - not to buy the love but because you know you're loved. That is the right order. So if you start to correct yourself and feel that anxiety, it is a sign that you don't really believe you're loved; you're trying to buy love, so you should stop it and realize you are loved and then correct yourself, never allowing your activity to draw you away from God.
COMMENT: It is so hard to stay peaceful when you're correcting yourself.
Because when you correct yourself the wrong way there is a kind of emotional overtone which destroys the very objectivity you need to correct yourself. In order to be objective you have to be, in a certain sense, indifferent to the way things are. Without that peace you want to be what you're not actually. You want to have the thing before you have it.
COMMENT: And the peace you speak of would be the realization of each thing that happens as God's will.
Peace is the tranquility of order, and everything is ordered to God and God's will is that things should be the way they are. Even after Judas betrayed Jesus he could have said, this is a terrible thing I did and God permitted it but He wants to love me. And then he would have come back. But he was overwhelmed by the disorder and gave himself up to the evil. So you have to see both the evil and God's will in permitting it. That is why you need meditation. Also, you have to have a certain kind of mercy towards yourself. And this will be reflected in your mercy to others. But if you don't believe you're loved in your sins, you won't communicate God's love to sinners.
COMMENT: How is correcting yourself different from fixing yourself up?
When you correct yourself you want to conform to God because you know He loves you. When you fix yourself up you want to do something without God in order to get Him to love you. That is the literal meaning of "Rise after you have sat, you who eat the bread of sorrow." You rise to accomplish, to achieve, after you sit in contemplation. So when you sit in contemplation, realizing God's goodness and your own misery, you rise to overcome what God wants you to overcome. Jesus also said, "Those who have shall receive."(Mt 25:29; Lk 19:26) If you don't have the peace of God you're not going to get it, and if you have it you’ll get more.
COMMENT: If you don't communicate God's mercy to sinners, you don't allow them to be sinners.
You tempt them to be liars because they want to be loved and accepted and therefore they try to cover it up. That is the object of charity: to communicate to sinners that you love them and that the sin doesn't stand in the way. What you should communicate is, I could love you more if that wasn't there, but I still love you; instead of, I can't love you until you get rid of that.
COMMENT: It is hard to communicate to people that you love them.
It is hard to communicate something you don't really feel. The way you correct others is as one sinner to another. And as soon as you have that mentality - isn't it too bad you are this way? - they resent it. People don't resent being criticized, they resent being rejected. You can sum it up by saying that everyone communicates the cause of his joy. So if your joy is in your own righteousness you communicate that to others, but if your joy is in Jesus you communicate that.
COMMENT: That is what happens when in religious life we have spiritual discussions. Mostly we try to justify ourselves. But the basis of a real spirituality is to realize you're together with sinners.
The curse of our times is to believe that in order to be loved you have to be right in yourself. So there are two mistakes you can make: 1 ) not to be convinced of your holiness, or 2) to think you're holy in yourself. The only thing that is right is to believe in your holiness in Jesus. And if you really believe that in your heart, you’ll communicate it to others.
Cod can't love anything except what comes from Him. Therefore if you want to please Him by something that doesn't proceed from Him but which came from you, you're just tempting Him. That is why He said, "I came to save sinners”(Mt 9:13) because sinners are inclined to believe they have nothing in themselves. It is not because they're sinners that they are open to Him but because the condition of being a sinner removes the illusion that they're good. So it really comes down to this, I came to save those who will let Me save them, because if you want to fix yourself up He didn't come to save you.
It is not merely "our" judgment if we're united with Him.
COMMENT: Therefore we can't be wrong if we judge things in Jesus.
The only way you can be wrong is getting lost in your own judgment.
COMMENT: That whole question of judging situations and others is another thing. I mean judging as condemning.
The motive for judging others in that sense is to justify yourself. When the Pharisees took the woman in adultery they said, she is not pure like us, therefore she should be stoned.(Jn 8: 1-11) So if you feel justified by Jesus, you don't judge others because the motive for judging just isn't there. You're not trying to justify yourself. That is why charity sees no evil: since you see there is nothing in yourself to justify you why would you judge someone else?
COMMENT: Then there are objective judgments you have to make, even though judgments like those of the Pharisees would be self-justifying.
The only judgments you would make would be those necessary to your state of life. If you have to build a house you have to make a judgment that you need wood of a certain kind.
COMMENT: So if you have to make judgments about such or such a person or situation which might interfere with your relation to Jesus...
You have to make a judgment about what the person does objectively, but you don't interpret the motive of the person.
COMMENT: That kind of judgment is unacceptable to people because they feel you're judging their motives.
The reason you're told not to judge is because you don't know. How can you know their motives? But you can judge this thing is objectively wrong. You never make a judgment that would be "yours" absolutely, because the certitude of your judgment is based on your union with Jesus, not on your own dispositions. So even if you’re convinced objectively that something is wrong, the ultimate judgment belongs to Jesus. But the most important point in this matter of judging is to see the misery that comes from wanting to justify yourself by judging others: at least I'm not like her! Or as the Pharisee said, "Thank God I'm not like other men."(Lk 18:11) The reason for a judgment like that is that you're justifying yourself so if you're justified by Jesus you don't have any motive to judge others that way.
COMMENT: Justifying ourselves can be such a habit that we don't even recognize it. But if you're united with Jesus He will show you.
Also, it is important to have a spiritual father. Because if you're united with a spiritual father whom you trust, you can entertain the reality of what he says because with him behind you, you'll be able to face it. There's a saying, "Correct a wise man and he’ll love you; correct a fool and he’ll hate you,"(cf Prov 9:8) because the fool is trying to justify himself.
COMMENT: So we're really called upon to make very few judgments, when you come right down to it.
That's right. And since you make judgments with your mouth, that's why Jesus said, "Say 'aye, aye' and 'nay, nay' and more than that is sin."(Mt 5:37) That's why superfluous talking is a sin. Also, whenever you murmur against God you're judging that you know what you need better than He does. The right disposition would be to say, I need what He is giving me. Of course, your emotions won't always go along with that, but when you turn to Jesus realizing your emotions want to rebel, you're doing all you can, and your purification is in the very turning to Him.
COMMENT: The way to be peaceful is to believe that when you're united to Jesus you're infallible and so whatever happens is up to Him.
In faith you want what God wants and what God wants is what happens. So you always want what happens. Even if it is a sin, you want it, not in such a way as to justify the sin, but rather embracing God's will permitting you to sin. So you don't say, I could be happy if only I hadn't done that. Because then you would start getting worried and probably do it again. As soon as your pace depends on something which isn't the infallible will of God, it is the start of anxiety.
At the same time, since God is moving you to become what you're not, there is a certain tension. For example, you could do something wrong and make the mistake of saying, well it isn't wrong because God willed it; or you could make the other mistake of saying, well it is wrong and God can't possibly love me until I change it. What is right is to have the conviction that you're loved and out of that conviction there arises a right tension; you want to overcome what is contrary to God's will because He loves you. That is a healthy state. The wrong state also shows itself in touchiness: if you're not supported by God, as soon as someone says something derogatory, you say, there it is, now they know the worst.
COMMENT: So few people are able to make that distinction between judging that a situation isn't right for you and judging the other person and his motive.
If you're not supported by the merciful love of God you can't do that with people, because you are seeking your peace when you justify yourself by the judgments you make of others. So even if you can see it is wrong, without the assurance that you're loved, you can't do anything about it. Man being rational seeks a rational order, so if the order is blocked by disbelief in God's goodness, you’ll try to convince yourself you're good because the other person is bad.
COMMENT: The moment you take issue with something it is said you're judgmental.
Persons say that because they don’t want to be judged. They're afraid of any judgment because they might turn out to be wrong; and they're afraid of that because they're not supported by the conviction that God loves them.
COMMENT: And that is where the spiritual father comes in.
In the formation of the right conscience when your spiritual father repeatedly corrects in a way that shows he loves you and doesn't reject you, you begin to regard yourself that way. There is a certain natural identification of the child with the father so if the natural parents say to the child you're very bad and you won't change, the child, and the adult that child becomes, will believe that God is saying that too.
COMMENT: The more intimately you are united with Jesus the more objective you would be.
The more you're united with Jesus the more perfectly you judge. It is always necessary to be correcting yourself otherwise you're just a slob or a pseudo-mystic. But the question is what the right order is in the correction. First you have to know that you're loved and then there is the spontaneous desire for correction - not to buy the love but because you know you're loved. That is the right order. So if you start to correct yourself and feel that anxiety, it is a sign that you don't really believe you're loved; you're trying to buy love, so you should stop it and realize you are loved and then correct yourself, never allowing your activity to draw you away from God.
COMMENT: It is so hard to stay peaceful when you're correcting yourself.
Because when you correct yourself the wrong way there is a kind of emotional overtone which destroys the very objectivity you need to correct yourself. In order to be objective you have to be, in a certain sense, indifferent to the way things are. Without that peace you want to be what you're not actually. You want to have the thing before you have it.
COMMENT: And the peace you speak of would be the realization of each thing that happens as God's will.
Peace is the tranquility of order, and everything is ordered to God and God's will is that things should be the way they are. Even after Judas betrayed Jesus he could have said, this is a terrible thing I did and God permitted it but He wants to love me. And then he would have come back. But he was overwhelmed by the disorder and gave himself up to the evil. So you have to see both the evil and God's will in permitting it. That is why you need meditation. Also, you have to have a certain kind of mercy towards yourself. And this will be reflected in your mercy to others. But if you don't believe you're loved in your sins, you won't communicate God's love to sinners.
COMMENT: How is correcting yourself different from fixing yourself up?
When you correct yourself you want to conform to God because you know He loves you. When you fix yourself up you want to do something without God in order to get Him to love you. That is the literal meaning of "Rise after you have sat, you who eat the bread of sorrow." You rise to accomplish, to achieve, after you sit in contemplation. So when you sit in contemplation, realizing God's goodness and your own misery, you rise to overcome what God wants you to overcome. Jesus also said, "Those who have shall receive."(Mt 25:29; Lk 19:26) If you don't have the peace of God you're not going to get it, and if you have it you’ll get more.
COMMENT: If you don't communicate God's mercy to sinners, you don't allow them to be sinners.
You tempt them to be liars because they want to be loved and accepted and therefore they try to cover it up. That is the object of charity: to communicate to sinners that you love them and that the sin doesn't stand in the way. What you should communicate is, I could love you more if that wasn't there, but I still love you; instead of, I can't love you until you get rid of that.
COMMENT: It is hard to communicate to people that you love them.
It is hard to communicate something you don't really feel. The way you correct others is as one sinner to another. And as soon as you have that mentality - isn't it too bad you are this way? - they resent it. People don't resent being criticized, they resent being rejected. You can sum it up by saying that everyone communicates the cause of his joy. So if your joy is in your own righteousness you communicate that to others, but if your joy is in Jesus you communicate that.
COMMENT: That is what happens when in religious life we have spiritual discussions. Mostly we try to justify ourselves. But the basis of a real spirituality is to realize you're together with sinners.
The curse of our times is to believe that in order to be loved you have to be right in yourself. So there are two mistakes you can make: 1 ) not to be convinced of your holiness, or 2) to think you're holy in yourself. The only thing that is right is to believe in your holiness in Jesus. And if you really believe that in your heart, you’ll communicate it to others.
Cod can't love anything except what comes from Him. Therefore if you want to please Him by something that doesn't proceed from Him but which came from you, you're just tempting Him. That is why He said, "I came to save sinners”(Mt 9:13) because sinners are inclined to believe they have nothing in themselves. It is not because they're sinners that they are open to Him but because the condition of being a sinner removes the illusion that they're good. So it really comes down to this, I came to save those who will let Me save them, because if you want to fix yourself up He didn't come to save you.