Humility and Confidence: Changing How We Look at Our Sins

The fundamental optical error, pointed out by all the classical spiritual masters, can be put in one sentence: after the fall, it is almost always self-love that speaks first — never the love of God. Authentic repentance comes afterwards, calmer, simpler, sometimes in silence. The three explosive movements that surge up in the very second of the fault ("how could I?", "I will never manage it", "God must have abandoned me") do not come from the Holy Spirit. They come from a wounded self that believed it could stand by its own strength and, surprised at not having managed to do so, rushes toward discouragement the way one locks oneself in a room to weep.

Three reactions, one root

The Salesian school, followed by Tissot, identifies three distinct reactions bound together by a single cause:

What must be clearly seen: in the eyes of the novice soul, each of these reactions looks like a mark of holiness. "I am stunned at having given in: so I must love God deeply" ; "I am shattered: so I must be taking my evil seriously" ; "I am cast down: so I must have hoped for much". These interpretations are false. Tissot writes it without circumlocution: these three movements are not love, but "pride and self-love, troubled and anxious at seeing us imperfect" ^[3]. The precision is decisive, because it governs everything that follows: as long as we take self-love for the voice of repentance, we never escape the three snares.

"False humility" according to Saint Teresa of Avila

Half a century before Saint Francis de Sales, the great Castilian mystic had already given the surest discerning criterion for distinguishing true from false humility:

"In true humility, although the soul knows itself to be wicked and is grieved at it, this grief is accompanied by neither turmoil nor anxiety; it causes neither obscuring of the mind nor aridity; on the contrary, it consoles. The soul then grieves for what has offended God, and, on the other hand, it expands in the hope of His mercy. […] But in the false humility given by the devil, there is no light for any good. It seems that God puts everything to fire and sword. It is one of the devil's most baneful, subtle and disguised inventions that I know of him." — Saint Teresa of Avila, Vida (Autobiography), ch. XXX^[4]

The criterion is simple and practical: true humility consoles, false humility crushes. The first opens onto mercy, the second steals it away. The first leaves peace, the second devours it. Whoever, after a fall, feels rising within an anxious anguish, a bitterness against himself, a disgust for prayer or a shame that drives him away from the sacraments, may hold it for certain that he is under the action of a false humility — not of God.

Why this doctrine concerns everyone

Far from being a matter for scrupulous nuns, this pedagogy is of universal use. Tissot intended it for all those who want "something more, which is not usually done, for our God" — that is, for all those who have taken the spiritual life seriously and who, by that very fact, become particularly exposed to the snare of discouragement after a fall. Fr. Jean-Nicolas Grou, S.J., quoted by Tissot, expressed it thus:

"Often, the falls we suffer come from the speed of the race, and from the fact that the ardor that carries us away does not allow us to take certain precautions. Timid souls who always want to see where they put their feet, who constantly make detours to avoid missteps, who so fear soiling themselves, do not advance as fast as the others, and death almost always surprises them in the middle of their course. It is not those who commit the fewest faults who are the holiest, but those who have more courage, more generosity, more love, who make greater efforts upon themselves, who do not fear making missteps, falling even and soiling themselves a little, provided they advance." — Fr. Jean-Nicolas Grou, S.J. (1731-1803), quoted by Tissot^[5]

Saint John Chrysostom framed the same intuition in military language, at the opening of his Exhortation to Theodore after his fall:

"As long as a soldier remains in the fray, even if he is wounded or gives ground a little, no one is harsh enough or ignorant enough of the things of war to make it a great crime against him. Only those who never fight are never wounded. Those who hurl themselves ardently against the enemy are most often struck." — Saint John Chrysostom, Exhortation to Theodore after his fall (Ad Theodorum lapsum), Book II, § 1^[6]

Holiness is not the absence of wounds: it is perseverance in combat.

The first blow the soul receives after the fall is astonishment. "How could I have fallen back into that? I, after so many resolutions? I, who was praying this morning?" This stupefaction is universal. It is also, according to Saint Francis de Sales, the mark of a practical self-ignorance.

The torment of fallen man

Tissot opens his very first chapter with a two-sentence anthropological analysis in which every word carries weight:

"It is at once the honor and the torment of fallen man, that he cannot grow accustomed to his misery. A dispossessed prince, declassed by the fault of his first parents, he always keeps at the bottom of his heart the sense of the nobility of his origin, and of the innocence that was to be his portion. At each of his falls, he can hardly hold back an exclamation of surprise, as if an extraordinary accident had befallen him." — Joseph Tissot, L'art d'utiliser ses fautes, ch. I, p. 9^[7]

Astonishment is therefore not meaningless: it keeps the unconscious memory of Eden, of the prince man should have been. But this memory is a snare, because it feeds the illusion of a strength that the original fall precisely ruined. Tissot immediately follows with the biblical image that structures the whole chapter: Samson. Stripped of his strength by Delilah's betrayal, the hero forgets his new weakness and keeps rising against the Philistines, "imagining, as in the past, that he would lay his enemies low, forgetting that his former vigor had abandoned him" ^[8]. That is exactly what the baptized soul does at every fall: it forgets it is no longer in Eden and is surprised to fall.

The practical knowledge of human weakness

True humility is not content with a theoretical knowledge of this weakness. Tradition calls it practical knowledge — lived, integrated, until it becomes a reflex. It is what Saint Bernard and the Thomist school called the second degree of humility: no longer merely knowing that one is wretched, but accepting oneself as such before oneself.

Saint Francis de Sales returns to this ceaselessly, with a boundless compassion for human weakness:

"O human misery! human misery! Oh! how surrounded we are by infirmities! And what can we, of ourselves, do but fall?" — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. I, pp. 9-10^[9]

And again, in a letter of direction:

"You live with a thousand imperfections: it is true, my good sister; but do you not try from time to time to make them die within you? It is certain that while we are here, surrounded by this heavy and corruptible body, there is always in us something lacking." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. I, p. 10^[10]

Elsewhere the holy bishop states the rule in its full extent: "The rule being general that none shall be so holy in this life as not to be subject to committing always some imperfection" ^[11]. The Catholic faith indeed teaches that concupiscence — the disordered inclination left by original sin — "remains in the baptized for them to struggle against," as the Catechism puts it following the Council of Trent^[12]. No baptized person, apart from the Virgin Mary by privilege, is exempt from at least indeliberate venial sins — the Council of Trent itself defined it^[13].

Saint Francis de Sales adds, with his inimitable gentleness:

"Let us not think, as long as we are in this life, that we can live without committing imperfections; for it is not possible, whether we be superiors or inferiors, since we are all men, and consequently we all need to believe this truth as most certain, so that we may not be surprised to see ourselves subject to imperfections." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. I, p. 11^[14]

And still more radically, on the persistence of self-love itself until death:

"Self-love may be mortified in us, but it never dies; thus, from time to time, and on various occasions, it produces shoots in us, which show that though it be cut down at the foot, it is not uprooted. We must in no way be surprised always to find self-love in us, for it never budges." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. I, pp. 11-12^[15]

The image is botanical and precise: cutting down the tree does not tear out the root. The root of self-love stays buried until death, and it is this root that produces falls — not an extraordinary outburst of wickedness, but the regular budding of a plant cut back yet still alive.

The "spiritual incurables" of Bernières

The most striking image comes from a disciple of Bérulle, Jean de Bernières-Souvigny (1602-1659), author of Le Chrétien intérieur:

"We are spiritual paupers, in the Hospital of Incurables." — Jean de Bernières-Souvigny, Le Chrétien intérieur, quoted by Tissot, ch. I^[16]

The expression is not pessimistic — it is exactly the reverse. It is liberating. To accept being poor, little, and even incurable until death is to spare oneself the perpetual disappointments of a pride that would like, after each confession, to see itself at last cured. Bernières draws the direct consequence: "To be troubled and discouraged when one has fallen into sin is not to know oneself." ^[17]

Saint Francis de Sales pushes the image further still:

"Our imperfection must accompany us to the coffin. We cannot walk without touching the ground. We must neither lie down nor wallow in it; but we must not think of flying; for we are little chicks that do not yet have our wings." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. I^[18]

And in summary, this lapidary formula:

"If we knew well who we are, instead of being amazed to see ourselves on the ground, we would be surprised at being able to remain standing." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. I^[19]

This is the complete reversal of perspective: what ought to surprise us is not the fall — it is standing upright, which holds not by our strength but by grace. Once this reversal is effected, astonishment disappears.

Fervent souls are no exception

A natural objection arises: "If I am converted, if I have resolved to give everything to God, are my falls not graver, more inexcusable? Should they not surprise me all the more?" The spiritual masters' answer is unanimously no. Saint Francis de Sales even gently mocks the desire to become a saint in three months:

"There are some who hope for nothing less than soon to be Saint Teresas, Saint Catherines of Siena or of Genoa. That is good; but tell me, how long do you take to become such? — Three months, if possible. — You do well to say: if possible, for otherwise you might well be mistaken." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. I^[20]

And on the ordinary slowness of purification:

"Saint Paul was in an instant purified with a perfect purification, as were also Saint Catherine of Genoa, Saint Pelagia and a few others; but this kind of purification is wholly miraculous and extraordinary in the order of grace, as the resurrection of the dead is in the order of nature. The ordinary purification […] is done only little by little, by progress, by dint of trouble and time. […] The cure that is done gently is always the surest. Diseases of the heart, as well as those of the body, come on horseback and at a gallop, but they leave on foot and with small steps." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. I^[21]

The soul that cannot bear the slowness of its own progress is surprised at advancing so little — hence surprised, hence troubled, hence discouraged. True humility accepts advancing on foot and with small steps, because it knows that the convalescence of the passions takes decades, and that it is precisely time that makes the cure surer.

An indulgence to extend to others

Tissot draws a practical consequence from all this analysis: "Let us say in passing, what indulgence one would have for one's brethren, if one meditated on these thoughts! How one would identify with the ineffable patience of Him who, before investing His apostles with the power of remitting sins, recommended them to forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven!" ^[22] This indulgence is not lukewarmness. It does not give up hating evil and repairing it:

"It is one thing not to be surprised at them, another not to hate and repair them. The husbandman is not surprised to see weeds ravage his field: is he any less diligent in tearing them out?" — Joseph Tissot, L'art d'utiliser ses fautes, ch. I, p. 17^[23]

Not being surprised therefore never authorizes quietism. Resolution, vigilance and effort remain entire — but they are no longer shaken by stupefaction.

After astonishment comes turmoil. The soul examines itself, counts its wounds in terror, mentally replays the details of the fall, wishes the scars would close within the second. This turmoil looks religious. In reality, it is the first sign that self-love has taken the floor.

Two sorrows according to Saint Paul

The analysis goes back to Saint Paul:

"Godly sorrow produces a salutary repentance which is not regretted; worldly sorrow, for its part, produces death." — Saint Paul, Second Epistle to the Corinthians 7:10^[24]

Saint Francis de Sales takes up this distinction and sharpens it with a startling spiritual statistic: bad sorrow begets six harmful effects, good sorrow only two good effects.

The imbalance is deliberate: it speaks of the disproportionate dangerousness of bad sorrow, which gladly disguises itself as good. Tissot extends the warning: "the devil makes every effort to beget this bad sorrow, and, in order to succeed in discouraging the soul and driving it to despair, he first tries to trouble it" ^[25]. Turmoil is therefore not a neutral stage: it is the antechamber of despair.

Saint Francis de Sales gives an almost clinical description of it:

"Bad sorrow troubles the soul, fills it with anxiety, gives disordered fears, disgusts it with prayer, dulls and weighs down the brain, deprives the soul of counsel, resolution, judgment and courage, and lays its strength low. In short, it is like a harsh winter that mows down all the beauty of the earth and benumbs the animals; for it takes all sweetness from the soul, and renders it almost paralytic with all its faculties powerless." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. II^[26]

The picture is not exaggerated: a spiritual director recognizes in these lines most of the descriptions scrupulous souls give him.

The bird caught in the net

One of Saint Francis de Sales' best-known images finely describes the aggravating mechanism of turmoil:

"What keeps birds and other animals caught in nets, but that once in them, they struggle and stir in a disordered way to get out quickly and, in doing so, entangle themselves all the more? Having fallen into the nets of some imperfections, we shall not get out of them by anxiety; on the contrary, we shall entangle ourselves further." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. II^[27]

And the formula that sums up the whole doctrine:

"Nothing preserves our defects like anxiety and eagerness to remove them." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. II^[28]

Displeasure at the fault must be peaceful, repentance serene, never agitated. Peace with oneself is not indulgence toward sin: it is the very condition of its effective correction. Tissot insists: while the troubled soul struggles, "the pace slows. We no longer run, we barely walk, we drag ourselves along, discontented with ourselves and almost with God Himself, without confidence in prayer, with no disposition but fear in receiving the sacraments" ^[29]. And from fall to turmoil, from turmoil to fresh fall, the soul ends by settling into an almost remediless torpor.

Self-love, the sole source of turmoil

Saint Francis de Sales touches here upon the root. The turmoil that follows the fall is never the work of the love of God: it is the work of wounded self-love.

"We must not confound ourselves with sorrow and anxiety: it is self-love that gives these confusions, because we are sad at not being perfect, not so much for the love of God as for love of ourselves." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. II^[30]

Fr. Jean-Joseph Allemand (1772-1836), founder of works for the youth of Marseilles, added:

"To humble oneself over one's miseries is a good thing that few people understand; but to worry and fret is a thing everyone knows and which is bad, because in this kind of worry and fret, self-love always has the greatest part." — Fr. Jean-Joseph Allemand, quoted by Tissot^[31]

Blessed Frédéric Ozanam (1813-1853), founder of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, brings out with a layman's lucidity the now-classic typology of the two prides:

"There are two kinds of pride: that which is content with itself — the commonest and least dangerous; and that which is discontented with itself because it expects much of itself and is deceived in its expectation. This second kind is far more refined and dangerous." — Bl. Frédéric Ozanam, quoted by Tissot^[32]

The whole of scrupulosity lies in these two sentences. The false humility of the one discontented with himself is in reality a masked pride that expected much of itself and cannot bear to be deceived in its expectation. The remedy is to stop expecting from oneself what God alone can give.

Being angry at one's anger

A typical case of turmoil: we grow angry, then grow angry at having been angry. This second anger locks the soul in a vicious circle.

"They commit a great fault who, having grown angry, grow angry at having grown angry; for thus they keep their heart steeped in anger; and even if the second anger seems to ruin the first, yet it serves as an opening and passage for a fresh anger, at the first occasion that presents itself. Besides, these angers, frettings and bitternesses one has against oneself tend to pride and have no other origin than self-love, which is troubled and anxious at seeing us imperfect." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. II^[33]

The principle is generalizable: being troubled at having been troubled, being discouraged at having been discouraged, humbling oneself at having lacked humility — so many spirals that drive away instead of drawing near. The practical rule is crystal clear: "Be not troubled at having been troubled, be not shaken at having been shaken, be not anxious at having been made anxious by these vexing passions; but take up your heart again and gently place it back in the hands of Our Lord." ^[34]

A gentle and loving humility

Saint Francis de Sales' synthetic formula is one of those to be known by heart:

"Take great care not to be troubled when you have committed some fault, but humble yourself as soon as possible before God, and let it be with a gentle and loving humility that moves you to the confidence of having immediate recourse to His goodness, sure that it will help you to amend. When it happens that you commit faults, whatever they may be, ask pardon of Our Lord quite gently, telling Him that you are sure He loves you well and will forgive you. And this always simply and gently." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. II^[35]

Gentle and loving humility — as opposed to hard, sour, peevish humility — is the touchstone. If humility does not move to confidence, it is not true. If it leads to melancholy, to avoiding the sacraments or to scrupulosity, it is a disguise of pride. True humility rushes toward mercy.

The gaze of the good thief

Fr. d'Elbée gave of this doctrine, in the 20th century, one of its most accessible formulations:

"When you see yourselves wretched after an infidelity, a failure that has humbled you, if you cast a glance toward Jesus, the glance of the good thief, do you think you will not be purified in a moment, in a second […]? On condition that you have the humility, the confidence and the desire for heaven of the good thief. Jesus needs only your humility and your confidence to work in you wonders of purification, wonders of sanctification. And your confidence will be in proportion to your humility, because it is to the measure that one feels the need of Jesus that one has recourse to Him, and one feels this need to the measure that one realizes precisely one's unworthiness." — Fr. Jean d'Elbée, Croire à l'Amour^[36]

The analysis is exact: confidence grows in proportion to humility, because the soul turns to the Savior in the exact measure in which it knows itself lost. That is why gentle humility saves time: it avoids anxious self-examination, immediately places the soul back before the merciful Heart, and obtains pardon with a swiftness that turmoil forbids.

The most dangerous stage comes next. If the soul remains under the grip of turmoil, the devil has won the game: he brings it to discouragement, which is, according to the unanimous tradition, his final objective. Tissot opens his chapter III with a striking formula that sums up everything: our salvation would have, he says, appealing to Saint John Chrysostom, two mortal enemies — presumption in innocence and despair after the fall — the second being by far the more terrible.^[37]

The supreme enemy: despair after the fall

Saint John Chrysostom, Tissot recalls, never tired of exhorting his hearers never to despair: despair after the fall is, with the presumption that precedes the fault, one of the two great enemies of salvation — and by far the more terrible.^[38]

And Tissot adds, with a pastor's gravity: "The immense majority of unrepaired falls that have caused scandal in the Church, most of those known and wept over only by the angels of peace, come from discouragement. Without it, with a confident repentance, nothing would have been lost. But after a fault, which was often but a surprise, the demon of despair insinuated himself into the troubled soul under cover of a thousand arguments, each more discouraging than the last." ^[39]

Fr. Roothaan's golden word

Tissot opens his chapter III with an almost cinematic anecdote that deserves to be quoted in full:

"A pious ecclesiastic was making his retreat under the direction of Fr. Roothaan. In the middle of the exercises, the illustrious Jesuit was suddenly recalled to Rome, where he was soon to be elected General of his Society. He had already taken leave of his brethren and set out on his way, when suddenly, retracing his steps, he enters the retreatant's room: 'Father, he said to him, I was about to forget a recommendation of great importance: Whatever happens, never be discouraged, never!'" — Fr. Jan Roothaan, S.J., anecdote reported by Tissot, ch. III, p. 35^[40]

Fr. Jan Roothaan (1785-1853) was indeed elected Superior General of the Society of Jesus in 1829 and remained so until his death. Tissot holds the formula to be the most precious spiritual condensation that can be offered to a soul on the way — "Golden word! to how many souls it should be repeated!" ^[41]

Francis de Sales, the "encouraging doctor" of the 17th century

Tissot stresses a historical providence: divine Wisdom made Saint Francis de Sales live and write at the precise moment when the despairing Jansenist doctrines were about to hatch, and had him crowned Doctor of the universal Church in one of the most downcast of centuries^[42].

"One may defy the readers of Saint Francis de Sales to discover in him anything that could allow the greatest sinner a single instant of dejection." — Joseph Tissot, L'art d'utiliser ses fautes, ch. III, p. 39^[43]

Fr. Frederick William Faber, the 19th-century English Oratorian convert, echoed him:

"The sweetest of all the suave doctrines that Saint Francis de Sales, divinely inspired, taught us, is that which has for its object the point of view at which we must place ourselves rightly to judge our faults." — Fr. F.W. Faber, Growth in Holiness (1855), quoted by Tissot, ch. III^[44]

The two symmetrical roots of discouragement

Tissot identifies with remarkable spiritual psychology the two simultaneous roots of discouragement — a diagnosis of rare precision:

"Why does one become discouraged? Because one exaggerates one's weakness, or misunderstands divine mercy, and most often for both reasons together. This is, by the way, a strange phenomenon, and yet too common. The sinner fell through misunderstanding his weakness, and exaggerating God's mercy to himself. After his fall, these two sentiments are reborn in reverse. The consciousness of his weakness takes on disproportionate dimensions, wraps the soul in a mantle of sadness and confusion that crushes it; and the God whom just now one offended freely, in the presumption of an easy pardon — God now appears as an inexorable avenger." — Joseph Tissot, L'art d'utiliser ses fautes, ch. III, pp. 41-42^[45]

The symmetrical inversion is a great classic of the spiritual life: presumption before the fall, despair after. The remedy is exactly inverse: humility before the fall (so as not to fall through excess confidence in one's own strength), confidence after (so as not to despair through excess distrust of God's mercy).

The devil despairs of a confident soul

Saint Claude La Colombière (1641-1682), Jesuit, director of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque at Paray-le-Monial — beatified in 1929, canonized on 31 May 1992 by John Paul II — framed for a directee this radical, almost daring counsel:

"That is the greatest evil that can befall a creature. When one can defend oneself against this evil, there is nothing one cannot turn to good, and from which it is not easy to draw great advantages. All the evil you have done is nothing, in comparison with that which you do by lacking confidence. Hope therefore to the end, I command you in virtue of the power you have given me over yourself. If you obey me on this point, I answer for your conversion." — Saint Claude La Colombière, Retraite spirituelle, quoted by Tissot, ch. III, p. 38^[46]

"I answer for your conversion": a spiritual director stands surety — before God — for a directee's conversion, on the single condition that she obey on this precise point: never cease hoping. Christ said the same thing to Marcel Van, in more tender language:

"Even the devil must despair of a soul in which the word 'confidence' is still found." — Jesus to Marcel Van, Colloques^[47]

That is why the devil attacks confidence before all else. He knows that as long as a soul keeps a thread of confidence — however thin, however fragile, however frayed — he cannot bring it to ruin.

The pedagogy of beginning again

Far from minimizing the gravity of sin, Saint Francis de Sales re-encourages with energy:

"O God, one must rather die than offend Our Lord knowingly and deliberately; but when we fall, we must lose everything rather than courage, hope and resolution." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. III^[48]

And this formula on daily beginning again:

"I am very glad that you begin again every day: there is no better means to end the spiritual life well than always to begin again, and never to think one has done enough." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. II^[49]

This pedagogy of beginning again was taken up in the 20th century by Pope Francis, in his very first Angelus after his election:

"God never tires of forgiving. It is we who tire of asking pardon. But He never tires of forgiving." — Pope Francis, Angelus, Sunday 17 March 2013^[50]

Tissot had written the same thing in other words: "It is not He who tires, it is we who tire of looking at our ugliness." ^[51] And he added, against the persistent temptation to set limits to divine patience: "It is a kind of blasphemy to say that, because it is setting limits to a Mercy that has none. It is doubting the unwearied patience, indulgence and meekness of Jesus." ^[52]

Fear AND hope: Paphnutius and Saint Thais

The edifying story of Saint Thais, a courtesan converted in the 4th century, gathered in the Lives of the Desert Fathers, illustrates the perfect balance of the two roots. Having asked counsel of Saint Paphnutius, she received this answer:

"Fear, but hope! Fear, lest you become proud and haughty; but hope, lest you fall into despair and discouragement." — Saint Paphnutius to Saint Thais, Lives of the Desert Fathers^[53]

Saint Francis de Sales drew from it the synthesis:

"For fear and hope must not go the one without the other, inasmuch as if fear is not accompanied by hope, it is not fear, but despair, and hope, without fear, is presumption. We must therefore, by confidence mingled with fear, fill these valleys of discouragement that come from the knowledge of the sins we have committed." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. III^[54]

Fear corresponds to the first abyss — humility, self-knowledge, the practical consciousness of one's fragility. Hope corresponds to the second — confidence, the knowledge of God's infinite love. Neither stands without the other. It is exactly this correspondence that tradition calls the double abyss, studied in detail in a companion article.

All the preceding doctrine finds its fulfillment in a very precise pedagogy of rising again, which Saint Francis de Sales detailed for the use of his directees. It is the standard sequence, still taught today by spiritual directors trained in the Salesian school.

The standard sequence of the Introduction to the Devout Life

The founding text stands in the Introduction to the Devout Life (1609), Part III, chapter 9 — "On Patience":

"Raise up your heart when it falls, quite gently, humbling yourself greatly before God for the knowledge of your misery, without being at all surprised at your fall, since it is no surprising thing that infirmity should be infirm, and weakness weak, and wretchedness paltry. Nevertheless detest with all your strength the offense God has received, and with great courage and confidence in His mercy, set yourself back on the path of virtue you had abandoned." — Saint Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, ch. 9^[55]

Five acts follow in a single breath: (1) raising up gently, (2) humbling oneself before God, (3) not being surprised, (4) detesting the offense done to God, (5) resuming the path with courage and confidence. No room for turmoil, rumination or melancholy. The sequence is so swift it takes but a few seconds.

Elsewhere, the holy bishop gives the same sequence in an almost familiar form:

"If some act of vexation befalls you, be not dismayed at it, put yourself in no trouble at all; but having recognized it, humble yourself gently before God and try to set your mind back into sweetness. Say to your soul: 'Well! we have made a false step; let us now go quite gently, and take heed to ourselves.' And every time and as often as you fall, do the same." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. II^[56]

This interior dialogue is no mere trick of method: it is a true theological act. Speaking to one's soul is holding before God the responsibility of guiding it; refusing haste is refusing self-love; resuming the walk is believing in mercy.

Repentance like a father toward a child

The most telling image remains that of the father who corrects his child — not in anger, but in tenderness:

"As a father's remonstrances, made gently and cordially, have far more power over a child to correct him than fits of anger, so, when our heart has committed some fault, if we take it up again with gentleness and calm, having more compassion for it than passion against it, encouraging it to amendment, the repentance it conceives will be far deeper and more piercing than a vexed and stormy repentance." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot, ch. II^[57]

The holy bishop even gives the speech one must not address to oneself: "Are you not wretched and abominable, that after so many resolutions you let yourself be carried away by vanity? Die of shame! Lift your eyes no more to heaven, blind, impudent, traitor and disloyal to God!" — that is the tone he forbids. And the right speech: "Well! my poor heart, here we are fallen into the pit we had so resolved to escape. Ah! let us rise and leave it forever; let us claim God's mercy and hope it will assist us to be firmer henceforth, and let us set ourselves back on the path of humility. Courage! Let us henceforth be more on our guard. God will help us!" ^[58] The pedagogical contrast is complete.

When repentance should be gentle, when it may be firm

One important nuance: gentleness is not lukewarmness. For souls that do not respond enough to gentle correction, Saint Francis de Sales allows a harsher tone — but always on condition of finishing in peace:

"If nevertheless someone thinks his heart cannot be moved enough by this gentle correction, he may employ reproach, and a hard and strong rebuke to excite it to deep repentance, provided that after having roughly corrected his heart, he ends with a comfort, terminating all his regret with a gentle and sound confidence in God." — Saint Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, ch. 9^[59]

The criterion is invariable: we never remain in torment. We may pass through a storm of regret, but we do not settle in it. Saint Francis de Sales takes the psalmist as model: "Why are you sad, O my soul? and why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I shall bless Him yet as the salvation of my face and my true God!" ^[60] The soul takes itself up again, scolds itself briefly, and ends with an act of hope.

Patience principally with oneself

The gentlest formula of the holy bishop — one we would gladly inscribe above a spiritual director's desk — is probably this one:

"Have patience with all, but principally with yourself: I mean that you be not troubled at your imperfections, and that you always have the courage to rise from them." — Saint Francis de Sales, quoted by Tissot^[61]

Patience with oneself is not moral indulgence: it is a theological virtue applied to duration. It presupposes faith (believing that God acts slowly), hope (awaiting healing without tearing it out), charity (loving oneself as God loves us). Without this patience, charity toward others soon becomes impossible — we transfer to our neighbor the impatience we refuse to admit toward ourselves.

Tissot does not stop at the defensive doctrine. In the second part of his book (which this article covers only by anticipation), he develops the positive doctrine: the fall, traversed aright, can become a step on the ladder of love. This intuition, taken up and amplified by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Fr. d'Elbée and several contemporary mystics, is the spiritual culmination of all that precedes.

"Love Me as you are"

An anonymous text, become famous in 20th-century French-speaking spirituality, puts in God's mouth this overwhelming word. Its exact origin is not established — the dating sometimes put forward ("monastic spirituality bulletin, 1940") could be attached to no nominally identifiable bulletin, in libraries or online — and the attribution to Saint Augustine, sometimes put forward, is apocryphal^[62]:

"I know your misery, the combats and tribulations of your soul; the weakness and infirmities of your body; I know your cowardice, your sins, your failings; I tell you all the same: Give Me your heart, love Me as you are. If you wait to be an angel to give yourself to love, you will never love Me. Even if you fall back often into these faults you would wish never to know, even if you are cowardly in the practice of virtue, I do not allow you not to love Me. Love Me as you are." — Anonymous 20th-century text, known as "Love Me as you are" ^[63]

And further on:

"The only thing that could wound My heart would be to see you doubt and lack confidence. […] Do not wait to be a saint to give yourself to Love, otherwise you will never love." — Same anonymous text^[64]

This word — which sums up twenty centuries of Christian teaching on mercy — overturns the logic of merit. God does not wait for us to be perfect to love; He loves at the very moment of misery, on the condition of one single thing: that we not doubt this love.

From misery to misery, from mercy to mercy

Fr. Jean du Cœur de Jésus d'Elbée (1892-1982), priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Picpus), of which he was Superior General from 1938 to 1958, and a great preacher of retreats, expresses this dialectic in perhaps the most condensed formula of 20th-century French spirituality:

"Even the fall, if regretted, strengthens, since Jesus draws good from evil. Go to Him as to the spring of living water, as often as necessary, rising each time humbler and each time more overflowing with confident love. If each fault is an occasion for you to kiss, with repentance and confidence, the wound of His Heart, each fault becomes a rung for rising in Love. From misery to misery, we go from mercy to mercy." — Fr. Jean d'Elbée, Croire à l'Amour, ch. III^[65]

This is exactly the intuition of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux's "little way": confidence is not merited, it is received; it is all the greater as the soul is more conscious of its indigence. The saint of Lisieux wrote in her Manuscript B: "We must expect everything from the good God, as a little child expects everything from his father; he worries about nothing." ^[66]

The promise to Sister Josefa Menendez

On Friday 20 October 1922, at Poitiers, Sister Josefa Menendez (1890-1923), Spanish religious of the Sacred Heart, receives this word from Christ:

"I am all Love and I cannot treat severely the souls I love so much! […] Their miseries matter little to Me. What I want to make them know is that I love them with still more tenderness if, after their weaknesses and falls, they throw themselves humbly into My Heart: then, I forgive them… and I love them always!" — Jesus to Sister Josefa Menendez, Friday 20 October 1922^[67]

The promise is clear: the fall, followed by an act of humble confidence, increases the love the Heart of Jesus bears the soul. It is not sin that is loved — it is poverty letting itself be loved.

Nothingness as the anchor of confidence

At the same time, the young Vietnamese Marcel Van (1928-1959), a Redemptorist, receives from Christ an equivalent word, in the form of familiar dialogue:

"Little brother, your weakness has not disappeared for all that; it will remain in you until the moment you receive from Me the first kiss of your life. Little brother, always remember that you are a truly poor and indigent soul. Be not troubled by your weaknesses, as your sister Thérèse told you and as I Myself have told you several times. It is in knowing your nothingness that your confidence in Me can be truly firm." — Jesus to Marcel Van, Colloques, §§ 652-653^[68]

The word is exact: it is through knowledge of one's nothingness that confidence becomes firm. As long as the soul still believes itself capable, its confidence remains partly presumption. When the soul knows itself incapable, it throws itself purely, and confidence solidifies. This paradoxical logic lies at the heart of the doctrine of the double abyss — the lower humility descends, the higher confidence can rise.

Venerable Marthe Robin put it thus, in the "Counsels" placed at the head of her Journal:

"Humility calls forth confidence. The lower humility descends, the higher confidence rises, the higher the soul mounts toward love." — Venerable Marthe Robin, Journal, "Counsels for advancing in the way of perfection," no. 12^[69]

Humility and confidence therefore do not abolish the fall. They transfigure it. What could have been an obstacle becomes the occasion for an act of love more humble, more pure, more true. And from misery to misery, the soul advances, as d'Elbée wrote, from mercy to mercy.

This doctrine is, for scrupulous, perfectionist or easily cast-down souls, a true balm. It does not abolish ascetical effort — on the contrary, it makes it possible by freeing the soul from the paralyzing weight of meticulous self-examinations and spiritual sorrows. It addresses in particular those who:

• examine themselves severely after each day;
• replay their old faults in a loop;
• doubt they are truly forgiven despite absolution;
• feel their slowness in the spiritual life as a shame;
• fear the sacraments more than they desire them;
• make their imperfections a proof of distance from God.

To all of them, Saint Francis de Sales repeats with patience — and one can almost hear his voice — that one must have patience with oneself. To all of them, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux repeats that confidence is the great grace of this age. To all of them, Christ Himself repeats, through the voice of Josefa Menendez:

"I do not mean that a soul is freed from its defects and miseries by the very fact that I choose it. This soul may fall and will fall more than once again, but if it humbles itself, if it acknowledges its nothing, if it tries to repair its fault by little acts of generosity and love, if it confides and abandons itself anew to My Heart… it gives Me more glory and can do more good to souls than if it had not fallen. Its misery and weakness matter little to Me; what I ask of My souls is love!" — Jesus to Sister Josefa Menendez^[70]

True humility is not the crushing of the self: it is its setting in truth. True confidence is not the easiness of the lukewarm soul: it is the certainty that God is greater. Together, they give the soul that interior freedom Saint Paul calls the freedom of the children of God — the only freedom that never breaks, because it rests not on acquired perfection but on received love.

Go deeper with Via Divina — This article corresponds to bonus course no. 22 of module 3 ("the roots of the spiritual life: the double abyss") in the free Via Divina formation. To hear the full development, with continuous readings from Saint Francis de Sales and Joseph Tissot and practical exercises, follow the formation: browse Via Divina.

• The Double Abyss: Humility and Confidence — the general structure of the interior life in the Catholic spiritual tradition.
• The Knowledge of Man's Nothingness, and Humility — the first abyss, companion to this article.
• The Knowledge of God's Love, Which Produces Confidence — the second abyss.
• The Necessity of Humility and the Danger of Pride — the fundamental doctrine of the first abyss.
• Using Our Sins to Grow in Humility and Confidence — Tissot's positive doctrine (course 23), the direct continuation of this article.
• The Infinite Love of God — Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy — the contemporary revelation of the same message.