Undoubtedly my first step to achieve holiness or goodness, is to discover my predominant fault. This requires some looking for, since it may possibly be hidden underneath a good many other sins which have concealed it. Thus it may well be that the fault I have most frequently to confess is not really my predominant fault, but only the result of it, while the real sin skulks away and refuses to come to the surface. Impurity may be caused by other things, such as love of ease, selfishness, even pride. Often it happens that we are wrestling with the wrong enemy, not getting hold of the source of his strength but fighting frontal attacks against an ugly mask; all the time the cause of my failures will be quite undisturbed and in possession of the field. First, then, I have very carefully to examine my conscience. I must go very thoroughly to work, and sift the whole of my actions with some trouble. Just as I find that week after week my list for confession is practically always the same, so in all probability I shall find that whenever I examine my conscience the results are pretty much alike; hence there will be no need for me to make this examination very often once it is done thoroughly, that will be sufficient for some months. Nor should I fancy that it is helpful to look every now and then to see how things are going on, or, indeed, busy myself overmuch with whether it is going on at all: for, first, it is a foolish gardener who persistently digs up his bulbs to see if they are sprouting, and, secondly, I shall find it extremely difficult, even when I have dug up my soul, to know whether I am progressing or not, for it must surely happen that when I am at my best I shall see only more clearly than ever in how much I have failed. So that the worse I see myself to be, the better, perhaps, I shall really be.
Hence I must beware of making purely negative resolutions, for then I shall simply look back at the past as measured by failure. If I make up my mind to avoid this or that, the result will be that I shall have no other standard of judgement in moments of spiritual stock-taking than the occasions on which I have broken my resolutions; the final result of this will be that I shall exclaim in disgust that I had better never have made any resolutions at all a perfectly logical conclusion. The more cheerful and helpful way is to reverse this procedure. Already I have found out what my predominant fault is, for I have made a thorough and careful examination of conscience. Then when I am certain, or at least as certain as I can be, I must concentrate not on the sin, but on the corresponding virtue. My resolutions now will not be to avoid this or that, but to increase or develop this or that. I shall not finally measure my past by a series of faults, but by the number of times, few perhaps but none the less real, when I have actually managed to achieve success. The gardener who spent all his time digging up the weeds and never thought very much of strengthening his plants would produce a very tidy but depressing garden. He would have hurt his back by stooping, and never stood upright to enjoy the beauty of his garden. But a good gardener knows well that if he will only do his best for the flowers, they will derive goodness from the soil and so leave less from which the weeds can get the nourishment they need. Weeding must be done; but the first thing is the flowers. So in my soul all my energies should first be spent upon encouraging my poor feeble virtues to grow strong, and then by their very strength they will cause the sins to diminish. I have, therefore, not to make my resolutions to avoid this or that, but to improve in this or that.
Let me suppose that I have found out that my chief failing is uncharitableness. Then my resolution will be to take up as strongly as I can a charitable judging of my fellows. I should not simply try to avoid the temptation when it comes, but rather make positive efforts to increase what little store of charity I have. I must start with my thoughts and gradually get into the way of trying to find a good motive for everything I see. Saint Catharine of Siena, in a humorous moment, told our Lord that if He had only given her an opportunity for it, she would have discovered an excuse for the devil himself. We cannot, indeed, say that right is wrong or wrong right, but we can, while denouncing a fault, suppose that the motive was good, for the motive for ever eludes us. Often when I went out of my way to help someone, they saw not the motive that I had, but only its result, and were annoyed; and as others have misjudged me, so it is possible that I misjudge others. In this way I shall find that it is not difficult after a while to think kindly of everyone, and to think kindly will end in speaking and acting kindly. I must, that is, develop the virtue corresponding to my predominant sin rather than look to the sin itself; develop my charity so that I have no longer any temptation to judge unkindly, so that gossip will not please me; encourage in my heart so great a love for purity that foul thoughts will not remain with me, and foul conversation will bore me; seek after truth and justice, so that lying and the defrauding of my neighbour revolt me.
- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.