This post may be deleted.
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The Byzantine rite priest I mention a few days ago - accompanied by a video of him in a holding cell, drunk - is now in rehab. His attorney says he feels terrible and is so ashamed of his conduct. I know how
that feels. I took the video down because it seemed to me I was repeating the sin of Ham in a way, by showing it - and laughing about it. Nevertheless - I still think it's funny. I loved the part where he demands the cuffs be taken off because he is getting a rash. He is so funny. The priest reminds me of a friend who used to get so drunk he didn't know what he was doing or saying. Once he woke up in - well never mind. Coming from a family of drunks who did really nutty things - I laugh at the behavior - even when it hurts. So that should take care of anyone who thinks I'm such a good guy. (OMIGOSH! Don't ever mention Charlie Sheen though!)
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John of the Cross quotes Isaiah saying, "He who praises you deceives you." It seems to me that is
always true - for me at least. Ask all the people who once told me how spiritual my blog is only to find out otherwise, and then dropped me like a hot potato. Vain praise has caused me so much harm in the past, it is
not funny. (Well maybe a little bit... like when I told off - never mind.) Though the one who flatters or praises may be sincere, I am still the one deceived. No matter how much I would rebuff these things, there is always some level of unconscious satisfaction or sense of approbation which often leads to a certain presumption, or at least complacency.
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Maybe that's what happened to the Byzantine priest? He was praised all around, by everyone it seems. And now this. A tough lesson in humility, no doubt - but God loves humility so much he allows dumb things to happen. He wants us to be what we are. May he alone be praised.
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Early on in my conversion I received many signal graces. A prioress of a contemplative community once made the mistake of telling me these signified some sort of arrival or introduction into contemplation. I did my best to ignore or mortify any temptation to think I was special, but as St. John points out, the beginner cannot help but secretly esteem such praise. It did me great harm. I became convinced some priests just didn't understand me, and since it was a time when contemplative prayer was held in little esteem, and traditional piety and devotions were more or less discredited, perhaps I was actually acting prudently to some extent - but at the same time there lingered a secret intuition I knew better than others. This particular nun not only overestimated my spiritual state, she also sowed seeds of suspicion regarding other priests and confessors outside her orbit. The nun eventually left her monastery to pursue her own way of life.
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I esteemed that nun too much. Just as I esteemed many other nuns and priests. We need to be discreet in our estimation of others. Remember the stigmatic Fr. Gino - originally of the Oblates of the Blessed Virgin from San Vittorino, Italy? He was later found out to be a fraud. We encounter a similar situation in Fr. Maciel. These men were praised by the faithful and clergy, and attracted many followers.
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I've pointed all of this stuff out before, so I'm just rambling here and repeating myself. But I fear people who offer praise.
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I have a friend who used to tell me how spiritual I was. I always assumed he was teasing me or at least testing me. Even when I'd tell him not to say such things he seemed to try to convince me otherwise - so at times I thought he was being truthful. Although his flattery seemed disingenuous, and despite my annoyance at feeling mocked by it, I sometimes took a secret satisfaction in it, and even became his confidant - which also did me great harm. He's a very good priest, but I needed to avoid him because of that. I'm the weak one and though I can't believe he was intentionally deceiving me, I couldn't continue to deceive him.
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Somewhere in the Gospel - I think it is John, Jesus tells the Pharisees, "How can you believe when you accept praise from one another?" It is good to remember what St. John of the Cross says about this stuff, "Never take a man for your example no matter how holy he may be, for the devil will show you his faults." I continually have to remind myself of that, because I continually make the same mistakes. I think of the local priests I esteemed so much, who have since been disgraced. I'm not talking about judgement here, or being suspicious or looking for errors in everyone - but we have to understand that we are all human beings and that we are extremely weak and fallible.
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When the rich young man approached Jesus he called him good and Jesus gently rebuked him saying, "Why do you call me good? Only God is good."
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Our culture feeds on vain praise and awards and status and winning and
tiger blood. It is all an illusion and a deception. We set ourselves up for our own fall.
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PS: I just did.
