Liber Secundus, Caput XI. Serium examen sui Pontifici serio commendat.
The Call to Honest Self-Examination
Bernard urges the pope to examine himself with strict fairness, distinguishing what is truly his own from what belongs to God, and to compare his present character with his past.
So in this examination of yourself you should walk carefully, and conduct yourself with complete fairness, so that you claim no more for yourself than is truly yours, and spare yourself no more than what justice demands. Indeed, you go further: you claim more than your due, not only by arrogating to yourself what you don't possess, but also by treating what you do possess as though it were your own achievement. Discern carefully what comes from yourself and what comes from the gift of God, and let there be no deceit in your spirit. But it will not go well unless, with honest discernment, you keep what is yours to yourself and faithfully return to God what belongs to God, without any fraud. That evil comes from you and good comes from the Lord — of this I have no doubt; you should be persuaded of it as well. Surely, among the things to be considered — what sort of person you are now — you must also call to mind what sort of person you once were. Your later years must be set alongside your earlier ones. Have you grown in virtue, in wisdom, in understanding, in the gentleness of your character — or have you perhaps fallen away from these things (God forbid!)
A Field of Virtues to Be Tested
Bernard expands the scope of self-examination by listing concrete virtues and vices to be weighed, and by teaching that virtues are formed not by nature but by rightly ordered practice.
You'll have fallen short in this self-examination, and dealt with yourself unfairly, if you've claimed more for yourself than is true, or gone easier on yourself than justice allows. Are you more patient than you used to be, or more impatient? More quick-tempered, or gentler? More arrogant, or more humble? More approachable, or more severe? More easily moved to mercy, or more stubborn? Smaller in spirit, or more generous? More serious than before, or somewhat lax and undisciplined? More fearful, or perhaps bolder than you should be? How wide a field lies open to you in this kind of self-examination! I recall a few things, as though bringing forth certain seedbeds — not planting them myself, but giving seed to the one who plants. Your zeal, your mercy, and your discernment — the one who guides these same virtues — must become clear to you: clearly, what kind of mercy you show in forgiving wrongs, what kind of justice you exercise in avenging them, and how prudent you are in each, observing the right manner, place, and time. These three things must be carefully considered in the practice of these virtues, so that what is found beyond them may not truly be virtues at all: namely, that it's not nature that makes things virtues, but practice — and practice of a particular kind. For they are recognized as morally neutral in themselves. It's up to you either to abuse and confuse these qualities and so produce vices, or to use them well and in right order and so produce virtues.
The Dim Eye of Discernment
Bernard warns that discernment grows dim through anger and excessive softness, endangering both mercy and righteous zeal in the exercise of judgment.
When the eye of discernment grows dim, people are accustomed to snatch places from one another and seize each other's boundaries. Furthermore, there are two causes of this dimness: anger and an overly soft disposition. The first enfeebles the censure of judgment; the second hurries it headlong. How can the other not be endangered — either the devotion of mercy, or the uprightness of zeal? An eye troubled by anger looks on nothing with mercy; steeped in a certain loose and womanish softness of mind, it does not see what is right. You will not be innocent if you either punish someone who perhaps should be spared, or spare someone who deserved to be punished.
Read the original Latin
Tu ergo in hac consideratione tui caute ambules, et tota aequitate verseris, ut nec plus vero tibi tribuas, nec plus justo parcas. Porro plus vero tribuis, non modo arrogando tibi quod non habes bonum, sed et quod habes adscribendo. Vigilanter discerne, qualis ex te, et qualis sis dono Dei; et non sit in spiritu tuo dolus. Erit autem, nisi fideliter partiens, tua tibi, et quae sunt Dei, Deo sine fraude resignes. Ex te mala, bona a Domino esse, persuasum tibi non ambigo. Sane inter considerandum qualis sis, etiam qualis fueris ad memoriam revocandum. Conferenda posteriora prioribus. Profecerisne in virtute, in sapientia, in intellectu, in suavitate morum; an ab his forte (quod absit!)
defeceris. Patientior sis, an impatientior solito, iracundior leniorne, insolentior an humilior, affabilior an austerior, exorabilior an difficilior, pusillior animo an magnanimior, serius magis an plusculum dissolutus, timoratior an forte fidentior quam oportet. Quam latus tibi patet campus in hoc genere considerandi! Memoro ego pauca, veluti quaedam seminaria proferens; non tamen ipse serens, sed dans semen serenti. Oportet innotescat tibi zelus tuus, clementia tua, discretio quoque moderatrix earumdem virtutum, qualis videlicet in donandis injuriis, qualis sis in ulciscendis, quam in utroque providus modi, loci, temporis observator. Prorsus consideranda tria haec in usu virtutum harum; ne non sint virtutes, si praeter haec reperiantur: nempe ejusmodi, non natura virtutes, sed usus facit. Nam ex se indifferentes esse noscuntur. Tuum est, aut abutendo et confundendo facere vitia; aut bene ordinateque utendo, virtutes.
Solent discretionis oculo caligante alterutrum sibi praeripere loca, terminos occupare. Porro caliginis duae sunt causae, ira et mollior affectus. Is judicii censuram enervat, illa praecipitat. Quomodo ab altero non periclitetur, aut pietas clementiae, aut zeli rectitudo? Turbatus prae ira oculus clementer nil intuetur; suffusus fluxa quadam et muliebri mollitie animi rectum non videt. Non eris innocens, si aut punias eum cui forte parcendum esset, aut parcas ei qui fuerat puniendus.
De consideratione (On Consideration) companion
Make consideration a daily appointment
Bernard told Eugene to set aside time every day. Chosen Portion holds that time for you, free.
Bernard's core prescription — a fixed daily time reserved for examining the soul — is exactly the habit Chosen Portion installs with its daily devotional portion.
- One 10-minute daily portion for self-examination and prayer
- Reflection prompts drawn from historic texts, not improvised journaling
- A visible streak that protects the daily interval Bernard insisted on