“My God, how many good deeds are lost to heaven!” This is how Saint John Vianney begins his sermon on true and false virtue.
In this blog, we are going to distinguish true and false virtue according to Saint John Vianney. Saint John Vianney, also known as Saint Cure of Ars, was of enormous help for my spiritual growth, and I hope that with this post, it will help you grow spiritually too.
“Firstly, a sincere Christian, for his salvation, should not be content with practicing good works; he must also know why he does them and the way to practice them. Secondly, one must bear in mind that it is not enough to appear virtuous in the eyes of the world; we must have virtue in our hearts.”
The heart is what matters— who you really are. It doesn’t matter who you are on the outside but rather on the inside. I can appear to be a good person on the outside, but inside I could be all rotten. As Jesus said in Mark 7:20-21, “What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of a man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.”
Saint John Vianney states that for a deed to be pleasing to God, it must meet three conditions:
- It must be internal and perfect.
- It must be humble and without regard to one’s own esteem.
- It must be constant and persevering.
“If in all your acts you find these three conditions, be sure that you are working for heaven.”
Be Internal
“Our exterior, therefore, should be nothing more than an instrument to show what happens inside us.”
Saint John tells us that “we will see that many people are deceived in practicing good, and go straight to hell.”
He tells of a mother who is very confident because she gives alms, prays regularly, frequents the sacraments, and even reads pious books; but she sees without concern how her children are leaving pious practices and are moving away from the sacraments. She allows her daughter to do indecent things, to dress in a way to attract men, and to go to indecent places.
This is what Saint John Vianney has to say to those kind of mothers, “Come on, blind and reprobate mother, get out of here, leave your prayers; don’t you see that your conduct is like that of the Jews, who knelt before Jesus, only to pretend to worship Him? You come to worship the good God, while your children are about to crucify Him! Poor blind woman, you don’t know what you say or do; your prayer is nothing more than an insult to Our Lord.”
He tells of a father who might be good by not letting his children say bad words, but at the same time, he lets them go to indecent places where all they say are bad things. Another may believe he is very good because he does not blaspheme, does not steal, and is not dominated by impurity; but he is neither troubled nor makes the slightest effort to correct those thoughts of hatred, revenge, envy, and jealousy that assault him every day.
A young man, we will see him regularly attending services and even frequenting the sacraments; but don’t we also see him going to taverns and gambling houses? That young woman will not fail to go to the Holy Table from time to time; but she also won’t miss the ballrooms and gatherings where a Christian should never enter.
Saint John Vianney has this to say, “Go on, poor hypocrite, go on, ghost of a Christian, a day will come when you see that you have only worked for your damnation.”
How many Christians are only religious out of inclination, whim, routine, and nothing more.
Our virtue must be humble, without looking at our own esteem
“If we want to be rewarded for them, we must hide as much as possible the good that God has put in us. To avoid the demon of pride snatching all the merit of our good works”
He speaks of many who are virtuous, but they constantly announce their deeds, saying, “I did this and I did that.” This is false virtue; true virtue involves doing the opposite. I am guilty of this; I used to fast every Wednesday and Friday, always inclined to appear a certain way so people would ask me, “What’s wrong?” and I could tell them that I was fasting. This isn’t correct. If we are going to do a good deed, let us do it only for the sake of pleasing God.
Let us remember the poor widow in Mark 6,, 41-44
“He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”
Perseverance in good
Finally, we must persevere in doing good. He speaks about people who claim they will never fall into the same sin again, but they repeatedly do. He attributes this to practicing a falsified religion, a routine religion regulated by inclinations but not rooted in the depth of the heart. He admonishes, “Go on, my friend, you are fickle. Go on, my brother, all your devotion is falsified; in everything you practice, you are a hypocrite and nothing more: the first place in your heart is not occupied by God, but by the world and the demon.”
It’s obvious that we may fall into the same sin more than once, but what the Saint is emphasizing is that many don’t truly try, they lack genuine perseverance. They come out of confession and then fall again into the same sins in less than a week. According to him, these are not true Christians; they lack love for God. Someone who truly loves God will confess their sin with the goal of never repeating it. “Better to die than to sin,” is what saints would say.
Conclusions
From this, we must conclude that our virtue, to be solid and pleasing to God, must be rooted in the heart, must seek only God, and hide its acts from the world as much as possible. We must be careful not to falter in God’s service; on the contrary, we must always move forward since through this means the Saints ensured their eternal salvation.
I hope this post showed you what true and false virtue is. I understand that Saint John Vianney’s words might be a bit challenging, but let us not forget that this is a saint who lived an extraordinary life, chosen by God.
