I see it time and again and it frustrates me. I have done it, often just in my thoughts, and I frustrate myself. As a convert and pilgrim striving to order myself and my family towards Christian perfection, I have felt its sting personally. How often do offenses against charity, as well meaning as they usually are, provide a convenient excuse to turn a struggling soul off the path? Yes, admonishing the sinner is a spiritual work of mercy; however, for one presuming to do the admonishing, they should ask themselves if it is done with the proper intention as St. James clearly indicates in his epistle:
"let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins." James 5:20
that is, a clear love and care for the soul. I would bet that more often than not, the intention of the admonisher is not so much to help the admonished, but rather to quell their own irritation or feelings at being scandalized in some way. I am not saying that there are never circumstances that call for fraternal correction :
"Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" Genesis 4:9
What I am saying is that in many cases it is imprudent because our own intention is not pure and we cannot seem to internalize that more souls are attracted by honey than by vinegar. We too frequently judge rashly against what we perceive as the intention of a person rather than the action itself. In many cases we simply do not know the myriad of circumstances in a person's life that are resulting in a particular behavior or action, from someone who is young in the Faith and still learning, to someone with problems at home, physical and emotional distress, financial distress, etc.
We must be so careful because we can do more harm than good, such as, God forbid, inspiring someone to walk right out the door and never return. That type of response to an imprudent admonition does happen, and woe to us if we have to answer for a lost soul at our own particular judgment.
Our first recourse before admonishing a brother ourselves should be to discuss the matter with a good priest. This should prevent any possible wrongheaded action that could push a soul away through the kind of rash judgment that Our Lord admonishes in the Gospel.
I recently found a beautiful little book from the early 1900s called
Eucharistic Devotions by a Father John Fitzpatrick. In it is a beautiful vignette entitled "Appearances". It is very appropriate to this topic:
APPEARANCES
What a sublime warning the Blessed Sacrament gives us not to judge by appearances! It is really, truly, and substantially Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine, and we should do Him grievous wrong, were we to judge Him to be what to our sight and other senses He seems to be. Often enough we see only the trivial accidents, and not the gist or substance, of our neighbour's conduct, and we cannot trully tell what may, possibly at last, if not probably, underlie his action. What Faith bids us to do in the case of the God-Man hidden in the Eucharist, Charity constrains us to do in the case of our fellowman. And this divine reminder is renewed upon our altars day by day as our daily need.
