To interpret this natural sense of security, this rugged trust we place in our own nature, as confidence in God is a most deplorable error; for it cannot but taint our relation to God with a note of presumptuous platitude. “The good Lord will arrange everything somehow”—such people are wont to say. They are never roused into a full awareness of man’s metaphysical situation; their vital buoyancy prompts them to skip, as it were, that all-important stage in the soul’s way to God—contrition. They spare themselves the fear of God, which is “the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. 110:10); they forget “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” (Heb. 10:31). This pitfall of a comfortable smugness masquerading as religiosity we must studiously avoid; in full awareness of the gravity of our metaphysical situation, in penitent humility we must lift our eyes to God, and in constant effort work for our sanctification. At the same time, we must bear in mind that it is not on the basis of our nature but through Christ and in Christ alone that a real victory over our sinfulness can be obtained. Our life must be integrally reposed on our faith in the new supernatural principle we have received in holy Baptism, according to the words of St. Paul: “For when I am weak, then am I powerful” (2 Cor. 12:10).

We must establish the center of our own personality in God alone

Again and again we may observe ourselves relying and depending on our nature—now in the sense of minimizing our defects in the spirit of a natural optimism, now in that we are moved to helpless despair when our infirmities reveal themselves—a sure indication that we have not yet acquired true confidence in God, that we have not yet transported the center of our personality into the supernatural and are still clinging, as it were, to our native selfhood. Otherwise, in spite of (and linked to) our repentance of our lapses; in spite of the pain due to our awareness of being still so far removed from God, we should be filled with joy because we have come to know ourselves better and gotten rid of our illusions about our character.

For, as we have seen it earlier, the very fact of our being more deeply pervaded by the light of truth renders us more closely attached to God. Do we not know, after all, that we must expect nothing from our nature? How can we thus feel deceived and thrown off our balance, whenever we meet with a tangible sign of our imperfection? Ought we not, rather, to count with it beforehand and to be happy and grateful if we can at least detect its concrete manifestations, so as to make sure in what respects we must try to amend with God’s help?

Contrition is compatible with confidence in God