{"id":27274,"date":"2026-04-28T10:44:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/?p=27274"},"modified":"2026-04-28T21:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T20:36:20","slug":"saint-joseph-and-avoiding-rash-judgement-lxx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2026\/04\/saint-joseph-and-avoiding-rash-judgement-lxx\/","title":{"rendered":"Saint Joseph and Avoiding Rash Judgement (LXX)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 70: That no one presume to strike another<\/h2>\n

CHAPTER LXX. That no one presume to strike another<\/strong>
\n28 Apr. 28 Aug. 28 Dec.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let every occasion of presumption be banished from the Monastery. We ordain, therefore, that no one be allowed to excommunicate or strike any of his brethren, unless authority to do so shall have been given him by the Abbot. Let such as offend herein be rebuked in the presence of all, that the rest may be struck with fear. With regard to the children, however, let them be kept by all under diligent and watchful discipline, until their fifteenth year: yet this, too, with measure and discretion. For if any one presume, without leave of the Abbot, to chastise such as are above that age, or shew undue severity even to the children, he shall be subjected to the discipline of the Rule, because it is written: \u201cWhat thou wouldst not have done to thyself, do not thou to another.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yesterday\u2019s chapter taught us that there can be no true charity if relationships are not in accord with obedience to legitimate authority. Today\u2019s chapter teaches us the same thing about justice. Once again the key word is \u2018presume\u2019,\u00a0prae-sumere<\/em>, which literally means \u2018to take in advance\u2019. The man who \u2018presumes\u2019 takes something to himself before it has been given to him: in this case, the right to punish others.<\/p>\n

While few of us, perhaps, would be likely to strike our brothers, or to claim to issue a sentence of excommunication, the chapter\u2019s implications go far beyond such gross violations. There is an excommunication which we can carry out in our heart, which is even more dangerous. After all, excommunication is only imposed for a fault which can be objectively verified, and the penalty lapses when the guilty one has made satisfaction. But the interior excommunication that can happen when we rashly judge our brothers, when we decide that they are our enemies and assign a label to them, when we form habitual prejudices about their words and actions which make it impossible for us to take them seriously as persons\u2014this can go on in our hearts with impunity for years on end.<\/p>\n

Against all this, Our Lord tells us, \u2018Judge not, that ye be not judged.\u2019 These words have always been a challenge for our fallen world. However, the advent of modern journalism, and even more of social media, has made rash judgment and its sister vices of detraction and calumny into a way of life for much of society. The divisions provoked in the Church by the crises of the past century have made these sins against justice a rather typical part of the Church\u2019s life as well. Yet the Church\u2019s tradition teaches quite strongly that the virtue of justice\u2014the virtue that enacts jus<\/em> or right, that gives to each person what is due to him\u2014not only includes the just distribution of material goods, but also other natural rights that our neighbour has: the right to his good name, the right to keep secret that which would cause harm and offense. To take away these things from our neighbour in a serious matter, if not demanded by a proportionately serious reason, is a grave act of injustice, and this includes depriving him in our hearts of the esteem due to him as an image of God by making rash judgments.<\/p>\n

If all men are called to practice justice by avoiding rash judgment and its related sins, all the more so is this incumbent on religious. We see in the lives of the Saints how they will at times go to what may seem absurd lengths to avoid passing judgment on their brethren, even on their enemies. We may remember the story of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who reportedly said that he would rather believe that a cow was flying around the moon than believe that one of his brethren was lying. But we have an even clearer example in Saint Joseph, whose presence dominates this week. Surely he would have seemed justified in accepting the obvious explanation for Our Lady\u2019s pregnancy. Yet Saint Bernard (Homily 2 super Missus est<\/em>), following many of the Fathers, tells us that he believed all along in Our Lady\u2019s innocence. This must have put him in a difficult position indeed: who else would believe such a thing? He resolved on doing the only thing that seemed just to do: to try to let the matter pass as quietly as possible, since anything he could say would only provoke further scandal and unbelief. Even after he is given the instructions to take Mary into his home, he remains silent, not saying a single word recorded in the Gospels.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In all this, Saint Joseph shows us the deepest meaning of today\u2019s chapter: that the truly just man is profoundly humble in his judgments and sparing in his words, that he is willing to leave judgment to God and, by extension, to God\u2019s representatives in the human community. May he help us all to observe the Golden Rule given at the end of today\u2019s chapter, \u2018What thou wouldst not have done to thyself, do not thou to another\u2019, which for all its simplicity contains implicitly all the demands of justice and of the charity which is built upon it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter 70: That no one presume to strike another CHAPTER LXX. That no one presume to strike another 28 Apr. 28 Aug. 28 Dec. Let every occasion of presumption be banished from the Monastery. We ordain, therefore, that no one be allowed to excommunicate or strike any of his brethren, unless authority to do so <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":12763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[498,73,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-rule-2026","category-rule-of-saint-benedict","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vultuschristi.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Torres_Clemente_de-ZZZ-St_Joseph_with_the_Infant_Christ-e1456817092686.jpg?fit=500%2C636&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-75U","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27274"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27274"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27282,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27274\/revisions\/27282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}