Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [137]
Least of all should we suffer habit to make us obtuse in regard to sin. Repeated lapses into the same kind of sin may easily dishabituate us from a keen perception of the antithesis to value it embodies: we tend to consider the offense in question no longer as “so very bad,” and allow certain channels to form in our mental world through which we may all the more glibly slip into that sin.
We must fight this tendency with the utmost determination, particularly in the following way. We should never repress (that is, dismiss or crowd out from our memory) any wrong we have done, nor content ourselves with a mere passive guilty conscience, but work out an explicit and active repentance of any transgression we may have committed, disavowing our wrong expressly before God, and accusing ourselves in Confession; whereby the barrier that separates us from sin is restored, the trench we filled up when committing the first sin is dug out again, and the grooves of sin are prevented from forming.
Habit may lead us to consider blessings as if they were due to us
Finally, habit has also the bad effect of tempting us to regard the blessings of God as something self-evidently due to us, something to which we are strictly entitled as it were. Habit is apt to make us not only ungrateful but arrogant. The unmerited gifts that the “Father of all lights” bestows upon us we easily come to claim as our legitimate property so that, should any new benefits we covet be denied us, we shall be inclined to believe ourselves wronged. We shall deem our temporary separation from a beloved person, for instance, an intolerable hardship instead of considering what an immense gift the union of loving hearts represents in itself.
He who is truly free knows—with a living knowledge—that everything is an unmerited gift of the merciful goodness of God; that before him we are beggars devoid of any claim whatsoever.
From our very existence, our vocation, and our redemption, to every ray of the sun that enlivens us with its warmth and its luster, and to every drop of water that quenches our thirst—everything is a gratuitous gift of His inexhaustible goodness. All the truths we are blessed in knowing, all beauty we are allowed to enjoy; every moment of good health and every bit of nourishment we take—all these are undeserved benefits in no wise due to us. How often do we misuse the gifts of God; with how much ingratitude and indifference do we requite His blessings!
Yet, as soon as habit deludes us into misjudging our metaphysical situation, as soon as (under the influence of habit) our nature represents to us any possessions or privileges we enjoy as self-evident rights, we have to ipso renounced true freedom. For all subjection to illusions, and in particular, all misconceptions of our situation relative to God, necessarily imply a privation of freedom.
Inordinate shyness restricts freedom
Finally, we may set aside one more form of unfreedom: that which has its psychological source in shyness. This should not be confused with that virginal bashfulness which causes a person to recoil from any too spontaneous manifestation of his interior life, and frequently to blush whenever the attention of others is focused upon him. The desire to hide, in the sense of shunning publicity, is in itself a fine and praiseworthy trait. But this desire of remaining unnoticed may reach a point where it becomes an obstacle to freedom, inasmuch as it constrains us to remain in our retirement even in situations that require us to intervene openly and to profess publicly our conviction.
He who is truly free will be happy if he can escape notoriety, but will also be ready to face the light of publicity whether restricted or wide, by expressing his opinion and making valid his standpoint in words or deeds as soon as the call of God demands it.
A certain type of person, however, is forcibly hindered from doing so by his inveterate shyness. People of this kind cannot manage