There are people who could almost be regarded as functions of their faults. If you had to characterize them in one sentence, their faults would come to mind first of all. It is the way they present themselves. Then you are startled, realizing that you have failed to approach them in love. Usually where such obvious faults are concerned it is not at all a matter of grave sins. Thus, it is indeed possible to search for a different approach, to construct a different image of this person. And when you have found it, the fault becomes integrated and is no longer nearly as obtrusive as before.

The really frightening sins are usually recognized only slowly by natural sight. They can be revealed to someone suddenly, however, in a supernatural way. And that usually occurs so that you will try to help the person. Many Christians will say, “When I discover such a plank in my brother’s eye, I begin first of all with an examination of my own conscience. I try to purify myself, to sanctify myself.” Unfortunately, this does not occur to me. I am probably much too careless in this regard. Only when I discover a fault which I do not understand at all do I seek first of all to make it possible in myself, to put myself in the other’s place. Not, of course, in such a way that I gradually come to find pleasure in the sin. But I try to imagine the situation from within. Then it always becomes genuinely clear to me. And only then can I talk to the person concerned.

People often lie to you and then you feel a quite definite uneasiness with regard to these “colored” reports. But the extenuating circumstances I perceive are really much more extensive, as a rule, than those claimed by the people themselves, even if they originate somewhere else entirely than where these people suspect. In some cases, I “see through” completely right from the beginning. But then I often do not know whether this ability to see is founded on a knowledge acquired through experience or whether this perception became spontaneously clear to me like this even earlier.

It can happen that a fault is seen very accurately as a fault and simultaneously comprehended. I prefer to speak of comprehending rather than of excusing, for, after all, I am not a confessor who could remit sins. The lie retains its abominable character, but the liar does not become more alien to me because of his sin. Indeed, I see why he lied, how hard it would have been for him not to lie, how poorly armed he is for this fight for the truth. But I do not, for that reason, say that in his place I would have done it too. Perhaps this is due, once again, to my carelessness. I really project back to myself only if there is something I do not understand; otherwise I am out of the picture….

You reprimand the faults and make them clear to people. But at the same time, you love the people and press them to your heart.

From Hans urs Von Balthasar, First Glance at Adrienne von Speyr, trans. Antje Lawry & Sr. Sergia Englund, OCD (Ignatius Press, 1981, 2017), 154–157.