Psalm 141:3

When a person is advanced in years, you must not be too ready to believe evil of him; his past life is itself a defense, and so also is his rank as an elder. Still, since we are but human and sometimes in spite of the ripeness of our years fall into the sins of youth, if I do wrong and you wish to correct me, accuse me openly of my fault: do not backbite me secretly. “Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness, and let him reprove me; but let not the oil of the sinner enrich my head.” For what does the apostle say? “Whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.” By the mouth of Isaiah the Lord speaks thus: “O my people, they who call you happy cause you to err and destroy the way of your paths.” How do you help me by telling my misdeeds to others? You may, without my knowing of it, wound some one else by the narration of my sins or rather of those which you slanderously attribute to me; and while you are eager to spread the news in all quarters, you may pretend to confide in each individual as though you had spoken to no one else. Such a course has for its object not my correction but the indulgence of your own failing. The Lord commands that those who sin against us are to be arraigned privately or else in the presence of a witness and that if they refuse to hear reason the matter is to be laid before the church, and those who persist in their wickedness are to be regarded as heathens and publicans.

“Let not my heart incline to evil words, to make excuses in sins.” O unhappy race of human beings! We seek excuse for sin by saying, “Nature got the better of me,” and all the while it has been in our power to sin or not to sin. We are always justifying ourselves and saying, I did not want to sin, but lust overwhelmed me; that woman came to me; she made the advances; she touched me; she said this or that to me; she called me; and while we ought to be doing penance and crying, “Lord, I have sinned,” we excuse ourselves instead, and yoke sins to sin. We all have the same kind of body, but with our own particular difficulties. “God is not a respecter of persons.” Would you know that we have the same bodies as the saints? Paul the apostle says, “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me prisoner to the law of sin that is in my members”;23 and again, “But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps after preaching to others I myself should be rejected.” Later, he says, “Unhappy man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” We all have our own struggles, therefore, and it is in proportion to his struggles that each one receives his reward.

..."Set, O Lord, a watch before my mouth, and a door of restraint around my lips" [Psalm 141:3]. He said not a barrier of restraint, but "a door of restraint." A door is opened as well as shut. If then it be a "door," let it be both opened and shut; opened, to confession of sin; closed, to excusing sin. So will it be a "door of restraint," not of ruin. For what does this "door of restraint" profit us? What does Christ pray in the name of His Body? "That Thou turn not aside My heart to wicked words" [Psalm 141:4]. What is, "My heart"? The heart of My Church; the heart, that is, of My Body....

But of course it is also true that the confession of sins is equally salutary. That is why we heard in the psalm that was read first, “Set a guard, Lord, on my mouth, and a door of restraint around my lips, and do not incline my heart to words of malice, to excusing my sins with excuses.” He asks God to put a guard on his mouth. And he goes on to explain what it is a guard against. There are people, you see, and plenty of them, who as soon as they are blamed for anything rush to make excuses. Now to make excuses is to look for reasons and to adduce pretexts why a sin should not be regarded as belonging to you. One says, “The devil did it for me”; another says, “My luck did it for me”; another, “I was forced to it by fate”; no one blames himself.

Of course, what we have to set our minds on first and foremost is not to sin, in case we get on fairly familiar and friendly terms with sin, as a serpent. In fact, of course, it slays the sinner with its poisonous fangs and is not at all the sort of thing to make friends with. But if it should happen to catch you in its coils when you are weak, or creep up on you when you are getting careless, or grab you when you have lost your way or trick you into losing it again, then you must not let it irk you to confess and to accuse yourself instead of looking for excuses. That is what he prayed about in some psalm or other when he said, “Lord, set a guard on my mouth and a door of self-restraint around my lips, and do not turn aside my thoughts to ill-natured words, to excuse on excuse for sins.”

Unless one thinks that God requires only self-restraint in terms of the desires of the inferior parts of one’s flesh, the following is also sung in the psalm: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth and a door of continence round about my lips.” Now, in this testimony of divine eloquence if we understand “mouth” as we ought to understand it, the watch placed there is continence, inasmuch as we understand it as a gift of God. Surely, it is a slight matter to restrain the mouth of the body lest something that is not expedient come forth from it through the sound of the voice. Within is the mouth of the heart where he who said those words and directed us to say them desired that a guard and gate of continence be set for him by God. There are many things that we do not speak from the mouth of the body but shout from the heart. Yet, no word of any thing proceeds from the mouth of that body in whose heart there is silence. Thus, whatever does not emanate from there does not sound outside, but what does emanate from there, if it is evil—even though it does not move the tongue—defiles the soul. Continence, therefore, must be placed there where the conscience, even of those who are outwardly silent, speaks.And so that he might more clearly indicate the interior mouth that he signified by those words when he said, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and a door of continence round about my lips,” he immediately added, “Incline not my heart to evil words.” This inclination of the heart, what is it if not consent? For, he has not yet spoken who has not yet consented by an inclination of the heart to the onrushing suggestions in his heart of any act whatsoever. If, however, he consented, he has already spoken in his heart even though he has not made a sound with his mouth. Even though he has not done the deed with his hand or any other part of his body, he has committed it because he has determined in his mind to do it, and he is guilty of the act, by the laws of God even though it remains concealed from the sight of people—the word being spoken in the heart though no act be committed in the body.

But the blow inflicted by the tongue is incurable. The tongue strikes lightly, but it always stirs up deep sighs in the chest through the sorrow it causes. The prophet no doubt knew how great was the evil of the tongue when he cried out, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and a door about my lips, that my heart may not turn to evil words.” Therefore, if anyone is wise, let him set a guard before his mouth, and let him put the bond of silence on his lips.