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Eleventh Friday after Pentecost
- caelidomum
- Aug 28
- 4 min read
Eleventh Friday after Pentecost. Eleventh Reason for Being Very Humble: Humility the Foundation and Guardian of the Virtues.
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
We will meditate to-morrow upon an eleventh reason for being very humble; it is that humility is the foundation and the guardian of all virtue. We will thence deduce the resolution: 1st, to watch over ourselves carefully in order to shut the door of our heart to all kinds of self-love, and constantly to maintain an attitude of humility; 2d, to oppose to the temptations of self-love these acts of humility, or others similar to them: My God, take pity on me, for I am proud; To Thee be glory, to me shame and confusion. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of St. Bernard, which will also be the subject of our meditation: “Humility is the foundation and guardian of the virtues.”
Meditation for the Morning.
Let us adore Our Lord, who, beholding the great love which His Father entertained for humility, came and humbled Himself in this lower world, making Himself therein a man like us, hiding His divine nature, veiling all His perfections, and subjecting Himself to all our infirmities. Let us offer our homage to Our Saviour thus humiliated in order to give glory to God, and to us an example of which our pride was sorely in need.
Humility is the Foundation of all Virtue.
If you asked me, says St. Augustine, What is the most fundamental thing in religion ? I should answer: It is humility. What is the second? what is the third ? I should still reply: It is humility. Humility is the first condition for doing all things well, for praying, for communicating, for having intercourse with our neighbor, for conquering temptations, for triumphing over our passions. Self-love can produce nothing but sin, or the false virtues, void of all merit, of the pagan philosophers, because it is only a miser able egotism which acts for itself alone, and which God cannot consequently recompense; it is a vicious inclination, which makes us live and act without having faith or grace, and solely from natural motives. Humility, on the contrary, the true seat of grace, the seed of glory, the characteristic of the elect, makes us live a supernatural life, and all the virtues repose upon it, as upon their foundation, 1st. Faith. The humble soul easily believes, because it mistrusts its own intelligence, because it finds its happiness, on the one hand, in abasing the presumption of its thoughts before the infinite knowledge of God; and on the other side, in enlarging its short-sightedness by everything that the divine light wills to reveal to it. 2d. Hope. The soul which is devoid oi humility counts upon itself and never thinks of confiding in God. The humble soul, on the contrary, is happy to hope, because, not confiding in itself, it is glad to be able to throw itself upon God, who never forsakes those who trust in Him. 3d. Charity. The humble soul loves God with all its heart, because the more miserable it sees itself to be, the more rejoiced it is to behold that the divine mercy is greater still than all its miseries; the smaller it sees itself to be, the more inclined it is to love the eternal greatness which abased itself to such profound littleness; the more un worthy it feels itself to be loved by so holy a God, the more it loves Him and attaches itself to Him. The humble soul is not less disposed to be charitable towards its neighbor to the extent of suffering everything from him without making him suffer aught, because it believes him to be much above itself. 4th. Conformity to the will of God, which is the sum total of all virtue. The humble soul is resigned and courageous beneath the weight of all trials, because it says to itself: I have deserved far worse for my sins; what is all that I suffer compared to hell, where I deserve to burn eternally? So true it is that humility is the foundation of all virtue. Have we hitherto rightly understood it ?
Humility is the Guardian of all the Virtues.
Humility is to virtue and to merit what the source is to the brook, the root to the tree, the foundation to the building. In vain we may have practised many virtues and acquired merits; if humility does not protect and cover them, if self-love or a complaisant glance cast upon ourselves intervenes, all merit disappears, our virtues become vices, our acts fruits of death, worthy of reprobation. In the same way that the brook separated from the fountainhead ceases to flow, that separated from its root the tree does not bear either blossom or fruit, that separated from its foundation the building falls down, so, separated from humility, all virtue vanishes, all merit de parts. Self-love feeds upon it, and nothing is left for heaven. Is not this very sad? We have labored much, we have performed actions very holy in themselves, we had wherewith to obtain a beautiful place in paradise, and behold, it is all reduced to dust which is carried away by the wind: the breath of vanity has dissipated it all. Whence we ought to conclude that the more good works we perform, the more deeply humble ought we to be, lest pride and vanity, greedy of feasting upon praise, take from us the whole merit of what we have done. O humility, guardian of all virtue and of all merit, how worthy art thou of all our esteem and of all our efforts!
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
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