Eleventh Monday after Pentecost

Adam Paige
2 days ago
4 min read

Eleventh Monday after Pentecost. Seventh Reason for Being Very Humble: What Are We in Comparison with the Saints?

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

We will meditate to-morrow upon a seventh reason for being humble, which is often to ask ourselves, What am I in comparison with the saints? and in order to understand this reason we will consider: 1st, that to appreciate ourselves at our real value we must take, as points of com parison, the virtues of the saints; 2d, that this comparison is deeply humiliating for us. We will then make the resolution: 1st, often to ask ourselves, How would a saint perform this prayer, this action; how would he employ this present day ? 2d, to humble ourselves every day, saying, Oh, how far am I from being- what the saints were ! Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of David: “I will make myself meaner than I have done, and I will be little in my own eyes” (II. Kings vi. 22).

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore and bless God, the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who from all eternity has chosen us and called us to be saints (Eph. i. 3, 4). Let us thank Him for so beautiful and glorious a vocation, and let us ask of Him grace to fulfil it rightly.

In Order to Appreciate Ourselves at our Real Value, we must Take for Points of Comparison the Virtues of the Saints.

Baseness inspires us sometimes to make perfidious comparisons. It leads us to compare our life with the life of great sinners or of worldly persons who are only half Christians, and it tempts us to say, “I am not like this person or that; my life is not in the least degree scandalous; there are no great immoralities or notable disorders in it which are worthy of reproof.” At other times, by means of a still more dangerous piece of deceit, it makes us compare ourselves with certain pious and devout souls in which a malignant spirit finds some defects of character to be reprehended, certain susceptibilities springing from self-love or other imperfections from which we flatter ourselves that we are exempt. In consequence we imagine ourselves to be better than these pious souls, and we take pleasure in ourselves. What deplorable reasoning ! What matters to us, who desire to save ourselves, the conduct of those who do not care about compromising or risking their salvation ? If we are free from the defects which characterize certain pious persons, have we the virtues which compensate them ? Do we think that we shall be justified when we appear before the tribunal of the sovereign Judge, because we shall be able to say to Him: I do not commit the faults of such a one; I have not the defects of such or such a person ? If we aspire after paradise, we ought to know that paradise is reserved for the saints, only for the saints; and that whoever is not holy will not be able to enter therein. If, then, we desire to be saved, let us compare ourselves with the saints, and correct, in accordance with these beautiful examples of holiness, the too high opinion we entertain of ourselves. Is this what we do?

The Comparison between our Life and that of the Saints is deeply Humiliating for us.

Where indeed are to be found in us the virtues and the sentiments of the saints ? Where is the humility of a St. Dominic, who delighted in con tempt as being the most delicious thing in the world; who, when he was about to enter the gates of a town, fell on his knees, and with tears in his eyes besought Heaven not to make thunder and lightning fall upon the walls which were about to receive so great a sinner ? Where is the lively faith of a St. Gregory, which transported mountains ? Where is the spirit of prayer of a St. Antony, who, finding the long nights of winter too short, complained that the sun by its light distracted him in his holy intercourse with God? Where is the spirit of mortification of a St. Catherine of Siena, who wept over the necessity of granting some small solace to her body? Where is the passion of St. Teresa for the cross, that saint who could not bear to live without suffering ? Where is the love of St. Vincent Ferrer for Jesus crucified, the love which made him melt into tears on hearing three sentences read of the Passion? If such are the virtues of the saints, where are ours ? Let us make the comparison be fore God, who will judge us. St. Antony, after conversing one day with St. Paul the hermit, came back with his eyes cast on the ground, sobs in his heart, and confusion on his face, proclaiming that he did not deserve to be called a religious, and that he must change his life. What ought we then to do after- contemplating so many saints so extraordinarily raised by grace and so deeply abased by humility ? Let the sight at any rate make us recognize our poverty, humble and con found us, and make us begin a better life (Prayers of the Offertory).

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.

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