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Eleventh Tuesday after Pentecost
- caelidomum
- Aug 25
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 29
Eleventh Tuesday after Pentecost. Eighth Reason for Being Very Humble: God Hates Self-Esteem and the Desire to Be Esteemed.
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation.
We will meditate tomorrow upon an eighth reason for being humble; it is that self-esteem and the passionate desire to be esteemed, two vices which are precisely the opposite of humility, are supremely odious to God. After these two considerations we will make the resolution: 1st, often to humble ourselves before God on account of this depth of misery which exists in us; 2d, never to say things tending to make us esteemed, or to utter what is to our disadvantage in order to make others imagine that at any rate we are very humble. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of St. Paul: “No flesh should glory in His sight” (I. Cor. i. 29).
Meditation for the Morning.
Let us adore Our Lord Jesus Christ abasing Himself in the presence of God His Father to the level of the lowest amongst men (Is. liii. 3), even to the level of a worm of the earth (Ps. xxi. 7). It is thus that He teaches us not to esteem ourselves, and not to desire the esteem of others.
How Odious a Thing is Self-esteem in the Sight of God.
God hates self-esteem to such a degree that, seeing in His temple the publican laden with iniquities, but who is covered with confusion and humbles himself, and the Pharisee, who is an exact observer of the law, but who indulges in self-esteem and takes pleasure in his righteous ness, He pardons the first and condemns the second. It is to tell us that the self-righteous is farther from the kingdom of heaven than the sinner who humbles himself. Elsewhere He pronounces an anathema on the man who delights in his own wisdom (Is. v. 21); He curses him who confides in man (Jer. xvii. 5), that is to say, in himself, because he himself is only a man; and He declares by His saints that whoever is displeased with himself is pleasing to God, and that whoever is pleased with himself is displeasing to God (St. Bernard). This truth shines forth throughout the whole of the Scriptures. The king of Assyria held himself in high esteem because he had been the instrument of divine justice against Jerusalem. Thou dost take pride in thyself, said the Lord to him by His prophet. My hand shall crush thee and thy great army, that all ages may learn that I hate the ax which glorifies itself at the expense of him who hews with it, and the rod which raises itself against him who carries it (Is. x. 15). And it is remarkable that God has such a hatred of self-esteem as to have chosen for the performance of the greatest of His works the most incapable of men, so that human pride might never be able to attribute to itself the glory of them (I. Cor. i. 29). In order to convey His people out of Egypt, He made choice of Moses, who, during forty years, had known nothing be yond the desert and his flock; in order to over throw the innumerable army of Madian, He made use of only three hundred men; to throw Goliath to the ground, He chose only a shepherd and his sling; to deliver Bethulia, besieged by one hundred and forty thousand men, He made use of one simple woman; to convert the pagan world, He took twelve fishermen, who were unlearned, cowardly, and timid. O Lord, who, after having contemplated such examples, would dare to open his heart to self-esteem ?
How Odious to God is the Passionate Desire to be Esteemed.
Esteem and glory are things which belong exclusively to God (I. Tim. i. 17), and the poor and miserable creature who dares to pretend to them incurs His hatred, like the thief who attempts to steal the property of another. God created all things for His glory (Deut xxvi. 19). He created man's intelligence that it might praise Him, the heart of man that it might love Him, the world to proclaim His providence, the skies to declare His glory. To wish, then, to attract to ourselves esteem and praise is to profane vessels destined to contain nothing but the glory of God; it is to per vert the order and the plan of His providence; it is to frustrate the end which He proposed to Himself in giving a being to intelligent creatures. This is why God resolved to abase everything which exalts itself (Baruch v. 7); and this is why Jesus Christ said: “Woe to you when men shall bless you” if you take pleasure in what they say, and “blessed shall you be when men shall hate you” (Luke vi. 26, 22). “Take heed,” He continues, “that you do not your justice before men, to be seen by them” (Matt. vi. 1). When you give alms, try to ignore it yourself, and let God alone know it. When you fast or perform good works, take care that men do not perceive it, even if you were obliged — a strange precaution, the singularity of which shows us how much we ought to fear the esteem of men — even should it be necessary, in order to hide the thing from them, to “anoint your head and wash your face” (Matt. vi. 17). Could God tell us more plainly how He reproves those who prefer human glory to the glory of God ? (I. John xii. 43.)
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
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