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Eleventh Wednesday after Pentecost
- caelidomum
- Aug 26
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 29
Eleventh Wednesday after Pentecost. Ninth Reason for Being Very Humble: God Loves the Humble.
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation.
We will meditate to-morrow on a ninth reason for being humble; it is the love which God has for humble souls, 1st, we will establish the fact of this love; 2d, we will study the marvellous effects of it. We will then make the resolution: 1st, not to make excuses when we are reproved and when nothing obliges us to justify ourselves; 2d, willingly to consent to be thought an awkward person, having no intelligence, or judgment, or memory. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the Psalmist: God looks down complaisantly upon the humble (Ps. cxii, 5, 6).
Meditation for the Morning.
Let us adore the complaisance which the Holy Trinity takes in the humiliations of the Incarnate Word. His Divine Son humbles Himself in the crib, and God shows how pleasing this humiliation is to Him by sending His angels to announce His birth to the shepherds, and by the heavenly star which led the kings to adore Him. He humbles Himself on the borders of the Jordan by receiving baptism from John, confounded with sinners; and the adorable Trinity declares from the height of heaven that it finds in Him its complaisance. He humbles Himself upon the cross, and it reveals His greatness by the sun which is darkened, the earth which trembles, the rocks which are rent, the dead who rise. Let us thank God for the great lessons enclosed in these prodigies.
The Love of God for Humble Souls.
“To whom shall I have respect,” says the Lord in Isaias, “but to him that is poor and little, and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My words ?" (Is. lxvi. 2.) Who is he that glorifies Thee, and consequently pleases Thee, O Lord, says Baruch, if it be not he who humbles himself for the evil he has done, and blushes for it, and dare not even raise his head or his eyes ? (Bar. ii. 18.) God always looks with complaisance upon the humble heart: “A contrite and humble heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Ps. l. 19). “In a contrite heart and humble spirit, O Lord” says Daniel, “let us be accepted” (Dan. iii. 39). My kingdom, says Jesus Christ, is for those who are humble like little children: “Amen I say to you, unless you become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt, xviii. 3). And St. Peter teaches us that God gives to the humble His grace and His love (I. Pet. v. 5); St. Paul assures us that He draws near to them and con soles them (II. Cor. vii. 6), that His predilection is for souls which are nothing in their own eyes, and that it is those whom He chooses for His great works (I. Cor. i. 27, 28). The reason of this great love of God for the humble is that He loves the truth (Ps. 1. 8), and that the humble soul has the true feeling of what it really is, of its poverty and its misery; whilst the soul which is under the empire of self-love has a false idea of its own merit; it exists in an atmosphere of false hood, esteeming itself and desiring to be esteemed. The soul which loves truth even when it humbles it is so pleasing to God that He places in it all His delights; He pours forth His whole heart and all His love into it. Who then would not desire to be very humble, since it is a means for gaining the heart of God and for being loved by Him ?
The Marvellous Effects of the Love of God for Humble Souls.
The author of the Imitation thus recounts the tenderness of the divine love for the humble soul. When God, he says, sees it in trouble He consoles it (II. Imit. ii. 2); when He finds it sunk in the feeling of its own nothingness He draws near to it (Ibid.) and gives it a great abundance of graces (Ibid.); and in proportion as it humbles itself He raises it to glory (Ibid.); He reveals to it His secrets, and draws it sweetly to Himself (Ibid.). The lower it descends into the abyss of its miseries, the more God raises it in grace here below and in glory in heaven (Luke i. 52). When it has something to ask of Him, its prayer is always well received (Ecclus. xxxv. 21). Even when it does not know how to speak to God and feels itself incapable of praying, humility supplies all that is wanting and stands in place of it. God beholds it and sees that it is filled with low and humble sentiments in presence of His greatness and His infinite holiness; He sees that it is ashamed and confounded at its own coldness and its insensibilities, its distractions, and its aridities, and He is content; He looks upon its prayer as being perfect (Jud. ix. 16). The publican cannot say anything else save the humble words: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke xviii. 13); and these words are worth everything to him: they are worth his justification. If the humble soul be assailed by a thousand temptations, and afflicted by falls, and if, instead of giving way to being vexed by self-love, it humbles itself peacefully and asks forgiveness like the publican, it issues victoriously from its temptations and corrects itself of its backslidings. Lastly, the humble soul is an elect deposit of grace and predilection, because in its fidelity it leaves to God all the glory and attributes none of it to itself. Mary was chosen from among all other creatures to be the mother of God only because she was the most humble (Luke i. 48), and St. Teresa was elevated to such lofty contemplations only on account of her humility. “When I was,” she says, “confounded in the presence of God to such an extent as to present myself at the foot of His throne like a little worm crawling in the dust, it was then that He seized me and united me to Himself.” What a lesson for us! What an encouragement to be very humble in the presence of God!
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
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