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Fourteenth Monday after Pentecost.
- caelidomum
- Sep 14
- 5 min read
Fourteenth Monday after Pentecost. Third Means for Becoming Humble.
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation.
Resuming our meditations upon humility, we will meditate to-morrow upon a new means for becoming humble, which St. Paul teaches us when he says: “You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Coloss. iii. 3), and we shall see that this hidden life: 1st, cuts down the root of the greater number of temptations against humility; 2d, renders humility easier. Our resolution shall be: 1st, never to say or do anything with a view to the esteem of creatures; 2d, to love modest and quiet positions, which will leave us less in sight and will make us to be less spoken of. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the Apostle to the faithful of his day: “You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Ibid.).
Meditation for the Morning.
Let us pour forth our hearts in admiration, love, and praise of the hidden life of Jesus Chr1st. The God of glory hides Himself under the veil of mortal nature; He hides Himself in the womb of a virgin, and His virginal conception itself remains hidden beneath the veil of marriage. When He appears upon the earth, the whole universe ignores Him; He grows up, and allows His divine knowledge to be ignored by all the people, until they say of Him: Where did He learn what He knows, seeing that He has never studied ? During thirty years He is hidden in the dwelling at Nazareth; during the three years of His mission He allows it to be said of Him: He is a deceiver, a lover of good cheer, a Samaritan; that is to say, a heretic, an impious man, possessed by the devil; and at the time of His passion He allows it to be said of Him: He is the least of men, a worm, a thief, an assassin; Barabbas is preferable to Him. Let us render our homage to Jesus Christ thus hidden to teach us to love a hidden life, as an element of Christian humility.
A Hidden Life in God with Jesus Christ Strikes at the Root oj the Majority of Temptations against Humility.
The first temptation against humility is to esteem ourselves and to desire to be esteemed. It is difficult not to yield to this temptation when we feel ourselves to be honored, esteemed, and praised by everyone. The odor of the incense burned in our honor turns our head, intoxicates us, and we finish by becoming proud beings. The hidden life, on the contrary, keeps away from us the honors, praises, and applauses which possess so great a power of seduction, and of which St. Francis de Sales said: " 1 cannot think of them without trembling; I have not a soul strong enough to resist them." It leaves man in the presence of God and of himself: in presence of God, who sees what we really are; and when beneath the eyes of such a judge, we are not tempted to esteem ourselves or to desire to be esteemed; and when in presence of ourselves, alone with our conscience, we see ourselves such as we are, we feel the falsity of all human opinions, we easily recognize that we are worth nothing and that we are not worthy of any esteem. The second temptation lies in what the world says to us, urging us to come out of our obscurity and to place ourselves in evidence: You are not made, it tells us, for this obscurity in which your life passes in so sad a manner, for this nullity to which you are reduced; you were born for something quite different, for a position equal, at any rate, to the one held by this person or that, who is certainly not worth more than you are. Why, then, bury yourself alive and conceal yourself? Be silent, deceiving world, he answers who has learnt to enjoy a hidden life; be silent; if I were to listen to you, you would make of me a man who indulges in pride here below and who would be lost hereafter. Oh, how much more I delight to hide myself here below that I may appear one day in glory ! In my modest life you cannot seduce me either by your words or your example. There I enjoy God alone, with His infinite amiabilities (Ps. xxx. 21). I will speak to Him and He will listen to me, a holy intercourse which will be for me as a beginning of Paradise (Job xxxi. 27). A third temptation lies in the speeches made to us by the devil. It is all very well for you to speak as you do, the enemy of our salvation objects in his turn, but all the same it is a good thing to force men to esteem and praise you, to occupy a position in which you will be looked up to, to exhibit in it all the riches of your nature and of your mind, to conquer envy or to condemn it to silence. It is still better, answers the man who leads a hidden life, to live ignored in God with Jesus Chr1st. It is much more safe, for if I sought to please men I should no longer be a Christian (Gal. i. 10); it is much more agreeable, for I am much more tranquil and quiet in it; it is much more noble, for I am able to raise myself therein above public opinion instead of being the slave of it; it is much more honorable in regard to God, for it is saying to Him that He only suffices us.
A Hidden Life in God with Jesus Christ Renders Humility Easy.
When we are hidden in God we only count that as real and worthy of attention which God knows of us and thinks of us: God, who not only sees what is exterior in actions, but who penetrates to the bottom of the heart; and by these means the soul is able to free itself fully from human opinion. As we are hidden with God in Jesus Christ, the soul remains in the society of His holy example, of His adorable maxims, of His humble heart; and in such society as this, in presence of the King of the humble, the friend of the humble, who could be otherwise than humble ? A day will come, the soul which understands this mystery says to itself, in which Jesus will appear in His glory, and then I shall appear with Him. But until then I ought to remain hidden with Him, as He was in His crib, as He was in His tomb. Therefore, no more praise, no more glory for me here below. I do not desire it. I desire to appear only with Him when He shall appear in glory; and meanwhile I will live hidden in God, in the bosom of eternal light. I will see it, I will admire it, I will delight in it, and enchanted with so beautiful and sweet a spectacle, I will no longer have any eyes for the vanities, the false honor and glory of the world.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
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