Tenth Friday After Pentecost

Adam Paige
Aug 21
4 min read

Tenth Friday after Pentecost. Fifth Reason for Being Very Humble: We Are Sinners.

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

We will meditate to-morrow upon a fifth reason for being very humble, which is that we are sinners: 1st, we have sinned; 2d, we are capable of sinning again. We will thence deduce the resolution: 1st, to elevate ourselves, by means of these considerations, to praise, admire, and love the goodness of God, who is willing to love such miserable creatures as we are: 2d, to confound ourselves and be humiliated by every temptation to pride which may present itself to us, because it ill becomes so miserable a being to have any esteem for itself. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the holy King David: “My sin is always before me” (Ps. I. 5).

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore Jesus Christ on the cross teaching us by all His ignominies and all His sufferings how constantly humble he ought to be who has had the unhappiness of sinning one single time. Our divine Saviour bore only the shadow and appearance of sin, for which He made Himself security and the victim; it is enough to cover Him with confusion (Ps. lxviii. 8), and to make Him in His own sight as it were an object of anathema and of malediction (Gal. iii. 13). O heavenly Father, what then ought we to think of ourselves ? If nothing more than the appearance only of sin rendered Thine own Son infamous and abominable in His own eyes, what ought we to feel, who in reality have sinned, have sinned so often, and are capable of sinning again ?

We ought to be very Humble because we have Sinned.

If we had only committed one single sin during the whole of our life, it would be enough to keep us forever in the lowest degree of humiliation. It would be better never to have been created than to make use of our creation in order to offend God. By sinning we abase ourselves beneath everything which is most miserable, even below the clay of the earth, which is superior to us in that it has the honor of never having offended God. What is a man who has committed but one single venial sin ? He is a being who has a bad heart, who has offended his benefactor and his father, who has wounded Him sometimes by actions, sometimes by words. Is there not matter herein to make us ashamed and humiliated ? But above all, what is a man who has committed a mortal sin? He is an exile from heaven, a creature condemned to eternal punishment, a rebel against his God, a traitor who has been faithless to his oaths, a deicide who has crucified Jesus Christ in his heart and trodden underfoot the blood of the Testament. O opprobrium ! O ignominy ! And what is it then if he has committed this great offence many times, if he has multiplied it like the hairs of his head ? No, we shall never be able to conceive the con tempt which such a man as this deserves. Do not let it be said that all this has been pardoned. First, no one can be sure that it has been (Eccles. ix. 21). We know quite well that we have deserved hell; we do not know, we shall never know in this life, whether we do not still deserve it. What matter for humiliation ! But even if we had had the revelation of our pardon made to us, we should even then be only as a creature who has escaped hell, like a brand torn from the burning, a criminal released from perpetual servitude, who had deserved to be always trod den under foot by demons, to be the object of their insults and of their deadliest contempt. Now when we have deserved to be thus treated, is it reasonable to be proud and haughty, not to be able to bear a slight humiliation ? Ought we not, on the contrary, to keep ourselves always in a state of the most profound humility and to be covered with confusion ?

We ought to be very Humble because we are still Capable of Sinning.

We are so wicked that we might say to God every morning like St. Philip Neri, and with far greater reason than he: “Lord, do not trust to me; for if Thou dost not take care, I shall betray Thee.” O profound wretchedness! we cannot answer for ourselves for one single moment (I. Cor. x. 12). There is not a moment in our life in which we might not commit a mortal sin, and not a mortal sin after which we might not die and be punished everlastingly. For that nothing more is needed than a proud thought, as is shown in the case of the rebel angels; a word of calumny, an impurity, according to St. Paul, a desire, a look, according to what Jesus Christ says; and who is there who has not cause to fear certain delicate occasions, certain unhappy moments, in which the heart is so weak and so forsaken that it hardly recognizes itself? Who has not cause to fear that pride is only made captive and not annihilated, that sensuality only slumbers and is not really extinguished ? Alas ! so many others have fallen who were worth more than we. And what is there that could reassure us ? Is it a certain kind of good that we have done? But even if, like the apostles, we had left all to follow Christ, if like them we had evangelized nations, and worked miracles, we have only to look into hell and we shall see that Judas did all that. Might it be graces received ? But the angels received more than we have; they were free from all kinds of passion and they did not persevere. Might it be a life exempt from great faults ? But in order to be damned it is not necessary to have committed great sins, it is enough not to have done the good we ought to have done, to have been a faithless servant, not to have put our talents to account. After that, who could have any pride, who would not despise himself down to the very lowest degree ?

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.

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