Tenth Saturday After Pentecost

Adam Paige
Aug 22
4 min read

Tenth Saturday after Pentecost. Sixth Reason for Being Very Humble: We Esteem Ourselves and We Desire to Be Esteemed.

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

We will meditate to-morrow upon a sixth reason for being very humble, which is nothing more than our own pride, and we shall see what a subject of humiliation it is for us: 1st, to esteem ourselves so highly; 2d, to desire to be highly esteemed when we really merit nothing but an entirely contrary opinion. We will then make the resolution: 1st, often to address to God this aspiration: “Lord, have pity on me, for I am a proud man;” 2d, never to say or do anything from a motive of self-love. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the Psalmist: “It is good for me that Thou hast humbled me” (Ps. cxviii. 71).

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore Jesus Christ so deeply hidden in the Sacrament of the Altar in order to teach us to despise ourselves and not to wish to make a parade of ourselves; let us say to Him with Isaias: “Verily, Thou art a hidden God” (Is. xlv. 15). Let us admire Him in this state, and ask of Him a share in the grace of His hidden life.

We ought to be very Humble at our having so High an Opinion of Ourselves.

What a state of confusion we are in when we lie so boldly to our conscience, when the least want of vigilance, of combats, and of prayers puts us constantly in the wrong ! We do not know ourselves, and like him who fancies himself to be rich because he neglects looking into the embarrassed condition of his affairs, and imagines himself to be safe because he shuts his eyes to the danger, in health because he is not conscious of his malady, we fancy ourselves to be perfect because we do not perceive our defects. Everyone knows our weak point; we alone are not aware of it, whether it is that, seeing it too near at hand, the eye confounds itself with the object, or whether, looking far beyond ourselves, we escape from our own ken; whether it is, lastly, the excessive love we bear ourselves which prevents us from seeing ourselves such as we are. Even when, knowing ourselves better, we allow that what is good in us comes from God, we nevertheless enjoy it and we contemplate ourselves in our own merit, like a vain woman looking at herself in her mirror; we are pleased that we rather than another should be the person on whom heavenly gifts flow down; and without saying so to ourselves we appropriate to ourselves the most beautiful of these gifts. We recount to ourselves our acts of humility, of patience, of disinterestedness; we make use of them as of so many aids for enabling us to confide in ourselves and for rendering us a good testimony of our own righteousness. Lastly, we have a high opinion of ourselves because of our imagining that we have conquered self-esteem. After having raised ourselves above vulgar sentiments, we fall back upon ourselves, and we take pleasure in receiving from our own hands the incense we refuse from the hand of another, and to feed within ourselves upon a certain hidden and interior vainglory, which is all the more exquisite in that, putting everyone else under ourselves, we suffice for ourselves and have no need of any extraneous aid. What a heap of misery ! what a subject for confusion ! Here indeed is the poor proud man, whom the Lord detests (Ecclus. xxv. 3, 4).

We ought to be very Humble at Wishing to be so Highly Esteemed, when we Deserve it so Little.

Although our conscience tells us that we do not deserve esteem and praise, we desire to be esteemed and praised, and we seek to be in every kind of way. In our conversations we wish to be praised and approved, to say something which will make others esteem us; the least eulogium, the least mark of esteem goes to our heart and awakes in it a secret complaisance; whilst, on the other hand, nothing more than the mere semblance of con tempt, and the slightest want of consideration, is sufficient to overwhelm and irritate us. We are so tenacious of praise, that there is no man, however obscure he may be, whose praise is not agreeable to us and which does not excite in our heart a vain complaisance. We wish to be preferred to others, and we are averse to their superiority to such a degree that we can hardly bear to hear anyone praised without attempting to depreciate the praise by criticism of one kind or another. How calculated to put us to shame are such dispositions existing in a soul so miserable as ours ! What ! to be obliged to confess to our conscience that we deserve nothing but con tempt, and yet to wish, at no matter what price, to be honored, praised, and esteemed ! Is it not an unworthy pretension, shameful and very capable of covering us with confusion ?

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.

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