Tenth Thursday After Pentecost

Adam Paige
Aug 20
4 min read

Tenth Thursday after Pentecost. Fourth Reason for Being Very Humble: We Are Worth Nothing.

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

We will meditate to-morrow upon the fourth reason for being very humble, which is that we are worth nothing, and that: 1st, because we are made up of nothing but miseries and subjects for humiliation; 2d, because what remains in us beyond these miseries is worth nothing. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to reject from the very first moment all idea of esteeming ourselves because of the graces God bestows upon us; 2d, to feel that when but little esteem is shown us it is because there is reason in it, and when we are praised a mistake has been made. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the subject of our meditation: “We are worth nothing.”

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore Jesus Christ not being able to endure that it should be said of Him that He is good (Mark x. 18). All that is in Him, down to the slightest thought, the least action, is of infinite value, and yet He wills to be treated throughout His whole life as though He were worth nothing. He wills to be despised in His words, in His works, in all that He is, as though it were all worth nothing. He wills to suffer the blackest calumnies, the most unworthy treatment, both in His mortal and His Eucharistic life. Let us adore, admire, thank, and imitate Him.

We are Made up of Nothing but Miseries and Subjects of Humiliation.

What is there, in fact, in us which is worth anything, or because of which we can esteem and glorify ourselves ? Is it our body ? God took it, as regards its beginning, out of the earth. In respect to its actual existence, it is a vessel of un- cleanliness, a sink of corruption, hidden beneath a more or less agreeable coat of varnish. As to its future destiny, it will be the food of worms, a mass of decomposition, which men will hasten to bury beneath the ground, that they may not be poisoned by it. Is it our intellectual faculties in which we can glory ? Alas ! as regards our understanding, how limited it is, what darkness and obscurity there is in it; in our judgments, what temerity and precipitation, what errors and uncertainties; in our imagination, what extravagances, what ridiculous and absurd images; in our knowledge, what defects and ignorance ! The more we know, the more clearly we see that we know nothing; and the knowledge of the philosopher who is sufficiently instructed to be able to measure the field of science, reveals to him his profound ignorance with respect to a thousand more objects than there are stars in the heavens or grains of dust on the earth. Is it the qualities of our heart respecting which we may glorify ourselves ? Alas ! all the vices exist there as seeds, and there is not a single vice committed by a man of which another man would not be capable if God did not hold him back. All the passions have their root therein; it is like an infected pit, whence exhale a thousand malignant vapors of vanity and pride, of sensuality and impurity, of impatience and a disordered will, of the love of pleasure and of riches. Is it our good actions and our virtues of which we have a high opinion? Alas ! where is the good work in which something evil is not mingled — sometimes self-love and vain com plaisance, sometimes negligence and tepidity ? Is there in us a single virtue such as that possessed by the saints ? Have we their humility, their mortification ? And what is our whole life except inconstancy in our resolutions, weakness in our temptations, indiscretion in our words, susceptibility in our self-love, distractions and coldness in our prayers ? Is it, lastly, the graces which we have received of which we may be vain ? But it is that, on the contrary, which ought to put me most to shame. So many graces ought to have made of me a great saint, and I am still miser able and a sinner, still as imperfect, as negligent, as tepid as ever in the service of God. O Lord, the abyss of my miseries cries out towards Thee, the depth of my nothingness raises its hands to wards Thy mercy (Hab. iii. 10).

All which Remains in us, beyond our Miseries, is also Worth Nothing.

Everything is worth only according to what it is, and according to what it has or what it can do. Now, it is a truth which has been made clear by our preceding meditations, that we are nothing, that we have nothing, that we can do nothing; therefore we are worth nothing. Moreover, on account of the way in which we have abused our being and the gifts of God, we have deserved to be deprived of all being and to return to nothing ness. We have become like the salt which, having lost its savor, is fit only to be thrown into the dirt, and to be trodden down under the feet of the contempt of men. Let us be ashamed, then, that, being worth nothing, we have nevertheless es teemed ourselves so greatly; let us ask God to pardon us for the past, and beg of Him grace to be content, for the future, that we should be despised and looked upon as worth nothing.

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.

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