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Thirteenth Thursday after Pentecost
- caelidomum
- Sep 10
- 5 min read
Thirteenth Thursday after Pentecost. Twenty-first Reason for Being Very Humble: Self-love is Folly.
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation.
We will meditate to-morrow upon a twenty-first reason for being very humble; it is: 1st, that self-love is a folly: 2d, that self-love makes us lose our senses in regard to our conduct. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to put away from us, at the very moment that we perceive it, all complaisance about ourselves and all desire to be esteemed; 2d, never to say anything which shall be to our own advantage, and cheerfully to accept all the humiliations we may meet with. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of Scripture: “Where humility is, there also is wisdom” (Prov. xi. 2).
Meditation for the Morning.
Let us adore Jesus Christ hiding Himself in the Eucharist with all His divine grandeurs, in order to teach us to have the good sense not to make ourselves slaves to the opinion of others, or worshippers of reputation, and to content ourselves with the esteem of God alone, who will not allow to pass without recompense anything we do for Him in secret (Matt. vi. 4, 6, 18). Let us render to Him our homage of admiration, of praise, and of love for so precious a lesson.
Self-love is a Folly.
Where is the man who does not sometimes surprise himself indulging real follies of self-love in his mind and his imagination ? Where is the man who would not blush if all the world should know the chimerical projects, the ridiculous reveries, the absurd suppositions, which self-love puts into his head — a true phantasmagoria which would make any one laugh who knew of it? Who, when rendering justice to himself, has not cried out: What a fool I am to indulge in such thoughts ! Sad folly of humanity, indeed, which inspired St. Vincent de Paul to utter these humble words: “I am the most ridiculous and the most foolish of men.” Have we not more reason than this holy priest had to apply these words to ourselves ? Have we not indulged in the folly of believing ourselves to be capable of all kinds of positions, always wishing to raise ourselves higher and higher, without ever saying: It is enough; the folly of desiring to be preferred to every one else, looking upon ourselves as being more clever, more intelligent and able to do better than they; the folly of always clinging to our own ideas, without taking counsel of others who are wiser than we are; the folly of desiring to be esteemed by every one, never being able to bear a want of consideration, a criticism, a reproof, and not yet being able to understand that it is not possible to please every one, that society is so formed that every one studies the weak side of his neighbor that he may cast against it the arrows of his satire; that even when there is nothing wrong to be reprehended, intentions are interpreted, reservations supposed, in such a manner that no one ever has been or ever will be safe from criticism ? Do we not indulge in the folly of preoccupying ourselves to excess with human judgment, with the opinion of our fellows, that miserable quality in which there is nothing constant save its inconstancy, nothing established except its caprice, which so often exalts the contemptible man and depreciates him who is the most honorable ? Do we not aim at reputation, which is a thing so idle, which serves here below only to fill us with pride if it is our portion, to trouble us and render us unhappy if it be against us, and which will be of no service to us in the future life unless the esteem of God accompany it ? For what will it serve us to have been praised upon earth if we are tormented there where we shall be ? (St. Augustine.) Do we not, lastly, indulge in the folly of begging right and left for the esteem of men, even that of persons for whom we have not the least respect, to feed upon and delightedly enjoy the smallest mark of consideration we receive from them, a word, a procedure, a look, a nothing, provided we can conclude from them that we are thought well of, and that when opportunity arises such persons will speak of us to our advantage? Peter de Blois justly compares those men who are ambitious of reputation, who spend the whole of their existence in the pursuit of a thing so vain, to the spider, which exhausts and spends itself to catch nothing more than a fly in its web. Let us be confounded in the presence of God at these follies of self-love, the principle of the insanity of unfortunate beings who have lost their reason, and who, nearly all of them, imagine themselves to be kings or great nobles; and let us feel that it is supreme wisdom to content ourselves with the esteem of God alone: the only solid esteem, the only esteem which is of use in regard both to time and eternity, the only esteem we are sure of having when we will.
Self-love often Robs us of Good Sense in our Conduct.
The man whom self-love dominates says to himself as the men of Babel did: “Let us make our name famous” (Gen. xi. 4). At these words he loses his senses, he casts himself blindly into rash enterprises, without mistrusting his own intelligence, without taking counsel; he comes in contact with obstacles and they bruise him. Even when he feels he has deceived himself, he will not allow it, and making it a false point of honor not to go back, he goes deeper into the bad undertaking in which he is engaged, without any fear of compromising his fortune and that of the simple souls who had trusted in him, and his honor, and sometimes even the honor of religion, so true are the maxims of the Holy Ghost: “Where pride is, there also shall be reproach” (Prov. xi. 2). “Hast thou seen a man wise in conceit ? There shall be more hope of a fool than of him” (Ibid. xxvi. 12); and those other words: “Where humility is, there also is wisdom” (Ibid, xi. 2). It is the same thing as saying that humility is the counsellor of good sense, that the humble man is full of good sense, that he reflects before acting, that he mistrusts himself; he takes counsel, he does not undertake more than he can do, he keeps from adventurous enterprises and has nothing to do with what he is not sure of. Let us examine if it be thus that we act.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
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