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Thirteenth Tuesday after Pentecost.
- caelidomum
- Sep 8
- 4 min read
Thirteenth Tuesday after Pentecost. Nineteenth Reason for Being Very Humble. Self-love Deceives Us in Regard to What We Are and to What Our Neighbor Is
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation.
We will meditate to-morrow upon a nineteenth reason for being very humble; it is that self-love is a deceiver which: 1st, hides from us what we are; 2d, hides from us what our neighbor is. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to be on our guard against the deceptions of self-love, and no longer to look upon them as being realities; 2d, never to say or do anything which shall be to the advantage of self-love. Our spiritual nose gay shall be the maxim of the Imitation: “He who knows himself well is vile in his own eyes, and takes no pleasure in the praises of men” (I. Imit. ii. 1).
Meditation for the Morning.
Let us adore Our Lord Jesus Christ taking, as His share, when He was on earth, an obscure and hidden life, to teach us not to listen to the inspirations of self-love, which push us on to make an appearance in the eyes of others. In vain His relatives say to Him: “Manifest Thy self to the world” (John vii. 4). He does not listen to these counsels of flesh and blood, which seek the glory of men rather than the glory of God (John xii. 43). Let us thank Him for this example and ask of Him grace to profit by it.
Self-love Hides from us what we are.
It is remarkable to see how self-love deceives us. All the reasons for rendering us contemptible are not sufficient to make us humble, whilst the least advantage which we imagine we possess fills us with vanity. How is that? 1st. It is because we are determined at all costs to have a good opinion of ourselves; we shut our eyes to our miseries, in order that we may see only our good side. We look at ourselves from this point of view with complaisance, we entertain ourselves with it, we entertain others with it; speaking only of ourselves, approving only what we ourselves do, forgetting nothing which is calculated to make others praise us, and taking all the praises we receive as being incontestable truths, all the consideration of which we are the object as debts which are paid for us. 2d. We appropriate to ourselves the small amount of good which God has placed within us, saying: This is your good, your virtue, your merit Then we increase and exaggerate it; he who is poor in virtue and in talents looks upon himself as being rich both in the one and the other; he who has only mediocre talents believes that he has remark able talents; and he who has only the appearance of virtue imagines himself to be solidly virtuous. Willingly we constitute ourselves to be innovators, critics, and censors, because we believe ourselves to be more clever than others. Not content with appropriating and exaggerating what is good in us, we dissimulate what is evil to such a point that that which strikes all eyes escapes us, and is for us as the words of a closed and sealed book; or if we cannot hide it, we lessen it, or we clothe it in seductive colors which almost cause it to be loved; we excuse it by human frailty; lastly, we cover it with the good we do, in order to make it forgotten. In this way we reach the point at which we do not know ourselves, and the mind, being duped by the heart, deceives us. Such or such a man believes himself to be humble, patient, detached, and when an opportunity arrives he shows himself to be proud, impatient, filled with attachments. Another man trusts in his virtue, and the most serious kinds of falls are a consequence of the ignorance in which he lives.
Self-love Hides from us what our Neighbor is.
By means of tactics which are opposed to those which have to do with ourselves, self-love increases the evil to be found in others and hides the good which exists. He who does not see the beam in his own eye discerns the smallest straw in the eye of his neighbor, and observes the least defects in others. A manner of speaking or acting, now too simple and now too artificial; the tone, the air, the behavior, nothing escapes him, and, flattering himself to be exempt from the faults which he censures, he arrogates to himself a superiority over them and delights in it. Hence the inclination to criticism and raillery; hence the readiness to believe what is evil, the slowness to believe what is good, the suspicions which are caused by the slightest indications of a defect, and the difficulty of believing in a virtue supported by the strongest proofs. It gives us pain to listen to eulogiums upon others, and we take a malignant pleasure in lowering those who are raised. It is only with difficulty we see their merit; we try not to see it and we lessen it as much as we can. All praise is met by criticism; beside the merits which cannot be denied a defect is placed. It is thus that self-love hides from us what our neighbor is. Let us observe this injustice, that we may preserve ourselves from it.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
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