_edited.png){kind=logo}
Twelfth Wednesday after Pentecost
- caelidomum
- Sep 2
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 6
Twelfth Wednesday after Pentecost. Fifteenth Reason for Being Very Humble: The Vanity of the Esteem of Men.
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation.
We will meditate to-morrow upon a fifteenth reason for being humble; it is that not to be humble is to run after the vainest thing there is in the world, which is the esteem of men; and in order that we may be deeply imbued with this thought, we shall see how vain this esteem is: 1st, in its principles; 2d, in its effects. We will thence deduce the resolution: 1st, to have God alone in sight in all our actions, and to put away from us with supreme contempt any thought of vanity which may mingle with our intentions; 2d, not to attach any importance to the praises or testimonies of esteem which may be addressed to us. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the Psalmist: “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men, that they are vain” (Ps. xciii. 11).
Meditation for the Morning.
Let us adore Our Lord Jesus Christ recommending us never in our actions to aim at gaining the esteem of men, but to think only of pleasing God (Matt. vi. 1). Let us thank Him for so useful a lesson, and beg of Him to enable us thoroughly to understand all the vanity of the esteem of men.
How Vain in its Principles is the Esteem of Men.
When we are praised, or when marks of esteem are bestowed upon us, self-love is very ready to tell us that it is a homage rendered to our merit, a debt which is paid to us; but in reality nothing is more false. Sometimes on the part of our flatterers it means nothing more than mere civility, the fear of wounding our susceptibility, which they know to be very great, the desire of pleasing us, the knowledge they have that we like to be praised, and they laugh behind our backs at the weakness which they caress to our face; sometimes it is an encouragement bestowed upon our weakness, a help given to our cowardice, which without such aid would fall to the ground. At other times it is the chanty which thinks no evil and sees nothing but good in all things, which, honoring Jesus Christ in us, treats us with con sideration, speaks to us with respect, loves us with cordiality. Often, also, it is a prejudice in our favor, a blind friendship formed by flesh and blood or by social relations. Then, the mind regulating its movements in accordance with the attachments of the heart, all that we do, all that we say, seems worthy of praise, and nothing but virtue and spiritual riches are seen where God often beholds nothing but poverty and misery, and great talents where truth sees nothing but what is very ordinary. Oftener still, if indeed it be not always, it is ignorance and falsehood. We are praised and esteemed because we are judged in accordance with deceitful appearances, because our characters are not known. Oh, how rare would the language of flattery be upon earth if the eyes of men could but see what in reality the persons are of whom they speak. Ignorance in those who praise us may, indeed, excuse the language of which they make use, but we who know the truth respecting ourselves, is it reasonable in us to take pleasure in it ? If we were to go and say to a poor man reduced to the last degree of indigence, covered with rags and ulcers, “We admire you, great prince; you are immensely rich, no one is your equal in beauty and in grace, nothing could be more magnificent than your attire,” and if we found that the poor man took pleasure in such language, we should say he had lost his senses; and yet this is exactly our own history. We are poor in every respect, we are nothing, we have nothing, we can do nothing, and yet we take pleasure in hearing others say that we are rich in merits and virtues, and, however false may be the praises which are given us, we are delighted to listen to them, caring very little about what we really are in the sight of God, but only about what we are in appearance and in the opinion of men. What folly, what simplicity is ours ! Ah, these praises and these marks of esteem ought rather to be considered by us as they were by the saints, an insult inflicted upon our extreme poverty. “Receive praises as though they were mockeries and insults,” said St. Francis Xavier. “Those who flatter me, scourge me,” said another saint; and truly, if we did but know ourselves, we could not be of any other opinion.
How Vain the Esteem of Men is in its Effects.
Let me be praised or blamed; let me be esteemed or despised; let me be forgotten or let me be unknown, what does it signify ? The judgment of man raises me on high to-day: what have I gained? Am I less miserable on account of it ? No, doubtless, only I have added to my miseries one more piece of ridicule, that of taking pleasure in esteem which I do not deserve. I have added to my ills one more malady, the swelling up of my pride, which has swollen me without making me any greater. To-morrow, effacing the picture which it had painted, the judgment of men makes me out to be small and contemptible, unworthy of attracting towards me a single glance. What have I lost thereby ? Nothing at all but a useless amusement, a little noise highly dangerous to my self-love and my vanity. Alas ! I have no need that others should speak to me of the good that is in me, I speak only too much of it to myself. The opinion of men is therefore nothing more than wind and smoke; it gives us nothing, and it takes away from us nothing; and all that can be said of us, whether it be good or whether it be evil, does not make us either better or worse. Therefore, to desire to be esteemed by men is a thing so vain that we cannot help being ashamed of it; there is no one who would not blush at being suspected that he desired praise. We like the good we do to be known, but we do it in such a way as to make others think that it is in spite of ourselves it has become known. We seem as though we suffered violence in listening to praise; we reject it, but it is in such a manner as to incline others to imagine that we merit still greater praise. How strange it is ! The esteem of men is so vain that we are ashamed of it, and yet it so sweetly flatters our heart. Ah ! it is because we are created to be praised and esteemed by God throughout eternity; but that will be realized only in so far as we shall disabuse ourselves of the passion of being esteemed by men upon earth.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
Comments