78. Second Monday of Lent

Meditations no. 124 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Only by being humble will we please God.

The people chosen by God, from whom the Messiah was to come, violated their covenant with the Lord on many occasions by not listening to the voice of his messengers, the prophets. In the end they were punished. The city and the Temple were destroyed, and the survivors were deported to Babylon. In the midst of all this sorrow, one man, Daniel, acknowledged their faults: We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and ordinances.

In any age, in any human setting, there is no other way to live a godly life than that of humility. Does this mean that God takes pleasure in our humiliation? Not at all. What would he, who created all things, and governs them and maintains them in existence, gain from our prostration? God only wants us to be humble and to empty ourselves so that he can fill us. He wants us not to put obstacles in his way, so that, humanly speaking, there will be more room for his grace in our poor hearts.

The prophet Daniel, moved by the Holy Spirit, offered a humble and contrite prayer in the name of all the people: To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us confusion of face … To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness.

If we are humble, our Father assures us, God will never abandon us. He humbles the arrogance of the proud, but he saves the humble. He frees the innocent man, who is rescued because his hands are clean. The infinite mercy of our Lord is not slow in coming to the aid of those who humbly call upon him. And then he acts as he truly is, as God Almighty. Although there may be many dangers, though the soul may feel harassed and find itself surrounded on all sides by the enemies of its salvation, it will not perish.

The humble prayer of the prophet Daniel, who did not rely on his own merits but on God’s mercy, was answered. The archangel Gabriel appeared to him and said: At the beginning of your supplications a word went forth, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly beloved. The reason is that humility is the only interior attitude pleasing in the eyes of God, who opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humility makes prayer all-powerful; it allows God to work in the soul, and it opens the way to sanctity.

It made me think when I heard that hard but true saying from a man of God, when he observed the haughtiness of a miserable creature: “He wears the same skin as the devil - pride.”

And there came to my mind, in contrast, a sincere desire to wrap myself in the virtue taught by Jesus Christ when he said, Quia mitis sum et humilis corde - I am meek and humble of heart. It was the virtue which attracted the gaze of the Most Holy Trinity to his Mother and our Mother: the humility of knowing and being aware of our nothingness.

We must not be deceived by false humility.

Like all virtues, practising humility requires struggle. This fight should start from knowledge of the enemy, and the enemy is pride, self-love, vainglory. Such knowledge is difficult to obtain, because the enemy disguises itself in countless ways and even gains strength from its apparent defeats.

The other vices express themselves in simple, standard ways, says Cassian. Vainglory is different; it is complex and takes many forms. It attacks on all fronts and its adversary finds it all around him. It is found in demeanour and looks, in the way a person walks and speaks. Work, vigils, fasts, prayer, solitude, reading, knowledge, silence, obedience, humility, and long-suffering, are so many weapons that this enemy uses to wound the soldier of Christ.

Our Father has warned us of this in a graphic way. When we hear pride spoken of, perhaps we imagine it as despotic, domineering behaviour. We associate it with the clamour of the mob acclaiming the passing victor, who, like a Roman emperor, bows his head lest his glorious brow graze the white marble of the high triumphal arches.

But let us be realistic. This type of pride is found only in people with crazy imaginations. We have to fight against other forms of pride which are more subtle, and more frequent: against the pride of preferring our own excellence to that of our neighbour; against vanity in our conversations, thoughts and gestures; against an almost sickly touchiness which takes offence at words and actions that are in no way meant to be insulting.

Given that pride can hide itself in this way, we have to use special tactics to discover and fight it. Our Father has given us a pointer. You are humble, not when you humble yourself, but when you are humbled by others and you bear it for Christ. In fact, a son or daughter of God should not be capable of being humbled by anyone, because only a person who is not humble can be humbled. That is why, when we feel we have been overlooked or wounded, even if it is only in small things, we should realize that we have not yet learned what true humility is. That is the time to accept our smallness and begin to be humble.

All this, our Father warns us, can be, and is, a common temptation. A person can come to see himself as the sun and centre of all those around him. Everything must centre round himself. And to satisfy this unhealthy urge, the proud person will even fake pain, sadness or illness to attract attention so that others will make a fuss of him.

Most of the conflicts arising in the interior life of many people are a product of their own imagination: “the things people have said, what they are thinking, whether I am appreciated…” The poor soul suffers, through his pathetic foolishness, harbouring suspicions that are unfounded. In this miserable mood everything makes him bitter and he tries to upset others also. All this because he doesn’t wish to be humble, because he hasn’t learned to forget himself in order to give himself generously in the service of others for the love of God.

Let us ask our Lord to help us always practise this virtue, because without his grace we shall lose it. How difficult humility is! Because pride dies twenty-four hours after each individual. So if you ever think you are right, contrary to what is said by the person who has a special grace from God to direct you, understand that you’re absolutely wrong. At such times, be scared of pride, and go to Confession and the chat at once, with a truly contrite heart, so you can be helped to rectify your mistake.

Being humble and sincere in spiritual direction and towards one another.

For our life as children of God to be firmly grounded, we have to establish it in God, steadfastly refusing to seek this support in our own selves. There are times when the Lord urges us to live this abandonment more deeply. We belong especially to God, we are his instruments in spite of our great personal shortcomings. And we will be effective if we do not lose this awareness of our own weakness. Our temptations give us the measure of our own weakness.

If you feel depressed when you experience, perhaps in a very vivid way, your own pettiness, then is the time to abandon yourself completely and obediently into God’s hands, because his mercy will never fail us.

Do you want to raise a building which reaches as high as the heavens? Think first of making humility its foundation stone. Humility begins by our not being upset at our own deficiencies. If we are surprised at having fallen into some fault, it is the result of pride. We should feel sorrow for the offence committed, but not discouragement. That would suggest the sort of self-confidence that is not based on confidence in God. Don’t worry if they see your defects; the offence against God and the scandal you may give - that is what should worry you. And as a consequence, we will try to use all the means to continue improving in self-knowledge. Why are you so reluctant to see yourself and to let your Director see you as you really are? You will have won a great battle if you lose that fear of letting yourself be known. We will be truly humble if we are simple in spiritual direction and if we tell the truth plainly. Pride lurks behind everything complicated. It is always afraid of being put in a bad light and it constantly seeks to justify itself.

When we eradicate this self-love, it will be easy for us to acknowledge our faults. Then we will also yield our own judgement in the friendly conversations of our get-togethers. We will practise towards everybody the sweet commandment of Christ: Be merciful as your Father is merciful. By contrast, when pride takes hold of a soul, it is no surprise to find it bringing along with it a whole string of other vices: greed, self-indulgence, envy, injustice. The proud man is always vainly striving to dethrone God - who is merciful to all his creatures - so as to make room for himself and his ever cruel ways.

We should beg God, our Father recommends earnestly, not to let us fall into this temptation. Pride is the worst sin of all, and the most ridiculous. If, with its multiple delusions, it manages to get a hold, the unfortunate victim begins to build up a facade, to fill himself with emptiness, and becomes conceited like the toad in the fable, which, in order to show off, puffed itself up until it burst Pride is unpleasant, even from a human point of view. The person who rates himself better than everyone and everything is constantly studying himself and looking down on other people, who in turn react by ridiculing his foolish vanity.

Everything should revolve around God and not around ourselves. It is a matter of going unnoticed; that is where our humility lies. The ideal of the children of God in Opus Dei is that they should never be indispensable; that when we are away, other people can carry on with what we were doing, thanks to the experience we have passed on to them. We shall even be glad if they do a better job than we did.

God in his mercy, through our Blessed Lady, Mater misericordiae, Mother of Mercy, will grant us the grace of a sincere and deep humility.