90. Third Saturday of Lent

Meditations no. 136 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

God rejects the proud and gives his grace to the humble.

Before relating the parable of the Pharisee and the publican which comes in the Gospel of today’s Mass, St Luke takes care to point out that Jesus was speaking about certain men who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others. This observation by the Gospel writer makes us realize that charity, the virtue which makes us share in God’s life, is of fundamental importance for a Christian: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong, or a clanging cymbal. We can also see, since experience makes it obvious, that without humility there is no charity, either towards God or towards others.

The parable which our Lord sets before us leaves no room for doubt: the Pharisee enters the Temple to pray, but he is incapable of making the slightest act of love. He himself is the centre of all his thoughts and the object of his own affections: he merely thanks God for the things which he thinks he does well, but he fails to notice, and refuses to acknowledge, his sins and his lack of correspondence to God’s grace. He is not sincere. Consequently, instead of praising God he praises himself. There is no love in his heart, no charity.

God alone can have himself as his own end, for he is the Creator. The rest of us are creatures, and our end is God. The proud man, however, makes himself the end of his actions; and the disordered love for his own excellence which he develops, leaves no room for charity, since charity consists in loving God above all things, and loving others, including oneself, for the sake of God.

But let us return to the Gospel scene. The Pharisee is standing upright; he prays and thanks God for what he is, for what he does. He is perfectly satisfied with himself and, comparing himself to others, concludes that he is more just and more observant of the Law, forgetting that perhaps God deserves more than fasting twice a week and giving alms. The sin of the Pharisees did not consist in not seeing God in Christ, but in voluntarily shutting themselves up within themselves, in not letting Jesus, who is the light, open their eyes. This closed-mindedness immediately affects our relations with others. The Pharisee, who believes himself to be light and does not let God open his eyes, will treat his neighbour unjustly, pridefully: I thank you God, that I am not like the rest of men, who steal and cheat and commit adultery, or like this publican here. On the other hand, the publican, who is also a sinner, is humble, and trusts in God’s mercy. And God, who opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble, forgives his sins.

Let us then be humble, brethren, writes St Clement of Rome, and let us put aside all boasting and ostentation, all anger and fits of wrath, and let us fulfil that which is written … For it is to the humble that Christ belongs, and not to those who exalt themselves above their own flock. The Lord, Christ, although he held the sceptre of greatness, did not come into the world with the trappings of arrogance or pride, although he could have done so, but rather with the spirit of humility, in fulfilment of that which was said of him by the Holy Spirit: “I am a worm, and no man; scorned by men, and despised by the people.” … Consider, brethren, the example set before us: to this extreme has the Lord humbled himself. What, then, is it fitting for us to do, we who through him have been placed under the yoke of his grace?

Asking our Lord for the virtue of humility, and acknowledging our wretchedness.

We will be humble if we ask our Lord tenaciously and confidently for this virtue, and if we are truly convinced that he alone can make the virtue of humility take root in our soul. Moreover, we must be well disposed to receive it, recognizing our nothingness, for we have received everything from God, even the very dust of which we are made. We are merely the recipients of God’s gifts.

Meditating frequently on this fact is absolutely necessary in order to have a real interior life, since humility helps us to recognize, at one and the same time, both our wretchedness and our greatness.

Our wretchedness is all too evident. I am not referring here to our natural limitations, to those great ambitions that people dream of but, in fact, never achieve, if only for lack of time. I am thinking rather of the things we do badly, of our falls, of the mistakes that could have been avoided and were not. We are continually experiencing our personal inadequacies. Moreover, there are times when it seems as if all our failings come together, as if wanting to show themselves clearly, to make us realize just how little we are worth. When that happens, what are we to do?

Expecta Dominum, hope in the Lord. Live by hope, full of faith and love, the Church says to us. Viriliter age, be of good heart. What does it matter that we are made of clay, if all our hope is placed in God? And if at a certain moment you should fall or suffer some setback (not that it has to happen), all you have to do is to apply the remedy, just as, in the normal course of events, you would do for the sake of your bodily health. And then, off to a fresh start!

This is something which the Pharisee in the parable did not understand. He was satisfied with his life, which in his eyes was perfect, lacking nothing, not even God, whom he did not truly love. His life was worthless, closed in on itself. He was unaware of the infinite distance between himself and God, and paid no attention to his sins of omission, forgetting that self-knowledge leads us by the hand, as it were, to humility.

It is not enough to pray, or to give thanks, or to recognize the gifts which we receive from God. We must use these talents well and make them bear fruit. We must bend our knee and acknowledge God’s gifts, not being afraid to follow the publican’s example. If you were to obey the impulses of your heart and the dictates of reason, you would always be flat on the ground, prostrate, like a filthy worm, ugly and miserable, before that God who puts up with so much from you.

A life of childhood will help us acquire humility.

In order to be truly humble, we must see ourselves as children before God, children who know they are weak. This is what Christ himself teaches us when, seeing his disciples quarrelling over who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, he took a child, and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name, receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” As our Father comments, doesn’t this way Jesus has of doing things move us to love him? He teaches them the doctrine and then, to enable them to understand it, he gives them a living example. He calls a little child, one of the children running around the house, and he lovingly embraces him. How eloquent our Lord’s silence is! With it he has already said everything. He loves those who become as little children. He then adds that the reward for this simplicity, for this humility of spirit, is the joy of being able to embrace him and his Father who is in heaven.

Christian wisdom, St Leo the Great teaches, does not consist in a torrent of words, or in keen disputation, or in the desire for glory and praise, but rather in true and voluntary humility, such as our Lord practised and taught convincingly from the time of his birth until his sufferings on the Cross. Thus, when his disciples were arguing over who was to be the “greatest in the kingdom of heaven, calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and said, Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

St Leo goes on to say that Christ loves childhood: he experienced it in his own body and soul. Christ loves childhood: for children are teachers of humility, models of innocence, and examples of meekness. Christ loves childhood: he guides the actions of adults towards it, he makes the elderly go back in years, and with his own example he guides those whom he destines for the eternal kingdom.

We must always realize that our life is given to us to enable us to serve God. If we are children, our powerlessness ceases to matter, for we have recourse to the loving mercy of God our Father, who is simply waiting for us to humble ourselves so that he may fill our souls with his gifts and his divine effectiveness.

Let us not be complacent, then, for we are nothing: we have nothing and we can do nothing. Let us rejoice in God, from whom every good thing comes, for we are his children and he loves us madly. This joy will not rob us of humility. We are small, it is true, but precisely for that reason God takes greater care of us, and is more willing to forgive us.

The Lord endowed our Lady with so many gifts because he saw her humility. Let us now turn to our Mother: We fly to your protection: Sub tuum praesidium. It is under the protection of that cloak -your cloak - that we have always grown up, just as children grow up in the arms of their mother. May you always be our Teacher, so that we may learn to know and love your Son.