161. Sixth Saturday of Easter
Meditations no. 207 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
True humility teaches us our own insufficiency as well as our dignity as children of God.
Veni pater pauperum, / veni dator munerum, / veni lumen cordium: Come, Father of the poor; come, giver of gifts; come, light of hearts. Interior life inevitably tends to increase our awareness of being children of God, and to make us feel all the dignity that belongs to us through his grace. At the same time it convinces us of our personal nothingness.
Together with humility, the realization of the greatness of manâs dignity - and of the overwhelming fact that, by grace, we are made children of God -forms a single attitude. It is not our own forces that save us and give us life; it is the grace of God. This is a truth which can never be forgotten. If it were, the divinization of our life would be perverted and would become presumption, pride. And this would lead, sooner or later, to a breakdown of spiritual life, when the soul came face to face with its own weakness and wretchedness.
And shall I dare to say, I am holy? St Augustine asks. If I mean by holy that I bring holiness and that I need no one to make me holy, I would be a liar and full of pride. But if by holy I understand one who is made holy, as we read in Leviticus, âYou will be holy, because I, God, am holyâ, then the whole body of Christ, down to the last man living at the ends of the earth, may dare to say, together with its Head and under him, I am holy.
Love the Third Person of the most Blessed Trinity. Listen in the intimacy of your being to the divine motions of encouragement or reproach you receive from him. Walk through the earth in the light that is poured out in your soul. And the God of hope will fill us with all peace, so that this hope may grow in us more and more each day, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
By the same token, our interior life gives us the conviction that on our part there is nothing but need. Yet we do not have to know ourselves too well to realize that we donât always admit the consequences of this reality; and that sometimes we behave as if we did not see any lack of merits before God. Therefore we invoke the Holy Spirit, who is the Father of the poor -of those who have nothing of their own, of the needy -asking him to make us recognize our own shortcomings.
The root of humility is self-knowledge.
It is good to recognize our own shortcomings. The knowledge of our errors makes us humble, and takes us closer to our Lord. We also have to keep in mind that, for as long as we are on earth, by Godâs providence, we will make mistakes and go wrong. St James writes of Elijah that he was a sinful man like us; nevertheless, he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit. People who feel that they lack everything are able to find their strength in God, and say: The Lord is my light and my salvation.
In order to live in this way we have to look frequently at the humility of Jesus Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. St Thomas notes that this way of saving mankind was the most fitting of all possible ways. Among other reasons, he argues that such humiliation, the self-annihilation of the Word, effected a better cure for our pride, which is the first sin and the origin of all the others. By getting to know Jesus Christ we will learn to be humble.
How clear the example of our Lordâs humility is, and how consoling it is that the Holy Spirit is the Father of those who try to imitate that example! But it is not enough just to understand it. We need to live it. We are truly faithful when we fulfil with deeds what we profess with words. We are truly humble, not when we proclaim in a general way that we are poor and needy sinners, but when we admit specific faults we have committed.
Nobody knows anything about humility, the true foundation of interior life, until the time comes to practise it. Perhaps we have considered ourselves humble, and then shortly afterwards have been surprised to find how proudly we reacted to some directive, even though it was given to us in a charitable way. With the help of a sincere and courageous examination, we will learn not to flee from the knowledge of ourselves and not to fear seeing ourselves as we really are. Once we are convinced of our personal inadequacy, we will be able to behave as a person who has nothing. This, in fact, is the way to have everything, because, in the words of St Gregory the Great, a soul becomes precious in the eyes of God in the measure to which, out of love for the truth, it feels contemptible in its own eyes.
When we see our defects we must trust in God.
It can also happen, and it is normal in the interior life, that experience teaches us that when we are full of ourselves, when we are not really poor in spirit or humble, and when we have not truly given ourselves, we achieve nothing. For such interior experiences to incorporate us progressively into Christ, the help of the Holy Spirit is essential, for he is the lumen cordium, the light of hearts, the giver of all grace. Faced with the frustrations that come from not completely surrendering our life, our soul must grow in supernatural outlook, which is the only way to learn how much we need the sanctifying action of the Paraclete.
We need to ask the Holy Spirit, in the words of the Psalm, to make us understand that it is God who made us, and not we ourselves. He will teach us that the measure of our humility is our sense of total dependence on God: we have nothing, we are nothing, and we can do nothing, but we have God for our Father. The result will be that we cease to be surprised at our infidelities and defects, even though they cause us sorrow. What is to be expected from a thorn-bush but thorns? My children: donât be ashamed at having shortcomings; donât be alarmed because you have in your heart the fomes peccati (the tinder of sin), the very material which makes the flame of sin rage.
Do not be startled, because a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again. Failures will not be lacking in our spiritual struggle. But we must react immediately to our faults and errors, making an act of contrition which will come to our hearts and our lips as quickly as blood comes to a wound, effectively fighting the foreign body, the germ of infection.
The recognition of our own wretchedness becomes an opportunity for holiness. Great is the Lord, says St Augustine. Exalt yourself and he flees from you; humble yourself and he descends to you. Why? Because he is sublime and he looks upon the humble. Our Mother teaches us that the Lord fills the hungry with good things, while the rich he sends empty away.