339. Nineteenth Saturday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 311 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Humility is essential for interior life.

Christ our Lord feels very much at home with little children. In the scene which we consider in the Gospel of today’s Mass, children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people; but Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. Years ago our Father wrote: Become little. Our Lord hides from the proud and reveals the treasures of his grace to the humble.

If we really appreciated the value of humility we would try much harder to attain it; if we realized how essential a virtue it is for progress in the interior life we would never tire of asking for it. Charity is certainly the only virtue capable of uniting the soul to God; but humility is the foundation of charity. Humility corrects the disordered love of self, whereas charity impels us to love God and neighbour. Self-love and charity are mutually exclusive: the more we free ourselves from self-love, the more room we make for God in our souls.

As long as we are on earth, the knowledge of our limitations helps us to progress in the interior life, since humility prepares us for freely approaching the spiritual and divine riches to which God calls us. Humility leads to contrition, because it reveals to us our lack of love and moves us to sincere contrition, while at the same time it ensures that we never give way to despair, but rather to love-sorrow, a sorrow which is full of trust in God.

Humility enables us to see ourselves as we really are, a dirty rag, a worm, before God’s majesty, and to realize that anything good in us is God’s, not ours. If we are faithful and humble, we will be pure, mortified, obedient; we will be effective everywhere; and the humbler we are, the more effective we will be. As our Founder constantly told us, without humility it is not possible to do anything in the Work: it is not possible to do the Confidence well, nor attend the Circle fruitfully, nor receive fraternal correction. Nothing at all! And the reason is that, since humility is so basic to the interior life, it is an indispensable element in formation and in apostolate.

If you want to be great, begin by being little, St Augustine says. If you want to raise a building up to heaven, think first of laying the foundation of humility. The bigger the structure is intended to be and the higher the building, the deeper you have to dig the foundations. For the building to rise high, the one laying the foundation must dig deep into the ground. And so the building, before rising, humiliates itself, and its pinnacle rises up after the humiliation.

The awareness of our errors and shortcomings has to lead us to humility.

There are situations which, without being particularly exceptional, require of us a greater act of conformity with the divine Will, and of voluntarily humbling ourselves before God, even though we may have spent many years in his service. Our Father says: It may sometimes happen, especially to a person who has the responsibility of guiding other souls, that everything seems to be collapsing, outside and inside, like some great spiritual earthquake. In my experience, at moments like these one does not lose peace, faith is strengthened, one lives sweetly by hope; and one’s whole life, amidst this earthquake, is nourished by God’s love. One feels compelled to seek out the Most Blessed Trinity, to honour and adore the Father, to honour and adore the Son, to honour and adore the Holy Spirit.

When we experience a situation like the one our Father describes here, we become keenly aware of our own limitations and wretchedness. Without for a moment supposing ourselves to be anything more than an instrument, we may have considered that at least we had certain qualities that facilitated God’s work; but now we find that our confidence evaporates completely, and we see our contribution not only as inadequate, but even as an obstacle to divine grace.

All this is allowed by God, since it may help us to seek conversation with him even more earnestly. Almost without meaning to, we pass from the Trinity in heaven to that other trinity on earth: to Jesus, Son of God; to our Lady, who is Mother of God, Spouse of God and Daughter of God; and to St Joseph, because nobody has loved God and his Mother as affectionately, unobtrusively and ardently as he did. And he is Patriarch not only of that Holy Family, but of this Christian family which is the Work. We can and should have recourse to him, as teacher of prayer, to show us how to be on terms of intimacy with Jesus and Mary.

Amid all this hesitation, the soul also experiences, so vividly that it seems as if faith were not needed, the power and the protection of the Guardian Angels; and, conscious that it is nothing, and less than nothing - it feels like a filthy rag in the dirt - it senses God’s personal attention and the presence of his princely associates who, with supernatural gentleness, help us to keep going.

Those who have truly decided to follow our Lord may pass through a similar experience, although in fact it does not happen to everyone, because God also uses other means to purify us and bring us closer to him. Those most exposed to that trial may perhaps be those who, by reason of their particular apostolic task, contemplate the work our Lord has done - God allows them to contemplate it - and they see all at once the human and spiritual suffering which each soul, each endeavour, has cost They feel deep happiness on seeing fruit that can be touched; and, in the stillness of that earthquake - in that incredible stillness which has no human explanation - they see the abundant graces which God our Lord has bestowed on each individual through his instruments in this Opus Dei. And then the soul feels a keen sense of helplessness at the sight of its own shortcomings: “And I, what use have I been? I haven’t done anything, I’ve only got in the way.” The passions rear up all together, as one, in a kind of violent storm of adolescence, of youth, of the springtime of life. But all of that leads to humility.

Our trusting conversation with our Father God and our Lady restores peace to our soul.

My life, our Father wrote, has led me to realize in a special way that I am a son of God, and I have experienced the joy of getting inside the heart of my Father, to rectify, to purify myself, to serve him, to understand and forgive others and find excuses for them, on the strength of his love and my own lowliness.

This is why I want to insist now that you and I need to be made anew, we need to wake up from the slumber of feebleness by which we are so easily lulled, and to become aware once again, in a deeper and more immediate way, of our condition as children of God…

Over the years, I have sought to rely unfalteringly for my support on this joyous reality. No matter what the situation, my prayer, while varying in tone, has always been the same. I have said to him: “Lord, you put me here. You entrusted me with this or that, and I put my trust in you. I know you are my Father, and I have seen that tiny children are always absolutely sure of their parents.” My priestly experience tells me that abandonment such as this in the hands of God stimulates souls to acquire a strong, deep and serene piety, which drives them to work constantly and with an upright intention.

In one way or another this process is repeated in the souls of those whom the Lord invites to become like little children. Not all of them are led along the same path, since the Holy Spirit blows where he wills, guiding some people in one way and others in another. But we all have to be conformed to Christ and leave aside everything that is opposed to identification with him.

I, who have instructed my children in the path of spiritual childhood, without obliging them to follow it, can assure you, from what I know about souls, that with the passage of the years they will find shelter on that path, and they won’t find another, because it is the only safe one.

And so the soul sees itself as a child which has to be cleaned, fed and led by the hand, needing its heavenly Mother and its Father God to embrace it and tell it: “You are weakness itself, but with us you are strength; you are dullness itself, but with us you are wisdom; you are a piece of mortal flesh, but with us you are immortality.” And so it finds peace, even though all its wretchedness - and the wretchedness which, by God’s mercy, it has not experienced - looms like a great enemy, inside and outside.

The soul understands that all goodness is on loan, and it feels the need to pray: oportet semper orare et non deficere (it is necessary to pray always and not lose heart), all day long; and perhaps the yearning to say some childlike aspiration. I have always recommended you to say aspirations, and right now I am constantly repeating one which, without great supernatural awareness but with a lot of devotion, I used to say when I was small: Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation.

If any children of mine find themselves in this situation it won’t even cross their minds that they have been a holy instrument in God’s hands; and yet they have. I would advise them, as I advise everyone, to foster the practice - this is just my advice - of making many acts of contrition, and to have recourse to the holy Sacrament of Penance with special devotion.

Our Mother smiles when she sees our efforts to please God. She will help us to make progress, day by day, in the task of love to which we are committed.