Further Elucidation of the Same

WE have said that the third degree of humility is when a man, possessed of great virtues and gifts of God and held in high honor and esteem, takes no pride in anything, nor attributes anything to himself, but refers and attributes all to the same source, which is God, giving Him the glory of all, and remains all swallowed up in his lowliness and humility as though he had nothing and did nothing. We do not mean hereby to say that we do not also work and have our share in the good works that we do— for that would be a piece of ignorance and an error. It is clear that we and our free will concur and work jointly with God in our good works; for man freely gives his consent to them, and on that account it is true to say that “man works,” because of his own proper and free will he wills what he wills, and works what he works, and it is in his power not to do the work. Nay, this it is that makes this.degree of humility so difficult; because on the one hand we ourselves have to put in act all our diligence, and use all the means we can, to gain virtue and resist temptation and bring our business to a successful issue, as if our efforts alone were sufficient for that purpose; and on the other hand, after having done that, we must distrust altogether what we have done as if we had done nothing, and hold ourselves for useless and unprofitable servants, and put our whole confidence in God. So He teaches us in the Gospel: After ye have done all the things that are commanded you—He does not say “some,” but “all”—say: We are unprofitable servants, we have done what we were bound to © do (Luke xvii. 10). But to do this, no little virtue is necessary. Cassian says: “Whoever shall come to know well that he is a useless servant, and that all the means and contrivances that he applies are not sufficient to do any good, but it must be the gracious gift of the Lord that does it, such a man will not grow proud over any success, because he will understand that he did not gain it by his own industry, but by the grace and mercy of God, as St. Paul says: What hast thou that thou hast not received? (I Cor. iv. 7).”

St. Augustine brings a good comparison to elucidate this. He says that without the grace of God we are no more than what a body is without a soul. As a dead body cannot move or handle anything, so we without the grace of God cannot do works of life or value before God. Now as it would be foolish for a body to attribute life and movement to itself, and not to the soul that is in it and gives it life, so that soul would be very blind who should attribute to herself the good work that she does, and not to God, Who has poured upon her the spirit of life, which is the grace whereby she is enabled to do them. And elsewhere he says that, as the bodily eyes can see nothing, even though they are quite healthy, without the aid of light, so man, however justified he be, cannot lead a good life without the aid of the light and grace of God. Unless the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman watcheth in vain (Psalm cxxvi. 1). “Oh, that men knew themselves,” says St. Augustine, “and would once for all understand that they have nothing in themselves to glory in, but only in God.” Oh, that God would send us a ray of light from heaven to scatter our darkness and make us know and feel that there is no good, nor being, nor strength anywhere in the whole of creation but what the Lord of His gracious mercy has been pleased to give and is pleased to preserve! In this, then, consists the third degree of humility; only our brief words cannot reach so far as to declare the great and profound perfection there is in it. However much we say of it, now in one way, now in another, not only the practice but the theory of it too remains difficult.

This is that annihilation of self, so repeatedly recommended by the masters of spiritual life; this is that holding and confessing of oneself unworthy and useless for all things, ad omnia indignum et inutilem se confiteri et credere, which St. Benedict and other saints assign for the highest degree of humility; this is that distrust of self, and that fastening of oneself and hanging upon God, so commended in Holy Writ; this is that genuine taking of oneself for nothing, which at every step we hear and say, and never quite succeed in feeling in our hearts. Oh, that we understood and felt sincerely and practically—as a thing that we saw with our eyes and touched and felt with our hands—that of ourselves we have not, and cannot have, anything but perdition and sins, and that all the good that we have and do, we have it not and do it not of ourselves, and that His is the honor and glory of it all.

And if after all is said and done you still fail to understand the perfection of this degree of humility, be not astonished, for it is very high theology, and it is no matter of surprise that you do not understand it so easily. A doctor says that this happens in all arts and sciences, that everyone knows and understands the common and evident things, but not all attain to subtle and delicate points, but only those who are eminent in that art or science. So here the common and ordinary things of virtue anyone can understand; but special and subtle things, things lofty and delicate, are understood by those only who are eminent and advanced in that virtue. And this is what St. Lawrence Justinian says, that no one quite knows what sort of a thing humility is but he who has received of God grace to be humble. And this is how the saints, being men of most profound humility, feel and say of themselves things that we, who have not got so far, fail to understand and hold for exaggerations and pious fictions, as that they are the greatest sinners of all people in the world, and the like, as we shall say presently. And if we are unable to say or feel these things and cannot even quite understand them, it is because we have not attained to such humility as they, and so we do not understand the subtle and delicate points of this faculty. Do you contrive to be humble, and grow continually in this science, and progress further and further in it, and then you will understand how they can say such things with truth.