Of the Great Favors and Benefits That God Does to the Humble, and What Is the Reason Why He Exalts Them So Much

ALL good things have come to me along with her (Wisdom vii. 11). These words Solomon says of the divine wisdom, that all good things have come along with her. But we may very well apply them to humility, and say that all good things come with her, since the same Wisdom says that where there is humility, there is wisdom (Prov. xi. 2). And elsewhere, that to keep this humility is the height of wisdom (Wisdom viii. 21). And the Prophet David, that to the humble God giveth wisdom (sapientiam praestans parvulis, Psalm xviii. 8). But apart from this, Holy Writ teaches us this truth as well in the Old as in the New Testament, promising great blessings and graces of God, now to the humble, now to the little ones, now to the poor of spirit, calling the truly humble by these and other such names. Upon whom shall I look, says God by Isaias (1xvi. 2), and upon whom shall I cast mine eyes, but upon the humble and the poor, and him who trembles and is abashed before me? (nisi ad pauperculum et contritum corde et trementem sermones meos). On such people does God cast His eyes, to do them favors and fill them with good things. The glorious Apostles St. Peter and St. James in their canonical epistles say: God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble (I Pet. v. 5; James iv. 6). The most holy Queen of Angels teaches us the same in her Canticle: He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away (Luke i. 52- 53). And this is what the prophet had said before: Thou wilt save the humble folk, and wilt cast down the eyes of the proud (Psalm xvii. 28). It is what Christ says to us in the holy Gospel: Everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Luke xiv. 11). As the waters run down to the valleys (Psalm ciii. 10), so the showers of God’s graces go to the humble; and as the valleys, by the abundance of water that they gather in hollows, are usually fertile and yield good crops, so those who are lowly in God’s eyes, that is, the humble, increase and yield much fruit by the many gifts and graces that they receive of God.

St. Augustine says that humility attracts to itself the Most High God: “God is high: if you humble yourself, He comes down to you; if you lift yourself up and are proud, He shuns you”—Altus est Deus: humilias te, et descendit ad te: erigis te, et fugit a te. Do you know why? he says. It is because God, the great and sovereign Lord, looks upon the humble, as the Royal Prophet says (Psalm cxxxvii. 6), and His looking upon them is to fill them with good things; but as for the proud, he says, He sees them from afar off; and as here when we see a thing afar off, we do not know it, so God does not know the proud to do them favors. Verily I say to you, I know you not, says God to the wicked and the proud (Matt. xxv. 12). St. Bonaventure says that, as soft wax is ready to receive in itself whatever impression one wishes to make on it, so the humble man disposes his soul to receive the virtues and gifts of God. In the feast that Joseph made for his brethren, the smallest received the greatest portion (Gen. xliii. 34).

But let us see what is the reason why God so exalts the humble and does them such great favors. The reason is because there nothing is lost; what is laid down all stays in the house. For the humble man is never elated at anything, never attributes anything to himself, but attributes and returns all entirely to God, and to Him gives the glory and honor of all. With these honest folk, says God, We can well deal; We can well trust in such hands Our property, and give them Our gifts and riches, because they will not take them away from Us, nor exalt themselves thereupon. Thus God deals with them as with His own, because all the glory and honor remains His. So we see here on earth a king or great lord glories and takes for a display of his grandeur, to lift one, as they say, from the dust of the earth and deal with him who was nothing and had nothing; because thereby the liberality and greatness of the king comes out and is better seen, and they say then that So-and-So is of his making. So the Apostle says: We hold the treasures of graces and gifts of God in earthen vessels (II Cor. iv. 7), to give us to understand that these treasures are of God, and not of us, because earth and clay does not raise itself up.

It is for this reason, then, that God lifts up the humble and does them so many favors. And for this same reason He sends the proud empty away; because pride is self-confident, relying much on its own activities and contrivances, attributing much to itself, and taking vain satisfaction in the happy success of its enterprises as though it had done the business by its own strength and energies; all this is so much taking away from God, and appropriating that honor and glory which belongs to His Majesty. When we make a little way in prayer, with ever so little devotion and just one tiny tear, we fancy that we are spiritual folk and men of prayer. And even sometimes we set ourselves above others, thinking that they are not so advanced or not so spiritual, and are not getting forward at the rate that we are. This is why the Lord does not do us greater favors, and sometimes deprives us of what He had given, that we may not turn good into evil, health into sickness, medicine into poison, and gifts and benefits received into our greater condemnation by our bad use of them. To an invalid with a weak stomach, though the meat be good, let us say, chicken, they give only a little, because he has not strength to digest more; and if they gave him more, it would get corrupted and turned into bad humor. The oil of the Prophet Eliseus never ceased to flow until there was a failure of vessels to receive it; they failing, Holy Scripture says the oil stopped at once (IV Kings iv. 6). Now that is the oil of divine mercy, which of itself is limitless; there is no limit to His graces and mercies. The hand of the Lord is not shortened (Isaias lix. 1). God has not narrowed nor drawn in His hand; He has not changed His nature, for God neither changes nor can change, but always remains in one condition and is more ready to give than we to receive. The fault lies with us, in that we have not empty vessels to receive the mercies and graces of God; we are too full of ourselves and trust too much in our own resources. Humility and self-knowledge loosen and detach a man from himself, making him resign all confidence in himself and in human means, and attribute to himself nothing, but all to God; and on such God bestows His favors in handfuls. Humble thyself before God, and await his hands (Ecclus. xiii. 9).