Sermon XLII. On Submission to Correction, and the Two Kinds of Humility

"While the King was at His repose, my spikenard sent forth the odour thereof."

"While the King was at His repose, my spikenard sent forth the odour thereof." These, my brethren, are the words of the Spouse, the discussion of which I postponed until to-day. This is the answer she made when rebuked by her Bridegroom. Yet it is addressed, not to Him, but to His companions, as you may clearly see from the words themselves. For she does not say, speaking in the second person, "While Thou, O King, wast at Thy repose"'; but, "While the King was at His repose," which makes it evident that she is speaking, not to Him, but only of Him. We may suppose, then, that the Bridegroom, after reprimanding and humbling the Spouse, as we have seen, perceiving her extreme confusion from the blush which mantled her cheeks, withdrew from the company, in order to give her an opportunity of speaking her mind freely in His absence, and, in case she should pass from excessive boldness to excessive timidity and depression of mind, as commonly happens, that she might receive consolation and encouragement from the charity of His companions. Yet He did not neglect to comfort her Himself as far as He judged it necessary at the time. For to make it manifest how pleasing she was to Him, even whilst

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He corrected her, inasmuch as she bore that correction patiently and in the proper spirit, He could not leave her until He broke forth in praise of her—out of the abundant love, no doubt, with which His Heart was filled—and spoke in admiration of her beautiful cheeks and neck. Therefore, His Companions also, who have remained with her, address her in words of gracious Kindness and offer her presents, knowing this to be the will of their Lord. Hence, it is to them that she directs her answer. Such, I think, is the literal sense and the sequence of our present text.

But before Proceeding to extract the kernel of spiritual truth from this shell of litera] meaning, I wish to make one brief remark. Happy the superior whose reprimands are received in that spirit of humble submission of which we have here so perfect a model! Would to God there was no necessity for reprimands at all! That would be better still. But since "in many things we all offend," it is not permitted me to keep silence, having an obligation in virtue of my office, and a stil] More urgent impulse from fraternal charity, to reprove transgressors. But if I administer a reproof and so do my part, and if that reproof, proceeding from me, instead of accomplishing its purpose, and correcting the fault to which it was applied, should return to me empty, like a dart which impinges on a hard substance and rebounds, what think you, my brethren, shall be then my feelings? Shall I not be filled with grief and anguish? And to borrow something from the words of my master, St. Paul, since my own wisdom, suffices me not, "I am straitened between two and what I shall choose I know not," whether to approve of my action in making the Correction, as being only what I was

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ON SUBMISSION TO CORRECTION 479 bound to do; or to repent of it, because it has not suc-. ceeded according to my desires and expectations. It was my design to slay an enemy and to deliver a brother. But so far from accomplishing this, my zeal has produced just the contrary effect. For it has wounded my brother's soul and increased his guilt by adding contempt of authority to his original fault. "' The house of Israel," says the Lord through His Prophet Ezechiel, "will not hearken to thee because they will not hearken to' Me.' See now, my brother, what is the Majesty which thou hast treated with contempt. Do not imagine thou art despising only me. The Lord has spoken it, and what He said to Israel by His Prophet, He repeated with His own Lips to His apostles, in the words, "He that despiseth you despiseth Me." I am not indeed a prophet, nor am I an apostle. Nevertheless, I dare to say it, I hold the office and discharge the duties of both a prophet and an apostle. I am burdened with the cares and responsibilities of those who are far beyond me by the merit of their lives. Although it be to my own great confusion, although it be to my own awful danger, although I cannot pretend to rival the Lawgiver's virtue or to equal him in grace, still I sit on the chair of Moses. What then? Is that chair less deserving of respect and submission because it is occupied by one unworthy?. Surely not. Even if it were Scribes and Pharisees that sat on it we have still the command of Christ: "What they say, do ye."

As a rule, in such cases, impatience is added to contempt. Not only does the person reprimanded refuse to correct his fault, but he even manifests anger against the superior who has reproved him, like the frenzied patient who repels the hand of the physician. Strange perversity! He is angry with the friend who comes to heal, but shows no indignation with the enemy who has hurt him! For there is an enemy who with his arrows "shoots in the dark the upright of heart,"' and it is he who has now wounded thee even unto death. Dost thou feel no resentment against him? And art thou enraged against me, whose only desire is to make thee whole? ' Be angry,' says the Psalmist, 'and sin not." If thy anger be directed against thy sin, not only dost thou not sin anew, but thy previous sin is blotted out. But now thou refusest the remedy and thy sin remains. Yes, thou addest sin to sin by giving way to unreasonable anger, and that is a sin of exceeding malice.

Sometimes this anger is accompanied with impudence. The person who is reproved, not satisfied with showing resentment against his superior, goes so far as to defend impudently the fault for which he has been corrected. The man who acts thus has evidently become reckless and lost to shame. It is of such that the Lord said by the Prophet Jeremias, "Thou hadst a harlot's forehead, thou wouldst not blush,' and by Ezechiel, "My jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will cease and be angry no more." The very sound of these words makes me tremble. Do you not perceive from them, my brethren, how dangerous, how horrible, how dreadful a thing it is to attempt to justify one's own sin? In another place He says, "Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise." Therefore, if the jealousy and anger of God have abandoned thee, so has His love. One who is deemed unworthy of His chastisement, will certainly be considered undeserving of His love. "Let us have pity on the wicked," He says, "' but he will not learn to do justice." Far from me be such pity! Such pity is more to be dreaded than the fiercest anger, since it blocks up against the sinner the path to justification. It were much better, according to the advice of the Psalmist, to "embrace discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish from the just way." I pray thee, O Father of mercies, to exercise Thy anger against me, only let it be the anger wherewith Thou dost correct the sinner, not that by which Thou. shuttest him out eternally from the way of justice.¹ The first kind of anger visits us in love, of which it is the offspring 3; but the second is fostered and concealed under a dissimulation that should inspire us with terror. It is not, therefore, when I do not feel Thy wrath, but when I groan beneath its weight, that I ought to be most confident of Thy favour; for "when Thou art angry Thou wilt remember mercy." "' Thou wast a merciful God to them," said the Psalmist, "and taking vengeance on all their inventions." He is speaking of Moses, and Aaron, and Samuel, whose names he had just mentioned. And notice how he calls it a mercy that God did not spare them for their transgressions. And wilt thou, my brother, put away from thee for ever this mercy, by attempting to justify thy sin and resenting correction? Is not that the same as calling evil good and good evil? Will not this detestable impudence gradually lead to impenitence, the mother of despair? For how can one repent of that which he believes to be good? The Prophet denounces woe against them who thus confound good with evil. And that woe is eternal. There is a great difference between him who is "tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured,"' and the man who, of his own will and choice, pursues evil as good, and in a state of fatal security, hastens to death as if he were going to life. In the case of persons of the latter class, I confess that I sometimes could have wished I had dissembled and kept silence about the faults I observed them committing, instead of administering correction which they have made the occasion of such utter ruin.

You will tell me, perhaps, that I have the merit of my good action, even though it has failed to benefit the transgressor; that by discharging my duty i have delivered, at least, my own soul from sin; that "I am innocent of the blood of this man," whom I have warned and exhorted, that he might turn aside from his evil ways and live. But no matter how you multiply such motives for comfort, I refuse to be consoled whilst I see my child dying before my very eyes. As if forsooth I sought my own deliverance in that reprehension and not rather his! What mother could restrain her tears even though conscious that she had spared no pains or trouble to save her infant, if, nevertheless, she now sees herself defeated, and all her efforts unavailing, and the little one already at the point of death? And if her tears are allowed to flow unchecked for the loss of a temporal life, surely I may give myself up to "lamentation and great mourning" over the eternal death of a son, even though my conscience can reproach me with no negligence in his regard. On the other hand, you see, my brethren, from how much misery that religious saves both himself and his superior, who, when reprimanded, answers with meekness, confesses with humility, submits with patience, and obeys with - modest simplicity. To one like this, I acknowledge myself a debtor in everything. Iam willing to be the servant and slave of such a soul, as of my Lord's most worthy Spouse, who can say with all truth, ' While the King was at His repose, my spikenard sent forth the odour thereof."

Humility, my brethren, exhales a good odour, which, ascending up from this valley of tears, spreads itself around in every direction, and even perfumes the royal bedchamber with its sweet fragrance. Now, spikenard is a lowly plant; moreover, they who make it their business to study carefully the virtues and properties of herbs, declare it to be of a warm-nature. Therefore it seems to me that it can be taken here very fittingly as symbolising the virtue of humility, but only that humility which is heated with the fervour of holy love. The reason ol this distinction is that there is a humility which truth begets in us, and which is without warmth; and a humility which is produced and inflamed by charity. The former is resident in the intellect; the latter has its seat in the affections of the will. Thus, if a man considers himself interiorly by the light of truth, without any dissimulation, and pronounces upon himself an unbiassed judgment, I have no doubt he will be humbled, even in his own eyes, and lowered in his own estimation, although he may not yet be willing to lose the esteem of others. He will consequently have humility, but so far only as the effect of truth, not from the infusion of charity. For were he not merely enlightened by the splendour of that truth which gives him a real and salutary knowledge of himself, but also possessed with the love of it, he doubtless would desire, as far as is proper, that others should

I, eS Tae have the same opinion of him which he has himself and which he knows in his heart to be the truth. I say advisedly, as far as is proper, because, generally speaking, it is not expedient that others know as much about us as we know ourselves. Both the love of truth and the truth of love forbid us to desire the publication of facts the knowledge of which would injure our neighbour. On the other hand, he who, from purely selfish motives, keeps locked up in his own mind the verdict of truth upon himself, makes it plain to all how little he loves the truth, since he is thus ready to sacrifice it to personal honour or temporal gain.

You observe then, my brethren, that a man may have a really humble opinion of himself, and yet be unwilling to "consent to the humble," as the Apostle says. For these two things are quite distinct; the former coming from the light of truth, the latter from the grace of charity. The former results by necessity, the latter is the production of free-will. Of the Saviour we are told that "He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,"' and giving us the form and pattern of humility. "' He emptied Himself" as "He humbled Himself," not by any necessity of truth and judgment, but from charity to us. He had the power to exhibit Himself as vile and contemptible, but He' certainly could not so repute Himself, since He knew Himself as He truly was. His humility therefore had its source in His Will, not in His Intellect. He made Himself appear other than He recognised Himself to be, freely choosing to be esteemed the least, whilst fully conscious that He was the greatest. Then He tells us, "Learn of Me, because Iam meek and humble of heart." Notice how He says "humble of heart," that is, "humble in the affection of My Heart and by the choice of My Will." So He denies the necessity of His humility, by ascribing it to His Will. For in this He was not like you and me, who find ourselves in very truth deserving of contempt and dishonour, worthy of all abasement and subjection, worthy even of severe chastisement and hard stripes. Yet He sub-mitted to all these things, "because it was His own will,"? and because He was "humble of heart." That is to say, He was humble with that humility which is embraced with the heart's affection, not with that which results of necessity from the knowledge of the truth.²

It is for this reason, my brethren, I said a while ago that this kind of voluntary humility is produced in our souls, not by the constraining evidence of truth, but rather by the infusion of love, because it belongs to the heart, to the will, and to the affections. Whether I am right in assigning it to such a source, I leave it to you to judge. It is also for you to consider and decide whether I have correctly attributed the same kind of humility to the Saviour, Who, as is certain, "emptied Himself"? through charity; through charity made Himself "a little less than the angels"; through charity was subject to His parents; through charity stooped to receive baptism at the hands of John; through charity submitted to the infirmities of the flesh; and finally, it was through charity that He became obedient unto death, even unto the shameful death of the cross. Another question awaiting your determination is whether I am right in supposing that this humility, all aglow with the fervour of charity, is here typified by spikenard, an herb whose nature is said to be as warm as its appearance is contemptible. And if you agree with me in all these questions (as indeed you cannot help doing, since you cannot withhold assent from evidence so clear) then if you feel humbled in your own consciences with that constrained humility, which truth, which "searcheth the heart and the reins," produces in the mind of a reflective soul, exert your wills and make a virtue of necessity; because there can be no virtue without the concurrence of the will. You will do this by not desiring to appear to others different from what you appear interiorly to your own hearts. Otherwise you have good reason to fear lest what you read in the Psalmist should apply to yourselves: "For in His sight he hath done deceitfully, that his iniquity may be found unto hatred," and in Proverbs, "Diverse weights and diverse measures, both are abominable before God." For does not he, who wishes to appear better than he knows himself to be, incur the guilt of "doing deceitfully" and using "diverse weights and diverse measures'?? He depreciates himself in the secret chamber of his own judgment, having weighed his worth in the scales of truth; yet exteriorly he pretends to be of higher value, and sells himself as possessing greater weight than he finds registered in the balance of conscience. Fear the All-seeing Judge, my brethren, and never be guilty of so wicked a crime as to lift yourselves up with your wills whilst you feel yourselves being pressed down by truth. For that would be sinning against the light. It would be resisting God. Rather acquiesce in the divine judgment, -and subject your wills to reason, and that not only with docility, but even with devotion. Say to yourselves with the Psalmist, "Shall not my soul be subject to God?".

But it is not enough to be subject to God, unless you are willing to "be subject to every human creature for God's sake, whether it be to" the abbot, "as ex-celling," or to the prior, as appointed by him. I will go further and exhort you to be subject to your equals, yea, even to your inferiors; "for so it becometh us to fulfil all justice." Do thou, then, my brother, if thou desirest to be perfect in justice, 'with honour prevent "him that is less, defer to thy inferiors, place thyself beneath thy juniors. By acting thus, thou also wilt deserve to say with the Spouse, "My spikenard sent forth the 'odour thereof." For thy devotion isa good odour, a good odour, too, is thy fair fame, which reaches and edifies all, so that in every place thou art "the good odour of Christ," regarded by all with love and veneration. He who is humble, not in the free affection of his will, but merely as the effect of the compelling power of truth, cannot exercise the same influence. Such a one keeps his humility altogether to himself; he does not suffer it to escape that it may spread itself abroad and perfume his surroundings. In fact, it would be better to say that humility of this kind has no odour, because it has no charity or devotion, as being the product of necessity rather that the result of willing choice. But the humility of the Spouse (which alone is symbolised by spikenard) glowing with charity, enlivened with devotion, redolent of good fame, scatters its fragrance on every side. It has the properties of voluntariness, constancy, and fertility, and its odour can be extinguished by neither praise nor blame. The Spouse has heard from her Bridegroom the eulogy, "Thy cheeks are beautiful as the turtle dove's"; she has also received a promise of ornaments of gold; and nevertheless she. answers with humility. And the more she is honoured and praised, the more does she humble herself in all things. She does not glory in her merits; nor does she forget her lowliness whilst she hears herself commended, but rather humbly proclaims it under the symbol of spikenard. It is indeed as if she spoke in the words of the Virgin Mary, "I am conscious to myself of nothing that could deserve so great a condescension, beyond the fact that the Lord 'hath regarded the humility of His handmaid."' For what else can be the meaning of the words, "' my spikenard sent forth the odour thereof," if not "my humility has been pleasing to God"'? As if she should say, "It is not by the merit of wisdom I have won the divine favour, nor by the nobility of blood, nor yet by beauty of person, for I make no pretension to such advantages; it is simply because my humility, the sole good quality I can claim to possess, ' sent forth the odour thereof.' "That is to say, its usual, characteristic odour. For it is usual with humility to be acceptable to God; as it is usual with Him, and, as it were, His custom, to look down with favour upon the humble from His "high and elevated throne." And therefore, "while the King was at His repose," the odour of humility penetrated even to His bedchamber. "Whois asthe Lord our God," cries out the Psalmist, "Who dwelleth on high, and looketh down on the low things in heaven and in earth?"

Therefor2, "while the King was at His repose,' the spikenard of His Spouse gave forth its odour. The King takes His repose on the Bosom of His Father, because the Son is always 1a the Father. And doubt not, my brethren, that He will show Himself a gracious Monarch, since He reposes everlastingly on the bed, so to speak, of the Father's benignity. It is only natural that the cry of the humble should mount up to Him Whose home is in the very Well-Spring of piety, to Whom sweetness is essential, to Whom goodness is substantial, or rather, consubstantial, Whose whole Being is so wholly from the Father, that trembling humility need suspect in His royal Majesty the presence of nothing that is not paternal. Besides, we have the pledge, "By reason of the misery of the needy, and the groans of the poor, now will I arise, saith the Lord." The Spouse, consequently, well aware of this promise, as being one of His household and especially beloved, has no fears of being excluded from her Bridegroom's favour on account of her poverty of merit, because she places all her hope in her humility. But as she is still mindful of His sharp reproof, she does not now venture to call Him her Bridegroom or her Beloved, but less familiarly refers to Him as the King. Nevertheless, whilst she thus acknowledges the immensity of His elevation above her, her humility preserves its simple trust.

This text, which I have been discussing, is particularly applicable to the primitive Church. Call to mind those days following upon the Ascension of the Lord to the place which was His from eternity, where He sits in Majesty at the Father's Right Hand, yet,at the same time, reposes in tranquillity on that ancient, noble, most glorious Couch of His Bosom. Call to mind, I say, those days when the disciples were gathered together in the upper chamber, "persevering with one mind in prayer, with the women, and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with His brethren." Does it not seem to you, my brethren, that then especially, the spikenard of the young and tremulous Spouse "sent forth the odour thereof"'? And when "suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting," could not the same Spouse, still tender, weak, and needy, say with all confidence, "while the King was at His repose, my spikenard sent forth the odour thereof"? It certainly was made clear to all who were present in that upper chamber, how pleasing and acceptable was the odour sent up by her humility, from the multitude and magnificence of the gifts wherewith it was immediately rewarded. Nor did she prove ungrateful for so great a benefit. For hear how, being instantly filled with holy love, she prepares to suffer all things for the sake of her Divine Benefactor. "A bundle of myrrh is my Beloved to me," she exclaims, "He shall abide between my breasts.";

My weakness, brethren, which you well know, will not suffer me to proceed. So I shall conclude with this one remark. The Spouse here declares herself ready, for the love of her Bridegroom, to endure the bitterness of tribulation, signified by the bundle of myrrh. The full exposition of this verse you shall have at another time; on condition, however, that by your prayers you obtain for me the light of the Holy Ghost. For He alone can enable us to understand the words of the Spouse, since it was He Who inspired them,and made them such as He knew would most fittingly express the praises of Him Whose Spirit He is, the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen.

Footnotes

1. This sounds like an echo of St. Augustine's celebrated petition, "Hic credo, hic ure, ut in aeternum parcas."—(Translator.) a. 2H ↩

2. In his treatise De gradibus humilitatis, St. Bernard defines humility as the virtue which gives a man a clear knowledge and a contempt of his baseness ("virtus qua quis, verissima sui cognitione, sibi ipse vilescit"). Now, it is clear that such a virtue, implying imperfection, can have no place in Christ as He is God. As Man, He could (and therefore did) possess humility both of intellect and of will, for even though, so regarded, He was the noblest of creatures, He was still but a creature, and as such infinitely inferior to the Creator. But in comparison with other men—and this is the case our Saint seems to be considering—Christ could, indeed, and did exercise humility of the will, by submitting to indignities He did not deserve, yet He certainly was incapable of intellectual humility, knowing Himself to be "Lord and Master," and, by natural tight, the Only Sinless.—(Translator.) ↩