32 — HUMILITY AND TRUST

Presence of God. — From the depth of my nothingness I cry to You, O Lord; Lord hear my voice... I trust in You.

Meditation

1 — Christian humility does not depress, but lifts up, does not cast down, but encourages, because the more it unveils to the soul its nothingness, its lowliness, the more it launches it toward God, full of trust and confidence. The very fact that in everything - in being and in acting, both in the natural order and in the supernatural - we depend on Him and cannot do anything without Him, tells us that God wills to sustain us continually with His help, with His grace. Consequently, the relations of a humble soul with God will be those of a child who trustfully awaits everything from his father. This is the teaching Jesus wanted to give the Apostles when they asked Him who would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven: “Truly I say to you: unless you turn and become like little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever therefore makes himself little like this child, shall be greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18, 3-4). To become children - explains St. Therese of the Child Jesus - “means to recognize one’s nothingness, to expect everything from the good God as a child expects everything from his father... Even among the poor, the child is given what is necessary; but when he has become grown, his father no longer wishes to maintain him and says: ‘Now work! you can provide for yourself.’ Precisely so as not to hear these words, I have never wanted to become grown, recognizing myself absolutely incapable of earning my life, eternal life!” (CR. and NV.).

For the soul that, humbly recognizing its poverty, turns to God with full trust, God is a most tender Father who delights to fill it with His gifts and to do for it what it by itself does not know how to do. Then the one who is smallest - that is, most convinced of his own nothingness - becomes the greatest, because he has at his disposal the greatness of God Himself.

2 — God does not introduce souls into a higher spiritual life, does not admit them to greater intimacy with Him, until He finds them completely stripped of every trust in themselves. When a soul, practically forgetting its nothingness, trusts even a little in its own strength, its knowledge, initiatives, virtues, God leaves it to itself; the failures that follow, relapses, the sterility of its works will lay bare its insufficiency. And the more tenacious the soul is in trusting itself, the longer the Lord will prolong for it this practical experience of its nothingness.

St. Teresa of Jesus, speaking of her definitive and total conversion, confesses that what prevented her from overcoming the final obstacles was precisely a residue of trust she still had in herself: “I was wrong not to place in the Lord all my trust and not to distrust my own powers enough” (Life 8, 12). Trust in God grows in proportion to distrust of self and becomes total when the soul, having understood deeply its nothingness, has lost every trust in its personal resources. The soul then experiences the reality of Jesus’ word: “When you have done all that is commanded you, say: ‘We are unprofitable servants’” (Lk. 17, 10) and, though it has greatly exercised itself in interior life, prayer, and virtue, it knows it cannot count at all on its own strength, knows that though it has labored for the glory of God, it cannot at all count on its works; and therefore it counts totally and solely on God’s mercy and grace: “Non habeo fiduciam nisi in tua misericordia.” Its trust is in Jesus’ infinite merits, in the merciful love of the heavenly Father and in the work of grace; and this trust renders it more than ever courageous and bold, because it knows that with God all is possible.

Colloquy

“What pleases Jesus - says the Saint of Lisieux - is to see me love my littleness and my poverty; it is the blind hope I have in His mercy. This is my only treasure” (Lt. 176).

“I recognize it, O Lord, I am very weak and every day I make new experience of it. But You deign to teach me that science which makes me glory in my infirmities. This is a very great grace, and in it alone I find peace and rest of heart, because I have now understood Your way: You give as God knows to give, but You want humility of heart” (cf. T.B.G. Lt. 87 and 140).

O Lord, Your light penetrates my soul and makes me understand how far my ways are from Yours! Instead of being irritated by my miseries, instead of being cast down by my falls and failures, instead of pretending to succeed in everything and accomplish great things, I must accept humbly to see myself so weak, so needy, so much in need of Your help.

For a soul that loves You, my God, how sweet it is to need You, so as to be unable to do anything without You! It is sweet, because this tells me that You wish continually to intervene in my poor life, that You wish continually to sustain me by Your grace, that You will never abandon me, not even for the first moment. And to give me the abundance of Your divine helps, You await only that I place myself before You in the humble and trusting attitude of a child who, unable to rely on his own strength and resources, expects everything from his father. You await that, profoundly convinced of my nothingness, I accept and love to feel myself nothing, so that You may be my All.

Strip me, O Lord, strip me of every residue of trust in myself. If every man is like the grass of the field that today is and tomorrow is no more, what greater folly can there be than to count on the strength of a blade of grass? Heal me, O Lord, of such folly and place me, I beg You, in truth. O You who are Truth, sanctify me in truth, in the truth of my nothingness.

You alone are good, my God, and You alone can make me good; You alone are just, and You alone can justify me. You alone are holy, and You alone can sanctify me. The less I can expect from myself, the more I can and want to expect from You; from You good will and constancy, from You strength and patience, from You purity and goodness, from You virtue and holiness. From me nothing, and from You all. O Lord, hasten to come to my aid: my nothingness invokes You, my misery sighs for You!