Chapter VI. On imitating our Lord in His humility

'^ Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart.** Jesus Christ alone can teach us to be humble. To become so, we must make His humility our particular study, by entering into His mind and imitating His example.

First point. The measure of our Lord's humility is the self-annihilation to which the Word submitted in making Himself man. We may remark five principal qualities in this self-annihilation.

1. It is infinite ; for there is an infinite distance between God, who is the universal and necessary Being, and the creature, which, however perfect it may be, is still in itself but pure nothingness.

2. Tt is as great and as profound as it could be, supposing, which is true, that God cannot unite Himself hypostatically to an irrational creature ; for of those which are gifted with reason and free-will man is the lowest. Moreover, in assuming a body He took all that is lowest in nature, and subjected Himself to a thousand humiliations attached to the condition of men.

3. It is substantial, and not merely accidental like our self-annihilations. When we humble ourselves or are humbled, we lose only certain advantages, the deprivation of which, however, does not degrade us from our being. Often even our humiliations are only imaginary ; but that of the Word reduces Him to a degree of being lower than His own, abasing Him even to the becoming truly man.

4. It is complete and total : this it is St. Paul indicates when he says that "in Jesus Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporally." For we may gay that the Godhead annihilates itself according to the measure in which it communicates itself to humanity.

5. It is eternal, and will never cease, the Word remaining eternally man.

Marvellous annihilation ! incomprehensible mystery ! annihilation which is the cause of all the greatness and all the glory of angels and men !

Second point. Jesus Christ, in His sacred Humanity, beholding the annihilation of the Word, has, after this example, annihilated Himself in all possible ways, and above all in the holy Eucharist, which bears wonderful relations to the Incarnation. The grounds of His humility are, first, the continual sight of the annihilation of the Word ; secondly, the clear knowledge of what He is as man — that the human nature He has taken, and which its union with the Person of the Word renders impeccable and infinitely holy, is in itself subject to sin, miseries of all kinds, and damnation ; thirdly, the infinite rectitude of His will, which, in the knowledge that nothing is due to the creature but lowliness, abjection, poverty, labours, and pains, makes Him desire nothing else ; and this it is He chose for His portion on the earth.

Third point. We are very far from having these humble sentiments of ourselves. We think only of exalting and aggrandising ourselves. Our own excellence is the centre in which all our thoughts, all our desires, all the movements of our heart terminate ; and nevertheless in the sight of God, who is Truth itself, the high notions we entertain of our own merit are nothing but error and falsehood ; the desire we have to be esteemed, praised, and honoured, is nothing but injustice ; and that vain-glory, that height we aspire after, is, in fact, the depth of degradation ; that distinction and worldly greatness after which we seek is nothing but misery and poverty : as, on the contrary, trae great* ness consist! in humbling ourselves, loving abjection, and desiring only contempt. The holy angels rose to glory by their humility ; the rebel angels fell down to hell by their pride.