XI. Humility

Summary. — One of the greatest obstacles to the Divine outpourings is formed by pride ; humility removes this obstacle. — I. Necessity of humility. — II. St. Benedict’s concept of humility and the important place he gives to it in the inner life. Nature of this virtue. — III. What St. Thomas, following the example of St. Benedict, assigns as the root of humility : reverence towards God, to which the holy Patriarch allies the most absolute confidence. — IV. Degrees of humility laid down by St. Benedict ; the two first degrees of interior humility equally concern simple Chritians. — V. The degrees that are, properly speaking, monastic. — VI. Exterior humility ; its necessity, its degree. — VII. How humility accords with truth and is allied to confidence. — VIII. The most precious fruit of this virtue : it most efficaciously prepares the soul to receive the abundance of Divine outpourings, and perfect charity. — IX. Means of attaining this virtue : prayer ; contemplation of the Divine perfections ; consideration of the humiliations of Christ Jesus. — X. Christ makes the humble soul share in His heavenly exaltation.

One of the greatest revelations that Our Lord has given to us through His Incarnation is that of God’s immense desire to communicate Himself to our souls in order to be their beatitude. God might have dwelt throughout eternity in the fruitful solitude of His one and triune Divinity ; He has no need of the creature, for nothing is wanting to Him Who, alone, is the fulness of Being and the First Cause of all things : Bonorum meorum non eges L But having de¬ creed, in the absolute and immutable liberty of His sovereign Will, to give Himself to us, the desire He has of realising this Will is infinite. We might be tempted at times to believe that God may be " indifferent, ” that His desire to communicate Himself is vague, inefficacious ; but these are human conceptions, images of the weakness of our nature, too often unstable and powerless. In God all is pure act ; that which in our miserable language we call “ Divine desire, " is an act really indistinct from the Divine essence, and consequently infinite.

In this, as in all that touches our supernatural life, we

I. Ps. XV, 2.

Christ, the Ideal of the Monk. must allow ourselves to be guided not by our imagination, but by the light of Revelation. It is God Himself to whom we must listen when we vish to know the Divine Life ; it is towards Christ that we must turn, towards the Beloved Son Who is ever “ in the Bosom of the Father ”, in sinu Patris 1, He Who has Himself revealed the Divine secrets : Ipse enarravit. What does He tell us ? That God so loved men, that He has given them His Only-begotten Son : Sic Deus dilexit mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum daret 2. And why has He given Him ? That He may be our justice, our redemption, our holiness. Christ Jesus, in obedience to His Father, Sicut mandatum dedit miki Pater, delivered Himself up to us even to the death of the Cross, even to the state of the Host, even to be our Food : in finem. Would God have carried love to these extremes if He did not in¬ finitely desire to communicate Himself to us ? For, ac¬ cording to the thought of St. Thomas, God’s love is not a passive love, since being the First Cause of all things, He cannot receive anything : it is an efficacious love, necessarily efficient. And because God loves us, He wishes with an unbounded love and an efficacious will, to give Himself to us.

But then, one might ask, why does He not give Himself infallibly ? Why are souls to be found to whom God does not communicate Himself ? Why so often such parsimony in the outpouring of the Divine gifts ? Why are there so many souls who seem as if they ought to abound in graces, and are yet so destitute of gifts from on high ? When we study the action of grace in souls, W'e are astonished, in passing from one to another, to notice the difference in the effects produced. With some, grace blossoms in an abundance of lights and gifts ; these souls advance visibly ; they are filled with something divine, which is often manifested by the spiritual and beneficial influence which radiates from them. With others, on the contrary, it is quasi-sterility ; the Sacraments, Mass, holy reading, the observance of the Rule, all these means, which although they are authentic channels of Divine grace produce little effect in them. And yet, when one examines these souls, nothing is to be discover¬ ed, at least at first sight, which explains such a difference. Why does their outward regularity leave them without habitual union with God, and without any real progress ?¹

sj. lv-'*u, the others are " poor in spirit ” : Pauper es spiritu x. For the' latter there is the Kingdom of God, with the abun¬ dance of all good things ; Esurientes implevit bonis ; for the former, the destitution of their utter nothingness : Divites dimisit inanes 2.

We all have obstacles within us that hinder God’s action : sin, the roots of sin, perverse tendencies not fought against ; for “what fellowship hath light, with darkness? ” These obstacles are overcome by souls who renounce everything,

— created things, and themselves, — who increase their capacity for what is divine, by detachment from all that is not God. They look only to God for all they need ; they are humble in themselves, they rely only upon God ; God fills these pauperes spiritu with good things. As to the others, they bear within them a tendency particularly qualified to form an obstacle to God ; this tendency is pride. Pride i's radically opposed to the Divine communications ; God cannot give Himself to these self-satisfied divites spiritu. This is a fact often to be met with.

In studying this fact more deeply, we shall acknowledge how necessary humility is for the life of the soul ; we shall understand how right our holy Father was in wishing this virtue to be placed as the very basis of our monastic life ; then we will specify its nature and character. We will examine next the “ degrees of humility, ” such as St. Benedict defined them ; we shall be enabled to follow the manifesta¬ tions of the virtue, and finally to point out the means con¬ ducive to its development in our souls.

Let us ask Christ Jesus Whom we want to imitate more closely, after having left all things to follow Him, to teach us this humility. It is the virtue to which He willed espe¬ cially to draw the attention of our souls. One phrase of the Holy Gospel begins with these words : “ Learn of Me... ” Discite a Me 4. What is this thing that we are most specially to learn of Him ? Is it that He is God ? the sovereign Being, All-powerful, full of wisdom ? “ What we must learn of Him ”, says St. Augustine, “ is not that He has formed the world, created all things visible and invisible, that in this world which is His handiwork He has wrought miracles, and raised the dead to life " Discite a me non mundum fabricare, non cuncta visibilia et invisibilia creare, non in ipso mundo miracula facere, et mortuos suscitare 5. Does He wish us “ to learn " from Him the most heroic i. Matth. v. 3. — 2. Luc. 1, 53- — 3- H Cor. vi, 14. — 4- Matth. xi, 29.

— 5. S. Augustin. Sermo 10 de Verbis Domini. P. L. Sermo 69, n. 2.

2X2 virtues, that He was obedient unto death, that He delivered Himself up wholly to His Father’s will, that He was devoured with zeal for the interests of the Father’s glory and those of our salvation ? Without doubt He practised all these virtues with wonderful perfection : but what He wants us especially to learn of Him is that He is " meek and humble of heart, ” those virtues of self-effacement and silence, virtues unperceived by men, or even disdained by them x, but which He justly urges us to make our own : Discite a Me quia mitis sum et humilis corde. Let us beseech Him that, through His grace, He will make our hearts like unto His, for perfection lies in this constant imitation, through love, of our Divine Model : Hoc enim sentite in vobis quod et in Christo Jesu 2.

I

Holy Scripture, as you know has strange expressions to signify, in human language, God’s attitude towards the proud. It says, “ God resisteth the proud " : Dens superbis resistit. If it is a terrible thing for a man to be forsaken by God, what is it when God begins to resist him ?

We cannot think without terror of this divine resistance. God is the sole fount of our holiness, because He is the Author of every grace. Now what grace is to be hoped for from God, if God not only does not give Himself to us, but resists us, rejects us ?

What is there then that is so evil, so contrary to God in pride, for God so mightily to thrust it far from Him ?

The reason of this antagonism is derived from the very nature of Divine Holiness. God is the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and Omega * of all things ; He is the First Cause of every creature and the Fountainhead of all perfection. All life comes from Him, all good flows from Him ; but also every creature has to return to Him, all glory to be referred to Him. God has made everything for His glory : Universa propter semetxpsum operatus est Do minus 5. In us, a like conduct would be egotism, supreme disorder ; in God, to Whom the term of egotism can in nowise be applied, it is a necessity founded upon His very nature. It is essential to God s sanctity to bring back everything to His own glory ; otherwise God would not be God, because He would be subordinate to another end than Himself. Listen to the²

Prophet Isaias. He shows us the Angels singing the holiness of God, because His glory fills heaven and earth : Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth ; plena est omnis terra gloria ejus, In the same way St. John at Patmos declares he saw the elect cast themselves down before the throne of God and heard them repeat tnis canticle : “ Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory, and honour, and power ; for all things have received being and life at Thy hands 2. ” God Himself declares " I will not give my glory to another. '* This is because in contemplating Himself He beholds that He merits infinite glory on account of the plenitude of His Being and the ocean of His perfections ; God cannot, without ceasing to be God, without ceasing to be Holiness, tolerate that His glory be attributed to another than Himself. He gives us many graces ; He gives us His beloved Sen : Sic Deus dilexit mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum dareti: He gives Him to us entirely for ever, if we will have it so ; He gives us all good things in His Son, through His Son. Cunt illo omnia nobis donavit 5; He gives us that supreme good which is eternal and unending bliss. He grants us to enter into the intimate fellowship of His Blessed Trinity ; but there is one thing which He neither will nor can communicate to anyone, — tuid this thing is His glory: Ego Dominus; gloriam meam alteri non dabo.

Now what is it that the proud man does ? He attempts to rob God of this glory which God alone merits and of which He is so jealous, in order to appropriate it to himself. The proud man lifts himself up above others, he makes himself the centre ; he glories in his own person, in his perfection, his deeds ; he sees in himself alone the principle of all that he has and all that he is ; he considers that he owes nothing to anyone, not even to God, He would deprive God, of that Divine attribute of being the First Principle and Last End. Doubtless, in theory, he may think that all comes from God, but, in practice, he acts and lives as if all came from himself.

Such being the antagonism that pride sets up between man and God 6, it is needful that God should “ resist ” the proud ; God cannot but repulse him as an unjust aggressor : Super bis resistit. “ The Lord is high, and looketh on the low : and the high He knoweth afar off ” : Excelsus Dominus et humilia respicit, et alta a longe cognoscit. Commenting on these words, an ancient author writes : “ God beholdeth the proud from afar off, in order to oppress them more rigorously : ” alia, id est, superba, de longs cognoscit ut depri - mat. Is there a more terrifying perspective for the soul than that ?³

Our Divine Saviour, so merciful, so compassionate, teaches us these same lessons again under the impressive parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. Look at the Pharisee : he is a man convinced of his own importance full of and sure of himself ; the “ Ego " of this man seeks to advertise itself by words and attitude. He stands in the careless posture of one conscious of his personal worth and perfection, one who owes nothing to anyone, and, inversely, esteems himself to have need of nothing. He complacently displays before God all that he has done ; it is true that he returns thanks to God ; but, remarks St. Bernard, this false homage is but a lie added to pride ; the Pharisee has “ a double heart ” as the Psalmist says ; the contempt that he has for the Publican shows that he believes himself to be much more perfect than he, and thus it is to himself that in reality he reserves the glory that in appearance he gives to God. He does not ask anything from God, because he does not consider he has need of anything : he suffices for himself ; he rather presents his conduct to God’s approbation. Can we not almost hear him saying : “ My God, You must be very content with me, for I am truly irreproachable ; I am not like other men, not even like this publican. " In fact this personage is practically persuaded that all his perfection comes from himself. We read moreover in the evangelical text that our Lord spoke this parable to those Jews, “ who trusted in themselves as just. ”

Now look at the other actor in the scene, the Publican. He stands at a distance, scarcely daring to lift up his eyes, for he feels how miserable he is. Does he think he has any plea that can prevail with God ? He has none. He is aware only of his sins. “ My God, I am only a guilty wretch, have pity on me. " He confides only in the Divine mercy ; he looks for nothing, he hopes for nothing except from that ; all his confidence, all his hope, is placed in God.

Now, how does God act with these two men ? Quite differently. “ I say to you, ” declares Christ Jesus, “this man (the Publican) went down into his house justified i. Sermo 2 de ascens. Domini 177 de tempore, 3. 2. (Appendice to the works of St. Augustine. — 2. Ps. xi, 3. 1 — 3. Quia gratias agendo probas te tibi nihil tribuere, sed Dei esse dona tua merita, prudent er agnoscere, certe caeteros aspernando, prodis te, quod in corde et corde locutus sis, altero commodans linguatn mendacio , altero veritatis usurpans gloriam. Non enim judicares publicanum eontemnendum prae te, si non prae illo te honorandum censer es. S. Bernard Sermo 13 in canlica P. L. cjlxxxiii, 1302. rather than the other. ” Was not the Publican, however, a sinner ? Assuredly. The Pharisee, on the other hand, was he not, at least outwardly, a faithful observer of the Law of Moses ? No less certainly he was. But he, full of himself, showed by his contempt of the publican that he was puffed up in his own heart by reason of these good works he had done. Therefore God repulses him : Dispersit superbos menie cordis sui 2. To the poor publican who humbles himself, He, on the contrary, gives an abundance of grace: Humilibus autem dat gratiam.

And Christ Jesus, in ending the parable, Himself lays down the fundamental law' which rules our relations with God ; He brings forward the essential lesson we have to learn : “ Everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled : and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted ” : Omnis qui sc exaltat humiliabitur et qui se humiliat exallabitur 4.

You see to what a degree pride is opposed to the soul’s union with God ; there is not, says St. Ihomas, any sin, or tendency, that bears more patently the character of an obstacle to Divine communications : Per superbiam homines maxime a Deo avertuntur 6. And as God is the principle of all grace, pride is the most terrible of all dangers for the soul ; while there is no surer way of attaining holiness and of finding God than humility. It is pride that above all prevents God from giving Himself ; if there were no longer any pride in souls, God would give Himself to them fully. Humility is indeed so fundamental a virtue that without it, says the Abbot of Ciairvaux, all other virtues go to ruin : Virtutum siquidem bonum quoddam ac stabile fundamentum humilitas. Nempe si nutet ilia, virtutum aggregatio nonnisi ruina est. This is because, by reason of our fallen nature, there are in us obstacles opposed to the expansion of the inner life ; if these obstacles are not removed, they end by stifling the virtues. Now, the greatest obstacle is pride, because it is a fundamental obstacle, radically opposed to Divine union itself, and consequently to the grace whereof God alone is the source and without which we can do nothing. Humility, again says St. Bernard, receives the other virtues, guards and perfects them : Humilitas virtutes alias accipit, servat acceptas... servatas consummat.

The humble soul is ready to receive all the gifts of God, first because it is empty of self, because it looks to God for all that is necessary to its perfection, and because it feels itself to be poor and miserable. All that God has done for us since the Fall into which we have been drawn, is the effect of His mercy. The Angels who have no miseries hymn the sanctity of God; we hymn His mercy: Misericordias Domini in aeiernum cantabo 1. God, beholding fallen man, encompassed with weaknesses, subject to temptation, at the mercy of his inclinations which change with the times and seasons, with health, surroundings, education, is touched by this misery, as if it were His own ; this Divine movement which inclines the Lord towards our misery in order to relieve it, is mercy : Quomodo miseretur Pater filiorum, misertus est Dominus timentibus se, quoniam ipse cognovit figmentum nostrum 2.⁴

So profound is our misery that it may be compared to an abyss, which calls upon the abyss of the Divine mercy : Abyssus abyssum invocat ; but it only calls upon it in so far as this misery is recognised, confessed ; and it is humility that wrings this cry from us : Domine, miserere mei ! Humility is the practical and continual avowal of our misery, and this avowal attracts the eyes of God. The rags and wounds of the poor plead for them ; they do not strive to hide them, on the contrary, they display them so as to touch the hearts of those who behold them. In the same way, we ought not to strive to dazzle God by our perfection, but rather to draw down His mercy bv the con¬ fession of our weakness. Each one of us has a sum of miseries sufficient to draw down the pity of our God. Are we not all like that poor wayfarer lying on the road to Jericho, stripped of his garments, covered with wounds ? By original sin, we have all been stripped of grace ; our personal sins have covered our soul with wounds, but Christ Jesus has been for us the good Samaritan ; He came to heal us, to pour the balm of His Precious Blood upon our wounds, to take us into His arms and entrust us to the tenderness of His Church which is another Himself.

It is an excellent prayer to show our Lord all our miseries, all the deformities that still disfigure our soul. “ O my God, behold this soul which Thou hast created and redeemed ; see how it has been deformed, how full it is of inclinations displeasing in Thy sight. Have pity ! ” This prayer goes straight to Christ’s Heart like the prayer of the poor leper in the Gospel : Jesu pr acceptor , miserere nostri 4. And Our Lord will heal us.⁵

When we acknowledge that of ourselves we are weak, poor, miserable, infirm, we implicitly proclaim God’s power, wisdom, holiness, loving-kindness ; it is rendering homage to the Divine plenitude, and this homage is so pleasing to God that He stoops towards the humble soul to fill it with good things ; Esurientes implevit bonis. As St. Bernard again says 1 : “ Our heart is a vessel destined to receive grace ; in order for it to contain grace in abundance it must be empty of self-love and vain glory. When humility has there prepared a vast capacity to be filled, grace flows in, for there is close affinity between grace and humility semper solet esse gratiae divinae familiar is virtus humilitas 3. Nothing then is more efficacious than this virtue for meriting grace, for retaining it in us, or recovering it if we have lost it.

There exists yet another reason for God’s liberality towards humble souls. God sees that the humble soul will not, as the proud does, appropriate to itself the Divine gifts, but will return all glory and praise to Heaven. And this is why, if we may be allowed so to speak, God has no fear in causing the abundance of His favours to flow into this soul ; it will not abuse them ; it will not use them otherwise than as God intends.

The nearer we would draw to God, the more deeply we must anchor ourselves in humility. St. Augustine shows us this very clearly in a familiar comparison. “ The end, ” he says, “ that we pursue is very great ; for it is God Whom we seek, to Whom we would attain, for in Him alone is to be found our eternal beatitude. Now we can only come to this lofty end through humility. Dost thou wish to raise thyself ? Begin by abasing thyself. Thou dost dream of building an edifice that will tower towards the skies ? Take care first of all to lay the foundation by humility ” : Magnus esse vis ? a minima incipe. Cogitas magnam fabricam construere celsitudinis ? de fundamento prius cogita humilitatis. And the higher the building is to be, adds the holy Doctor, the deeper must the foundations be dug : the more so in that the soil of our poor nature is singularly shifting and unstable : Ergo et fabrica ante celsitudinem humiliatur, et fastigium post humiliationem erigitur. Now to what height dost thou aspire to raise this spiritual edifice ? As high as the vision of God : Quo perventurum est cacumen aedificii? Cito dico : usque ad conspectum Dei. “See then, ” he ex- claims, " to what a sublime height this edifice must be raised, what a thing it is to see God ; but it is not reached by self¬ elevation, but by humility ” : Videtis quam excelsum est, quanta res conspicere Deum, non elatione sed humilitate attingitur 1.⁶

II

Hence we easily understand why St. Benedict, who assigns us no other end than “ to find God, ” founds our spiritual life upon humility. He had himself reached too near God to be ignorant that humility alone draws down grace, and that without grace we can do nothing. All the asceticism of St. Benedict consists in making the soul humble, then in mak¬ ing it live in obedience (which is the practical expression of humility) : this will be for it the secret of intimate union with God 2. “ In the mind of the holy Patriarch, this chapter on humility views the spiritual life taken as a whole. He has marked out the stages of the soul’s ascent to God, from the renouncing of sin to the plenitude of charity. Why does St. Benedict view this ascent from the angle of humility, granting to the development of this virtue the privilege of containing, so to speak, the increase of all the others ? He could have claimed, and not without reason, that the ladder that leads to God is made up of degrees of patience, or else of a succession of graces of prayer : discursive prayer to begin with, then simplified, then mystically uniting the soul to God ; or better still, he could have said that this ladder was a succession of degrees of charity. If St. Benedict preferred a conception of another kind, it is because, by tendency of character and the attraction of grace, he was predisposed to understand the ascension of the soul as characterised by a deeper and deeper submission of man before God. This conception is the reflection of an essentially religious and contemplative soul...3”

St. Benedict devotes a whole chapter to this fundamental virtue, but, as we shall see further on, he has a very sure and at the same time a very wide concept of humility ; he does not envisage it simply as a very special virtue apart, linked to the moral virtue of temperance 4, but as a virtue expressing the whole attitude the soul ought to have in face of God ; an attitude wherein are fused the different sentiments that i. Sermo io de Verbis Domini. — 2. Humilitas... praebet homincm subditum et patulum ad suscipiendum influxum divinae gratiae, Cf. S. Thomas , 11-11 q., clxi, a. 5, ad 2. -3. D. I. Ryelandt, Essai sur le caracterc ou la. pliysionomie should animate us as creatures and as adopted children ; an attitude on which all our spiritual life is to be based. This proposition will be made clearer by what follows.⁷

St. Benedict begins his chapter by recalling the law laid down by Christ Himself at the end of the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. “ Everyone that exalte th him¬ self, shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted. " “ The intimate sense of the Divine hold upon human life causes a man to humble and submit himself, while simultaneously he is exalted in God by this very submission. The deep meaning of St. Benedict’s idea is the assertion of the evangelical truth that the more A man progresses in true humility, the more he becomes absorbed in God and rises towards the heights of union with Him U ”

The theory of humility is, with St. Benedict, exactly cor¬ relative with his conception of grace. The progress of the soul in God is the progress of God in the soul. The work, which by means of grace, belongs properly speaking, to the soul, is to open the way to God's action, to open itself to God. To every degree of ascension towards God, corresponds a degree of “ the opening of self to God. ” How do we open ourselves to God ? By more and more abolishing pride within us ; by more and more deepening humility. And this is how, definitively, the ladder, in the negative sense, of humility can serve as the ladder, in the positive sense, of perfection and charity. Upon the ladder of humility can be marked a gradation which, doubtless admits of some con¬ vention and ingenuity, but which however well indicates all positive degrees in the supernatural life.

Borrowing the expressive image of the Psalmist, St. Be¬ nedict compares the proud man repulsed by God to an infant weaned too soon from its mother 2 : severed from the source of life the infant is doomed to perish. This is the great danger that the soul risks : to be separated from God, the sole fount of every grace. If then, continues our Holy Father, “ we wish to attain to the summit of supreme humility, and speedily reach that heavenly exaltation to which we ascend by the humility of this present life, we must by the ever ascending degrees of our actions, erect that ladder which appeared to Jacob while he slept and by which he saw the Angels descending and ascending." The holy⁸

Lawgiver next compares the two sides of the ladder to the body and the soul, for the body is to share in the inward virtue, and divine grace has placed between these two sides the divers degrees which we must climb.

Before studying these degrees with St. Benedict, let us first say what humility is. St. Benedict does not define it ; he rather points out its different manifestations. We will therefore borrow the divers elements of the definition of humility from St. Thomas, who, moreover, in his Sttmma theologica comments on this chapter of St. Benedict and justifies the degrees of humility indicated by him. God sometimes gives to a soul, all at once, a higher degree of humility, as He gives to another the gift of prayer ; but in the ordinary way, He requires our co-operation ; and since we only esteem and seek what we know', let us try to under¬ stand clearly what this virtue is.

Humility can be thus defined : a moral virtue that inclines us, from reverence towards God, to abase ourselves and keep ourselves in the place that we see is due to us.

It is a virtue, that is to say an habitual disposition. The virtue of humility is not constituted by a particular act ; one can perform the acts without possessing the virtue ;

St. Benedict restricts the idea to the practice of humility. Let us add then that in the sixth century, St. John Climacus wrote his celebrated Scala paradisi, the ‘ ladder that leads to Heaven, ” and that comprises thirty degrees, to recall the thirty years of Christ’s hidden life. i. ii-ii, q. clxi, a. 6, and q. clxii, a. 4, ad 4. However St. Thomas follows the inverse order in beginning by the last degree. In the body of the article he really takes up anew his teaching on humility beginning with the first degree : reverence towards God. It is known that St Thomas was a Benedictine Oblate at Monte Cassino where he stayed nine years ; he was obliged to leave the abbey in consequence of the political troubles raised by Frederick II, who, excommunicated by Gregorv IX, drove out the monks from their monastery. During his sojourn at Cassino, the young Thomas studied the text of the holy Patriarch’s Rule. " The writings of the future doctor, ” — thus says the most recent of the historians of St- Thomas, Pere Mandonnet, O. P. — " bear testimony to his familiarity with St. Benedict’s legislative monument. ’’ This same historian ends his study upon “St. Thomas, Benedictine Oblate with these lines which I may be allowed to quote : ' Thomas of Aquinas must have left the shelter of his youthful years with sorrowful regrets. Being a deeply religious soul, the well spring of his life must have appeared to him to have run dry. However, throughout the events that might have seemed disastrous, he carried away with him, into exile, a great spiritual treasure. He had not only sheltered his years of childhood in the most illustrious monastery in Christendom ; he also received a formation of which he never lost the unchanging benefit. To Benedictine spirituality he owed a sound and sincere mind. The monastic life, with the calm succession of days similar to one another, had already confirmed the admirable equilibrium of his temperament and faculties. The isolation of his life as oblate, and the development of he great Cassinian nature had awakened, if not matured, his profound power of recollection. " Revue des J tunes, 25th May 1919, pp. 241-242; cf. also io*11 May, p. 145 sq. the virtue consists of an habitual disposition, promptly and easily manifested. It is like a furnace whence acts of humility arise as do sparks under a breath that stirs the flame.

Being a moral virtue, humility has assuredly all its premis¬ ses in the understanding, in the judgment. But we think that certain authors are wrong in placing it formally in the understanding ; with St. Thomas we say that it dwells essen¬ tially in the will : In ipso appetitu consistit humilitas essentialiter 1; existit circa appetitum magis quam circa aestimationem 2. So, on the other hand, pride predisposes and contains ill-regulated self-esteem, but it consists more formally in self-complacency (the attitude of the heart) which follows the judgment. In humility, it is the goodwill, which aided by grace, humbles itself, out of reverence towards God, and urges the intellect and the whole man to remain in the place which he knows to be due to him.

Now, what is this place ? Let us consider the thing, not from the point of view of the world, which only esteems what is brilliant and assumes false appearances, but from the point of view of faith, from the point of view of God, Who is very Truth and is not deceived.

In the natural order, what have I of myself ? Without any exaggeration, it fnust be replied : Nothing, neither life, nor health, nor physical strength, nor talents : “ Thy hands have fashioned me . . . wholly. ” M anus tuae, D online , fecerunt me totum in circuitu 4. And not only have I been formed by God, but my being relies wholly upon Him : In Him, “ we live, and move, and are In ipso vivimus, movemur et sumus 5. The active preservation of things is, on God’s part, a continual creation. If God withdrew His hand, I should instantly iind myself without energy, without will, without reason, without life : Omnis caro faenum ; exsiccatum est faenum, et cecidit flos 6. I possess, it is true, the substance of my soul and body, their faculties and powers ; but that is because I have received them from God. “ For who distinguished thee ? " says St. Paul. “ Or what hast thou that thou hast not received ? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it ? ”

And in the supernatural order ? It is true that by grace i. ii-ii, q. clxi, a. 2, c. — 2. Ibid. — 3. The holy Doctor adds, of course, (Ibid.) that humility is based, as upon its directing norm, upon knowledge, whereby we do not esteem ourselves above what we are (Ibid. a. 2 and 6 :) an application to a particular case of this exchange of causality known to all psychologists and moralists, which is made between the reason and the will. — 4. Job. x, 8. — 5. Act. xvii, 28. — 6. Isa. xl, 7. — 7. I Cor. iv, 7. we are the children of God, the brethren of Jesus, called by God to be like unto Himself : Ego dixi : dii estis. That is a wonderful condition, a sublime end, but God has called us to it gratuitously : Non ex operibus justitiae quae fecimus nos, sed secundum suam misericordiam salvos nos fecit 2. And after God’s mercy has endowed us with this Divine gift, we cannot use it without God ; it is of faith, de fide, that we cannot have, by ourselves, in the order of grace, one good thought, meritorious for heaven. Our Lord has said speaking gene¬ rally : Sine me nihil potestis facer e* ; “Without My grace you can do nothing. ” And St. Paul develops the same truth: “ Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves : but our sufficiency is from God. ” Non quod sufficientes simus cogitate aliquid a nobis quasi ex nobis, sed sufficientia nostra ex Deo est 4. Furthermore, he tells us that no man can supernaturally invoke the name of Jesus, except by the grace of the Holy Spirit. As we see, all good comes from God ; and if it is true that the merits of our deeds are our own, they are so because God allows us to merit.

Very logically then our Holy Father tells us that if “ we see any good in ourselves we ought to attribute it to God and not to ourselves ” : Bonum aliquid in se cum viderit Deo ap¬ plied, non sibi ; and, he at once adds, we ought, on the con¬ trary to impute to ourselves all the evil that we do, and of which we know we are the cause : Malum veto semper a se factum sciat et sibi reputet 7, Indeed what is in nowise from God, and is exclusively our own, is sin. If only once in our lifetime we have offended God mortally, we then deserved in all justice, to become an object of horror and hatred to this God Who is very Majesty and Goodness. And if we were not there and then struck down by death and doomed to everlasting punishment, if God, with His forgiveness, vouch¬ safed to restore to us His grace and friendship, it is again to His goodness that we owe it : Misericordia Domini quia non sumus consumpti 8.

Such is the condition that the infallible light of faith shows us as being our own, when we consider all things from the point of view of Divine truth. Humility keeps us in an attitude conformable with this condition ; the will, aided by grace, prompts us to keep in the,»place which is properly “ our owm⁹

III

St. Thomas says that the principal reason and motive of this self-abasement is : “ reverence towards God ” : Ratio praecipua humilitatis sumitur ex reverent-la divina ex qua contingit ut homo non plus sibi attribuat quam sibi competat secundum gradum quern est a Deo sortitus. And the great Doctor recalls that St. Augustine links humility to the gift of fear as he links it to the virtue of religion : Et propter hoc Augustinus humilitatem attribuit dono timoris quo homo Deuni reveretur. We here touch on the deepest point, the very root of the virtue.

When, in prayer, we contemplate the perfections and works of God, when a ray of Divine light reaches us, what is the first movement of the soul touched by grace ? It is one of self-abasement ; the soul is lost in adoration. This atti¬ tude of adoration is the only “ true ” one that the creature, as such, can have before God. What is adoration ? It is the avowal of our inferiority before the Divine perfections ; it is the acknowledgment of our absolute dependence in face of Him Who, alone, is of Himself, the plenitude of Being ; it is the homage of our subjection in face of the infinite Sovereignty. When a creature does not remain in this attitude, it is not in the truth. In Heaven, the Blessed are locked in God’s embrace, an embrace surpassing all that the most ardent love can imagine ; they are possessed by God, they possess Him in the essence of their soul ; God is all in them ; and yet they do not cease to be lost in deep reverence, the expression of their adoration : Timor Domini sanctus permanens in saeculum saeculi. Should not the annihilation of self be likewise our law here below ? When faith, which is the prelude to the Beatific Vision, makes us touch something of God’s unfathomable perfections, we at once cast ourselves down in adoration. The soul under¬ stands, under a strong inner light, what a close contact there may be between itself and God ; it beholds the infinite con¬ trast of the two terms : littleness and lowliness contrasted with greatness and majesty; greatness and majesty contrasted with littleness and lowliness. The soul may moreover concentrate its attention the more upon the one or other of these two terms of the relation. Is it upon the term : “ God” ? It tends to adore Him. Is it the term of “self ” ? The soul tends to humble itself. It is at the precise instant of our self-annihilation in presence of the Divine Majesty that humility is born in the soul. As soon as reverence towards God fills the soul, it is like the source whence humility springs up : Humilitas causatur ex reverentia divina, If this cause is lacking, humility cannot exist. This is a point which cannot be too much insisted upon. We see how eminently humility is a “ religious ” virtue, per¬ meated, as has been very well said, with religion, and therefore essentially proper to our state.¹⁰

We understand too, how important it is, in order to streng¬ then humility, to give ourselves up to the contemplation of the Divine perfections. God is Almighty : “ He spoke and all tilings were made. ” With a word. He drew out of nothing a wonderful creation ; and this creation which is so beautiful, these legions of angels, these nations of human beings, so great and numerous, are in regard to Himself, like an atom, as if they existed not : Omnes gentes quasi non sint, sic sunt coram eoz. He is eternal ; all creatures pass away or pay their tribute to the order of succession, while He remains immutable in the full and sovereign possession of His perfections. So perfect is He that He has no need of anyone. His infinite wisdom attains all His designs with strength and sweetness ; His adorable justice is equity itself ; His goodness and power are unequalled ; He has but to open His hand to fill every living creature with blessings.

And what accents would have to be found to celebrate the Divine works in the supernatural order ? We have many times spoken of the magnificence of the Divine Plan. God wills to make us His children by making us partakers of the very filiation of His Son Jesus 5, and thus cause us to draw eternal beatitude at the very fountainhead of the Divinity. The Masterpiece of the eternal thoughts which is Christ, the wonderful mysteries of the Incarnation, the i. ii-ii, q. clxi, a. 4 ad i. — 2. D. O. Lottin, in L’Amedu Culte, la vertu de religion. (Louvain, 1920, p. 40 sq.) In this little opuscule of condensed teaching, the author, an enlightened theologian, has shown " how after having linked humility to temperance and obedience to the observance, St. Thomas is brought by evidence of the reality, to relate these virtues to religion. The affinity is indeed undeniable. It was perceived by the ancient ascetical authors. The Rule of St. Benedict, for example, ignores the word Religio; but it is all embued with the spirit of religion. It is sufficient, in order to be convinced of this, to read the chapters 5-7 upon obedience, the spirit of silence and humility. " (P. 49, n.). — 3. Isa. xl, 17. — 4. Ps. xcliv, 16. — 5. Cf, Eph. 1, 5.

IIUMILITV

Passion, the Resurrection and the triumph of Jesus, the institution of the Church and the Sacraments, grace, the virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, all this marvellous supernatural order has come forth from this movement of the Heart of God so as to make us His children : Ut adoptionem filiorum reciperemus. It is an admirable order, a work of power, of wisdom and love of which the spectacle ravished St. Paul.

When our souls contemplate these divine perfections and works, not according to a philosophy that would make of it an abstract, cold and dry study, but in prayer, and, when God touches us with His light, all terrestrial superiorities are effaced, all created perfections appear as nothingness, all human greatness fades away like smoke. Before this omniscient, this sovereign wisdom, this absolute power, this august sanctity, this justice into wdiich not the least move¬ ment ot passion enters ; before this boundless goodness, this inexhaustible tenderness and mercy, the soul cries out : " Who is like to Thee, O my God ? u Quis sicut Dominus Deus noster, qui in altis habitat ?i And how profound are Thy thoughts ! An intense reverence seizes us to the very depths of our souls, and we are lost in our nothingness : what are we, what are the celestial spirits, what are the human multitudes, in face of this wisdom, this power, this eternity, this holiness ? Omnes gentes quasi non sunt sic sunt coram eo.

But let us be careful to remark, for this again is very important, that this sense of reverence in the soul, while yet being very intense and real, is not distinct from those of confidence and love. Humility does not contradict any of the aspects of the truth. God is to be contemplated in all His perfections and in all His works ; He is at once Lord and Father ; we are at once creatures and adopted children ; and it is from this total contemplation in the Almighty Power of a sovereign Lord and the Supreme Goodness of a Father full of tenderness, that reverence towards God, the root of humility, ought to arise.

St. Benedict’s conception of humility far surpasses in amplitude those that have become classic with moralists ; but it in nowise contradicts them. Humility remains for him, as for all, a virtue which restrains the inordinate ten¬ dencies of self-exaltation in the creature ; but with him, — as appears above in the Prologue of the Rule, — on account of the “ relationship ” that he gives it with the virtue of

1. Galat. iv, 5. — 2. Ps. cxii, 5. — 3. Cf. Collection " Pax ", La Mere Jeanne Deleloe.

Cbriit, the Ideal of the Honk. religion, it is not complete unless blended with the love and confidence that should animate the heart of a child. Reverence towards God ought to make a soul lost in self-abasement, and at the same time, through this very self-abasement, yielded up to the loving accomplishment of the Heavenly Father’s desires. The virtue of humility is rather, with our Holy Father, the habitual attitude of soul which rules our whole relation with God in the truth of our twofold quality of sinful creatures and adopted children l.

If forgetful of our nothingness we come before God, full of confidence, but with little reverence ; or, if, on the con¬ trary, we are penetrated with fear, but have only a slight confidence, our relations with God are not what they ought to be. The self-abasement of the creature should not be to the detriment of the confidence of the child ; the quality of child ought not to cause forgetfulness of the condition of creature and sinner. Humility thus understood envelops our whole being, and we understand why St. Benedict has made one of the most characteristic notes of the spiritual life to consist in this very precise and comprehensive attitude of soul. We shall not have grasped the holy Patriarch’s teaching unless we have understood that the root of humility is an intense reverence of the soul before God ; that this reverence itself is born of the contemplation of what God is and does for us in His two-fold character of Lord and Father ; and that this two-fold reverence, once anchored in the soul, keeps it in the self-abasement befitting it as a creature stained by sin, but at the same time surrenders it entirely, in confident and grateful abandonment, to the will of the Heavenly Father.

In consequence, this reverence towards God extends to all that touches, represents or announces God : to Christ’s Humanity, then to all the members of His Mystical Body. “ We ought, ” St. Thomas well says, “ not only to revere God in Himself ; but also to revere, although in a different manner, what is of God in every man. Therefore, " he concludes, “ we ought, out of humility, to submit ourselves to all our fellow-creatures for God’s sake. " Non debemus solum Deum revereri in seipso sed etiam id quod est ejus, debemus revereri in quolibet ; non tamen eo modo reverentiae quo reveremur Deum. Et ideo per humilitatem debemus nos subjicere omnibus proximis propter Deum. When we have this spirit of reverence towards God, it bears upon all “ that is of God ” in creatures. Being unable completely to anni¬ hilate itself before God, the soul for God’s sake, and out of regard for God, places itself at the feet of creatures. This reverence extends first of all to Christ’s Sacred Humanity ; united personally to the Word, this Humanity merits the worship and adoration that we render to God Himself. When we see our Lord upon the Cross, covered with blood, become the scorn of the multitude, Dejectum et novissimum virorum 2, we fall upon our knees, we adore Him, because He is God.¹¹

All proportion guarded, we act in an analogous manner with all the members of Christ’s Mystical Body, because God, through Christ’s Humanity, is united to the whole human race. The humble monk, filled with reverence to¬ wards God, sees in every man with whom he comes in contact an apparition of God ; and he devotes himself to serving this man because, in one way or another, the monk sees God in him. Such is truly the thought of our Holy Father when he ordains " to incline the head or even prostrate upon the ground before all guests at their arrival or at the moment of their departure, in order to adore in them Christ Who is received in their persons ” : Omnibus venientibus vel discedentibus hospitibus, inclinato capite vel prostrato omni corpore in terra, Christus in eis adoretur qui et suscipitur 3. This is the attitude of humility. We prostrate before an¬ other, we serve him in all subjection, because we revere in him such or such a divine attribute ; for exam pie, the attribute of power in those holding authority. “ It is in the reverence with which I encompass the plenitude of God’s rights that I derive the ultimate motive of my obedience to all created authority. ”

It is that humility of which St. Benedict treats with so much predilection that gives to Monastic spirituality its particular character of greatness, and invests it with a special splendour. The Holy Spirit harmonises the two sentiments, the one of fear, the other of piety ; and their accord causes the soul, selfless as it is before God and the neighbour, to be yet assured of the divine grace that

1. ii-ii, q. clxi, a. 3 ad 1. St. Thomas says again with much justice :

Humilitas proprie respicit reverentiam qua homo subjicilur, et ideo quilibet homo secundum id quod suum est, debet se cuilibet proximo subjicere quantum ad id quod est Dei in ipso. (a. 3, in corpore.) Cf. also a. x. ad 5. — 2. Isa. 1.111, comes to it through Christ, in Whom it finds everything which of itself it lacks. This invincible assurance fills it with the very power of God, and thus renders its life altogether fruitful. Knowing that without Christ it can do nothing, Sine me nihil potestis facere x, it knows with the same certainty that it can do all things, as soon as it leans upon Him : Omnia possum in eo qui me conjortat 2. Humility is the secret of its strength and vitality.¹²

IV

It now remains for us to study the different degrees of this virtue, according to the teaching of the great Patriarch ; and having done this, we will point out its beneficent effects, and the means of strengthening it within us.

The general classification of the degrees of humility, laid down by St. Benedict, has received the approbation of the Angelic Doctor. Our Holy Father speaks first of all of interior virtue, and as the first degree he places the fear of God, reverence towards God. He rightly does so. St. Tho¬ mas shows us that tne holy Lawgiver considered humility, set forth the teaching concerning it, and established its degrees, according to the very nature of the thing, ” secun¬ dum ipsam naturam rei 4. “ Exterior acts of humility, ” says the prince of theologians, “ should proceed from the interior disposition ” : Ex interiori autem dispositione humilitatis procedunt quaedam exteriora signa B. But, he adds, the principle and root of interior humility itself is reverence towards God : Principium el radix humilitatis est reverentia quam quis habet ad Deum 6. The fear of God is said to constitute the first of all the degrees : because without it humility cannot be born or maintained. Hence as from a living stem spring forth all the other degrees of humility, — the virtue w'hich lies within being naturally manifested outwardly.

The holy Patriarch therefore places reverence towards God as the point of departure : “ The first degree of humility consists in having the fear of God ever before our eyes, without ever forgetting it ” : Si timorem Dei sibi ante oculos semper ponens, oblivionem fugiaf. But there is a gradation in the fear of God. Of what fear is there question here ? It cannot be question of servile fear, of the fear of chastise- ment, proper to the slave, which excludes love and paralyses confidence ; it concerns first of all imperfect fear with which love is blended, secondly, reverential fear. Our Lord Himself tells us : “ Fear ye Him, Who after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell, ” in gehennam. This fear makes us watch unceasingly to avoid sin, in order not to displease God Who punishes evil : Custodiens se omnihora a peccatis et vitiis. This fear is good. Scripture places this prayer upon our lips ; “ Pierce Thou my flesh with Thy fear ” : Confige timore tuo carries meas L Our Lord in person enjoins this fear even on those whom He vouchsafes to call His friends.¹³

Undoubtedly, as the soul progresses in the spiritual life, the aforesaid fear gives place, little by little, to love, as the habitual mainspring of action. It never ought, however, to disappear altogether ; it is a weapon that we should constant¬ ly hold in reserve, in our spiritual arsenal, for hours of combat when love threatens to be overcome by passion. The Council of Trent insists forcibly upon the uncertainty in which we are left touching our final perseverance ; our life is a continual trial of faith, and we ought never to part with, or fail to keep within our reach, the weapon of the fear of God.

This imperfect fear ought however to culminate habitually in the reverential fear whereof the ultimate term is adoration full of love. It is of this fear that is said : Timor Domini sanctus, permanens in saeculum saeculi 2. " The fear of the

Lord is holy, enduring for ever and ever." It is the reverence that seizes every creature before the infinite plenitude of the Divine perfections, even when this creature has become a child of God, nay, even when admitted to the kingdom of Heaven ; a reverence which makes the purest angels veil their faces before the dazzling effulgence of the Divine Majesty : Adorant dominationes, tremunt potestates , a reverence which filled the very Humanity of Christ : Et replebit eum spiritus timoris Domini 4.

What does the great Patriarch say to us when he invites us in the Prologue to place ourselves in his school ? That he wishes to teach us, as his sons, the fear of God : Venite, filii... timorem Domini docebo vos. This God is a Father full of goodness, to Whose admonitions we ought to listen with the ears of the heart, that is to say wi th a lively sense of love, for this Father prepares for us an inheritance of immortal glory and eternal beatitude. St. Benedict would have us take care not to weary with our faults 6 the goodness of this Heavenly Father Who awaits us, Quia ftius est, and, in His love, destines those who fear Him, to an ineffable participation in His own life : Et vita aeterna quae timentibus Deurn praeparata est. This fear, this reverence towards God, the Father of infinite majesty, patrem immensae majestatis 1, ought to be habitual and “ constant, " for it concerns the virtue, that is to say, an habitual disposition, and not an isolated act : Animo suo semper evolvat.¹⁴

Each degree of interior virtue is a step towards the profound adoration of God, the final term of our reverence. Tn fact, if we have this reverence towards God, we shall pass on, as it were naturally, to the submission of our own will to that of God ; this is the second degree. True fear of God obliges a man to be solicitous as to what God commands him ; it is a want of respect towards God not to think of what He enjoins on us. God’s Will is God Himself : if we have the fear of God, we shall give ourselves up, from reverence towards Him, to the doing of all that He commands us : Beatus vir qui timet Dominum, in mandatis ejus volet nimis. We shall have such reverence for God that we shall always prefer His will to our own ; we shall immolate to Him this self-will which, in many souls, is an inner idol to which they unceasingly offer incense. The humble soul, knowing the sovereignty of God’s rights which flow from the the plenitude of His Being and the infinity of His perfections, knowing too its own nothingness and dependence, does not wish to find in itself the motive power of its life and activity ; it seeks this motive power in the will of God ; it sacrifices its self-will to that of God ; it accepts the rulings of Providence towards it, without the least inward resistance, because God alone merits all adoration and all submission, by reason of His holiness and omnipotence : Humilitas proprie respicit reverentiam qua homo deo subjicitur... Per hoc quod Deum reveremur et honor amus, mens nostra ei subjicitur 4.

V

These two first degrees belong, in substance, as much to the simple Christian as to the monk. But St. Benedict who wishes the monk to aim at the perfection of Christianity, has taken care to recall these degrees emphatically to his sons.¹⁵

The third degree is already higher and is properly speaking monastic. “ The disciple is to submit himself in all obedience to his Superior ” : Omni obedientia se subdat majori. The soul has such reverence towards God and His will, that it admits that God intimates His “ good pleasure ” through the voice of a man : Pro Dei amore ; this is the motive pointed out by St. Benedict. To submit to God (2nd degree) is a relatively easy thing ; but to obey a man in all things, and all one’s life, is mucn more difficult to nature. It needs a greater spirit of faith and a deeper reverence towards God to see Him in a man wno holds His place. God wills that, after having adored Him in Himself, we should render to Him the homage of our submission in the person of a man whom He has chosen to direct us. This man, however imperfect he may be in himself, represents God for the believing soul, because owing to his authority he participates in the divine attribute which is power ; and the soul surren¬ ders itself to him, for the sake of this communication that God makes of His sovereignty to the Superior. According to the expression of Blessed Angela of Foligno, the soul reads God’s name on the man who represents Him. There¬ fore the soul says to God : Thou art so great, and I am so small a thing before Thee, that I wish out of love and reverence for Thee to obey, all my life, a man weak like myself, but who represents Thee : Humilitas secundum quod est specialis virtus praecipue respicit subjectionem hominis ad Deum. Propter quem etiam aliis humilianbo se subjicit.

And see how the self-abasement and adoration of the soul before God are increased at the 4th degree. The humble monk not only accepts the divine economy that wills he should be led by one of his fellow creatures, weak and imper¬ fect ; but he inviolably preserves this submission despite the difficulties he experiences in so doing, despite the injuries, contempt or affronts he may have to suffer in the exercise of his obedience, and this without a murmur arising from his heart \Tacita conscientia. Humility here blossoms out into heroic patience. What a contrast with pride ! The proud man is assured of his perfection and so full of the idea of his importance that he at once bursts out with excuses.

Now on the day we made profession of our Rule, we promised to tend to this humility.

If so admirable a patience appears very difficult for us to possess, let us turn our gaze upon our Divine Model during His Passion. He is God, the All-Powerful, and His Soul is rich in all perfection. And behold, they spit in His Face ; He does not turn away : Faciem meam non averti ab incrcpantibus et conspuentibus in Me. He is silent before Herod who treats Him as a fool: At ipse nihil illi respondebat 2 ; He submits Himself to Pilate who condemns Him to an infamous death, He submits Himself because Pilate, being the legitimate governor of Judea, represented, Pagan though he was, the authority that has its source in God : Non haberes potestatem adversum me ullam nisi tibi datum esset desuper 3. Why does Christ Jesus submit without complaint to all these outrages ? From reverence and love for His Father Who has fixed the circumstances of His Passion : Sicut mandatum dedit milii Pater*.¹⁶

It is proportionately the same for the humble monk. Why does he accept all humiliation ? Always for the sake of the reverence he has for God. As soon as he encounters a sestige of the Divine Majesty he surrounds it with respect ; as soon as he sees God, under whatever form God presents Himself, he yields to Him : “ And to show that the faithful seirvant ought to bear all things, however contrary, for the Lord, the Scripture says in the person of the suffering : For Thee we suffer death all the day long " : Et ostendens Jidelem pro domino universa etiam contraria sustinere debere, dicit... propter te morte adfitimur tota die.

But love and confidence likewise animate the monk’s soul in all these circumstances, painful as they are to nature. If he “ remains steadfast, if he does not draw back or give in, ” Sustinens non lassescat, vel discedat, it is because a firm hope, full of love and spiritual joy, at the same time fills his soul and makes him say : “ In all these things we over¬ come through Him Who hath loved us ” : Et securi de spe retributionis divinae subsequuntur gaudentes et dicentes ; sed in his omnibus superamus propter eum qui dilexit nos.

You see how in humility, our Holy Father never separates the confidence of the child who, through Christ's grace, invincibly hopes in the goodness of his Heavenly Father, from the reverence that possesses him on account of his condition as creature.

Monastic submission goes so far that we reveal to our Superior the state of our soul ; here we have the 5th degree of humility. Pride prompts us to exalt ourselves and seek the esteem of others, and consequently to hide our defects from them. It is therefore an act of humility to reveal voluntarily to another man the true state of our soul 1 ; and we do it because we revere God in this man ; Revcla domino viam tuam, et spera in eo 2. Notice the choice that St. Benedict here makes of this text. It is to the Lord, Domino, to the Lord Whom faith causes us to see in our Superior, that we unveil the state of our soul, assured that if we act as children, God will act towards us like a Father full of loving kindness : Et spera in eo. The fruit of this degree of humility is that God will lead us by a sure path, wherein we cannot go astray. . . .¹⁷

But in order that this degree may be truly attained, it is necessary for us to be always very sincere with ourselves before God and before the one who holds God’s place, Revela. We ought to watch over the movements of our soul lest any falsehood in our attitude or dealings escape us ; others must be able to say of us : Qui loquitur veritatem in corde suo 3. We should be “ true ” in the sanctuary of ourselves in face of God, and be true with him to whom we yield our hearts for love of God : Veritatem ex corde et ore prof err e 4, says our Holy Father. This is a great duty. We should never tolerate the least insincerity with ourselves. If we did so fre¬ quently, we should end by obscuring and blinding our conscience. It would then be impossible for our Lord to make of our soul His own abiding place of predilection, because we have not revealed to Him the state of our soul such as it is ; we have not that light of humility which shows us how little we are before God.

The two last degrees of interior humility are very high. Knowing we have offended this God, so great, so full of ma iesty and that by our sins we have deserved to be under the feet of the devil, we are content with the worst of every¬ thing and esteem ourselves, according to the spirit of the Gospel as “ unprofitable servants 5. ” We are so small a thing before God, our actions are of themselves so defective that we are incapable of doing anything without the grace of Christ Jesus. It alone gives worth to our deeds, ir, t Tn the terms of the ecclesiastical legislation actually in force, religious SiiDeriors cannot in any way urge their inferiors to disclose their conscience to them ; but on the other hand it is in nowise forbidden for sheets to . open their hearts freely to their Superiors, and even, as is said in the text ot the Code of Canon Law, " it is advantageous for religious to go to their Superiors w?th fiSiS confidence and thus also" lay open to them, if these Superiors are priests the doubts and anguish of their conscience. Can. 530. — 2- Psxxxvi, 5. — 3. Ps. xiv, 3. — 4- Rule» ch- IV- — 5- Luc. xvii, 10. practically, we believe that we do a great deal by ourselves ; that we have a right to consideration because we have ren¬ dered such or such service, we have yet not arrived at this degree. St. Benedict does not hesitate to deal rigorously, on occasion, with these persistent forms of the spirit of self-exaltation. If, he says, among those who exercise an art or craft in the Monastery, there be any who are tempted to pride themselves on their attainments and skill, or on the benefit that the monastery derives from them, they shall be for ever forbidden to work at this art or craft rather than expose their souls to spiritual detriment.

The 7th degree constitutes the summit of the virtue of humility : it is for a monk to believe himself, sincerely and from the bottom of his heart, the last of all men : Si omnibus se injeriorem et viliorem intimo cordis credat afjectu. This is St. Paul s counsel : “ In humility let each esteem others better than themselves ” : In humilitate superiores sibi invicem arbitrantes 2. Few souls arrive at this height and live there habitually ; it is assuredly a gitt ot God. For this it is need¬ ful that the light ol the Holy Spirit should give the soul an intensely clear view of the Divine perfections, which makes it humble itself to its lowest depths; then, seeing the nothingness that it truly is in presence of the Divine greatness, and considering the gifts of God in others, the soul inwardly places itself at the feet of all 3. Whoever mounts towards this degree, will keep himself , in every circumstance, from judging himself better than others and from being severe to them. If God had acted with rigour towards us, if He had treated us according to strict justice, wliat would have become of us ? And are we so sure of ourselves ? For we must also consider the possibilities of evil that are to be found in us. May not one whom we are tempted to despise today, soon become better than we are ? Moreover, can we be sure of what our dispositions will be tomorrow ? Within us all, poor creatures that we are, there is a constant principle of insta¬ bility and deficiency that we have unceasingly to combat with the help of grace and the exercise of humility.

May God deign to allow us to rest a moment, at least in thought^ and holy desire, on the sublime summit towards which St. Benedict has traced the path and marked the stages ! Thus beholding our ideal, let us be convinced of the truth of our nothingness and of the essential and constant need we have of help from above.¹⁸

VI

From this interior humility ol which St. Benedict has just shown us the ascending degrees, is derived exterior humility. The virtue resides principally in the soul 1 Humilitas praectpue intsrius in anima consistit. Therefore the holy Patriarch speaks first of humility of soul. To wish to appear humble outwardly when one has not, and does not strive to acquire inward virtue, is a simulation in which there is something Pharisaical, and St. Benedict bids us beware of this or it is “ immense pride, ” says St. Thomas. We should first of all aim at acquiring the interior virtue. If that is real, sincere alive, well anchored in the soul, it will quite naturally manifest itsell outwardly, without difficulty as also without pretention. If we have interior humility, the body, by reason of the substantial unity of our being, will express the reve¬ rence that fills the soul before God. Outward humility is only of any value if it is the real expression of inward humihty or if it is the means employed to arrive thei eat. A man mast acquire and express humility by the movements of the soul and those of the body. We ought then to exercise ourselves likewise in outward humility even if we have not reached a high degree of the inward virtue. , ,

On account of the close union between soul and body, every act of virtue often repeated, such as striking the breast, keeping the eyes lowered, going down on one s knees to make “ satisfaction, ” has its echo in the soul and neces¬ sarily influences the interior life When, says St. Au¬ gustine “ we prostrate at the feet of our brethren, this humiliation of the body disposes and stirs up our heart to inward self-abasement, or, if it was already humble, stre g thens it in humility. ” It is then to help in the acquisition or in the strengthening of the inward virtue that the body should be humbled ; otherwise, it would be Pharisaical to wish to appear humble in the eyes of men when pride reigns

^In this matter, however, there is need of a certain dis¬ cretion with those who take their first steps in the spiritual life • humility is not acquired in one day, and novices oug not to wish to pass at the first onset from the free and easy

1. xx-xi. q- clxi, a; 3; JvTeU ^ deducts from this principle tha - P , ■ regain acts of humility little virtue of humility “S tef »«< compatible with his dignity. • q. cun, a. 1, ad 2. km** «//«'»»■ 1 •» /“>»• manners of an undergraduate to the attitudes of an ecstatic. The important thing is to aim at inward humility, and to practise it, with discretion but fidelity, so as to acquire the outward degrees.

Another reason, which necessitates the outward practice of humility, is that this practice often serves as a diagnostic for knowing the reality of the virtue ; it reveals to us whether we are actuated by secret pride. This is a great point, for it is already a step towards humility to know that we do not yet possess it. Ask the proud man if he has a high opinion of himself ; most often he will at once reply in the negative ; but, in practice, he will reveal himself as he is, in spite of himself, because from his secret pride will arise, as it were instinctively and often enough without his perceiving it, acts manifesting this pride. Thus you will see him, quite naturally, on account of the exaggerated sense of his importance, seek to impose his own opinion, and tend to act differently from others, — when he does not look down on them — to make himself conspicuous and singular, even in small matters 1 ; he worships his own person, his own ideas, his ways of doing things, although this is often uncon¬ sciously. Like the Pharisees he says : "I do this, I do that ; I am not like other men " : Non sum sicut caeteri hominum 2. He begins to speak as soon as a discussion begins ; you hear him raise his voice ; he never resists the longing to speak, and he speaks unceasingly without enduring contradiction ; he even imposes silence, often in a cutting tone. All this is a manifestation of pride, for our words are something of ourselves.

The manner of laughing is no less a sure sign of the inward dispositions of the soul. One might ask what there is in laughter, this attribute peculiar to man, that is opposed to humility ? Our Holy Father does not condemn laughter ; a monk habitually gloomy and morose would show that he does not “ run in the way of the commandments with that sweetness of love 3 ” which St. Benedict promises to those who are faithful. What the holy Legislator intends to proscribe first of all (this goes without saying) is the evil kind of laughter which has its source in an underljdng coarseness of nature ; it is the laughter of raillery which maliciously lays stress on the eccentricities and defects of others : all this is too contrary to the Christian spirit to be found in those who " seek God, ” those who ought to be the temple of the Spirit of all holiness ; then St. Benedict above all condemns an habitual disposition to laugh readily, noisily, on all and every occasion : the habitual tendency to jest. If we have well understood that humility has its root in reverence towards God, a reverence itself resulting from the sense of the Divine Presence, we shall at once grasp how much reason the great Patriarch has in utterly condemn¬ ing, Aeterna clausura, this injurious tendency to buffoonery; this veritable dissolvant of inward recollection.¹⁹

The failings we have been recalling are never to be found in the humble monk whose soul is full of reverence for the Divine Majesty always present to him. He does not try to make himself different from others, quite the contrary. Seeing in the common Rule the expression of the Divine Will, he fears to deviate from it however little ; he does not speak on every occasion ; he knows how “ to keep silence, " which is the atmosphere of recollection, " until a question be asked him. ” When he laughs it is not like the fool who “ lif teth up his voice in laughter ” ; 2 for reverence towards God is the antithesis, not of joy, but of the spirit of levity, of dissipation, of a bantering tone ; he keeps in his very speech the gravity and sobriety of the wise man who “ is known by the fewness of his words. " Finally, his bearing, his gait everywhere express this inward humility, although without affectation ; his soul is visibly possessed by God ; the reve¬ rence for God that animates him inwardly makes him keep “ his head bent downwards and his eyes downcast 3. ”

We may ask ourselves why it is that the monk who has scaled the degrees of humility and has attained solid virtue is to keep the attitude of a culprit, why it is that St. Benedict, who yet writes nothing without reflection, places ever — semper — upon this monk’s lips and in his heart the words of the publican : “ My God, I am not worthy to raise mine eyes to Heaven " ? It is because in prayer God has given this humble soul a light upon the greatness of His perfections; in this divine light, the soul has beheld its own nothingness, and its least faults appear as intolerable stains. A ray from on high has touched the monk, and whether he be with his brethren, or alone, in prayer, in his cell, in the garden, he knows that the eyes of the Sovereign Master penetrate into the innermost recesses of his soul ; he lives in adoration, and his whole exterior bears witness to this adoration.

1 Ruie, ch. vi. — 2. Ubi timor et tremor est, ibi non vocis elatio sed animus flebihs, et lacrymosa dejectio. S. Hieronym. Epist. 13. Virginitatis laus, P. L. xxx, Col 175. — 3. Extollentia oculorum est quoddam signum superbiae in quantum exdudit reverentiam et timorem. St. Thomas, ibid. a. 2, ad 1.

“ When the soul... understandeth that God is present, she is humbled exceedingly, and receiveth confusion at the thought of her sins. And here the soul receiveth an exceeding weight of wisdom, a great consolation of God, a great joy. ” It is sufficient to look at the truly humble monk to understand that God’s Presence, which is the source of his reverence, is familiar to him, and that he has a profound sense of what the gravity of divine union brings with it. These traits might assuredly have been taken from our Holy Father’s portrait. His first biographer. Pope St. Gregory the Great, tells us that his life was nothing else than the faithful application of the Rule : “ The spirit of all the just filled the soul of the Patriarch. ” There are however some virtues which particularly characterise him. Among the most salient of these traits is to be remarked an extraordinary spirit of adoration and reverence towards God 2. Read, in fact, the Holy Rule ; you will see it throughout imbued with the spirit of religion. Whether he speaks of the Divine Office, of the reading of the Gospel, of the Gloria that ends each Psalm, St. Benedict insists on reverence. This same spirit is extended to the monk’s relations with his brethren, with guests, and even to the ustensils ot the monastery, which is the “ House of God. " In our Holy Father’s sight, our whole life is bathed in an atmosphere of supernatural reverence.

And the Holy Patriarch was himself the model of what he requires of his sons ; the picture of the humble monk which he draws in Chapter VII of his Rule, is without doubt, his own likeness. His soul, so dear to God that God granted to his prayers so many striking miracles, and vouchsafed to show him the entire world in a ray of light, was flooded with divine brightness ; and in this supernatural light, he saw the nothingness of every creature : Videnti Creatorem angusta est crealura ; he saw that God alone is the fount of all good, that He alone merits all glory, and knowing thus that all comes from God, he returned to Him all praise and all honour.

1. Bl. Angela of Foltgno. The Book of Visions, ch. 27. The Ineffable. Translated by a Secular Priest. — 2. " St. Benedict’s gravity is essentially religious, that is to say that it results from an habitual and deep sense ot the Divine Presence. The responsibilities of our present life, and the realisation that our eternal life is at stake, the love of Christ, the sight of God’s judg¬ ments are ever present to him. All this inner life of his tends to make gravity a true recollection of soul, which radiates in the bodily attitude and behaviour. In St. Benedict’s mind, it is the gaze fixed upon God, it is the sense of man’s close relation with Him that banishes from life levity no less than dilettantism and begets humble and gentle gravity. ’’ D, G. Ryelandt, l. c. — 3.S. Gregor. Dialog. Lib. ix, c. xxxv.

VII

For — and here I approach an important point — humility is truth.

As St. Teresa says : “ Some think it humility not to believe that God is bestowing His gifts upon them. " Is this honouring God ? Nothing is more unjustifiable. “ Let us Nearly understand this, " adds the Saint, “ that it is per¬ fectly clear God bestows His gifts without any merit whatever on our part ”. What are we then to do in presence of divine graces ? Recognise that God alone is the Autnor and Prin¬ ciple of them : omne donum perjecium desursum e.st, descendens a Patre luminum, and thank Him for them with grateful hearts. “ For if we do not recognise the gifts received at His hands, we shall never be moved to love Him. It is a most certain truth that the richer we see ourselves to be, confessing at the same time our poverty, the greater will be our progress, and the more real our humility... if we walk in simplicity before God, aiming at pleasing Him only, and not men 2. ”

True humility moreover does not deceive itself : it does not deny God’s gifts : it uses them, but returns all glory to Him from Whom they come. Look at the Blessed Virgin Mary chosen out from among all women to be the Mother of the Word Incarnate. No creature, after the Humanity of Jesus, has been filled with graces as she was : Ave, gratia plena. She was surely conscious of this. Now when Eliza¬ beth congratulates her on her divine maternity, does the Blessed Virgin deny the signal favour of which she is the object ? Indeed not. She even acknowledges that it is a unique privilege, that “ He that is mighty hath done great things ” to her, things so great, so marvellous that all genera¬ tions shall call her blessed. But, if she does not deny these graces, neither does she make them an occasion of glorifjnng herself ; she returns all the glory to God, the All-Powerful Who works them in her : Magnificat anima tnea Dominum 4. This is the way the humble soul acts.

Our Holy Father’s teaching is inspired with exactly the same spirit. " Let the good that one sees in oneself, ” he says, “ be attributed to God and not to oneself " : Bonum aliquid in se cum viderit Deo applied, non sibi 6. St. Benedict does not deny that we may be aware of the Divine gifts

1. Jac. 1, 17. — 2. Life of SI. Teresa by herself, ch. xo. Translated from the Spanish by David Lewis. Cf. also St. Francis of Sales Introduction to the De out Life, 3Ti part, ch. 5. — 3. Luc. 1. *8. — 4. Jbid. 46-49. — 5. Rule, ch. iv.

24O CHRIST, THE IDEAL OF THE MONK within us ; far from binding us to veil them from ourselves, he allows them to be seen : Cum viderit; having see them we shall feel urged to use them on every occasion in the service of Him Who has distributed them to us : Ei (Domino) omni tempore de bonis suis in nobis par end um est. Only we must not imagine they are due to us, but thank God for them. The holy Patriarch is still more explicit in his Pro¬ logue : Those who seek God, he says, fear the Lord (that is the root of humility,) they do not pride themselves on tneir good observance ; knowing that the good which is in them does not come from themselves but from the Lord, they glorify Him for what He divinely works in them, saying with the Prophet : “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give the glory”: Operantem in se Dominum magni /leant. And St. Benedict adds : “ So the Apostle Paul imputed nothing to himself of the success of his preaching, for he said : “ By the grace of God I am what I am 3, ” and again : “ He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. ”

St. Paul’s example brought forward by St. Benedict is extremely well chosen for none has been a better exponent of humility than the great Apostle. Does he then deny his good works ? On the contrary he draws the picture of them as no other apostle has ever done. Does he despise God’s gifts ? Oh no. He says : " We have received... the Spirit that is of God ; that we may know the things that are given us from God” : Ut sciamus quae a Deo donata sunt nobis 5. He knows these gifts, but it is that he may render thanks for them to the Father and His Son, Christ Jesus. It is in Christ’s grace that he places all his glory, all his hope : Ut inhabitet in me virtus Christi 6.

“ It is contrary to humility, " St. Thomas justly says, “ for a man to tend to things too high for him, relying on his own strength ; but if he puts his confidence in God and afterwards undertakes the most difficult things, this action is not contrary to humility, above all when he considers that he rises so much the nearer to God in proportion as he submits to Him the more profoundly by humility. ”

When our Holy Father considers the contingency of 8‘ impossible things " that might be commanded by obedience, what does he tell the monk to do ? First of all to receive the order in all meekness and submission. Then if after reflexion the monk is convinced that the thing enjoined really exceeds his capacity and strength, he may represent these difficulties to his Superior, but if the latter, after having heard the objections, persists in the order given, then, says St. Benedict, let the monk know that the command is expedient for him, and putting his trust in God’s help, let him obey for love of Him ” : Et ex caritate conjidcns de adjutorio Dei obediat K God cannot fail a soul who acts thus.²⁰

What we now say of individual injunctions is likewise to be extended to the charges and employments to which authority has full right to appoint. The presumptuous, even if they have not the necessary capacity, desire posts that place them in full evidence : on the other hand, those who have false humility decline every function, even those that they naturally feel themselves capable of exercising well. Both go to extremes. What our Holy Father re¬ commends is to accept out of reverence and love for God the charges given us, placing in God alone all our trust, while neglecting nothing in order to fulfil these charges with the greatest perfection possible. For in as far as He rejects those who exalt themselves, qui se exaltat humiUabitur 2, so He lavishes His help on those who knowing their own weakness, place their confidence in the support of

“ It is one thing, ” says St. Augustine, to raise oneself up to God, and another thing to raise oneself up against Him ; he who casts himself down before God is uplifted a he who rises up against God is cast down by Him.

VIII

The chief fruit of humility is to make us so pleasing to God that His grace, meeting with no obstacles, abounds m us and brings us the assurance of remaining united to God by love : this is the state of perfect charity.

After having explained the different degrees of humility, St. Benedict concludes his comments with a phrase which although so short is one of great depth, and merits our special attention. “ The monk who has ascended all these degrees of humility, ” he says, “ will soon, ’ inox — bear this word in mind — arrive at that perfect chanty from whence all fear is cast out ” : Ergo his omnibus humihtahs gradients ascensis, monachus mox ad caritatem Dei perveniet illam quae perjecta fortis mittit timorem.²¹

You may have remarked that spiritual authors are some¬ times at variance or in some uncertainty when they have to regulate the rank of pre-eminence among the virtues. It is beyond doubt that the queen of virtues is charity ; but charity cannot exist in a soul without humility, which on account of our fallen nature is the condition sine qua non of the exer¬ cise of charity. Humility, then, is not perfection ; perfection as we have said, consists in the love wherewith we remain, in all things, united through Christ to God and to God's Will. But humility, as St. Thomas well says, is " a dispo¬ sition that facilitates the soul's free access to spiritual and divine goods " : Est quasi quaedam dispositio ad liberum accessum hominis in spiritualia et divina bona. Charity is greater than humility, as the perfection of a state is greater than the dispositions requisite to reach this state ; but humility, in achieving the work of removing the obstacles opposed to divine union, takes, from this point of view, the first rank. In this sense, St. Thomas 2 explicitly says humi¬ lity constitutes the very foundation of the spiritual edifice ; it is the disposition that immediately precedes perfect charity, so that without it and the work it does, the state of charity and of perfect union with God, cannot exist, still less be maintained.

Although humility is then in this sense a negative dispo¬ sition, it is so necessary and so infallibly crowned by perfect charity, that in a soul that does not possess it, the spiritual edifice is ever exposed to ruin for lack of foundation ; while he who possesses it attains in all surety to the state of union. This is what was said by Blosius, so versed in the science of union with God : “ The humbler one is, the nearer he is to God and to perfection ” : Quanto quis humilior existit, tanto Deo vicinior et in perfectione evangelica excellentior est 3. i. ii-ii, q. clxi, a. 5, ad 4. — 2. “ Primurn " in acquisition e virtutum potest accipi dupliciter : uno modo per tnodum removentis prohibens et sic humilitas primutn locum tenet, in quantum scilicet expellit superbiam cui Deus resistit et praebet hominem subditum et patulum ad suscipiendum influxum divinae gratiae, in quantum evacuat inflationem superbiae. Et secundum hoc, humilitas dicitur spiritualis aedificii fundamentum. (a. 5, ad 2.) The holy Doctor next shows in what sense faith is said to be the first of virtues. Cf. Faith, the foundation of the Christian Life, in Christ, the Life of the Soul, and siipra p. 95. See too above, pp. 215-217, the teaching of St. Bernard. The Abbot of Clairvaux expressed the same idea as the holy Patriarch : “Oh! how great must be this virtue of humility seeing that it can so easily attract and draw down to itself even the Divine Majesty ! How quickly the name expressive of reverence has been changed for the name inspired by love ! With what celerity has He drawn nigh. Who awhile since was so far remote ! " cito reverentiae nomen in vocabulum amicitiae mutatum est; et qui longe erat, in brf.vi f actus est prope. (In Cantica, xliii, translated by a Priest of Mount Melleray). in brevi et cito can be coupled with the mox of St. Benedict. — 3. Canon vitae spiritualis, c. 7.

It is the sublime recompense of humility to contribute, more than any other virtue, to prepare the soul to the outpouring of the Divine gifts which assure perfect union with God : mox ad caritatem Dei illam quae perfecta est perveniet. “ Nothing, in fact, is more sublime than this way of union, " says St. Augustine, “ but it is only the humble who walk in it ” : Nihil excelsius via catitatis, et non in ilia ambulant nisi humiles. It is not by exaltation, but by humility that we attain to God : Non eiatione sed humilitate attingitur.

A glance back will enable us to judge how simple, and at the same time sure and profound, is the way marked out by our holy Patriarch whereby to lead us to God. By humility, itself derived from reverence towards God, St. Benedict would have the monk destroy the obstacles that can prevent the soul’s union with God. When this humility truly pos¬ sesses the soul, then the Holy Spirit’s action, being no longer opposed by sin or attachment to sin, to the creature, or to self, is all-powerful and fruitful. It is a remarkable thing that St. Benedict seems to have no longer any other direction to give his sons, once the degrees of humility are scaled by them. One would say that, for him, the end is attained : he leaves his disciple, as it were, to the action of the Spirit ; for this soul anchored fast for ever in the fear of God and expecting all help from on high, is open to the divine effusions. Happy, thrice happy is the soul arrived at this state i God acts freely in it, and leads it by the hand to the highest perfection, to the summits of contemplation ; for He wills our holiness, and His nature inclines Him to communicate Himself ; the only condition that He lays down is that His gifts and His action meet with no obstacle : this condition is fulfilled by humility. “ May the Lord vouchsafe by the action of His Holy Spirit, to bring us to this happy state of perfect charity, after having, by the ascension of t he ^ degrees of humility, cleansed our soul from sin and vice ” : Quae Dominus jam in operarium suum mundum a peccaiis et vitiis Spiritu Sancto dignabitur demonstrare !

IX

It now only remains for me to point out some means of attaining this most indispensable virtue.

The first of all means is prayer : Primo quidem et princi - paliter per gratiae donum. A high degree of humility is a gift of God, as is a high degree of prayer. " Our Lord Him¬ self, ” says St. Teresa, “ supplies (acts of humility) in a way very different from that by which we could acquire them by our own poor reflections, which are as nothing in comparison with that real humility arising out of the light Our Lord here gives us. ” God Who infinitely desires to give Himself to us will certainly not reject our prayer, if we beg of Him to take away the chief obstacle that is opposed to His action in our souls. Let us often beseech God for that spirit of reverence which is the very root of humility and is one of the most striking characteristics of our Holy Father’s spirit : Confige timore tuo carries meas 2. Let us beseech Him to show us, in the light of His grace, that He is all and that without Him we are nothing ; one ray of Divine light can do more in this way than any reasoning. Humility might be called the practical reflexion of our intercourse with God. A soul that does not frequently enter into contact with God in prayer cannot possess humility in a high degree. If, even once, God gave us to perceive, in the depth of our soul, in the light of His ineffable Presence, something of His greatness, we should be filled with intense reverence for Him , the groundwork of humility would be acquired and we should only have to guard faithfully this ray of Divine light for humility to be developed and kept alive in us.²²

Let us often give ourselves up to the consideration of the Divine perfections, not in a philosophic manner for the satisfying of the mind, but in a prayer and contemplation.

Believe me, says St. Teresa, “ we shall advance more (the Saint is speaking of humility) by contemplating the Divinity than by keeping our eyes fixed on ourselves, poor creatures of earth that we are... I believe we shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavouring to know God, for, beholding His greatness we are struck by our own baseness, His purity shows our foulness 8. ” This is so true ! The consideration of our own misery may produce a passing sense of humility, but the virtue, which is an habitual disposition, does not consist in this ; reverence towards God is the one cause that can beget the virtue, and above all render it stable 4.

„ h ^e,by. herself: ch. xv, translated from the Spanish by David Lewis. — snirituaHtv 1 P>22f, °nc the reliSt0US character of Benedictine

~~t3c*T¥ lntenor Castle, first Mansions, ch. 2. Translated by the Bened.ct.nes of Stanbrook, p. 10. - 4. “ To keep our soul in the lowliness of humility, it is undoubtedly useful to consider what we are : the sight of ISOUrdefi?e",cieS’ our faults is well calculated to put us S right and Hkdn^rfogfUS back to the ,reallty- However the consideration of God humilitv ?' n r°ntSf ar “ore limPid and fuller source for maintaining our Humility. D. Lot tin, L dnte du culte, la vertu de religion , p. 43.

We monks find in the liturgy a great me^ns of knowing God’s perfections. In the Psalms, which form the ground¬ work of the Divine Office, the Divine perfections are displayed to the eyes of our soul by the Holy Spirit Himself with incomparable wealth of expression. We are therein at every moment invited to admire God’s greatness and plenitude. When we say the Divine Office well, our soul little by little assimilates these sentiments expressed by the Holy Spirit on the perfections of the Infinite Being.

Finally, one of the most important means is the contem¬ plation of the humility of Christ Jesus, and through faith, our union with the dispositions of His Sacred Heart. The great monk Blosius writes, that “ this contemplation is the most efficacious means for healing the wounds of pride h ” Blessed Angela of Foligno says that when she saw the state to which Jesus was reduced as to His Manhood, she had an inkling for the first time of the greatness of her pride a.

More than once, in the course of the chapter that he consecrates to humility, St. Benedict recalls the example of Jesus Christ : he tells us to consider Him that we may find in Him the model of this virtue. Let us then contemplate our Divine Saviour for a few moments. In Him humility was rooted in the reverence that He had for His Father. The soul of Jesus, bathed in heavenly light, saw the Divine perfections in their plenitude, and this sight gave rise to intense and perfect reverence. Isaias says the Spirit o. the Lord shall rest upon Him, ” and you know how Our Lord applied to Himself this passage of the Prophet : Et requiescat super eum Spiritus Domini. But when he comes to speak of fear, the Prophet uses a more powerful expression: Et replebit eum Spiritus timoris Domini: “ He shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord. ” What is this fear that filled the soul of Christ Jesus ? It was not terror ] for it could not be question of the fear of chastisements Neither was it the fear of offending God : Christ, enjoying the Beatific Vision, was impeccable. What then was this fear ? Respect and adoration towards the Divine Majesty. And even now, although the Manhood of Jesus reigns m

1 Nullo alio efficaciori remedio ulceribus superbiae medebens quam si humilitatem Salvatoris tibi ob oculos animi ponas. Nequc enxm ipse sine causa dixit • Discite a me quia mitis sum et humilis corde. Canon vitae s pi ritualis, c. 7. ’ Saint Teresa said the same : (l. c.) " By meditating on His humility we find how very far we are from being humble. See also s Bernard /» Epiphania, Sermo 1, 7- — 2. The Book 0/ Visions, 13, 1, ch. 3 . 3- x, 2-3- gloria Patris, His soul remains lost in perfect reverence. Christ is and remains the great, the only perfect adorer of the Blessed Trinity. His Humanity is that of a God, but this Humanity was created, and as a creature it ever humbled Itself before God in infinite reverence.

It was likewise to expiate our pride and to show us what our humility ought to be, that Christ descended to the lowest depths of humiliation. Christ does not tell us to learn humility from the Apostles, nor from the Angels ; no. He tells us to learn it from Himself. In proportion to the height of His Majesty is the depth of His humility. “ He gave Himself unto us as an example of humility... when He said ‘ Learn of Me for I am meek and humble of heart. * ...Look deep dowrn into the depth and usefulness of this doctrine and regard the sublimity and worth of this instruc¬ tion h ”

X

If we frequently contemplate Christ Jesus in His Passion, if we are united to Him by faith, we may be assured that He will make us participate in His humility. His reverence towards His Father, and submission to His Father's Will.

Neither let us forget this profound truth that the Sacred Humanity had its motive power only in the Word to Whom It was united. Its actions were truly Its own because the Human Nature in Jesus was perfect, but their value was derived only from the union of the Humanity with the Word. The Humanity referred to the Divinity the glory of all Its actions which were admirably holy.

It ought to be the same for us in the domain of our spiritual activity. We can do nothing ol ourselves ; let us humble ourselves in beholding the Divine perfections and be penetrated with reverence. We should next place all our confidence in our union with Jesus Christ through faith and love. In Him, through Him, with Him, we are the children of the Heavenly Father. That is the source of this confidence in which our lowliness finds its counterpart, and without which it would be but imperfect humility and an occasion of discouragement. To imagine that, even with Christ's help, we are incapable of good actions, is to lose sight of the greatness of Jesus' merits ; it is to lay open our soul to spiri¬ tual distrust and despair which are the fruits of hell. By true humility we have no confidence in ourselves, " as of ourselves ” : Non quod sufficientes simus cogitare aliquid a nobis quasi ex nobis ; our power comes from God Who, naturally and supematurally, gives us being, life and move¬ ment : Sed sufficientia nostra ex Deo est... In ipso enim vivimus, tnovemur ct sumns. And this power extends to all things, because we have boundless confidence in the merits of our Divine Head, Christ Jesus.²³

The proud who claim to draw their power from themselves, commit the sin of Lucifer who said : “ I Will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God... I will be like the Most High. " 3 Like Lucifer they will be overthrown and cast down into the abyss : Qui se exaltat, humiliabitur. But what do we say ? That without Christ, we can do nothing as He has Himself declared : Sine me nihil potestis facere. We declare that it is through Jesus, with Jesus that we can arrive at holiness and enter into Heaven ; we say to Christ : “ Master, I am poor, miserable, naked, weak, of this I am daily more and more convinced ; if Thou hadst treated me, at certain hours of my life, as I deserv¬ ed I should be under the feet of devils. But I know too that Thou art ineffably powerful, great, and good ; I know that the Father Thou lovest so much hath given all so¬ vereignty into Thy hands. I know that He hath placed in Thee all the treasures of holiness that men may desire ; I know that Thou wilt never reject those who come to Thee. Therefore, whilst adoring Thee in the deepest recesses of my soul, I have full confidence in Thy merits and satisfactions ; I know tnat altogether miserable as I am, Thou canst by Thy grace shower Thy riches upon me, uplift me even to the Divinity, that I may be made like unto Thee and may share in Thy Divine Beatitude ! ”

It is the Father's supreme desire that His Son be glorified : Clarificavi et iterum clarificabo 6. Now, we never glorify Our Lord so much as when we acknowledge by our w'hole life that He is the sole Fount of every grace. Only true humility can render this homage to God and to Jesus, for humble souls alone feel the need of Christ’s merits and have faith in them. Pride and false humility cannot nourish such sentiments. Pride looks for everything from itself ; it does not feel the habitual necessity of having recourse to Christ, As to false humility, it declares itself incapable of everything, even in presence of grace ; by this it does a wrong to the merits of Jesus : it casts down the soul without glorifying God.²⁴

Christ Jesus said one day : Ego si exaltatus fuero a terra omnia traham ad meipsum 1. When I shall be lifted up from the earth, upon the Cross, My power will be such that I shall be able to lift up to Me those who have faith in Me. Those who looked upon the brazen serpent, in the desert, were healed ; thus those who look upon Me with faith and love will be drawn to Me, despite their sins, their wounds and their unworthiness, and I will lift them as high as Heaven. I, Who am God, consented for love of thee to hang upon the Cross as one accursed. In return for this humiliation I have power to raise with Me even to the heavenly splendours whence I descended, those who believe in Me. I came down from Heaven, I shall ascend thither taking with Me those who hope in My grace. This grace is so powerful that it can unite thee to Me, and unite thee so indissolubly that no one can snatch out of My hands those whom My Father has given Me, those whom I have, through pure mercy, redeemed with M37 precious Blood.

What a perspective full of consolation for the humble soul is that of one day sharing in the exaltation of Jesus, owing to His merits ! St. Paul speaks to us in sublime terms of this supreme exaltation of Our Lord, the counterpart of His abasements. “ Who being in the form of God emptied Himself... For which cause God also hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a name which is above all names : that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth : and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father ” : Semetipsum exinanivit... propter quod et Deus exaltavit ilium 3. It is because Jesus humbled Himself to suffer the ignominy of the gibbet that God has exalted His Name to the highest. heavens. Sublime is the glory, sovereign is the power which the Man-God enjoys seated at the right hand of the Father in eternal glory. And this incomparable triumph is the fruit of an incommen¬ surable humility.

We here find again the whole teaching of our Holy Father. He too tells us that in order to arrive at that exaltatio caelestis where the soul is absorbed in God, it is necessary to pass through humiliations. Here below, humility leads us from the renouncing of sin to the fulness of charity : Mox ad caritatem perjectam perveniet. In the measure wherein the soul advances in humble submission, it is raised towards Divine union. It is also raised towards heavenly glory. The law recalled by St. Benedict at the beginning of the chap¬ ter is that laid down by Jesus Christ Himself, our Model. It is admirably verified in Him; but this law touches all the members whereof He is the Head, and Christ prepares a glorious place in His Kingdom only for those who upon earth have participated in His Divine humiliations : Qui se humiliat exaltcibitur.²⁵

Footnotes

1. The answer to this question is easily to be found in certain pages of our preceding conference. Among the souls we have been considering, some are " rich in spirit ” : Divites i. Joan., i, 18. — 2. Ibid. — 3. Ibid, xiv, 31. — 4. I-II, q. cx, a. 1. ↩

2. 1. See the Encyclical Tcstem benevolentiae, (22nd Jan. 1899) of Leo XIII on Americanism. — 2. Philip, u, 5. — 3. petr. v, 5 and Jac. iv, 6. — 4. Apoc. xxh, 13. — 5. Prov. xvi, 4.
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3. 1. Isa. VI, 3. — 2. Apoc. IV, II. — 3. Isa- xlii, 8. — 4- Joan in, 16. — 5. Rom. viii, 32. — 6. Ct. S. Thomas 11-11, q. clxii a. 6. Utrum superbtq sit gravissimum peccatorutn • — 7- cxxxvii, 6.
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4. x. Luc. xviii, 14. — 2. Ibid. 1, 51. — 3 Jac. iv, 6 ; I Petr, v, 5- '— 4- Luc- xvm, 14. — 5, ii-ii, q. clxii. a, 6 concl. — 6. De considetcitiofie , lib. v, cap. xiv, 32. — 7. Tractatus de moribus et officio episcopi, cap, v* 17, ↩

5. x. Ps. LXXXVIII, 2.-2. Ps. cn, 13-14. — 3. Ps. xli, 8. — 4. Luc. xvii, 13. ↩

6. 1. P. Pourrat : La Spirituality chrS.tienne, n, Le moyen-dge, p. 43. — 2. In Annuntiai. B. M. V. Sermo 111, 9, cf. Epistola cccxcm, 2-3. — 3. Super missus cst, hoinilia iv, 9, cf. In cantica, Sermo xxxiv. — 4. In cantica, Sermo nv, 9. Cf. Epistola ccclxxii, Sermo xlvj de diversis.
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7. morale de S. Benoit, d apres sa Regie, dans Revue liturgique et monasticiue, 1021, pp. 207-208. — 4. Cf. S. Thomas 11-11, q. clxi, a. 4. ↩

8. 1. D. I. Ryelandt, 1. c. — 2. Ps. cxxx, 2. — 3. Rule, ch. vn. This idea seems to have been borrowed from St. Jerome : but this holy Doctor under¬ stands it of interior ascension bv the exercise of all the virtues : Scalam... per quam diversis virtutum gradibus ad superna conscenditur (Epist., 983 ;)
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9. 1. Ps. lxxxi, 6. — 2. Tit. hi, 5-6. — 3. Joan, xv, 5. — 4. II Cor. 111, 5) — 5. I Cor. xii, 3. — 6. Absit ut christianus homo in se ipso vel confidat vel glorielur ct non in Domino ; cujus ianta est erga omnes homines bonitas ut eorum veiit esse mcrita quae sunt ipsius dona. Council. Trid. Sess. vi, c. 16. — 7. Rule, ch. iv. — 8. Tren. in, 22.
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10. 1. II-II, q. CI.XI, a. 2, ad 3. Cf. a. i, ad 5 ; Humilitas praecipue respicit subjectionem hominis adDeum. — Humilitas proprie respicit rcvcrentiam qua homo Deo subjicitur.
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11. 1. “ The twelve degrees of humility (set forth by St. Bonedict) form an astonishingly penetrating and harmonious whole, showing the blending of fear and confidence, of obedience and energy, of recollection and charity which ought to compose the attitude of the monk who advances in spiritual life... " D. Ryelandt, 1. c.
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12. 3. — 3. Rule, ch. liii. — 4. D. Lottin, l. c.
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13. 1. Joan. XV, 5. — a. Philip, iv, 13. — 3. 11-11, q. clxi. a. 6. — 4. Ibid. a. 6, ad 5. — 5. A. 6. — 6. Ibid. — 7. Rule, ch. vii. Tne texts of the Rule cited in this Conference in regard to humility being all from Chapter VII, we refer the reader to it once for all.
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14. 1. Ps. cxviii, 120. — 2. Ps. xviii, 10. — 3. Preface of the Mass. — 4. Isa xi, 3. — 5. Ps. xxxiii, 12. — 6. Prologue of the Rule,
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15. 1. Hymn Te Deum. — 2. Ps. cxi, 1. — 3. ps, cxi, 1. — 4. n-n, q. clxi, a. 4, in c.
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16. 1. The Book of Visions, ch. 63. — 2. 11-11, q. clxi, a. 1, ad 5.
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17. x. Isa. l, 6. — 2. Luc. xxiii, 9. — 3. Joan, xix, 11. — 4. Ibid, xiv, 21. ↩

18. x. Rule, ch. i. vii. — 2. Philip, n, 3. — 3. S. Thomas, Ibid. a. 3 ad z. ↩

19. 1. See above, p. 77 what we have said of singularity as opposed to the cenobitical life. — 2. Luc. xviii, 12. — 3. Prologue of the Rule.
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20. 1. Prologue of the Rule. — 2. Ps. cxin, 9. — 3. I Cor. xv, ro. — 4. II Cor. x. 1 7- — 5-1 Cor. 11, 12. — 6. II Cor. xu, 9. — 7. 11-11, q. lcxi, a. 2, ad 2.
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21. t Rule ch lxviii. — 2. Luc. xiv, 11. — 3- Aliud est se levare ad Deum, nliud est levare se contra Deum. Qui ante ilium se projicit ab illo engtiur ; qut aZrsus mZ se Xu at Mo propcUur. Sermo 351. * poemtenUae. ↩

22. 1. Enarrat. in Psalm. CXLi, c. 7- — 2. S. Thom. Ibid. a. 6, ad 2.
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23. 1. Bl. Angela of Foligno, L. c., ch. 63, translated by a Secular Priest. All this beautiful chapter should be read.
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24. 1. II Cor. in, 5. — 2. Act. xvii, 28. — 3. Isa. xiv, 13. — 4. Luc, Xiv, 11. — 5. Joan, xii, 28.
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25. 1. Joan xii, 32. — 2. Cf. Joan, x, 29. — 3. Philip, 11, 7 and 9.
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