4. This Is the Fourth Step

THE fourth degree of the Celestial

Ladder is true Humility, that is

Love's Gradatory to say, an intimate consciousness of our own baseness. By this virtue we live with God and He with us in veritable peace, and in it is found the living foundation of all Holiness. It may be com pared to a spring from whence flow four rivers of virtue unto Life eternal. The first is Obedience, the second is Meekness, the third is Patience, the fourth Abandonment of self-will.

The first river which springs from really humble soil is Obedience, by which we humble and abase self before God, submit ting to His Commandments and placing ourselves below every creature. By it we make choice of the last place in Heaven and on earth, abstaining from comparison with others in virtue

Love's Gradatory and holiness, our unique desire consisting in being as a footstool beneath the feet of the Divine Majesty. It is only then that the ear becomes humbly attentive to hear the words of Truth and Life coming from the Wisdom of God, and the hands are always ready to accomplish His most dear and Holy Will.

Now, this Divine Will urges us to despise the wisdom of the world and to follow the Christ, Who is the Wisdom of God, Who became poor to make us rich, a servant to enable us to reign, dying at last to give us life. It is He, again, Who teaches us how to live when He says : " If any will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow

Love's Gradatory

Me." Then, that we may know how to follow and serve Him, He adds : " Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart." 2 Meekness, or gentleness, is the second river of virtue that springs from the soil of Humility. " Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." That is to say, they shall possess soul and body in peace. For the Spirit of God reposes on the meek and humble ; and when our mind is elevated and united to the Spirit of God, we bear the yoke of Christ, which is agree able and sweet, and are laden with His light burden; for we carry Love, and it lifts us above the Heavens to Him Whom

Love's Gradatory we love. He who loves and gives himself to Love, actually goes where he will; Heaven is open to him ; he carries his soul in his hand, as it were, and places it as he will. He has found within that treasure of the Soul, the Christ, his one Beloved.

If, then, the Christ lives in you and you in Him, you should imitate Him in your life, words, works, and sufferings. Be gentle and kind, pitiful and generous, indulgent to all who ask aid ; know neither hate nor envy, afflict and despise no one by hard words, but use forgiveness to all; neither mock, nor show disdain of others in word or act, nor even by gesture or attitude. Avoid rudeness and harshness, but cultivate gravity with a

Love's Gradatory joyous exterior. Listen and learn willingly from all that which you ought to know, with out distrust, and abstain from passing judgment on what you do not understand. Never enter into dispute with another to prove that you know best :

But as a lamb be meek, That cannot wail nor speak,

E'en though it must be slain. So lend thyself all still Unto another's will,

No matter what the pain.

From this inner meekness springs another river, that of inexhaustible Patience. To be patient is to suffer gladly and without repugnance. Tribula tions and pains are the mes sengers of the Lord ; by them He visits us. If we receive these

Love's Gradatory envoys with a glad heart, He comes to us Himself, as He has said by His Prophet : " I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him and glorify him."

Patience under suffering was the nuptial garment of the Christ when He espoused Holy Church on the altar of the Holy Cross. He has since clothed in it all His own, that is, those who have followed Him from the begin ning ; those who have seen that the Christ, the Wisdom of God, chose a humble life, despised and painful; and on this foundation are grounded all states and Orders in Religion.

But there are, in these days, some few who despise the

Love's Gradatory humble life of the Christ and His nuptial garment, for, as far as they can, they don again the garment of the world, seeking after ambition, pleasure, avarice, jealousy, and other kinds of malice, as the spirit of the world teaches . . . the world that lives in mortal sin. Blush for shame, you who have left God, and forgotten your Rule and your vows, you who, turning aside from the end and object of your Vocation, serve the devil. Be ware ! he will give you a wage like that which he receives for his own sin. The disciple is not better than the master, and the devil knows his own. They shall dwell with him in ever lasting burnings, where there is weeping and gnashing of

Love's Gradatory teeth, eternal misery without

Now, patient be, and douce ; I trow

That this you owe To the dear Saviour's pain and ruth,

If you would climb

To heights sublime, Suffer, and He will teach you Truth.

After this flows the fourth stream of the humble life which is the total abandonment of all self-will and all that touches self. This stream takes its rise in suffering patiently endured. The humble, touched interiorly by the Spirit of God, perfected and transported into Him, renounces

1 The new edition by Muller has a sentence here which [is not in Groote's translation, nor in the text edited by David : " But those whom the Christ has clothed with Himself and with His gifts shall dwell with Him in the glory of the Father throughout eternity."

Love's Gradatory self and voluntarily abandons all to the care of God. He thus acquires one and the same will with the Divine Will, so that it is no longer possible nor lawful to desire and will anything but that which God wills : this is essentially the ground of Humility. When, under the action of the Grace of God, we renounce everything and abandon self-will to the most dear Will of God, His Will becomes ours. The Will of God, which is free — indeed, freedom itself— takes from us the spirit of fear and makes us free, disengaged from and emptied of self, and of every fear that might oppress us in time or eternity.

God bestows upon us, then, the spirit of the Elect, by which

Love's Gradatory we cry with the Son: "Abba, Father." And the spirit of the Son renders testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God, and, with the Son, heirs of the Kingdom of the Father. Risen to this sublime height, yet more humble in ourselves, we are filled with grace and gifts by this union with God. This is the highest liberty and the deepest humility united in one and the same person, and the acts that are born of this lowliness joined to this elevation, are incomprehensible to those who are strangers to humility. The truly humble soul is a vessel of election of God, full to over flowing with all gifts and graces. Those who approach Him with

Love's Gradatory confidence receive all they wish and need; but beware of hypo crites and those who fancy they are something, whereas they are nothing.

They are as a leather bottle filled with wind: when it is pressed and squeezed it gives out sounds that are anything but pleasant to the ear. Thus with the proud hypocrite who believes himself a saint : when pressed and pierced he cannot bear it, but breaks out into passion; he will neither be corrected nor taught ; he is bad, bitter, and haughty. In his own esteem he is above everyone, and exalts himself over all who approach him. By these signs you will know such as are hypocrites and utterly false,

Love's Gradatory being not yet stripped of self-will.

Be humble then, obedient, gentle, detached from self, and thus you will win in the game of Divine Love. Remark, how ever, with care what you may yet need, even after you have, by the Grace of God, triumphed over sin by the virtues that are in you — Nature and Sense still remain alive with their pro pensities to sin. You must struggle against and fight them, as long as you are still in a mortal and not a glorified body.