Humility

When you hear your success being applauded, let there also sound in your ears the laughter you provoked with your failures.

Don't wish to be like the gilded weather-cock on top of a great building: however much it shines, and however high it stands, it adds nothing to the solidity of the building.

Rather be like an old stone block hidden in the foundations, underground, where no one can see you: because of you the house will not fall.

The more I am exalted, Jesus, the more I want you to humble me in my heart, showing me what I have been, and what I will be if you leave me.

Don't forget that you are a… dust-bin. That's why if by any chance the divine Gardener lays his hands on you, and scrubs and cleans you, and fills you with magnificent flowers, neither the scent nor the colour that embellish your ugliness should make you proud.

Humble yourself: don't you know that you are the rubbish bin?

The day you see yourself as you are, you will think it natural to be despised by others.

You are humble not when you humble yourself, but when you are humbled by others and you bear it for Christ.

If you knew yourself, you would find joy in being despised and your heart would weep before honours and praise.

Don't worry if they see your defects; the offence against God and the scandal you may give; that is what should worry you.

Apart from this, may you be known for what you are and be despised. Don't be sorry to be nothing, since then Jesus will have to be everything for you.

If you were to obey the impulses of your heart and the dictates of reason, you would always be flat on the ground, prostrate, like a

filthy worm, ugly and miserable, before that God who puts up with so much from you.

How great the value of humility! — Quia respexit humilitatem… It is not of her faith, nor of her charity, nor of her immaculate purity that our Mother speaks in the house of Zachary. Her joyful hymn sings:

'Since he has looked on my humility, all generations will call me blessed.'

You are dust — fallen and dirty. Even though the breath of the holy Spirit should lift you above all the things of the earth and make you shine like gold, as your misery reflects in those heights the sovereign rays of the Sun of Justice, do not forget the lowliness of your state.

An instant of pride would cast you back to the ground; and, having been light, you would again become dirt.

You… proud? About what?

Pride? Why Before long — years, days, — you will be a heap of rotting flesh: worms, foul-smelling liquids, filthy shreds of cloth, and no one, on earth, will remember you.

For all your learning, for all your fame, your eloquence and power, if you are not humble, you are worth nothing. Cut out, root out that self-complacency which dominates you so completely. — God will help you — and then you will be able to begin working for Christ, in the lowest place in his army of apostles.

That false humility is laziness. Such humbleness is a handy way of giving up rights that are really duties.

Humbly acknowledge your weakness so that, with the Apostle, you can say: 'It is when I am weak that I am strong'.

'Father, how can you listen to such filth?' you asked me, after a contrite confession.

I said nothing, and thought that if your humility makes you feel like that, — filth: a heap of filth! — we may yet turn all your weakness into something really great.

See how humble Jesus is: a donkey was his throne in Jerusalem!

Humility is another good way to arrive at interior peace. He has said so: 'Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart: and you will find rest for your souls.'

It is not a lack of humility to be aware of the progress of your soul. Then you can thank God for it.

But don't forget that you are a poor beggar, wearing a good suit… on loan.

Self-knowledge leads us by the hand, as it were, to humility.

Your firm defence of the spirit and norms of the apostolate in which you work should never falter through false humility. That firmness is not pride: it is the cardinal virtue of fortitude.

Because of pride. — You were already becoming convinced that you, by yourself, were equal to anything. He left you for a moment, and you fell headlong. — Be humble and his extraordinary aid will not fail you.

Get rid of those proud thoughts: you are but the brush in the hand of the artist. And nothing more.

Tell me: of what use is a brush, if it won't let the painter do his work?

If you wish to be humble — you, who are so empty and self-satisfied — just consider these words of Isaias: you are 'a drop of water or dew that falls on the ground and is scarcely seen.'

References to Holy Scripture
References to Holy Scripture
References to Holy Scripture
References to Holy Scripture
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