January 24th Fast

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JMJ

“However, there is a difference between the virtue of humility and abjection, for abjection is lowliness, meanness, and baseness in us although we are not aware of that fact, whereas humility is true knowledge and voluntary acknowledgment of our abjection.  The chief point of such humility consists not only in willingly admitting our abject state but in loving it and delighting in it.  This must not be because of lack of courage and generosity but in order to exalt God’s Majesty all the more and to hold our neighbor in higher esteem than ourselves.  I urge you to do this. . . Many men can easily adapt themselves to evils that bring honor with them but hardly anyone can do so to those that are abject.  You see a devout old hermit covered with rags and shivering with cold.  Everyone honors his tattered habit and sympathizes with his sufferings.  If a poor tradesman, a poor gentlemen, or a poor gentlewoman is in the same condition people laugh and scoff at them.  Thus you see that their poverty is abject poverty. . . One man has cancer in his arm and another on his face; the first has only the disease, while the other suffers contempt, disgrace and abjection along with the disease.  Hence I hold that we must not only love the disease, which is the duty of patience, but we must also embrace the abjection, and this is done by humility.” 

(St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, No. 6)

Humility: ah, that loftiest of virtues and yet so difficult to obtain!  Perhaps, if we did not need to undergo humiliations in order to acquire it, it might become more desirous. Our pride is often the possession we most jealously guard, making sure that nothing pierces the impenetrable wall we set up to surround it.  Like the child who will not cease rebutting a parent’s reprimand in lawyer-like fashion, we too dole out many excuses for our failings.  One is happy to accept a critical comment from another if only the criticizer knows the reason for the failure. 

When one is striving for holiness in life, faithfulness to his vocation, it is so difficult to bear the humiliations that inevitably follow because he is not a faultless being.  He is convinced that if he is not perfect, it is only because of circumstances out of his control, and not of his own doing.  It is precisely because one is so desirous of being industrious, patient, generous, thoughtful, etc.,  that he is so quick to cover his failings with excuses or defensive explanations.

The Life of Our Lord and His Mother give us beautiful examples to meditate on when we inevitably fall into this trap.  When the people said, “Isn’t this the son of the carpenter?’ Christ did not stop to correct them. Instead, He allowed people to believe that He was a sinner who needed baptism.  When the soldiers tortured and taunted Him, He silently received their harsh blows and derisive insults.

One is truly humble when he learns to love and accept the ignominy that comes with the abjection of humiliation. We must learn to be like Our Lady, who silently shared in the scandal of the Cross. To accept responsibility for our failings with silence takes great courage and perseverance.  Yet, it is a laudable goal and one that will bring peace into a marriage and relationship.  It will also deepen trust between one another for when one is honest with oneself, the other is encouraged to trust him more and depend upon his word.  This love for the truth of oneself will come more readily when he loves the Truth Himself.