What is humility and how can we acquire it?
Source: capdox.capuchin.org
What is humility?
Humility is a certain self-knowledge which causes a man to annihilate himself, both interiorly in the presence of God and exteriorly before men. It is a virtue which makes us joyfully and voluntarily to embrace all injuries, contempt, corrections and humiliations, with as much content as worldlings accept of honour and riches.
It is a total destruction of self-love, of desire of honour, vain praise, or the favour and affection of men. It is to cast ourselves under the feet of all, however vile or abject they may be. This proceeds from a neglect of ourselves, which also moves us to converse willingly with the poor and lowly, whom the proud children of this world despise.
It is to walk before God in truth, recognising that we are poor and destitute of all good, but what his divine Majesty is pleased to bestow upon us, not for our merits, but through the abundance of his goodness. It is to attribute nothing to ourselves but defects and imperfections, and to refer unto God all the good we have received.
The means of obtaining humility are these: Not to conceal or palliate our faults and imperfections; not to excuse or justify ourselves when we are reproved or accused of anything, even though we have not done it, but to bear everything bravely, rejoicing to suffer anything for our Lord, and not lamenting or complaining of it to anyone.
Thoroughly to persuade ourselves that none can ever despise or afflict us as much as we deserve.
Not to trouble whether we be honoured or despised, reckoning ourselves as dead and out of the memory of men, or rather as nothing.
To take pleasure in doing humiliating works, and those at the command of another.
To be content and even to rejoice if others believe that we are enduring all these things unwillingly, with secret impatience, and even with the desire of revenge, although in our hearts we are far from so doing.
It is very profitable to have often in our mind such thoughts as these: “I am nothing: I am worth nothing: I do no good: I am an unprofitable servant: there is not a creature but makes better use of the grace it has received from God than I do.”
Thus he who puts himself in the lowest place is freed from all disquiet or discontent, for he cannot be more humbled than he humbles himself. Are you despised or rejected by this or that person? Are you mortified? Does everyone flout and scorn you? Be of good courage: sic itur ad astra. This is the ready way to heaven, the shortest and surest to bring you to God. We cannot give better proof of the little love we bear our Lord than to persevere in impatience for a word of contempt, or for some cross or mortification that has been laid upon us. Our desire of gaining Christ ought so to set our hearts on fire that we pass lightly over such-like difficulties.
Sicut lilium inter spinas sic amica mea inter filias: As a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters, saith the Spouse in the Canticles. By this, saith the angelic St Thomas, the Spouse would make it known that the soul which desires to be his bride, his beloved, should be as a rose amid thorns. She is to be patient, peaceable and quiet in the midst of persecutions, mortifications and troubles of this life. And in the same Canticle, showing how perfectly she has laboured to make herself such as her bridegroom desires, the bride sings: Nigra sum sed formosa, O filiae Jerusalem; ideo dilexit me rex, etc.: Ye daughters of Jerusalem, – am black, but yet I am beautiful, and therefore the king hath loved me. I am black exteriorly by outward humiliation and contempt of myself, nevertheless I am beautiful in the eyes of my bridegroom. Wherefore: Nolite me considerare quod fusca sim, quia decoloravit me sol: Do not look only upon my outward darkness, nor upon what I endure; for the Sun of Justice, Jesus Christ my Lord, for whose love I have forsaken the world and contemned all beauty, has made me also to suffer all sorts of humiliations. Therefore I say confidently unto him: Veniat dilectus meus in hortum suum, et colligat fructus pomorum suorum: Let him come into the garden of my soul, for there he shall find the flowers and fruits which he seeks, amid the thorns.