Chapter Ten

THE VIRTUE OF HUMILITY

IN the previous chapter we were insistent that every priest, called as he is by his priesthood to the active life of the apostolate, is by that very priesthood still more urgently called to an interior life of union and intimate friendship with our Lord. In practice we think that no priest will err in accepting this as a working principle. It is perfectly true that a priest cannot continue to be a friend of our Lord’s or to be intimately united to him, if he neglects his apostolic obligations, but it does not always follow that a life of active apostolate is accompanied by such friendship and divine union. The importance of seeking for divine union is, then, obvious. But how in practice are we to find it?

Theoretically, perhaps, faith, hope and charity are the virtues which we should exercise in order to achieve this close union with our Lord. In practice, however, humility has an importance that is in some ways preeminent. For the whole of the supernatural economy is based on grace: everything we achieve must come to us from God. And God, as the Holy Spirit tells us, ‘resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.’

James IV, 6

Isaias XLII, 8

Let us, however, consider it from the point of view of friendship with our Lord. He has chosen us to be his friends, quite gratuitously. It is not for any goodness or value that is in us that he has chosen us. His motive is rather to give than to receive. He wants to make us sharers in his own happiness and it is in order that we may earn our share of his happiness that he makes us priests. He could do our work himself; he could use the ministry of the angels. But he has decided to co-opt us in sheer loving mercy without any claims on our part save that of poverty. It is his love that animates his choice and his generous bestowal of friendship. Even in human friendship, where one has chosen gratuitously and longs to do everything for the person one has chosen, what can cause so much pain and anguish as self-sufficiency? And in divine friendship the same is true. Our Lord knows our weakness, he knows our meanness, he knows our treachery, he knows our infidelity. All these he can heal and pardon. But self-sufficiency shuts the door on all his advances.

He stands at the gate and knocks, and the self-sufficient will not open to him. Love calls for dependence, divine love especially so. Love wants to give, divine love most of all; but nothing can be given to the self-sufficient.

If a priest, then, asks what he is to do to meet the demands of our Lord for his friendship, the best answer is that he should imitate St. Paul and glory gladly in his infirmities that the power of Christ may dwell in him.

Cf. 2 Cor. XII, 9

Matt. V, 3

Imitation of Christ IV, 8

As usual, à Kempis sums it up in a phrase. If we ‘stand upon our own strength’ as he says, we cannot have complete union with our Lord. Jesus is not content to be merely our Partner, he insists on being our All.

It is, perhaps, an instinctive desire and striving for independence that is in many cases the cause of our failure to fulfil our vocation to be the friends of our Lord. In the natural order, the sons of men grow up from absolute dependence to an ever-increasing independence of their parents. In the supernatural order growth is quite different. In the earlier stages God’s gifts endow us with a certain measure of independence. We feel we can stand, if not on our own strength, at least on the strength God has given us. To us it seems as if we had a reserve of power at our disposal, as if our priestly powers were our own. As we grow, however, our dependence becomes greater and greater. The more our union with Christ develops, the more complete becomes our dependence upon him. It is essential that we priests realize this. Otherwise all our striving will lead us away from God instead of bringing us to union with him, for our whole natural tendency is to try to develop our own competence and efficiency even in the supernatural order. We look forward to being able to handle any situation, to being strong enough to deal with any temptation, to being virtuous enough to perform all good works. True advance is quite different. One becomes more and more convinced of the essentially super-human nature of all supernatural works, whether in the service of souls or in our own sanctification. The inadequacy of our own power becomes more and more manifest. It is true, of course, that our confidence in God and our assurance of his co-operation are also ever-increasing, but we clearly realize that all that we have or do is the work of God rather than our own. In fact, our futility becomes so obvious that when souls come to us for help we hesitate to do more than promise to pray for them. Charity, and perhaps duty, demand that we make an effort to assist them, but our attempts are so clumsy and our words so foolish that we fly to our Lord to supply for our futility and failure. This is especially marked where there is question of direction of souls who are well advanced in the spiritual life. It sometimes seems that the grace we minister to them must be paid for by our own painful incompetence.

Yet this is typical of all our priestly life, in all its aspects. Divine union here below is to be sought for through and in Jesus Christ. And it is through and to Jesus as our Saviour that we must be united. The necessary disposition, then, on our part is the realization of our need of being saved. This is the very antithesis of self-sufficiency. And it makes clear to us how much of our striving to achieve union as a merited prize rather than as a merciful gift is wide of the mark. It also gives us great consolation and courage. For misery is the title to mercy and our short-comings are our claim to be saved. So that we cannot ever go to the throne of grace with more confidence than when we are most conscious of our own emptiness and futility. Even our sins and infidelities are no obstacle. We go to our Saviour to be saved from ourselves. And he himself will come and save us. This is the essential part of that self-denial upon which he insisted when he told us that we must deny ourselves and follow him. For he intends to replace our ‘self’ by himself. He is our Life and our All. If only we priests could grasp this principle, our whole life could be changed in a short time. But it means a complete change of outlook. Too many of us regard divine union and friendship with Jesus as something remote, something only to be achieved after a long laborious struggle in the spiritual life, something which is the reward for our fidelity and merit, and the crown of our strength and virtue. Nothing could be more misleading! The very commencement of the spiritual life involves divine union—a union so intimate that we are made partakers of the divine nature and become the dwelling-places of the Blessed Trinity. We are warned that we cannot have life unless we eat the Flesh of Christ and drink of his Blood; and this physical union with him, intimate as it is, is only a shadow and a sign of the much more intimate spiritual union with God which it produces in our souls. This union is the essential source of all Christian life. For us priests, especially, it is unquestionably true that we are called, and called most urgently, to live in intimate friendship with our Lord, not merely in the remote future, but here and now at this very moment. The friendship is not a reward for our virtue but a remedy for our sinfulness; it is not the result of our achievements but the essential means of our fruitfulness. We must, therefore, get rid of all that interferes with this friendship, and do all we can to promote it. In a word, we must be humble.

Perhaps the best way in practice to estimate our lack of humility is to consider the defects that this lack produces. And lest we be afraid to admit our shortcomings, let us consider these very defects in the apostles themselves. First of all, let us stand with the apostles when our Lord asks us all: ‘What did you treat of in the way?’

Mark IX, 32

Matt. XVIII, 3

Mark IX, 37

Then, perhaps, we can find further fellowship with the sons of thunder, who would command fire and brimstone to come down from heaven and consume those who opposed them or rejected their teaching.

Luke IX, 54

Ibid.

Cf. Mark X, 35 et seq.

Ibid.

When we fail in our efforts, could he not often say to us, as well as to the apostles, that it is because of our unbelief, and when we succeed, do not our elation and self-satisfaction contrast with his words: ‘When you have done all these things that are commanded you, say: we are unprofitable servants; we have done that which we ought to do.’?

Luke XVII, 10

If we are to live in friendship with Jesus we must share his sentiments. We must, in fact, follow the precept of St. Paul: ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.’

Phil. II, 5

To acquire this humility, we must pray with sincerity and insistence. We must also cultivate the company of Jesus. He dwells in our hearts, he resides there to be our All. He is there as our Saviour. We must study him in the Scriptures; we must learn his ways—so meek and humble—by constant conversation with him. We must forget ourselves and depend on him. But we must, above all, have unlimited confidence in him. His mercy is infinite. There is nothing which he is not prepared to forgive. There is nothing which he is not prepared to remedy. There is nothing which he is not prepared to restore. He literally rejoices in being our Saviour. He is Love incarnate. His love rejoices in its omnipotent power to save us from ourselves. He rejoices with the whole heavenly court when, like the prodigal son, having wasted all our substance, we turn to him. He is on fire to make us his loving friends. We believe in him, but we must also believe in his infinite mercy and infinite love. He asks us for our love and that we should never doubt his love for us; above all he asks us priests that we should trust him and never, never doubt his mercy.

The virtue that opens the door to his love, and which is the foundation of our trust, is humility. It has a wonderful power of transmuting all our sins and debts into assets. Let us quote the words of Blessed Guerric, a disciple of St. Bernard, which are thus rendered and partly summarized by a modern Cistercian. ‘Humility has a very special property of its own; it not only ensures that the other virtues are really virtues, but if any one of them is wanting, or is imperfect, humility, using that very deficiency, of itself repairs the deficiency. Therefore, if something seems to be lacking in any soul, it is lacking for no other reason than that the soul should be all the more perfect by its absence, for virtue is made perfect in infirmity. “Paul,” saith the Lord, “my grace is sufficient for thee.”

2 Cor. XII, 9

Humility, then, is all-important. And by humility we understand a disposition that tends to forget self completely and to remember only Christ. It is a great gift from God; in fact, in its higher stages, it seems to be an infused grace. But it is essential to divine union and friendship. So that we who are literally called to the wedding feast of the Lamb must have the wine of humility. And if we have no wine, we have but to turn to her whose humility prepared her to be the Mother of God and ask her, in the name of her Son, for that humility without which he cannot live in us. How can such a prayer be refused?