Characteristics of humility

Understand me well: your humility should not be the same as that of the religious. God calls them to flee the world in the spirit of the contemptus saeculi, the disdain for temporal things, even though these earthly things, considered in themselves, do not imply any offence against God. Your humility, dearly beloved daughters and sons, has to be that of Christians who love the world and appreciate all the temporal things that God has given to man for his use. This is the humility of souls called to be of the world but without being worldly. These souls do not allow their hearts to become attached to material things (tools for work in God’s service) nor do they allow them to hinder their spiritual progress, which leads to the perfection of charity.

Power, command, and authority, together with the honours that necessarily accompany and support these social functions, are not evil in themselves. They are even less so for lay people, who ought to seek sanctity through them. These are good, positive things, ordered by their very nature to the good of mankind and the glory of God. They are not a necessary evil, nor even a lesser evil, nor can we say, if all other things are equal, that it is more perfect to abstain from them than to use them.