Need for humility

I would like to help you feel, along with the joy that your divine calling produces in you, a deep, sincere humility, which is not only compatible with hope and greatness of spirit but is their best defence and guarantee. “Not all tranquillity is praiseworthy, but only when a person puts care aside as he ought, and concerning things which he should not fear. Then it is a condition of fortitude and magnanimity.”¹

The giant with feet of clay

Each of us is like that giant statue in Sacred Scripture: The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay (Dan 2:32-33). May we never lose sight of this weakness in the human foundations, for then we will be prudent and humble, and we will escape the fate of that enormous statue: A stone was cut out, by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, alltogetherwere broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found (Dan 2:34-35).

Listen, my children, to what the Holy Spirit says to us through St Paul: Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it (1 Cor 10:12-13).