Humility bursts the bonds of all narrowness; through it, even a personality insignificant by nature will acquire width and greatness. For it is only the humble soul, the soul that has emptied itself, which can be fully penetrated by the divine Life it has received in holy Baptism; and it is upon such a soul that there falls a reflection of the greatness and infinitude of God. Here is a great mystery, paradoxical yet true: precisely he who speaks the word of total assent to his finiteness and limitation will thereby illuminate his nature with an aura which in some way images the unlimited breadth of God. In him alone who dies inwardly, descending almost beneath the natural level of being that has been his due in the order of creation, who wills no longer to occupy any space at all, may the wealth of supernatural life blossom out, according to St. Paul’s words: “I live, yet it is not I who live but Christ who lives in me.”

Qui se exaltat—humiliabitur; qui se humiliat—exaltabitur. The exaltation of the humble is by no means merely a reward which God grants to them in life eternal; it is also an intrinsic effect of humility, accomplished even on earth. For indeed, the humble walk as if clad in the attire of a unique nobility, before which all splendor of purely natural talents and gifts wanes into insignificance. By his descent beneath his natural rank, the humble man in a mystical sense prostrates himself, at the feet of the Lord, as did St. Mary Magdalene. He is lifted up by Jesus and thus enters the celestial realm.

All height, width, and depth, all greatness and beauty of humility, with its irresistible victorious power, shine forth most luminously in the Blessed Virgin, the Queen of the angels and all saints. In humility there is mirrored the central mystery of the process of our transformation—the mystery that Our Lord has put into these words: “Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24). The path that leads man to his ultimate union with Christ is not the unfolding of his natural powers and of the wealth of his gifts but his radical renunciation of self-assertion, the relinquishment and mortification of the self: “He who loses his soul shall win it.”

Thus, yearning to be transformed in Christ, we must pray: Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto Thine.

8. Confidence in God

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Confidence in God

THE knowledge of our need of redemption, as we have seen in the beginning, is the prime condition of our transformation in Christ, for it provides the only possible basis for our readiness to change.

We must have confidence in the whole message of love in the Gospels