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Humility

Related Topics: Charity | Gentleness | Simplicity

 

External Humility

Introduction to the Devout Life, 3:4. Borrow empty vessels, said Elisha to a poor widow, and pour oil into them (2 Kings 4:3-4).  To receive the grace of God into our hearts, we ought to empty them of our own glory.

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Interior Humility

Introduction to the Devout Life, 3:5 You desire, Philothea, that I lead you further in humility.  For to do as I have already proposed is rather wisdom than humility; now I pass on further.  Many neither wish nor dare to think and reflect upon the graces God has given them personally, for fear of vain glory and self-complacency. 

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Humility makes us love our own abjection

Introduction to the Devout Life, 3:6 I proceed further, Philothea, and I advise you that in all circumstances and everywhere you must love your own abjection.

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How to preserve our good name while practising Humility

Introduction to the Devout Life, 3:7 Praise, honour and glory are not given to men for ordinary virtue but for outstanding virtue.  For by praise we wish to persuade others to appreciate the excellence of someone. 

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The spirit of humility

Spiritual Conferences, 4: There is a difference between humility, the habit of humility, and the spirit of humility.

 

Spiritual Conferences, 5: Humility, then, is nothing else than the recog­nition of the fact that we are absolute nothingness and it keeps us constant in this estimation of our­selves… Humility does not only consist in mistrust of ourselves, but also in confidence in God; and indeed mistrust of ourselves and of our own strength produces confidence in God, and of this confidence is born that generosity of spirit of which we are speaking.

 

Spiritual Conferences, Vol. 1, 5.  Humility is to do some action to make oneself humble.  The habit of humility is to make acts of humility at all occasions and every time you meet someone.  The spirit of humility is to find joy at being humiliated, seek abjection and humility in everything.  It means that in all that we do and desire, our sole aim is to humble ourselves and to lower ourselves. 

 

Five levels of humility

Spiritual Conferences, Vol. 1, 6.  The first degree of humility is the KNOWLEDGE OF OURSELVES.  It is consciousness that we have, when by our own personal experience and through the light of God’s grace illumining our spirit we come to know that we are poor, wretched and worthless. 

 

In what does perfect humility consist?

Spiritual Conferences, Vol. 1, 7.  Humility is nothing else but a perfect acknowledgement that we are nothing, only pure nothing, and we have to be convinced that we are such.  To understand this better, we should know that there are two kinds of qualities in us: some are in us but not from us, and the others are in us and from us, I do not mean to imply that they do not come form God and that we have them from ourselves alone. 

 

Humility produces generosity

Spiritual Conferences, Vol. 1, 7.  Humility which does not produce generosity is unquestionably false.  After it has said: I can do nothing, I am nothing, but pure nothingness, at once it yields place to generosity which says: There is nothing and there can never be anything that I cannot do, since I put all my confidence in God who can do everything; and with this confidence, it undertakes courageously to do everything that is commanded or counselled, however difficult it may be. 

 

Sermon for Palm Sunday, March 20, 1622

Humility and Obedience:  Everything in the world has two faces, because everything has two principles. The first is God, the first cause of every­thing that exists. The second is the nothingness from which everything has been drawn. Now, since God is the first prin­ciple of every being, there is nothing that does not contain something beautiful and lovable in it. But since every created thing is drawn out of nothingness, each contains some imper­fection. 

 

Suffering is the school of humility

Letter to Rose Bourgeois: Humility makes our hearts gentle toward the perfect and the imperfect: toward the perfect, out of respect; toward the imperfect, out of compassion.  Humility helps us to receive afflictions serenely, knowing that we deserve them, and to receive blessings with reverence, knowing that they are undeserved. 

 

Humility and Charity are the master-ropes: all others are attached to them

Letter to Madame de Chantal: Humility and charity are the master ropes; all the others are attached to them.  We need only hold on to these two: one is at the very bottom and the other at the very top.  The preservation of the whole building depends on its foundation and its roof.  We do not encounter much difficulty in practising other virtues if we keep our heart bound to the practice of these two.  They are the mother virtues, and the others follow them the way little chicks follow the mother hen. 

 

True simplicity is always good and agreeable to God

Letter to Madame de Chantal on charity and humility: True simplicity is always good and agreeable to God.  I see that all the seasons of the year meet in your soul, that sometimes you feel the winter; on the morrow dryness, distractions, disgust, troubles, and weariness; sometimes the dews of May, with the perfume of holy flowers; sometimes the ardours of desire to please our good God.  There remains only autumn, of whose fruit, as you say, you do not see much. 

 

A heart gentle toward one’s neighbour, and humble toward God

Letter to Madame de Limojon: Keep in mind the main lesson He left us – in three words so that we would never forget it an could repeat it a hundred times a day: “Learn of me,” He said, “that I am gentle and humble of heart” (Mt. 11:29).  That says it all: to have a heart gentle toward one’s neighbour and humble toward God. 

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Letter to a Wife and Mother, 12: When we can’t tell whether or not we have done our duty in a particular matter and are afraid we may have offended God, we should humble ourselves, ask his forgiveness and pray for greater light another time.  Then we must completely forget what has happened and carry on as usual.

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Letter to a Wife and Mother, 13: We must try to be sympathetic towards our neighbour and humble in regard to ourselves, and not too prone to think that other people have all they could wish for, and that we have too little. 

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