Humility is not only sweet and pleasant to others, it is beautiful in itself. It is the primary means of attaining a likeness to God; since His image in us cannot be perfect as long as there is present in our hearts any vestige of pride. But when humility shall have driven out the opposing vice, then we become indeed like to God. We share the Divine beauty and are the object of the admiration of the holy Angels, and even of God Himself, who then speaks to the soul in the words of the Divine Lover in the Canticles: "Thou art all fair, my beloved, and there is no spot in thee."

Humility is also beautiful because it is the root whence all other virtues spring. We may say of it that it has in itself the combined beauty of all. If we find a man humble, we know that he must needs be patient, charitable, unselfish, generous, obedient, and we cannot help admiring and loving him. May not my deficiency in these virtues be due to my lack of humility? O my God, plant firmly in my heart this most indispensable and most attractive virtue!

Nothing will so quickly render us conformed to the Divine beauty of the Son of God as humility. "Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart." If we desire to draw men to us and to attract them, to be efficient in moving their hearts and influencing them for good, we must first learn this lesson of humility from Him whose Soul was beautiful beyond that of all the sons of men, because none had humility like His.

O God, who resistest the proud, and givest thy grace to the humble, grant me that true humility of which thy adorable Son has left us the example. Notwithstanding the powerful obstacles which my natural inclinations oppose to this virtue, I ardently desire to learn of Him to be meek and humble of heart. I am filled with confusion, O Lord, when I reflect on my inordinate love of esteem and applause, my extreme fear of contempt and humiliation, my independence of spirit, my attachment to my own ideas and opinion, my secret satisfaction in success, my latent mortification at seeing others preferred, my insatiable desire of praise and honor. O Lord, I should despair of the cure of maladies so numerous and grievous, did not I know that thou art an Almighty Physician, to whom nothing is impossible. Cast on me, O my God, a look of compassion, and have mercy on me. Grant that I may know thee, to love thee alone ; that I may know myself, to comprehend the depth of my miseries.

May I never forget the many motives that urge me to the practice of humility, the sins of my past life, my inclination to evil, my inconstancy in virtue, my tepidity in thy service, my ingratitude towards thee, my daily infidelities, and the innumerable defects which, notwithstanding my pride, I cannot disguise from myself. May I at length do myself justice, by sincerely believing myself to be the last of all creatures; may I henceforth shun praise as sedulously as I have hitherto sought it; may my only aim be to please thee, my only desire to be forgotten by the world; may the remembrance of the account I shall have to render of Thy graces, prove a perpetual stimulus to the practice of humility in the use of them. If by thy grace I am ever capable of doing any thing to promote Thy honor, I will refer the glory to thee alone; I will think of the voluntary humiliations of my Savior; I will take Him for my model, that by attaining resemblance with Him, I may deserve to be one day ranked among His elect in the kingdom of heaven. Amen.