When God gives us consolation and peace of soul, we are in danger of losing our sense of dependence and our humility, unless we bear in mind (1) That all this happiness is a gift of God which He may at any moment take from us, and that if He does but turn His face from us, our joy will be turned to sorrow and heaviness. (2) That we live continually on the edge of a precipice, and without a humble reliance upon God we shall be sure to fall over it. (3) That prayer to God is necessary to keep us humble and to keep us from attributing to ourselves His good gifts.

However great may be the graces given us, and however high the degree of virtue we may attain, we are never safe unless we remember that we have in ourselves an inextinguishable fount of sin and weakness, of concupiscence and rebellion against God, otherwise our very graces may prove our ruin. We must cry out to God each morning as St. Philip did: "Beware of me, O my God, this day, lest I betray Thee." Guard me against myself and the traitor within my heart that makes me so often unfaithful to Thee. Heal my soul, which abounds with what is displeasing to Thee.

Those who have great natural talents are in especial danger unless they cultivate this constant dependence upon God. Their very ability is a danger to them, and makes them plume themselves on what they are able to effect. So did Nabuchodonosor, and God took from him for a time his reason, until he recognized his own nothingness. Beware of priding yourself on anything you do, lest God take away the talent which has been the cause of so great an evil.

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.