The consciousness of past sin will not of itself give us the perfection of humility. Perfect humility means the annihilation of self. We have a deeper and more solid foundation for this virtue in our own nothingness, and the absence of any sort of good save that which God has given us. Every gift of nature is simply a free gift from Him. All that is from ourselves is the marring and injuring of what we have received; the misuse of talents, money, position, influence. What folly, then, to pride ourselves on what belongs to God.

We are still mere nothing and less than nothing, as regards supernatural gifts. Our natural gifts are put into our hands, they remain with us and are in some sense ours; but a supernatural gift requires a fresh giving immediately from the hand of God each time that it is given us. We cannot begin any supernatural work without His preventing grace; we cannot move a step in it without fresh grace to carry on; we cannot bring it to a successful issue without the grace necessary to complete it. Do I realize as I ought this nothingness of my own, and the absolute and continual dependence upon God for each thought or act pleasing to Him?

If this is so, how can I be anything but humble? To pride myself on what God does in me would be ridiculous; to pride myself on what I can do of myself would be to pride myself on all that mars and spoils the work of God. "What hast thou that thou hast not received?" asks St. Paul. Yes, O Lord, I have only one thing that I have not received, and that is my vileness, misery, sin. Can I boast of these.

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.