Meditation for October October 15, Paper Humility

The following clever sentence was taken from the correspondence of St. Theresa of Avila: "Please tell Sister Jerome, who signs her letter Muladar (dung), that I pray God with all my heart that her humility be not only in words."

Am I not somewhat like the Sister Jerome who lived at the time of the great Reformer of Carmel? I express very beautiful senti­ments, but only on paper. Oh, if someone were to discover my spiritual notes, what edifying thoughts would they not find! Series of magnificent resolutions! Boundless desires of virtues! Tender effusions!

Yes, but behind all these words what virtue really exists? It is very expressive to sign one's name Muladar, dung; still it is more essential to know how to accept the most insignificant little an­noyances, and not to imagine all lost upon receiving a trifling humiliation.

My God, You know me well ; You know my little value, that I am not worth much. Good Sister Jerome compared herself to dung; St. Ignatius in his Exercises suggests to his retreatants a similar comparison: "Ulcers and rottenness" ulcus et apostema. And isn't it true that even if I have not committed many great faults, there is nothing beautiful in the depths of my nature, so that on certain days I tremble at all the possibilities of evil cun­ningly buried in the innermost recesses of that abyss?

I will strive to know myself that I may be true; to esteem my­self at my right value; to thank God for having made out of the nothing that I am, the modest something that I became de stercore erigens pauperem.
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)