We ought to love the humiliations God sends us, since by it He will draw nearer to us
2 min • Digitized on January 29, 2022
From The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, page 152
By His friend, Jean Pierre Camus, Bishop of Belley
3. Even this did not satisfy him. He was not content with mere natural virtue, but insisted that humility must be christian, given birth to and animated by charity. Otherwise he held it in small esteem, refusing to admit that among christians it suffices to practise virtues in pagan fashion. But what is this infused and supernatural humility? It is to love and delight in one’s own humiliation, for the reason that by its means we are able to give glory to God, Who accepts the humility of His servants, but puts far away from His heart the proud in spirit.
4. Again, our Saint taught that in striving to please God by bearing humiliations, we should aim at accepting such as are not of our own choice rather than those that are voluntary. He used to say that the crosses fashioned by us for ourselves are always of the lightest and slenderest, and that he valued an ounce of resignation to suffering above pounds’ weight of painful toil, good though it might be in itself, undertaken of one’s own accord.
5. Quiet endurance of reproaches, contempt, or depreciation, was, in his opinion, the true touchstone of humility, because it renders us more like to Jesus Christ, the Prototype of all solid virtue, Who humbled and annihilated Himself, making Himself obedient unto death, even the ignominious death of the Cross.