Well, today I want to continue in the topic of contemplation, although there are many things, of course, still that we said. We hope also to get into that, but sometimes it can be good just to call your attention to one or the other thing which is of a more the general interest of profit can be a profit for everybody at any time there is a little passage I wanted to read to you on the two kinds of humility it seems to me it's a very useful passage in which he says humility is a fragrant virtue because it's always in the context of the catechol of catechols, and there come some herbs, you know, and some of these flowers, and then everything becomes fragrant.

[01:10]

The older on it, rising from this wave of tears. Nice little girl. The epitome of the chapter is immediately after the chorus. Be ready yet to have others hold you in the same esteem.

[02:33]

You will then be humble, but only by the working of truth. If, however, love acts upon you equally with truth, you will be certain to desire that others should esteem you as you really are. You see then that to hold a low opinion of yourself through conviction of the truth is something quite different from the willing acceptance of humbling conditions through the further gift of love. For the one is forced upon us, and the other is a freewill act. He emptied himself, says the apostle, and took on him the form of a servant, thus giving us the pattern of humility. He emptied himself, he humbled himself, not because he was obliged to do so, but out of love for us.

[03:41]

He let himself seem vile to men, although he knew that he was not. though not forgetting that he was the highest, he willed to be esteemed the lowest and the least. And he said, learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. In heart, you notice, that is to say, in will. He was humble with the sort of humility that springs from the affection of the heart. It was love that molded his self-emptying, that led him to become a little lower than the angels, to be subject to his parents, to bow his head beneath the Baptists' hands, to endure the weakness of the flesh, and to submit to death even upon the cross. Was I not right in taking Spikenard, that warm and lowly girl, as a type of this humility which is warmed by love,

[04:45]

If then you have the other kind which truth enforces on you, exert your will and make a virtue out of this necessity. For without the will's consent no virtue is possible at all. You will have achieved this if you do not want to appear outwardly otherwise than as you find yourself within. Submit yourself to God and subdue your will wholeheartedly to truth. Shall not my soul, the psalmist says, be subject unto God? It is either a small thing to subject yourself to God if you do not submit yourself also to every human creature for the sake of God, whether to the abbot as your superior or to the priors as appointed by him. I say further, commit yourself to old and young alike.

[05:52]

Defer to your inferior. Respect your junior. For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Thus will you make the bride's words your own. My spike now gave forth its sweet smell. That fragrance is devotion, the odor of a good repute. the sweet savor of Christ, which reaches everyone in every place, which is perceived and loved by all. He who truth alone forces to be humble cannot achieve this, for his humility is only for himself. It does not spread abroad to give delight to others. In short, it has no fragrance, because it lacks devotion and is not voluntary but enforced. The bride's humility, on the other hand, is willing, lasting, fruitful. Its fragrance is unaffected by rebuke or praise.

[06:57]

She says, with blessed Mary, God has regarded the lowliness of his handmaid. But what is the meaning of the words, My spiked heart gave forth its sweet smell, if not my humility has found favor in his sight? Not my wisdom, she says, not my nobility, not my beauty, for those are not my own, but my humility, the only thing that really belongs to me. That was the thing that gave forth its sweet smell. Humility is always pleasing to God, and the Lord that sitteth on high is wont to have respect to lowly things. Therefore, while the king reclines at his table, that is, in his heavenly dwelling place, the bosom of the Father, the fragrance of humility is wafted up to him. He dwells on high, the psalmist says, and beholds humble things in heaven.

[07:56]

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