Vigils Reading

A JOYFUL AND GENUINE HUMILITY

From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux3

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Do you see that humility makes us righteous? I say humility and not

humiliation. How many are humiliated who are not humble! There are some

who meet humiliation with rancor, some with patience, some again with

cheerfulness. The first kind are culpable, the second are innocent, the last just.

Innocence is indeed a part of justice, but only the humble possess it perfectly.

He who can say: “It was good for me that you humiliated me,” is truly humble.

The person who endures it unwillingly cannot say this; still less the one who

murmurs. To neither of these do I promise grace on the grounds of being

humiliated, although the two are vastly different from each other, since the one

possesses his own soul in his patience, while the other perishes in his

murmuring. For even if only one of them does merit anger, neither of them

merits grace, because it is not to the humiliated but to the humble that God gives

grace.

But he is humble who turns humiliation into humility, and he is the one

who says to God: “It was good for me that you humiliated me.” What is merely

endured with patience is good for nobody, it is an obvious embarrassment. On

the other hand we know that “God loves a cheerful giver.” Hence even when we

fast we are told to anoint our head with oil and wash our face, that our good

work might be seasoned with spiritual joy and our holocaust made fat. For it is

the possession of a joyful and genuine humility that alone enables us to receive

grace. But the humility that is due to necessity or constraint, that we find in the

patient person who keeps his self-possession, cannot win God’s favor because

of the accompanying sadness, although it will preserve his life because of

patience. Since he does not accept humiliation spontaneously or willingly, one

cannot apply to such a person the scriptural commendation that the humble

man may glory in his exaltation.

If you wish for an example of a humble person glorying with all due

propriety, and truly worthy of glory, take Paul when he says that gladly will he

glory in his weaknesses that the power of Christ may dwell within him. He does

not say that he will bear his weaknesses patiently, but he will even glory in them,

and that willingly, thus proving that to him it is good that he is humiliated, and

that it is not sufficient that one keep his self-possession by patience when he is

humbled; to receive grace one must embrace humiliation willingly.

You may take as a general rule that everyone who humbles himself will

be exalted. It is significant that not every kind of humility is to be exalted, but

that which the will embraces; it must be free of compulsion or sadness. Nor on

the contrary must everyone who is exalted be humiliated, but only he who exalts

himself, who pursues a course of vain display. Therefore it is not the one who is

humiliated who will be exalted, but he who voluntarily humiliates himself; it is

merited by this attitude of will. Even suppose that the occasion of humiliation

is supplied by another, by means of insults, damages or sufferings, the victim

who determines to accept all these for God’s sake with a quiet, joyful conscience,

cannot properly be said to be humiliated by anyone but himself.

3 (CF 7:162-163).7