Chapter 5: The Act of Humility
From the book A Short Method of Mental Prayer
For effective mental prayer, humility is essential, compelling us to recognize our unworthiness before God's infinite grandeur despite His sovereign goodness. We approach Him, acknowledging our baseness and sins, earnestly begging for His merciful hearing as dust and ashes, poor worms, or prodigal children returning with fear and confusion. This humble prostration should, however, be accompanied by great confidence in His divine goodness, trusting that He, in His boundless mercy, not only permits but even draws us into His presence to reveal our needs and offer His grace and assistance, as taught by all the Saints who emphasize the inseparable link between self-mistrust and trust in God.
Yours in Jesus and Mary.
From the book A Short Method of Mental Prayer by Father Nicholas Ridolfi (born 1578) (Benzinger Brothers, 1920, pages 25-28).
Chapter 5: The Act of Humility
“I will speak to my Lord, whereas I am dust and ashes.” — Genesis 18:27
The act of Humility is the second point in the preparation for Mental Prayer. It is very certain that those who consider attentively the grandeur, the majesty, and the supreme eminence of God, ought necessarily to recognize their own vileness and to acknowledge their unworthiness to appear in the Divine Presence. Nevertheless, because God is the sovereign goodness and an ocean of infinite perfections upon which our whole good depends, we can take the liberty of presenting ourselves before Him, in spite of our baseness, in spite of our nothingness and of our ordinary faults, in spite even of the most enormous sins which make us rather subjects for His rigorous justice than objects of His compassionate mercy.
This is why, in profoundly adoring His supreme grandeur, we should humble ourselves in the depths of our misery, earnestly beseeching God to deign to hear us in His mercy, although we be but so much dust and ashes, poor worms of the earth, the height of imperfection, and the slaves of many vices; and although we have trod His divine inspirations under foot, and carried our effrontery to revolting against His dread Majesty.
We can prostrate and humble ourselves in the Presence of God in different ways: First of all, as rebellious vassals who have taken up arms against their lawful Prince, and who, at this moment, counting on His mercy, come humbly to demand pardon, and with His pardon hope to receive of His divine liberality.
Secondly, as the miserably poor who exhibit to the rich and the compassionate their sores, their ulcers and their extreme want, in order to receive some help.
Thirdly, as subjects who present petitions and requests to their Sovereign, in order to obtain some gift or the fulfilment of their desires.
Fourthly, as prodigal children who return to their Father’s house with fear and confusion; or even as children high-born and virtuous who approach their Father respectfully to treat with Him of family affairs.
The act of Humility which we make in the Presence of God should not go all alone: it should be accompanied with great confidence in the Divine Goodness which, in spite of our baseness, incapacity, and unworthiness, allows us to present ourselves before Him, nay, even draws us thither and makes our wants known to us in order that we may represent them to Him, and that He may thus succour and assist us with His grace to relieve our miseries.1
Humility and confidence in God, says Pere Meynard, ought always to go hand in hand, for this is the teaching of all the Saints. St. Francis of Sales said that humility makes us mistrust ourselves, whereas generosity (i.e., confidence) makes us trust in God, according to the words of St. Paul : “I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). This is also the doctrine of the Spiritual Combat which the same St. Francis loved so well. — Translator.