Looking to Jesus with Confidence

Join the worldwide Magnificat family by subscribing now: Your prayer life will never be the same!

I raise my eyes and look at God, and then I lower them on you, exposing you to the rays of his love.  I do not use words when I speak to him of you but he understands me even better for he prefers my silence.  My dearest child … what I would not endure in order to obtain for you the graces of strength that you need.

I want to answer your questions.  Let's treat humility first; I have read some splendid pages on it in the book I spoke to you about.  The pious author says that nothing can disturb the humble.  He possesses invincible peace for he has plunged into such an abyss that no one would go that far to look for him.  He also says that the humble person finds his greatest pleasure in life in feeling his own weakness before God…

The doctrine of dying to self is the law for every Christian, for Christ said: If anyone wants to follow me, let him take up his cross and deny himself.  But this doctrine which seems so austere, takes on a delightful sweetness when we consider the outcome of this death — life in God in place of our life of sin and misery.  That is what Saint Paul meant when he wrote: Strip off the old man and clothe yourselves anew in the image of him who created you.  This image is God himself.  Do you recall his wish which he so clearly expressed on the day of creation: Let us make man in our image and likeness? … Saint Peter writes in one of his epistles that we have been made sharers in his divine nature.  And Saint Paul recommends that we hold firm to the end this beginning of his existence which he has given to us.

It seems to me the soul that is aware of its greatness enters into that holy freedom of the children of God of which the Apostle speaks, that is, it transcends all things, including self.  The freest soul, I think, is the one most forgetful of self. … You see, pride is love of ourselves; well, love of God must be so strong that it extinguishes all our self-love.  Saint Augustine says we have two cities within us, the city of God and the city of self.  To the extent that the first increases, the second will be destroyed.  A soul that lives by faith in God's presence … it seems to me, would also live in humility; it would recognize his gifts to it — for humility is truth — but it would attribute nothing to itself, referring all to God as the Blessed Virgin did.