The practice of Humility - 51

Another strong reason to make you practice the virtue of humility is the example of our divine Savior; he must be your model always.  He told us: “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29).  And St Bernard notes: “What pride cannot be crushed by the humility of the divine Master?” Christ is the only one who really humiliated and abased himself; we do not lower ourselves at all, we merely occupy the place which is due us. Vile creatures guilty of a thousand crimes, we have a right only to pain and the void, but our Savior Jesus Christ abased himself way below the heights befitting him. He is the Almighty God, the Immortal and Eternal Being, the supreme Arbiter of everything, yet he became man, weak, vulnerable, mortal and obedient until death. He lowered himself below his creatures; he who is the joy and beatitude of the angels and saints in heaven willed to be the Man of Sorrows and took upon himself the miseries of mankind; the uncreated Wisdom and the wellspring of all knowledge who was burdened with the shame and infamy of a fool; the Holy of Holies, holiness itself, went by as a sinner and a criminal; he whom the countless hosts of the blessed worship in heaven willed to die on a cross; the supreme Goodness bore all kinds of temporal miseries. After this example of humility, what shall we do, ashes and dust that we are? Shall we complain of any little humiliation, miserable sinners that we are?

J. Pecci (later Pope Leo XIII)