November 26

Nineteenth Tuesday after Trinity

Seek meekness. Zephaniah 2:3.

THE Holy Spirit will only abide in a humble soul. There must not only be recollection to win His presence, there must be humility to retain that gracious presence. "If we live in the Spirit, we must walk in the Spirit," and that none save a humble heart can do. Think of the humility with which He vouchsafed to overshadow the blessed Virgin, so that she became the mother of God; think of the humility of the Incarnation itself; think of the condescension which brings Him down even now to visit our hearts and consciences. Call to mind His promises, that He will dwell with the meek and lowly of heart. It is with the contrite, humble heart that He pledges Himself to abide. It is into the deeps of humility that the deeps of spiritual grace are poured. Nothing is so damaging to the interior life as a certain tendency to look with complacency on our own state, to pass over trifling faults, and to neglect the sanctification of common duties. No grace bestowed produces self-complacency in a really humble heart which refers all to God; neither will it look upon any duty as insignificant which can be done so as to please Him.

Spirit of gentleness! thou wast not made To wrestle with an evil world, 'mid clash Of passion's steely mail, and the loud din Of spirits framed in iron mould; but He Who bid thee sojourn here, hath haply sent To show awhile, in live reality, The loveliness of natures trained for heaven, And fit thee by thine earthly pilgrimage For thine enduring home.