"Do you plan to marry again?"

“The Salesian Jesus,” says Wendy Wright, “is perhaps best seen in a passage in Matthew’s gospel which presents the Lord as inviting all to come and learn from him for he is gentle and humble of heart.” For Jesus these are radical virtues capable of challenging the values of the world.

At their very first meeting, Francis gave Jane an opportunity to practice his favorite virtues of humility and obedience, and he did it with his typical good humor. They were sitting next to one another at dinner. “Madame,” he questioned her, “Do you plan to marry again?” “Oh,no, my Lord,” she hastened to reply. “Then,” said he, “Lower your flag.” She understood immediately, rose front the table and retired to her room where she removed all her jewelry.

Almost as soon as Francis became her spiritual director, he advised Jane to plant deep in her heart the virtue of humility, and he told her that guided by the Holy Spirit, he would help her in the task. She was so faithful to his instructions that certain friends of hers, noticing her modesty and holy bearing, suggested she had  the capacity to attain to very high states of mystical prayer, and what’s more, they offered to teach her its intricacies. When she questioned Francis, he answered, “ No, no, be content with spinning the threads of the little virtues of humility, gentleness, simplicity and others suitable to widows.“ He who tells you otherwise is deceiving you and is himself deceived.”

 Reflection questions:

  1. Why is the virtue of humility so central for Jane?
  2. What does Jane mean by interior humility and exterior humility?
  3. Why does Jane believe that true humility is so rare and precious?

APPLICATION

Scripture

It is better to be of a humble spirit among the poor than to divide the spoils with the proud. (Proverbs 16:19)

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. (.Matthew 23:11, 12)

JANE’S WORDS:

The summit of perfect humility consists in absolute and entire dependence upon the will of God.

My sisters, how great a value humility is! It is the virtue loved best by our Lord Jesus Christ and his glorious mother. Humility attracts the eyes and heart of the Lord to us, but it must be a more interior than an exterior humility. He does not tell us to learn the latter from him but the former: “Learn from me,” he tells us, ‘for I am gentle and humble of heart ” Believe me, my dear daughters, to possess a grain of true humility is to possess a treasure and money that can buy heaven and the heart of God.

Let us speak of the humility of St. Augustine. It was his most excellent virtue. “If  I am asked,” says he, “the way to heaven, I shall answer you, it is humility; and if I am asked again by what road can we go to heaven, I shall still answer, by humility, by humility” What more humility than to have written down all his sins to publish them to the whole earth, that everyone might know in the ages to come that Augustine had been a great sinner. This was indeed to be dead to self-esteem so as to prize only what is eternal.