Salmos 131

Salmos 131:1-2

Now your goodness must listen briefly while I explain how this virtue may be obtained. First of all, if you intend to start a good work, you will begin it not with the intention of acquiring praise but for the love and desire of doing good. Then, when this good task, whatever it is, has been completed, you will guard your heart most cautiously, lest you fall under the influence of human favors and overestimate yourself, thus trying to please yourself or to look for some renown from any deed. For glory is like the human shadow: if you follow it, it runs away; if you run away, it follows. Always value yourself least of all and remember, whenever any good befalls you throughout your life, ascribe it all to God who gave it, not to yourself who received it, convincing yourself with these words of the apostle Paul: "What have you that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" And also reflecting on these words of the apostle: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." And when you have built in your heart a temple to the Holy Spirit, using these most precious stones of holy humility, then pray in it, using the song of the prophet David. Not in words only but in deeds shall you sing: "O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty; I busy not myself with great things or with things too sublime for me." This song you will truly be able to offer to God when you humiliate yourself and praise him alone, to whom truly with all the faithful you may every day say, "To you we owe a hymn of praise," glorifying him alone. — EXHORTATION TO HUMILITY 8