Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
After having learnt humility at the cradle of the Saviour, we will come to-morrow to learn there: 1st, meekness; 2d, the necessity of humbling ourselves in order to acquire meekness, for we are meek only in proportion as we are humble. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to watch over ourselves, in order never to allow ourselves to be carried away by outbursts of temper; 2d, never to speak or act when we are under emotion, but to await calmness and the self-control of meekness. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of the Saviour: "Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart" (Matt. xi. 29).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore the Divine Infant Jesus so meek in His cradle; His face, His eyes, His little ways, everything in Him breathes meekness and benignity (Tit. iii. 4). Oh, how greatly He merits, in this state, all our homage and all our love.
FIRST POINT
The Child Jesus in His Cradle Teaches us Meekness.
The Incarnate Word, descended from heaven to earth, had nothing so much at heart as to teach men to treat one another with gentleness and charity. He proposed it to them on a certain day when He spoke to the assembled people: Learn of Me to be meek. But He would not wait so long to give the world this lesson, and, not yet being able to articulate sounds, He preaches to them by example the virtue which is the first wish of His heart. What, indeed, is meeker than an infant in the cradle? He shows neither disdain nor haughtiness to any one; he is without bitterness and malice; he does not know what it is to wish ill to others; he is accessible to all, not making any distinction between the rich and the poor, the wise and the ignorant, the powerful and the weak, the great and the little. Such are infants in general. But the meekness of the Infant Jesus is still more admirable. In Him it is not a meekness of nature but a meekness of grace, engendered by reflection and voluntary in character. Or rather it is meekness personified, gentleness and benignity impressed on all His features. Never the least outburst of bad temper, such as children often have, escapes Him, never a shade of the petulance which springs from want of reflection. It is composed of a delicate attention to avoid all that could give pain, to forestall anything which may give pleasure. Behold our model! It is thus that we ought to observe a quite divine suavity (II. Cor. vi. 6), to have nothing on our lips but sweet and kind words (Cant. iv. 11), stifling every movement of impatience or annoyance which has a tendency to appear upon our face, in our words, or in our procedure: like Samson taking the honey of sweetness out of the throat of the lion of suffocating anger (Jud. xiv. 14). We ought to bear with patience and meekness all kinds of annoyances and contradictions, all that wounds our evil nature or displeases us. As long as we have not reached this degree of virtue, there is no charity possible towards our neighbor, "for," said St. Vincent de Paul, "all men desire to be where they will be treated with meekness; no one will be led by harshness, reproved with hardness, corrected with bitterness; man is made thus; we shall not be able to change him." Let us examine our conscience on this point: how many times have we not failed in Christian charity?
SECOND POINT
We are Meek only in Proportion that we are Humble.
Pride is essentially haughty, hard, and contemptuous; ready to take offence at the least thing, to hurt its neighbor by its words, its susceptibilities, its pretensions. Consequently, with this vice no meekness is possible; with humility, on the contrary, meekness flows from its source. The humble man is essentially meek; he is never offended by anything, because he feels that, whatever may be done or said to him, he is always treated better than he deserves to be; he never offends any one, because, looking upon others as above himself, he has nothing but deference, consideration, delicate and amiable attentions for them. He is meek because he is humble; and hence those words full of justice, that meekness is the daughter of humility; it is the flower and the charm of it. When have we been wanting in meekness? Has it not been when our self-love has been touched with only the finger's end; when others have seemed to make no account of us; when some one else has been preferred to ourselves; when an insulting speech has been addressed to us? Let us humble ourselves if we desire to be meek; humility alone can lead us to meekness.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.