The humble person does not ask where she or he stands with God. The sadness of not being perfect and finding oneself a sinner is an unworthy sentiment. Lift your gaze higher, much higher. This is the gaze of the humble. The humble person takes a profound interest in the very life of God and is capable, in the midst of failure and miseries, of vibrating to the eternal joy of God. Such a heart is at the same time overflowing and stripped. It is enough for it that God should be God. In that alone it finds all its peace, all its pleasure. To be humble is to rejoice in God as God and not turn back to yourself at all. It is necessary simply to keep nothing of yourself. Sweep out everything, even that sharp perception of our distress and failure, even our need to be perfect. Make a clean place. Accept your inner poverty. Renounce everything that is heavy, even the weight of our faults. Have nothing more than the glory of God, become irradiated by it. God is, that is enough. The heart then becomes light. It no longer feels itself. It has abandoned every care, every attachment. Its desire for perfection is changed into a simple and pure desire for God.
(adapted from Passing from Self to God: A Cistercian Retreat by Robert Thomas, OCSC)
catholicmystic 