Wednesday, August 14 : Saint Bernard

   If each of us could clearly see the truth of our condition in God’s sight, it would be our duty to depart neither upwards nor downwards from that level, but to conform to the truth in all things. God’s judgment, however, is now in darkness and his word is hidden from us… So, it is certainly the better thing, the safer thing, to follow the advice of him who is truth, and choose for ourselves the last place. Afterwards we may be promoted from there with honor… If you pass through a low doorway you suffer no hurt however much you bend, but if you raise your head higher than the doorway, even by a finger’s breadth, you will dash it against the lintel and injure yourself. So also a man has no need to fear any humiliation, but he should quake with fear before rashly yielding to even the least degree of self-exaltation.     So then, beware of comparing yourself with your betters or your inferiors, with a particular few or with even one. For how do you know but that this one person, whom you perhaps regard as the vilest and most wretched of all, whose life you recoil from and spurn as more befouled and wicked, not merely than yours, for you trust you are a sober-living man and just and religious, but even than all other wicked men; how do you know, I say, but that in time to come, with the aid of the right hand of the Most High, he will not surpass both you and them if he has not done so already in God’s sight? That is why God wished us to choose neither a middle seat nor the second to the last, nor even one of the lowest rank; but he said, “Sit down in the lowest place,” Thus you will not dare to compare yourself, still less to prefer yourself, to anyone.
maronite readings – rosary,team