example, humble and low? or how can I presume to walk henceforth in great matters, or in wonderful things that are above me? It is indeed too outrageous, that at the very point at which the supreme Lord of all debases himself so low, a wretched worm of earth should begin to puff and swell himself out.
Oh, that I may always choose to be an abject in the house of my God, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners, and to humble myself, O Lord, with thee, that I may merit likewise to be exalted with thee in the day of visitation.[1] For I know that thou resistest the proud, and givest grace only to the humble.
§ 8. Poverty and contempt for earthly things recommended to us by the example of Christ.
Christ. But because it is a rare and difficult thing to be not high-minded, but humble amidst this world’s riches and goods, I have shewn you a safer way. For I despised all things that I might teach you not to set your heart upon riches and the fleeting goods of earth, but rather to lay up treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor the moth consume them.[2] Did not I, when I was rich, and the Lord of the universe, an din want of nothing, become poor for you? No sooner was I born than I embraced poverty in my life, and practised it ever after, both in my life and in my death. Is not the earth, with its fulness, mine? and yet, when I was born upon earth, I had scarcely where to lay my head;[3] so that I was laid in the manger of a filthy stable, because there was not room for me in the inn. I have pronounced the poor blessed: such were those whom I chose to be my Mother and my Apostles; poor, I say, in this world, but rich in faith. I lived poor, I died upon the Cross naked and in want, and at last I was buried in the sepulchre of another. Behold, how the extremity of my poverty reproves the insatiableness of your avarice! O foolish mortals! True it is, that he who does not renounce all that he possesses (in heart, at least, as being ready to do so actually when required by my honour, or his own or his neighbours’ salvation), cannot be my disciple.
See what it was that held back that youth who wished to follow me; it seemed to him too hard and painful a thing to leave his riches, and therefore he went away sorrowful.[4] And why, even now,
