Mercy-Justice

66. The most familiar meditation which the seraphic St. Francis was in the habit of making was this, first he elevated his thoughts to God and then turned them towards himself: "My God," he would exclaim, "Who art Thou? and who am I?" And raising his thoughts first to the greatness and infinite goodness of God he would then descend to consider his own misery and vileness. And thus ascending and descending this scale of thought from the greatness of God down to his own nothingness the seraphic Saint would pass whole nights in meditation, practising in this exercise a real, true, sublime and profound humility, like the Angels seen by Jacob in his sleep on that ladder of mystical perfection "ascending and descending by it." [Gen. xxviii, 12]

This should be our model that we may not err in the exercise of humility. To fix our thoughts solely on our own wretchedness might cause us to fall into self-distrust and despair, and in the same way to fix our thoughts solely on the contemplation of the Divine goodness might cause us to be presumptuous and rash. True humility lies between the two: "Humility," says St. Thomas, "checks presumption and strengthens the soul against despair." [2a 2æ<>, qu. clxi, art. 1 ad 3]

Distrust yourself and confide in God, and thus distrusting and thus confiding, between fear and hope, you shall work out your salvation in the spirit of the Gospel.

We should first reflect upon the infinite mercy of God, so as to excite our hope, as King David did: "Thy mercy is before my eyes," and we should then reflect on His justice, so as to keep ourselves in the fear thereof: "O Lord, I will be mindful of Thy justice alone." [Ps. lxx, 16] And also in turning our thoughts to ourselves we should first reflect upon man as being the work of God created to His image and likeness, so as to give God the glory; then we should reflect upon the sinner in man which is our work and which ought to make us deeply dejected. "Man and sin," say St. Augustine, "are as it were two distinct things. What savours of man God made, what savours of the sinner man made himself. Destroy what man has made that God may save what He has made." [Tract xii, in 10]