On the Contempt of Self: How It is Acquired and Its Profit to the Soul

The more truly a man knows his own misery, the more fully and clearly does he behold the majesty of God. The more vile he is in his own eyes for the sake of God, of truth, and of justice, the more worthy of esteem is he in the eyes of God.

Strive earnestly, therefore, to look on yourself as utterly contemptible, to think yourself unworthy of any benefit, to be displeasing in your own eyes, but pleasing to God. Desire that others should regard you as vile and mean.

Learn not to be troubled in tribulations, afflictions, injuries; not to be incensed against those that inflict them, nor to entertain thoughts of resentment against them. Try, on the contrary, sincerely to believe yourself worthy of all injuries, contempt, ill-treatment and scorn.

In truth, he who for God's sake is filled with sorrow and compunction dreads to be honoured and loved by another. He does not refuse to be an object of hatred, or shrink from being trodden under foot and despised as long as he lives, in order that he may practise real humility and cleave in purity of heart to God alone.

It does not require exterior labour or bodily health to love God only, to hate oneself more than all, to desire to seem little in the eyes of others: what is needed is rather repose of the senses, the effort of the heart, silence of the mind.

It is by labouring with the heart, by the inward aspiration of the soul, that you will learn to forsake the base things of earth and to rise to what is heavenly and Divine.

Thus will you become transformed in God, and this the more speedily if, in all sincerity, without condemning or despising your neighbour, you desire to be regarded by all as a reproach and scandal - nay, even to be abhorred as filthy mire, rather than possess the delights of earth, or be honoured and exalted by men, or enjoy any advantage or happiness in this fleeting world.

Have no other desire in this perishable life of the body, no other consolation than unceasingly to weep over, regret and detest your offences and faults.

Learn utterly to despise yourself, to annihilate yourself and to appear daily more contemptible in the eyes of others.

Strive to become even more unworthy in your own eyes, in order to please God alone, to love Him only and cling to Him.

Concern not yourself with anything except your Lord Jesus Christ, Who ought to reign alone in your affections. Have no solicitude or care save for Him Whose power and Providence give movement and being to all things.

It is not now the time to rejoice but rather to lament with all the sincerity of your heart.

If you cannot weep, sorrow at least that you have no tears to shed; if you can, grieve the more because by the gravity of your offences and number of your sins you are yourself the cause of your grief. A man under sentence of death does not trouble himself as to the dispositions of his executioners; so he who truly mourns and sheds the tears of repentance, refrains from delight, anger, vainglory, indignation, and every like passion.

Citizens and criminals are not lodged in like abodes; so also the life and conduct of those whose faults call for sighs and tears should not resemble those of men who have remained innocent and have nothing to expiate.

Were it otherwise, how would the guilty, great though their crimes may have been, differ in their punishment and expiation from the innocent? Iniquity would then be more free than innocence. Renounce all, therefore, contemn all, separate yourself from all, that you may lay deep the foundations of sincere penance.

He who truly loves Jesus Christ, and sorrows for Him, who bears Him in his heart and in his body, will have no thought, or care, or solicitude for aught else. Such a one will sincerely mourn over his sins and offences, will long after eternal happiness, will remember the Judgment and will think diligently on his last end in lowly fear. He, then, who wishes to arrive speedily at a blessed impassibility and to reach God, counts that day lost on which he has not been ill-spoken of and despised.

What is this impassibility but freedom from the vices and passions, purity of heart, the adornment of virtue?

Count yourself as already dead, since you must needs die some day.

And now, but one word more. Let this be the test of your thoughts, words, and deeds. If they render you more humble, more recollected in God, more strong, then they are according to God. But if you find it otherwise, then fear lest all is not according to God, acceptable to Him, or profitable to yourself.

- text taken from On Union with God, by Saint Albert the Great, translated by a Benedictine of Princethorpe Priory; it has the Imprimatur of Edmund Surmont, Vicar General, Westminster, 7 December 1911