Examination of the State of Our Soul with Regard to Ourselves.
1. How do you love yourself? Do you not love yourself too much for this world? If so, you will desire always to remain here, and will take extreme care to establish yourself well upon this earth; but if you love yourself for Heaven, you will desire, or at least willingly consent, to depart from here at the hour that shall please Our Lord.
2. Will you rightly regulate the love you have for yourself? For it is only disordered self-love that ruins us. Now, rightly ordered love demands that we love the soul more than the body, that we take greater care to acquire virtues than anything else; that we esteem heavenly honor more than earthly honor. The well-ordered heart says more often within itself: What will the angels say if I think of such a thing? than: What will men say?
3. What love do you have for your own heart? Are you not vexed to tend to it in its illnesses? Alas! you owe it this care: to succor it, or have it succored, when its passions torment it, and to leave all things for this.
4. What do you esteem yourself to be before God? Nothing, doubtless: yet there is no great humility in a fly’s esteeming itself as nothing in comparison with a mountain, nor in a drop of water’s considering itself nothing in comparison with the sea, nor in a spark’s considering itself nothing in the presence of the sun; but humility consists both in not preferring ourselves to others and in not wishing to be preferred by them. How do you stand with regard to this matter?
1. How do you love yourself? Do you not love yourself too much for this world? If so, you will desire always to remain here, and will take extreme care to establish yourself well upon this earth; but if you love yourself for Heaven, you will desire, or at least willingly consent, to depart from here at the hour that shall please Our Lord.
2. Will you rightly regulate the love you have for yourself? For it is only disordered self-love that ruins us. Now, rightly ordered love demands that we love the soul more than the body, that we take greater care to acquire virtues than anything else; that we esteem heavenly honor more than earthly honor. The well-ordered heart says more often within itself: What will the angels say if I think of such a thing? than: What will men say?
3. What love do you have for your own heart? Are you not vexed to tend to it in its illnesses? Alas! you owe it this care: to succor it, or have it succored, when its passions torment it, and to leave all things for this.
4. What do you esteem yourself to be before God? Nothing, doubtless: yet there is no great humility in a fly’s esteeming itself as nothing in comparison with a mountain, nor in a drop of water’s considering itself nothing in comparison with the sea, nor in a spark’s considering itself nothing in the presence of the sun; but humility consists both in not preferring ourselves to others and in not wishing to be preferred by them. How do you stand with regard to this matter?
5. As for speech, do you not boast in one way or another? Do you not flatter yourself in speaking of yourself?
6. As for deeds, do you not take pleasure in what is contrary to your health, I mean vain, useless pleasure, too much watching without cause, and other such things?
6. As for deeds, do you not take pleasure in what is contrary to your health, I mean vain, useless pleasure, too much watching without cause, and other such things?