Tuesday, September 2, 2008

"I wish I had read this earlier in life..." Thoughts on the virtue of unpretentiousness...

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Oh my Mother, Mother of Justice and Mother of Mercy, fashion my soul so that being entirely unpretentious, I may be capable, through Thee, of the highest feats of prowess.

Guard my soul from the consideration of the qualities, even the supernatural ones, that the graces implored by Thee might bring me.

On the contrary, open my soul to the consideration of my defects: a sincere, loyal, manly consideration, that does not seek to cover them with attenuating factors nor to provide pretexts for false leniency toward myself.

Grant me a true consideration of my faults and the resolution to never return to them, so that, O my Mother, I may be truly capable of all types of prowess by Thee.

I know well that Thou dost grant the greatest victories to the unpretentious alone. "Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles." God has put down the mighty, that is those who are proud, who think themselves colossal.

He has deposed them from their false grandeur and exalted those who know how to see their defects with severity.

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