Our few and infirm works

 

Your few works, done with all your infirmity, if offered with repentance and self-reproach, will be received by God more favorably than great feats and labors performed with arrogance and a high opinion of oneself. 

On conceit

 

Conceit—that subtle arrow of the devil—secretly wounds the heart, and its seed is subtly planted; so that—little by little—it grows into a Pharisee.  
 





How to get help from God

Acknowledge your sinfulness and pride and impatience, and humble yourself under the strong hand of God—accusing no one but yourself, and then you will see divine help:  how God will calm you and cause the hearts of those that oppose you to be favorably disposed towards you. 

 

On irritability

 

Irritability, or the anger part of our tripartite soul, is not given in order to be angry at our neighbors, but in order to have zeal against sin.  When we become enraged with our neighbors, we do this contrary to our nature.  Irritability is strong in us because of pride. 

 

On knowing yourself

We cannot know ourselves other than through association with our neighbors--receiving from them reproaches and vexation as a cure for our spiritual wounds; while reproaching ourselves for impatience, but not them.  Instead, we must thank them; for, through them, we came to know--by God's providence--our spiritual infirmity. 

On friendship

 

Every friendship that is not based on true love and humility, but is passionate, is unstable and will fall apart. 

Our surest intercessor

Our humility is our surest intercessor before the face of the Lord.  It is by dint of humility and penance that the last shall be first.