examination of the heart 130 ability was given them by [f.8v] the right hand of God. Think that without God’s grace a man is like a tree without roots, a vine without sap and a tool without a craftsman. If things of your own doing are worthy of praise and recognition, be particularly eager and willing to attribute them to God. 3. “He confessed, he did not deny” (Jn 1:20). Consider that it is an admirable, fruitful, and greatly necessary thing for ecclesiastics and persons serving God to cover and to hide, as much as possible, the works that they perform well and the gifts that they possess. You hear and learn that this is the way St. John the Baptist acted. For although entitled to call himself a prophet and to make it known that he is something more than a prophet, he nevertheless says that he is nothing more than a voice. You have in this saint yet another example for imitation, namely his truthfulness: Because he confessed and did not deny, i.e., he affirmed that he is nothing and that he is not one of those persons about whom he was questioned. This truthfulness has such a great importance for God that Christ calls Himself Truth and adopts for Himself the name and title of the Truth. He does so for no other reason than because truth is something utmost in harmony with, and related to, humility. Indeed (as St. Teresa understood, thanks to the grace of God), humility is nothing other than truth, and truth nothing other than humility.28 Hence, do not be anxious that your faults are revealed to all. For why should you fear or not dare to reveal to others now what shall one day be revealed and stand open before the whole of Heaven, this world, and hell? 28 St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, in: The Collected Works of Saint Teresa of Avila, Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, vol. 2, ICS Publications, Washington, DC, 1980, 2012, p. 420 (6th Mansion: Ch. 10, § 7): “Once I was pondering why our Lord was so fond of this virtue of humility ... It is because God is supreme Truth; and to be humble is to walk in truth, for it is a very deep truth that of ourselves we have nothing good but only misery and nothingness.” [Hereafter The Collected Works of Saint Teresa of Avila will be abbreviated as CWTA.]
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mw==