examination of the heart 294 grave illnesses of the soul. What is it, however, that [f.82r] the sick man should mind most after regaining his physical strength? He should avoid falling into a worse illness than the previous one. And you shall do nothing different; but aided by Jesus the Physician, be on your guard against even more serious illness since you have been healed with His Body thanks to His grace. 2. “Friend, go up higher” (Lk 14:10). O Eternal Wisdom, my God! You know perfectly well my pride. Even now I have a longing as our first parents: to acquire the knowledge of good and evil. I strive after what is higher, greater, and more praiseworthy among men. The craving for fame, honor, and admiration has not yet left me. When it rises in my mind, innumerable infernal monsters rise with it. Lust wants to follow its mother, pride; lust is followed by stubbornness; stubbornness by incorrigibleness, which is followed by obstinacy; and obstinacy is followed by ruin. I am corrupted with such great and numerous vices! As to the virtues, with which do I shine? Thus it is, that when I want to move up higher, that You, the adversary of the proud, resist me most justly; and so I become ashamed and cannot be delivered from this confusion, except through Your help. Therefore, give me that unique ladder with which one can rise above the world, and come to You: humility. I think that if I hold on to it, it will be entirely impossible for all the assaults, tempests, and attacks of hell, the world, and the flesh to throw me down from it. 3. “For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Lk 14:11). Behold the truest axiom of Christ’s philosophy! Nobody ascends, unless he descends. Should Peter, the Prince of the Church, have said it, I would be bound to believe him; should the Teacher of the Gentiles, Paul, have said it, I would fear condemnation, unless I believed him also. It becomes much more necessary that I believe when it is stated by Christ, the Heavenly Wisdom, the Teacher of the world, the infallible, immutable, eternal Truth.
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