A Ladder That Goes Up and Down.45Ladders.43
Ladders
A Ladder That Goes Up and Down Before I speak of the different steps of humility — which indeed Saint Benedict does not ask us to count but to climb
— I will first try to show what we may expect to find at the top. The toil will be easier if we have the profit before our eyes.
Our Lord shows us plainly both the difficulty and the reward of the work. "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."
The way is humility, the goal is truth. The first is the labor, the second the reward. But you may ask: "How do I know that he is speaking of humility when he only uses a general word, 'I am the Way?" Well, I will give you a clearer text:
"Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart." He points to himself as an example of humility, a model of meekness.
Imitate him and you will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. What is the light of life but truth that enlightens every person who comes into this world and shows us where the true life is to be found? So, when he says: "I am the Way and the Truth," he adds, "and the Life."
It is as if he said: "I am the Way, I lead to Truth; I am the Truth, I promise Life; and I myself am the very Life 1 give you." "For this is eternal life, that they may know you the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."
Supposing, then, that you go on to object: "I see the way — humility; I long for the goal to which it leads — Truth,
Ladders but what if the way is so difficult that I can never reach the goal?" The answer comes promptly: "I am the Life," that is,
I am food, the viaticum, to sustain you on your journey.
There are some who go astray and cannot find the road.
He cries to them: "I am the Way." Some doubt and waver in their faith. His word to them is: "I am the Truth." To those who grow weary with the climbing, his cry is this: "I am the Life."
To define humility: Humility is a virtue by which one has a low opinion of one's self because one knows one's self well.
This is the virtue that belongs to those who have set their hearts to climb and have gone from virtue to virtue, from step to step, until they have reached the highest peak of humility and have gazed upon Truth from the watchtower of Zion.
"For the Lawgiver will give a blessing." This means that he who gives the law is the same who gives the blessing; he who commands humility will lead safely to the Truth. Who is this
Lawgiver? Who but the good and sweet Lord who gives a law to those who wander from the way? They winder from the way because they have gone astray from the truth. Will they then be deserted by our sweet Lord? No, the law that this good kind Lord gives them is the way of humility by which they can return to the knowledge of the truth.
This law which points to the way back to truth Saint Benedict sums up in twelve steps. Just as the ten command ments of the Law and the twofold circumcision — which add up to twelve — lead to Christ, so do these twelve steps, which we have to climb to come to the possession of Truth.
This was the ladder which was shown to Jacob — a figure of humility. Leaning on the top of the ladder the Lord looks on the children of the human family with eyes of truth, that deceive not and cannot be deceived, to see if there is any who understands and seeks God. His place at the ladder's top shows us that the knowledge of truth is to be found at the summit of humility.
Ladders
Yes, the way of humility is a good way. It seeks for truth, it wins charity, it shares the fruits of wisdom. Just as the end of the Law is Christ, so the perfection of humility is the knowledge of truth. When Christ came he brought grace; when truth is known it brings love. To the humble it is known. "He gives his grace to the humble."
(The Steps of Humility and Pride Iff) Of all his virtues, and he possessed them all, Christ specially commends one to us, humility. "Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart."
Howrglad I, too, should be, Lord Jesus, to glory, if I could, in my infirmity that your virtue, your humility might be made perfect in me. Your grace is sufficient for me when my own virtue fails. With the foot of grace firmly planted on the ladder of humility, painfully dragging the foot of my own weakness behind me, I should safely mount upward, until, holding fast to the truth, I attained the broad plain of charity. There I shall sing my song of thanksgiving: "You have set my feet on a broad plain." Thus I warily enter on the narrow way, step by step safely ascend the steep ladder, and by a kind of miracle climb to the truth, behind the time perhaps, and limping, but still with confidence. "Woe is me that my exile is prolonged. Oh, that I had wings like a dove, that I might flv away" to truth and be at rest in charity! But since I have no wings, "lead me in your way, O Lord, that I mav walk in vour truth" and the truth will make me free.
J J Whv did I ever desert the truth? If I had not been so J light-headed and stupid as to come down from truth I would not now be faced with this slow and hard climb back to it.
Did I say, "come dowm"? "Crash dowm" wrould be more like it. Though in a certain sense the milder expression is more suitable because one does not plunge to the depths of evil
Ladders in one sudden fall, no more than one springs to the heights of virtue at one bound but has to climb step by step. So the descent, too, is spread out little by little, according to the picture given to us: "The wicked are proud all the days of their life." And, "There are ways that seem to us right, but their end leads to evil."
You see now there is a way down and a way up, a way to evil and a way to good. Yes, and it is in that hope that I have chosen the path of truth, to climb by it, now that I am humbled, to the place from which I fell in my pride. Yes, I will climb back and I will sing: "It is good for me, Lord, that you have humbled me.
The same ladder is for those who come down the way of iniquity, for those who go up the way of truth. By the same steps one goes up to the throne and one comes down from it, by the same road one goes to the city and one departs from it; by the same gate one enters and one leaves the house. Indeed, it was by the one same ladder that Jacob saw the angels ascending and descending.
What is the bearing of all this? It is that when you wish to return to the truth there is no need to seek an unknown road. It is the same as that by which you came down. On your ascent you will be able to follow the track of the footprints you made in your descent. Now that you are humbled you will climb by the same steps you trod on as you came down in your pride. The twelfth and lowest step to which your pride brought you is the first step upwards of humility and so on in due order: the eleventh is the second, the tenth the third, the ninth the fourth, the eighth the fifth, the seventh the sixth, the sixth the seventh, the fifth the eighth, the fourth the ninth, the third the tenth, the second the eleventh, the first the twelfth. If your conscience has noted these steps of your pride, you will recognize them and will have no trouble in finding the way of humility.
(The Steps of Humility and Pride 25 ft)