Marriage and Virginity (continued)
indeed. There is no way for the soul to find peace except by ridding itself of the troublesome swelling, which has made it think it was big, when in your eyes it was diseased.
An Exhortation to Humility
36, 36. Let those who seek your mercy and truth by living for you (for you, not for themselves) hear you and come to you and learn to be gentle and humble. Let that sinner hear it, the one who labors and is burdened, weighed down by his cares, not daring to raise his eyes to heaven but beating his breast and approaching from a distance.†38 Let the centurion hear it, the one who is not worthy for you to enter under his roof.†39 Let Zacchaeus hear it, the notorious tax collector who restored fourfold the profits from detestable sins.†40 Let that woman hear it, the sinner of the city, weeping at his feet all the more for having been such a stranger to your ways.†41 Let the prostitutes and tax collectors hear it, those who enter the kingdom of heaven before the scribes and Pharisees.†42 Let the sick people of every kind hear it, those you ate and drank with and were blamed for doing so (Mt 9:11-13). You were blamed by the supposedly healthy people, who did not want a doctor, although you did not come to call the just but to call sinners to repentance. When they turn back to you, conscious of their wicked lives and your great forgiveness and mercy, all these have no difficulty in being gentle and humble before you, because where sin has been abundant, grace has been even more abundant (Rom 5:20).
37. Look on the company of virgins, holy young men and young women. Those of that group have been educated in your Church, and there they have grown for you from their mothers' breasts. She has loosened their tongues to speak for your honor; they have drunk in your name as their babies' milk. None of this group can say: Before I blasphemed and persecuted and did harm to others, but I have obtained your mercy, because in my unbelief I acted in ignorance (1
Tm 1:13). Rather they have even seized on the thing you did not command but only presented for the acceptance of those who were willing, when you said, Let those who are able to accept it, accept it. They have vowed themselves to it, and, not because you threatened but because you commended it, they have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven (Mt 9:12).
The Humility of Christ Is a Fitting Model for Virgins