Humility

A condescending (love) kindness is an abomination before God but is praised by people, because then they can maintain their worthiness. But kindness whose fountain is love for God, which is being released in the form of a servant, is pleasing to Him. Where do you find that inner purity that does not seek anything by what it does? Where do you find one person who would rather be honored with the lowly? And where do you find the person who is dead to pleasing the others according to the flesh? Some people compare themselves on a social level and others on a spiritual level to others in order to measure their own greatness. Poverty of spirit and lowliness in one’s own eyes are found only on the paths of humility. However, if you think you are humble, your consciousness of it will be like a virtue that will make you feel great in the midst of your humility.

A person may feel that he is lowly in his own eyes, but as soon as he senses that he is lowly in other people’s eyes, his nature rises in protest against such treatment. Have you then really been lowly in your own eyes when you cannot bear this outward test of your state?

Pure, deep humility brings a person to the point that he finds nothing in himself to which he can attach the least honor.