Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Health Vailankanni

[Gertrude said to the Lord]: "Alas, Beloved, I have nothing worthy of suiting you, but after all I well know that, if I possessed all you possess, I should want to renounce it all and give it to you so freely that you could (…) gratify with it whoever you wished." To this the Lord replied with kindness: "If you find in your heart the disposition to act like this towards me then you must take it for certain that I too desire to treat you in the same way and in the same proportion as my goodness and love prevail over yours." And she said: "And what title must I carry with me to meet you since you are deigning to come to me with such a quantity of gifts?" "I ask nothing of you," the Lord replied, "except to come to me completely empty and ready to receive, because everything in you that will please me you will have received from me as pure gift." Then she understood that this emptiness was the humility by which she reckoned herself to have absolutely no merit, nor even able to do anything without a free gift from God, and, finally, considered all her own resources as nothing.

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Approaching Jesus in humility

Saint Gertrude of Helfta (1256-1301)

Approaching Jesus in humility

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