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112 the Lord with all your heart: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

I would further counsel you to be reserved in speaking of the gifts which God has given you, for to publish them is almost always displeasing to your Lord, as He Himself clearly teaches us in the following lesson.

Appearing, as it is said, once to a devout and pure creature of His in the form of a little child, she asked him, with much simplicity, to repeat the Angelical Salutation. He at once began: "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women;" then He stopped, unwilling to praise Himself in the words which follow. And whilst she was urging Him to proceed, He withdrew from her, leaving His servant full of consolation, because of the heavenly doctrine which, by His example, He had taught her.

Do you also, beloved, learn to humble yourself, and to acknowledge yourself to be nothing, and your works to be nothing also. This is the foundation of all other virtues.

God, when we had no being, created us out of nothing; and now that through Him we have a being, He wills that the whole spiritual fabric should be based on this foundation, namely, the knowledge of our own nothingness. And the deeper this knowledge becomes, the higher will