While on his final journey to Jerusalem, Jesus gives some cautionary advice to the disciples travelling with Him. “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? 

Commentators have picked up on the word “gain” in His question and have noted ways in which traces of it show up in cultural patterns today. 

Gain: “Everything I have gained—my reputation, accomplishments, friendships, talents, knowledge, and wisdom—I achieved on my own. They come from the effort and sacrifice I invested in building them. The story of my life is a story of what I earned, fair and square, by myself.”  

Such a claim asserts that a person’s attainments arise solely from his or her own efforts. 

It’s a stance that skims over the deeper levels of existence, that is the enabling of all life that the Almighty God is constantly providing, the underlying creativity and founding spark that forever flows from this Divine Source. 

Might not this attitude be something of that “forfeit” Jesus mentions; i.e., the bypassing of the God – given undercurrent of life which shores up everything?  Maintaining the “I did it all by myself” attitude overlooks the most basic of realities – the originating and never failing presence of God’s loving Self. To discount this is to ignore the underlying truth. It is, in Jesus’ words, “to forfeit life!” 

In contrast to this shallowness is Vincent’s virtue of humility. This quality recognizes that all is gift, that our strengths are undergirded with God’s own strength, that it’s an illusion to think ourselves as self-constituting. Everything I “gain” presupposes all that’s being given me in the first place.  

Our Saint stresses just this point in a letter written late in his life. Profound Humility is needed…a great but necessary Humility is required to refer to God all the glory for your work. Yes, Monsieur, you need a firm and vigorous Humility to bear the weight of so many of God’s graces, and a deep sentiment of gratitude to acknowledge the Author of them. 

 (Volume: 5 | Page#: 635) To Jean Martin, 23 June, 1656 added on 6/28/2011