Father Louis Toussaint Dassy was an intelligent and highly talented Oblate who excelled at everything he did, both as a missionary preacher and the author of books as well as studying archaeology as a hobby. Eugene writes to him and gives him some advice on making sure that he relied on God and not on his talents.
I never cease thanking God for the good accomplished through your ministry. As for you. my child, and your companions, ever keep in your heart and on your lips these beautiful words of the Apostle: “We are worthless servants; we have done only what we ought to have done!”[ed. Luke 17:10]
Who are we, in fact, to perform miracles? What should surprise us is that we do not spoil the mission God has entrusted to us, by our infidelities and what we substitute from ourselves.
He warns the 33 year-old:
Let us humble ourselves in our own eyes, and be careful not to ask anything from the people. We do not want their praises, admiration, etc. any more than their money. Especially you, my good son, you need to be on your guard because the public spoils you on account of your good qualities, zeal and everything else that is striking about you.
Letter to Father Louis Dassy, 17 July 1841, EO IX n 733
This morning I struggle with the whole idea of worth and worthlessness; I myself have done nothing to merit that my Beloved would die for me and yet his very death and resurrection remind me of how I am loved.
I stopped to read more about Dassy; because the details of his life were vague and only half remembered. As I read of one incident I had to ask myself if I was not guilty of the same thing. I had to look at that without measuring, just to see if I was really any different from Dassy. A humbling experience.
Humility is not claiming worthlessness; it is though ‘giving credit where credit is due’. It is not empty or pious sounding words, but is rather acknowledgement of who I am and where I come from.
I pick up where I had left off: “Let us humble ourselves…” Eugene speaks to his “good son” as he lightly scolds him in the way that loving fathers have done with their children down through the ages.
True humility is not a disclaiming of our good, but rather it is recognizing and noting where our good comes from. We have all been given life out of immense love. And any beauty, any talent and goodness is only what has been given to us. We do not say it is nothing, but rather we thank God and try to find ways to share that.