Humility of Heart

To whatever sublime height of sanctity we may have attained, a fall is always to be feared. For, as says St Augustine, there is no holiness that cannot be lost through pride alone: If there be holiness in you, fear lest you may lose it. How? Through pride.

This passage is from the essence of Humility of Heart. Just one of hundreds of common sense lessons in acquiring the Grace of Humility that author Father Gaetano Bergamo provides, still, 270 years after his death.

We believe this edition of Humility of Heart is the most complete and thorough presentation of this magnificent work, ever produced. English readers will, for the first time, benefit from the translation of the final, all important segment of Humility, covering what Fr. Bergamo termed as: HUMILITY OF THE HEART. Easy to be attained, and maintained WITH THE DEVOTION TO THE ROSARY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY - added by the Author.

This section features instructive, spiritual exercises that include meditations on each of the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary, the Hail Mary and the Our Father.

This edition is packed with features including an Index, a complete Table of Contents plus detailed and expanded footnotes that assist in further reflections and meditations on Humility. The author s introduction and Preface have been restored; plus the myriad of Cardinal Vaughan s additions to the original text are identified for the first time.

HUMILITY OF Heart. From the 1739 Italian of Father Cajetan Mary Da Bergamo, Capuchin. By Herbert Cardinal Vaughan. The preface, by Bernard Vaughan, S. J., best tells the story: The Thought and Sentiments of Humility were written by Cardinal Vaughan during the last months of his life. Being ordered by his medical advisers out of London, the Cardinal went to Derwent, where, as the guest of Lord and Lady Edmund Talbot, he found that perfect freedom and multitude of peace of which he had long felt the need. It was Padre Gaetano's work on Humility that had been the instrument in God's hand of helping the Cardinal. Accordingly in his zeal for souls he proposed to put it into English, so as to bring the work within the reach of all such as care for the health, growth and strength of their own individual souls in solid virtue. That the Cardinal has left us a precious legacy in this treatise on humility will, I feel sure, be the verdict of all who study or who only peruse these pages, done into English from the Italian of the devout Minor Capuchin whose death occurred two centuries ago. This treatise is a sort of last will and testament of Cardinal Vaughan, bequeathed to those with whom he was most intimately associated in the work for the good of souls. - AMERICAN CATHOLIC REVIEW QUARTERLY Volume XXXI January to October 1906 --American Catholic Review Quarterly