Conceit

April 18



 Three things you must get away from you. The first of which you have to protect, is to litigate, to discuss, if you behave otherwise, peace goodbye, goodbye love! Wanting to remain clinging arrogantly own view is always the origin and source of discord. Before this cursed vice, St. Paul exhorts us to remain at one with the same affection.
Beware also of the love of vainglory, vice of the devout people. He pushes us, without us realizing it, to always appear more than others, to earn the esteem of all. Paul also warned his beloved Philippians when he said: "Do nothing from vainglory."
This great saint, filled with the Spirit of the Lord, saw the full extent of the evil that might entail for this damn service to those Christian saints, if they could penetrate their minds, and, therefore, wanted to warn them: "Do nothing from vainglory '.
In this accursed vice, true rottenness, real moth, the devout soul, you oponle contempt of that pride. Do not want to hear many things about you: low self esteem, considering all better, is the only remedy to preserve us from this vice.
Finally, we must take care of something else no less dangerous than this vice, because it contains within itself the germ unfortunate division. The last thing we need to guard against is that of always putting the very useful to others, because the advantage of putting himself to the others always and necessarily tends to rupture of the beautiful bond that is charity; link which must always unite Christian souls, and that charity, in the words of St. Paul, is "bond of perfection."
(November 4, 1914, to Raffaelina Cerase - Letters. II, p. 217)