Ponderables from the Poverello

There are many who busy themselves solely with advancing their learning and are concerned with that and that only. If they preach to the people and then learn that some of them have been edified or converted to penitence, they get puffed up, or they flatter themselves because of the works which actually others have done. Because of the prayers of the holy brothers, the Lord had done the work of edifying and converting to penitence which these men think they had done by their words. Those holy brothers don’t know what they have accomplished, because it is God’s will that they remain unaware of it, lest they become proud. These are my Knights of the Round Table! They are the brothers who go and hide themselves in the wilderness or in secluded places so that they can give themselves the more assiduously to prayer, and weep for their own sins and the sins of others.