Honor And Glory Are To Be Given To God Alone

When blessed Francis was praised and called a saint, he used to answer such comments by saying: 'I am not as yet so secure that I might not have sons and daughters! For if at any time the Lord were to deprive me of the treasure that He has entrusted to me, what would remain to me but a body and a soul, and even unbelievers have this? In fact, I am quite sure that if the Lord had granted a thief or an unbeliever as many great gifts as He has to me, they would have been more faithful to Him than I. For in a picture of our Lord and the Blessed Virgin painted on wood, it is the Lord and the Blessed Virgin who receive honor, while the wood and the painting claim nothing for themselves; in the same way the servant of God is a kind of picture of God, in whom God is honored for His favor. But he may not claim any credit for himself, for in comparison with God he is less than the wood and the painting; indeed, he is nothing at all. Honour and glory are to be given to God alone; but to a man himself nothing but shame and sorrow as long as he lives amid the miseries of this world.'

Saint Francis of Assisi
Mirror of Perfection - 45

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