Love without arrogance.
What then is the benefit of learning? Because I am gentle and humble in heart, he says. He introduces love, genuine love, without confusion, without arrogance, without exaltation, without deceit. It is this he introduces, who says: Learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart. How can the proud and inflated have the purest love? Indeed, it is necessary that he envies. Perhaps, does he who envies love, and are we mistaken? God forbid that anyone errs in such a way as to say that the envious have love. Therefore, what does the Apostle say? Love does not envy. Why does it not envy? Because it is not inflated. He immediately sets forth the cause where he has removed envy from love; because it is not inflated, it does not envy. At first, he said this: Love does not envy; but as if you asked why it does not envy, he added: it is not inflated. So, if it is envying because it is inflated; if it is not inflated, it does not envy. If love is not inflated, and therefore does not envy, he introduces love, who says: Learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart.
Without love, the other gifts of God are of no use.
Now let anyone have what they will, boast of themselves from wherever they will: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. What is more sublime than the gift of various tongues? It is brass, a tinkling cymbal, if you take away charity. Hear other gifts. If I know all mysteries; what is more excellent, what more magnificent? Hear yet another. If I have all prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing. He added ampler things. Brothers, what else did he say? If I distribute all my goods to the poor. What can be done more perfectly? When the Lord, for perfection, commanded this to the rich man, saying: Do you want to be perfect? Go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor. So is he now perfect, who has sold all that he has, and given to the poor? No: for he added: and come, follow me. He said, Go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor; and come, follow me. Why should I follow you? Now since I have sold all and distributed to the poor, am I not perfect? What need is there for me to follow? Follow, to learn: that I am meek and humble of heart. For one can sell all that they have and give to the poor, and yet not be meek, yet not be humble of heart. Surely they can. For if I distribute all my goods to the poor... And still hear. For some, leaving all they have behind, have followed the Lord, but have not yet followed to perfection—for to follow to perfection is to imitate—they could not bear the temptation of suffering. For Peter, brothers, was of those who had left all and followed the Lord. For when the rich man went away sorrowful, and the disciples, troubled, asked who then could be perfect, and the Lord consoled them, they said to the Lord: Behold, we have left all and followed you; what then shall we have? And the Lord told them what he would give them here, what he would reserve for the future. Yet he was already of their number, who had done these things. But when it came to the moment of passion, at the voice of a single maidservant he denied him three times, though he had promised he would die for him.
Perfection and charity are attained through the imitation of Christ.
Therefore, let your Charity take heed. "Go," he says, "sell all your possessions, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." Peter was perfect already when the Lord was sitting in heaven at the right hand of the Father; then he was perfect and made mature. Therefore, when he followed the Lord to His passion, he was not perfect; but when he began no longer to be on earth whom he was to follow, was he then perfect? On the contrary, you always have Him before you, whom you may follow. The Lord set an example on earth, he left the Gospel there; he is with you in the Gospel. For he did not lie, saying: "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age." Therefore, follow the Lord. What does it mean to follow the Lord? Imitate the Lord. What does it mean to imitate the Lord? Learn from me because I am meek and humble of heart. For if I distribute all my goods to the poor, and deliver my body to be burned, but do not have charity, it profits me nothing. Therefore I exhort your Charity to that very charity. But I would not exhort to charity, except by some charity. What therefore has been begun, I exhort to be completed; and what has been started, I pray to be perfected; and I ask you to pray for me, that what I advise to you may also be perfected in me. For we are all imperfect, and we shall be perfected there, where all things are perfect. The Apostle Paul says: "Brothers, I do not consider myself to have apprehended." He himself says: "Not that I have already received, or am already perfect." And does any man dare to boast of perfection? Rather let us confess our imperfection, that we may deserve perfection.