01-25# The Rule of our Holy Father Benedict. Chapter 7: Concerning Humility_
Brethren, the sacred Scriptures cry out to us and say: “Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and every one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

In saying this it reveals that all exalting is a form of pride, against which the prophet shows that he is on his guard by saying: “Lord, my heart is not exalted nor mine eyes uplifted; and I have not concerned myself with great things nor with wonderful things above my reach.” But why? “If I have not been of humble mind, but exalted my soul, then as if a weaned child upon his mother’s breast, such let my soul’s retribution be.” Whence, brethren, if we wish to attain the highest point of humility and if we wish quickly to reach that heavenly exaltation which is attained through humility in this present life, we must by what we do to attain it set up that ladder which appeared in Jacob’s dream and by which angels were shown to be both descending and ascending; for without doubt we are not to understand that descending and ascending but as descending by exaltation and ascending by humility.

For that ladder set up is our life in this world which, when the heart has been humbled by the Lord, is set up to heaven. And we say that the sides of this ladder are our body and soul, into which sides God-given vocation has inserted sundry rungs of humility and discipline by which we may ascend.