The conversion of the centurion Cornelius, read in the First Reading of the Mass, shows that God is no respecter of persons. St. Peter explains to the others what happened: the Holy Spirit descended upon them, just as he descended upon us at the beginning.
The power of the Holy Spirit knows no limits or barriers. Nor - as in the case of Cornelius, who did not belong to the Jewish race or people - in our personal life. On the one hand, we must desire to be saints; on the other hand, if God does not build the house, those who build it labor in vain. Humility will lead us to count always and above all on God's grace. Then will come our effort to acquire virtues and to live them continually; together with this effort, our apostolic zeal, for we cannot think of a personal holiness that ignores others, that does not concern itself with charity, because that is a contradiction in terms; and, finally, our desire to be with Christ on the Cross, that is, to be mortified, to not shy away from sacrifice, neither in small things, nor in great things if necessary.
We must be careful not to approach God with bargaining, without renunciation, trying to make our love for God compatible with what does not please him. We must be vigilant to nourish continuously in prayer our desires for holiness, asking God that we know how to fight every day, that we know how to discover in the examination of conscience in which points our love is fading. The desires for holiness will become a reality in the delicate fulfillment of our acts of piety, without abandoning them or delaying them for any reason, without allowing ourselves to be carried away by our moods or feelings, for "the soul that truly loves God does not cease out of laziness to do what it can to find the Son of God, its Beloved. And after she has done all she can, she is not satisfied, for she thinks that she has done nothing".
Humility is the virtue that will not allow us to be naively satisfied with what we have done or to remain only in theoretical desires, for it will always make us see that we can do more to translate our desires into works of love, preventing the reality of our sins, offenses and negligence from destroying our illusions. Humility, then, does not clip the wings of our desires, but on the contrary: it makes us understand the need to have recourse to God to turn them into reality. With divine grace, we will do everything possible so that the virtues may develop in our souls, removing obstacles, keeping us from the occasions of sin and resisting temptations with courage.