AGAINST PRIDE, HUMILITY
-- Fr. Fausto Gomez
We live in a competitive and arrogant world. It appears that what matters for many nations and peoples is to be better than others, to be number one. For many among us, perhaps, what counts is “I”, “me”, and “mine.” Indeed, in our world, pride reigns!
How may we fight our number one vice, which is pride? Let us find the answer in the life and teachings of Jesus, as explained in the Sacred Scriptures and Christian Tradition, and witnessed by Mary and the saints.
Properly speaking, pride – a capital sin and vice - signifies a disordered desire for one’s own excellence and insatiable hunger for personal glory and greatness. On the opposite side, is humility, the essential moral virtue that moderates our disordered desires for individual greatness and excellence, and helps us know our human fragility and our poverty before God.
All virtues need humility, including love as charity. For its part, humility – like all virtues - need love to be alive and saving. Loving humility is incomparable! “Believe me, in the presence of infinite wisdom, a little study of humility and one act of humility is worth more than all the knowledge of the world” (St. Teresa of Avila, Life); “All the visions, revelations and feelings of heaven… are not as valuable as the smallest act of humility” (St. John of the Cross, Ascent to Mount Carmel). “Humility is the crown of all virtues, and it is necessary if we are to please God; pride spoils all” (Charles de Foucauld).
Authors of spirituality speak of two interconnected sources of humility. The first source is the humility that comes from human experience: from our fragility, our limitations, and sufferings; from our weaknesses. The second source of humility is the humility that comes from our experience of God, who is infinitely powerful and powerfully merciful; the one who gives us -without meriting them - his divine grace and love to make us his children. “God gives his grace to the humble” (Prov 3:34).
We fight pride by practicing humility, by being humble. St. Augustine asks himself: “What is the meaning of being humble?” The Bishop of Hippo answers: “Not praising oneself; he who wants to praise himself is proud; he who is not proud is humble.”
We all know that there is pride and that there is the proud humility of those who think of themselves as humble. “True humility does not make a show of itself and hardly speak in a humble way. It not only wants to conceal all other virtues but most of all it wants to conceal itself” (St. Francis of Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life). Thus, “The first step of humility is recognizing that we do not have it” (Jacques Philippe, Meditation on the Beatitudes).
Be humble, the Sacred Scriptures repeat often: “A humble and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps 51:17); “And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for ‘God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble” (I Pet 5:5). St. Paul tells us: “Do nothing for selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own, but to the interests of others” (Phil 2:3-4).
Why should I consider myself inferior to others? St. Thomas Aquinas answers: In ourselves, we have something that belongs to us, and something that belongs to God. What is ours is really nothing; what is God’s is everything. How do we consider ourselves inferior to others? By considering in them what they have from God, and by considering in ourselves what we have from us; in them, we see that they are children of God; in us, we see our sinfulness and unworthiness.
How to be humble then? The prophet Micah answers: “The Lord asks you these, only these: To act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8). We learn and experience humility by following and imitating Jesus, who was humble: “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29); “I am in the midst of you as one who serves” (Lk 22:27). Jesus is ontologically humble (in being): “The Word was made flesh and lived among us” (Jn 1:14). He is, moreover, ethically humble (in action): humble in the crib, in his hidden life in Nazareth, in his public life, in his passion and death on the cross, in the Holy Eucharist. Jesus preached humility to his disciples (cf. Lk 14:1, 7-11).
The true followers of Jesus imitate his humility: Do you want to follow Christ? Be humble as He was” (St. Caesarius of Arles). All the saints are radically humble. Mary was very humble: Fiat, let it be, “I am the servant of the Lord!” (Lk 1:38). Her Magnificat is not just a lovely prayer, but a revolutionary hymn that magnifies the Lord in the lowly and marginalized: He has scattered the proud, brought down the powerful, sent the rich away empty, and has lifted up the humble (cf. Lk 1:46-55).
Humility means to see ourselves as we are, that is, as human persons, creatures, and children of God – and as sinners. True humility is not opposed to authentic self-esteem. In truth, humility is, from a Christian perspective, “just self-esteem” (Jean-Louis Brugues OP, Ideas felices).
Humility as just self-esteem implies acknowledgment of the talents one may have, that is a sound acknowledgment: one that recognizes humbly the source of those personal talents, namely God. St. Paul asks us today: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” (1 Cor 4:7). Our talents are God’s gift and therefore we ought to give them as God’s gift, meaning, for the service of others.
Difficult to be humble and not proud? Yes, of course! Then, we approach continually those who can and want to help us. As always, fidelity to prayer is most helpful towards achieving the true humility that expels or sidelines pride from our hearts. I close with the wonderful verses of Miguel de Unamuno: Widen the door, Father, / Because I cannot enter. / You made it for children… / I have grown up in spite of myself”
( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )
