A soul cannot have
lofty charity without profound humility
– The Three Stages of the Interior Life by Rev. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P
– The Three Stages of the Interior Life by Rev. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P
The Scripture passages I meditated upon this week had Jesus
preaching in the temple. In general, He
spoke with humility, as He taught His poor, confused people. The above quote notes a key relationship
between charity and humility: To love
your neighbor greatly, you must be willing to love yourself less, and to give
of yourself more. That’s what Jesus was
doing in the temple.
I’ve been contemplating and praying on humility in recent
months. I think God has been asking me
to focus on the varied ways I have failed in this virtue, and that a result of
my failings is that I don’t love my neighbor as I should, as he commanded. You’d think that when Jesus summarized all the
commandments down to just two simple ones, love God and neighbor, we’d find it
easy to obey: We could just will to love.
If only it were that simple.
Charity, in love of our neighbor, can only rise to a great
level when humility, in a reduced love of ourselves, also rises to a great
level. When Jesus speaks of the rabbis
and teachers in the temple, He tells the people to do what the religious
leaders say, but not what they do, for these leaders of the temple do not
practice humility --- AND (although He doesn’t say it), therefore they do not
love you as they should.
The people understood what Jesus was saying to them, and the
rabbis did too, and so they were angry. “They
preach but they do not practice (Mt 23:2), Jesus said. And in my heart He showed me how often I do
the same.
Humility enables true love; we need to put on the heart of
Jesus to achieve it. I pray the Litany
of Humility at night and have perceived it as a prayer asking for abasements,
that I might be belittled. But I think
these Scripture passages I’ve been reading tell me that I am not praying it to
be belittled, but rather to accept the fact that I AM little --- little, not
littler or littlest. God loves each and
every one of us the same way; no one is worth more; no one is worth less, and
none is worthless. In His eyes, I am not
bigger, I am not littler ---- it is only in my eyes that I am so.
Pride is often said to be the root cause of all sins. In pride I often think I am better than
others. In pride they irritate me and do
things I find hard to forgive. The Our
Father asks God to forgive us as we forgive.
These things are deeply related: Forgivenessè
humility è
charity è
Love of God and neighbor.
In Luke 4:14-30, we see where some people could not accept
Jesus as a preacher. They asked Him for
miracles. They were His neighbors who
saw Him grow up in Nazareth as a carpenter, and they couldn’t see Him in any
other way. They wanted something
concrete, a miracle, they could see before they believed Him sent from
God. They had to see with their
eyes. But the reality was, that they
needed to close their eyes, so they could see with their heart. In another Scripture passage, Jesus threw the
moneychangers out of the temple in Jerusalem, and the temple leaders couldn’t
understand why either. They too saw only
an earthly man. They could not see His
zeal for the temple as a virtue, as an expression of His love for His
Father. Their only love was of themselves,
their positions, and their possessions --- not getting beyond love of
themselves, they really didn’t understand love of God and neighbor.
I pray for humility, to see with my heart my proper position
in this world, and in the next. Like
Jesus did to the moneychangers, I need to flog myself to change my ways. I need to close my eyes in prayer and see
things as they really are. I need to not
see others as needing my forgiveness, but rather see me, as not taking deep
offense, not being so easily irritated, not being angry --- usually at things
of no real great importance. I need to
see what God sees in my neighbor, and to love them as He does. It starts with me loving myself less, and
then, instead of really being less, I will be able to be all He created me to
be --- in His image. This is all possible,
if I can humbly change the focus of my attention from myself.
Much of getting there, to the holiness we were all created
to attain, starts with humility. It is a
good thing to pray for.
The roadblocks to charity, love of God and neighbor, are
many, and the biggest one is Pride. But
we can tear down the roadblock of Pride with humility.
I continue to press on in my life. He continues to teach me in Scripture and in
other ways. I think I have learned a
lot. I have no idea how much more
remains, but I shall not worry. St.
Thomas Aquinas says that as we grow in holiness throughout our lives, we
accelerate in that growth. It’s kind of
like a falling rock acted upon by gravity:
as it nears the ground it is going at its fastest speed just before
impact. Our growth in holiness will
increase like that until that day we meet God face to face.
And it will be breathtaking.
Charity is an infused theological virtue, just waiting for
us to use it. The only roadblock to our
using it effectively and expansively is ourselves, our love of ourselves. Humility, real efforts at humility, often
need a visible effort so that we can believe that it is achievable --- kind of
like the rabbis had to see to believe. A
good, visible place to start being humble, is on our knees.
One of the most important decisions you can make
in your life, is to decide to pray daily.
--- Ralph Martin
in your life, is to decide to pray daily.
--- Ralph Martin
Tom, this great. Really, really good. As I have been reading your blog over the past year or so, I can see from afar how much God is working on you and your spiritual changes. I think I posted something a few weeks ago about how Father at Mass just before Lent said the purpose of Lent is to increase our charity. And I wasn't really clear that he didn't mean charity as in "acts of donations" but rather as an increase in our love of God and our neighbor - change in us to have more compassion and tenderness toward our neighbor, a felt inclination that may express itself in a variety of ways, true love.
ReplyDeleteAnd now God has enlightened you to see the connection between humility and charity! I often think that the Gnostics were able to make headway because of sometimes it is hard to get across God's ways via human language. We use words, but they can sometimes obscure and hide a meaning instead of clarifying it. We use "charity" and people might automatically think donating to a good cause. Or we use "humility" and we think "humiliation." In his own humility, when people tried to praise St. Francis, he would say, I am what I am in God's judgement: no more, and no less. People's opinion, even his own estimation of himself, did not matter. Only what God saw and judged was true and trustworthy. So Francis kept trying, and did not judge even himself.
When it comes to humility, I sometimes think of a field of wildflowers. Taken as a whole, the field is beautiful because of them. Taken individually, which one is more beautiful or more of a miracle than the next? You or I may prefer one to another, and so we pick the one we prefer, but oh look, there is a particularly beautiful daisy , but then look over there, there is a really phenomenal buttercup! But then look there,....and so on. And so all the flowers, each one, are particularly beautiful, if we have eyes to see. And so, is it not true of people? And what mother doesn't love each of her children for who they are individually? What Father in heaven doesn't do the same, even more, since He sees us as He created us?
What parent enjoys hearing a child say, "I am better than my brother (sister)."? Why would God want us saying that?
It's a matter of seeing. And that is why I LOVE the story of the blind Bartimaeus, who, when Jesus asks, what do you want of Me, he says, "Lord, I want to see." Yes Lord, me too, I want to see.
God bless, Tom. Thanks for sharing your spiritual journey with us. ~ Fran