What does it mean to be humble? What kind of self-denial (Lk 9:23) does that entail? Is the desire for humility contrary to that of self-confidence? Is one good and the other beautiful? I’d like these thoughts to continue in the Comment section.
Does prayer nurture my humility? It would seem so – that the more I come to know and love God, the more I come to know and love that I am not God. What does this knowledge do to me? Does this knowledge annihilate me in the presence of “I AM WHO AM” (Ex 3:11, 14)? The answer is implicitly no. It is a loving knowledge, not terrifying or destructive knowledge. Love is giving yourself to another, yes. Love is also “receiving one-hundred fold” (Mk 10:28-31) what you have given away – not in quantity but in quality… that is, grace, and virtue.
The presence of God should not annihilate us but fulfill us. Is this not Love? Love does not destroy me by taking something from me. Love enlivens me and “springs up into life everlasting” (Jn 4:14) within me. With this in mind- as it more deeply resonates with you- it merits a note: Humility is truth. The truth resonates from within…
all life is from Life
So then, what is the truth about you and me? I am made out of nothing (which solicits dependence and reveals the lie of self-sufficiency) into something… not something, but into someone, not some one, but son, daughter. What logically follows with sonship? Sonship brings inheritance, adoption, nurture, family, worth, value, self-surrender and abandonment to God. And what comes from that? Life- the full life, the supernatural and Divine life.
We can say this life; this sacred family bond gives self-confidence. The fact that we are redeemed inspires and nurtures in us life and self-confidence. Humility then, I venture to say, brings joy and peace. We recognize the truth about ourselves. We recognize that we are not self-sufficient. We recognize our “born-again” likeness is likened to the Divine, is sacred and worthy. This is not pride. To be prideful is to believe I can be something apart from God. Ironically, apart from God, I am nothing – the sin is self-defeating, self-annihilating. Humility is recognizing this fact, that I am created out of nothing. Here’s the full story: created out of nothing, into something.
The presence of God, my encounter of God in prayer, does not annihilate me. Prayer reveals these truths and therefore is a “school of life;” here I learn how to live in this Great Reality.
***
What do you think? Is this an interior delusion? Is it a redeemed view of our worth and a better description of humility? Is it kind of true but needs some work? Let me know. Let’s reflect together and contribute to one another’s lives.
“The presence of God should not annihilate us but fulfill us.” This reminds me of a passage from “Lumen Fidei” – “… when we draw near to God, our human lights are not dissolved in the immensity of his light, as a star engulfed by the dawn, but shine all the more brightly the closer they approach the primordial fire, like a mirror which reflects light.” (35) As our Holy Father pointed out, in this time of mercy we are not ready to be confronted with His full glory, so He gently bestows humility on those who draw near to prepare them. In the end we will have to face it in full force, and woe to us if we are not ready.
As far as self-confidence, I’ve always been a bit confused by that term, because it seems to imply an object (confidence in my ability to do what?). I suppose there is true and false self-confidence, true when my self-confidence comes from my confidence in God, false when I credit myself as the source of all my abilities. In this respect prayer would certainly bring about true self-confidence: I learn my strengths and weaknesses and God’s will for me, so I can be absolutely confident in following it knowing its Source, come temporal success or failure.
Just a few jumbled thoughts – I certainly agree with what you said. Good article Josue!
Amen! Thank you for relating that to Lumen Fidei, you inspire me to stop procrastinating (it’s printed and waiting for me). Yes, true confidence. How do I gain or merit it? Or is it received in prayer? Does it involve communication and knowledge of God? I like your explanation- learning my strengths and weaknesses, Rachel calls it self-awareness.
Indeed, “learning its Source,” with a capital S. I realize I hardly mention sin explicitly in this mix of prayer and confidence. I think the problem of sin is implied…but after posting, I saw the little attention I gave the issue. I suppose I can’t address everything at once…but I don’t want it to seem like sin is not relevant to the context! Anywho, those are some of my “Afterword” thoughts. Next time, I want to talk about that quote, “all life is from Life,” as an extension of confidence in God through prayer.
Sounds like you’ve got some good material for future posts! Thanks for encouraging discussion in the comment boxes Josue!
Hi Josue! Perhaps a term I would use instead of self-confidence is just “confidence” or “trust”. Self-confidence refers more to our assuredness of our own abilities (like Matthew said so well), than to anything that could be set up as the contrary to humility (whose contrary is pride, like you stated so well!). “…this sacred family bond gives self-confidence. The fact that we are redeemed inspires and nurtures in us life and self-confidence” – You could replace “self-confidence” here with just “confidence” and I think it would be more accurate. The fact that we know God, and know our bonded-ness to Him, makes us confident because we are confident in Him, we trust in Him (confidence and trust have related word etymologies). Because we know Him and His love, we trust He will take care of us, and therefore we can act with boldness! See Pslam 27:3 “Though a host encamp against me, My heart will not fear; Though war arise against me, In spite of this I shall be confident.” Indeed, the more real humility grows in us, the more we will know ourselves truly and grow in self-awareness (as you said, humility is truth), the more firm we will become in “who I am” – to the world we will be seen as extremely confident, unshakeable, and steady – and yet we will know that none of it is our glory, but His glory in us – and we will not be ashamed or feel degraded, but rather rejoice in our perfect smallness that radiates His perfect magnanimity.
Hi Rachel! Thank you for that insight. The language itself speaks of what it means, that makes sense. I like your relation to Psalm 27. It’s true, “we will know that none of it is our glory, but His glory in us.” Boom! This post was inspired by a book I’m reading as well as a conversation a friend and I had recently. He spoke of humility and some what he said sounded like humility was an unhealthy self-hate or something of the sort. I realized I identified similarly with the word. We wrestled with it for awhile, and I reflected on it following that…yay refining language and life!
Yay to that for sure, Josue! Thanks for sharing your reflections! 🙂
>You could replace “self-confidence” here with just >”confidence” and I think it would be more
>accurate. The fact that we know God, and know our >bonded-ness to Him, makes us confident because we are
> confident in Him,
Sense we are enjoying semantics for spiritual growth here is a turn of phrase that has always bothered me. “Self-Righteous” our society likes to use that word so much. Especially in this sentence “Christians are so self-righteous”. Which means they must have inverted the meaning clearly Christianity makes clear the source for any righteousness can’t come from yourself. In fact it occurs to me than any atheist since he lacks a higher power to draw from must by definition either be self-righteous or a Nihilist or perhaps a Moral Relativist. Perhaps our society has become so indoctrinated with the secular way of thinking that they have simply equated self-righteous for the word “Non-Nihilist” or “Non-Relativist” because they fail to grasp there is third option. Now that I think of it I believe I might start referring to myself as a Non-Nihilist from now on.
Self-righteous is a word that makes my stomach turn – because I would be sad if someone perceived me that way, and because it challenges me to a clear examination of conscience. I think you’re right in that our current society doesn’t much like the word “righteous,” although it used to have a positive meaning because a truly righteous person is also truly humble since like you said, they know that they aren’t the source. But the main take away is if anyone ever called myself, or for any follower of Christ, self-rightoues, I think that we should listen to them carefully, to discern whether there is truth in what they are saying (because others often see our own pride better than we do), and then ask their forgiveness for having offended them.
Indeed. I think that’s a practical and good way to reply to and dialogue with the people we encounter.
Nice meditation, broski. I like it. For a few years now, I’ve been batting around the thought that humility is neither thinking too much of yourself, nor too little of yourself, but rather seeing yourself exactly as you are.
By the way, a tip on writing style: I love theological ruminations like this. I write them all the time myself. But one thing I’ve learned is that many readers can’t always follow trains of abstract thought – not that they’re stupid, just that it’s a lot of heady stuff to take in at once. A good way to help with that is to intersperse elucidations or real-world examples, or just harp on the same thing for a little longer than you’d normally be inclined. For example, maybe when you first posit that you are made of nothing into something, instead of parenthetically stating that it “solicits dependence reveals the lie of self-sufficiency,” you could take a few sentences, even a paragraph, to more clearly define exactly how that concept does those things, in very practical terms. Not only does it help your readers to get where you’re going with a thought, it’s a heck of a lot of fun to take your own thoughts farther than you originally intended, and you might end up getting even more out of it yourself.
Peas and blessins.
“I’ve been batting around the thought that humility is neither thinking too much of yourself, nor too little of yourself, but rather seeing yourself exactly as you are.”
That statement is true but for many Catholics probably not helpful for a few potentially misleading. The reason is it focuses on the self as a way to define humility. A wise priest once gave me a little saying that tends to resonate in many instances like this one “spirituality should concentrate on the “who” and “how” be weary of the “I” and “why” see if your trying to find the right measure for yourself your talking about the “I” when the more important question is “who” and the answer is “not I”. So I would fix this by saying that humility is seeing God and his creation exactly as it is nothing less and nothing more. If you look inward you will see majesty, nothing is so “lovingly and fearfully made” as a human life. That might not make you humble. But if you look outward and see the majesty in all of Gods creation and the unfathomable of the heavens themselves. Now that can make one drop to their knees.
A little digression. I once did a mission trip in Mexico where the entire spiritual reflection program was on the subject of Humility. I guess the organizers were trying to prepare the missioners for the emptying themselves that would be needed on the long work days. But a number of strong faithful participants where a little thrown by the topic. They were used to talking about “Faith Hope and Love” which feel like happy freeing topics. “Humility” fallows “Charity” comes just before “Obedience” in those depressing Christian virtues we like to just not ruminate on. So it kind of came a topic of why “Humility” was more important and reflection topic than “Love” I mean “God is Love” right, shouldn’t we talk more about “Love”?
About day 3 it hit me and I blurted this out. Well if Love is putting someone else (God) first and Humility is putting yourself last aren’t they basically two sides to the same coin. Love is the shiny side we like to talk about and Humility is the side by
implication we know must be there. Every act of Love is an act of Humility.
…But still studying humility alone may put many at a
loss, Humility without Love is just stopping the line all together.
If you let go of yourself and you don’t let another take your place
its just Nihilism. So I think the path to true humility lies in
understanding the other. The object of your “love” versus the
object of your “humility”
Yes! I completely agree with that, especially two of your points…the temptation to focus on “I” in the virtue of humility and the fact that without love you “stop the line all together.” …”both and,” the beauty of reality and the faith we live.
Awesome. Thank you David. I often consider doing that, giving examples or small explanations. I usually think it would digress too much, but your reasoning makes sense, and you’re right, it would be fun! I’ll try that out next time. I think next post will be similar in its style.
Good topic. I often ponder this for two
good reasons. One I like everyone else struggle with pride. If I am
honest with myself this particular sin haunts me more than most
others. Even the good I do, contributing for the ACNM, volunteering
for many just causes leads me into temptation from my own pride.
Second I’m pretty sure confidence is the “virtue” society
celebrates in men above all else. If you don’t believe me do a google
search on what women are attracted to see how many articles don’t
start with confidence. Success is a close contender but I dear say I
have met enough popular men who are confident but have really
accomplished nothing to conclude it may be second. …And as your
reflection has touched on “confidence” can indeed be a virtue but
it can also be hard to distinguish from pride. I’m afraid our culture
really encourages this self centered pride in Men and its beginning
to rot our society.
But I digress. The question I believe your reflection stems from is how do we differentiate pride and confidence and if we are honest it isn’t easy. I have found a good rule of thumb though. I think “pride” is the emotion which encourages to get or hold onto something because we deserve it. While confidence is emotion that encourages us to give or let go of something because we know we have been given an abundance. I will use myself as an example. I believe I am a gifted writer. Taken alone that can be confidence or pride. If I believe that because I am a great writer I deserve attention and praise from everyone in the Austin Catholic community that would be pride. If I believe because I am good writer I should contribute this gift to the Austin Community and hold my work to a lofty standard I know I can achieve that would be confidence. Pride makes us feel self satisfied and complacent confidence spurs us on word to work harder.
Thank you for addressing the tension between confidence as pride versus self-gift. That is a major point I wanted brought to light. Both sides are true, both happen, and both have distinct consequences. Of course, (I think) as the title implies, the tension and the conflict, the temptation and the confidence, will be tempered, resolved, and handled by and through prayer. Prayer, as the root and source of life, can help us reveal and discern ourselves and our motives. Hebrews 4:12 is great and encourages me to continue my prayer life…practical verses like Mark 1:35 and Matthew 7:7 encourage me too…as well as continually awe me.