Exalted

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Now the snake was the most subtle of all the wild animals that God had made. It asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you were not to eat of any of the trees in the garden?’ The woman answered the snake, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, “You must not eat it nor touch it under pain of death.”’ Then the snake said to the woman, “No! You will not die! God knows in fact that the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good [from] evil” (Gen. 3:1–5).

We understand pride as “a state of mind or, more essentially, a condition of the heart in which a person has supplanted the rule of God over his life with the rule of his own will. Instead of depending entirely on God, as was God’s design, a proud heart now looks to itself to decide what is good and evil. This was exactly the folly of Adam and Eve when they determined to disobey God to become like God.

“Pride appears as the first of the seven deadly sins. … No vice is more opposed to God than pride. God hates pride because it is a manifestation of the deepest depravity, the root cause of all forms of sin” (Tim Challies, God Hates Pride).

“Pride first appears in the Bible in Genesis Chapter 3, where we see the devil, that ‘proud spirit,’ as the poet John Donne called him, using pride as the avenue by which to seduce our first parents. Taking the form of a serpent, his approach was simple yet deadly. First, he arrogantly contradicted what God had said to Eve about eating the forbidden fruit and charged God with lying” (Thomas A. Tarrants, Pride and Humility).

The same tricks of pride were applied to Jesus to tempt Him during the forty days in the desert.

”[John R.W. Stott] has said, “Pride is your greatest enemy, humility is your greatest friend.’ … But “throughout history, what has been recognized as the deadliest of vices is sometimes celebrated in our culture as a virtue. Pride and arrogance can be conspicuous among the rich, the powerful, the successful, the famous, celebrities of all sorts” (ibid.).

We also know that the roots of those things are deeply hidden in each one of us. But yet we may not realize “how dangerous pride is to our souls and how greatly it hinders our intimacy with God and our love for others.

“Humility, on the other hand, can often be seen as weakness. There might be few of us who know much about it or pursue it. For the good of our souls, we need to gain a clearer understanding of pride and humility, and of how to forsake one and embrace the other” (ibid.).

“He who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11).

We find examples of pride present in the apostles. Our Lord asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” We’re told in St. Mark, “Now on the way, they were discussing who among them would be the greatest.” Our Lord rebuked them and taught them that the one who wants to be great must become a servant (Mark 9:33-35).

The last lesson that He gave them before He died was that “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45).

This is the greatness of humility. The greatness of service. God hates pride and honors humility. We must put on humility and walk in humility. “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Matt. 11:29).

Pride dominates all other sins in human beings. They love God, they worship Him, they listen to Him, they have faith in Him. They come to church but still fight with pride: fight for thrones, fight for wealth, fight for power, fight for positions, fight for influence in this world. They’ll stop at nothing even if it means killing.

St. James says, “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God” (James 4:2).

Jesus says, “Many who are first will be last” (Matt. 19:30). The apostles asked, “We have left everything and followed you. What shall we get in return?” (Matt. 19:27).

They want glory, the kingdom, and exaltation because that’s the syndrome of pride. The Gospel can often be about self-promotion as against self-denial. Self-promotion works in the worldly kingdom. Self-denial works in the kingdom of heaven.

St. Matthew tells us that their mother came with her sons, and we could ask: why do you bring your mother? It’s a serious ambition. A family ambition.

Our Lord “asked her, ‘What do you want?’ She said to him, ‘Grant that one of these sons of mine sits on the left, another on the right in your kingdom’” (Matt. 20:20-21).

They’re deliberately excluding and depreciating others as they position themselves in the kingdom. It’s against love for one another. It’s ambitious pride.

Our Lord refers them to “the cup” and the baptism of suffering. You want the glory but you don’t want to suffer. Glory and honor, He tries to say, correspond to sacrificial suffering. If you want glory, glory is a reward for suffering or serving. Can you drink the cup? Are you ready to lose your life for the sake of the kingdom?

Arrogantly and proudly, they respond, “Yes. We can handle it. We can drink the cup” (Matt. 20:22). We can often make promises, but when the trials come, it can be a difficult story. “Yes, the cup we will drink.” Eventually, they died for the Gospel.

Our Lord says, “But to sit on the right and on the left in the kingdom is not for me to grant, but for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father” (Matt. 20:23).

You don’t get the kingdom by asking for it. You merit it through service and works of faith. Sometimes we can feel frustrated when we see that we may be cut off by others. We can become even arrogant and forget that “to be last means we can be first.”

Here we see audacious, simple, self-promoting, arrogant ambition. And then you have this self-confidence. And then there may be a spirit of competition.

Where did all these bad attitudes come from? We’re told in Scripture, “Do you not know that the rulers of the world lord it over them?” (Matt. 10:25).

The more unscrupulous they are, the more corrupt, the more likely they are to clobber their way to the top. They can’t completely save their souls. The world can be built up with overconfident, overambitious people with super egos, clouded by corrupt hearts and proud hearts, who seek the seats of power at the expense of everybody. They want everybody to serve them, to obey them, to respect them, to even worship them.

We have to recognize that all those attitudes, those weeds, may be deeply embedded in the hearts and souls of each one of us.

We can ask Our Lord for the grace to see the expressions of our pride and vanity. Ambitions, overconfidence, competitiveness of the wrong type, the greatness of self-promotion. It works in the world. But on the other hand, it’s not the way for the children of the kingdom.

The kingdom is obtained through self-denial. The great are not those who abuse their way to the top, who manipulate their way to the top, or demand it, or who corrupt their way. Just the opposite. “Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be the slave of all” (Mark 10:43–44).

To be great in the kingdom of heaven is a noble desire. Be a servant. Give people what they need. Jesus is the true servant. He gave His life on the Cross for what we needed most: our salvation. He gave His life “as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

He didn’t come like other kings “to be served, but to serve” (ibid.). He offered Himself as a slave, humbly obedient to death on the Cross (cf. Phil. 2:8).

But He gained “the name that is above every other name” (Phil. 2:9). He is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and “His kingdom has no end” (Luke 1:33).

Glory in the kingdom of heaven is through a humble sacrifice. God has a plan for each one of us. Whatever is happening in our life is the will of God.

With a humble approach, we can turn it into abundant blessings. The Church gives us certain seasons in the year, Lent and Advent in particular, where humility triumphs over pride.

We need to be aware also of the danger of spiritual pride. Spiritual leaders throughout history have always seen this as the great plague and tool of the devil. Even in times of revival, it can be a danger.

“Pride is the chief inlet of smoke from the bottomless pit to darken the mind and mislead judgment. It’s the main handle by which the devil has a hold of Christian persons and the chief source of all the mischief that he introduces to clog and hinder a work of God” (Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards).

Miscommunications, misunderstandings, lack of unity. “Spiritual pride can be the main spring, or at least the main support, of all other errors. To get to the root of all of our miseries, we have to attack the root of pride” (ibid.).

The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14) is a great “instructive lesson on religious pride. It’s aimed at those ‘who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.’ It addresses spiritual pride, which is a particularly subtle and dangerous temptation of people who lead Christian lives, and also leaders” (cf. Thomas A. Tarrants, Pride and Humility).

“It tells of a much-despised tax collector and a self-righteous Pharisee who went up to the temple to pray. The Pharisee proceeds to commend himself to God because of his careful observance of the law and to look down with scornful contempt on the sinful tax collector. ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get’” (ibid.).

When we hear those subtle temptations of the devil whispering in our ear to thank God that we are not like the rest of men, comparisons, judgments, we can ask Our Lord for the grace of a deeper humility to rectify our intention.

“In his prayer, the focus of the Pharisee is not really on God, but on how good he is and how bad others are. He’s keeping a scorecard of how well he’s doing in his vanity and how badly others are doing in their failures.

“Here is pride wrapped up in the cloak of spirituality and giving it a bad name, whereas the tax collector is so painfully aware of his sins and unworthiness before God that he cannot even lift his eyes as he stands in the back of the temple, far from the altar. Pounding his breast in sorrowful contrition over his sins, he can only manage the desperate plea: ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner’…

“His focus is very much on his own sins, not the sins of others.” He’s looking inside. He’s not looking outside. He’s looking especially “on his need for God’s mercy. In a surprising reversal of expectation, Jesus said that God answered the tax collector’s prayer, not the Pharisee’s. Then Our Lord concludes with his main point: ‘Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted’” (ibid.).

We have to try and see how many times each day we practice the virtue of humility in concrete ways. The chances are that most of us don’t see the pride in our lives. One of the problems is that we don’t see our own pride. Other people see it, but we don’t. It’s hidden.

We have to ask Our Lord for the grace to see. It’s easy to see pride in others, but difficult to see it in ourselves. C.S. Lewis observed that “there is no fault which makes a man more unpopular and no fault we are more unconscious of in ourselves. The more we have it in ourselves, the more we dislike it in others” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

At the same time, there’s a good type of pride, a holy pride. “Paul was proud of the churches he had established. But this was not an arrogant or self-exalting pride. He made clear that his accomplishments were the fruit of God’s grace in him and through him” (Tarrants, op. cit.). To God all the glory.

“I can be proud, in Christ Jesus,” he says, “of what I have done for God. Of course I can dare to speak only of the things which Christ has done through me to win the allegiance of the Gentiles, using what I have said and done, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God. In this way, from Jerusalem and all around, as far as Illyricum, I have fully carried out the preaching of the gospel of Christ” (Rom. 15:17–19).

St. Paul says these words to the Romans. He’s not boasting, but he’s highlighting what God has done by His grace, either through Paul himself or through those in the churches.

Acts of thanksgiving, as a norm of always, is a very good way of reminding ourselves of all the good things that God has given to us: the abilities, the energy, the words, the talents.

“Always and everywhere,” we’re told in the liturgy, “we should give thanks to God” (cf. Roman Missal, Preface). Humble souls are grateful souls because they realize that everything has come from Him.

Paul’s words are “never self-exalting. Sometimes we may say that we’re proud of our children or of our favorite sports team, or perhaps something we’ve accomplished. In these cases, we are saying that we’re really pleased about something good” that God has done in us and through us. “We’re not engaging in the sinful type of pride or arrogance that the Bible condemns” (cf. Tarrants, ibid.).

St. Bernard, who lived in the 11th century, was the founder and the abbot of the Abbey of Clairvaux and was centrally responsible for the early expansion of the Cistercian order throughout Europe. Tens of thousands heard his powerful preaching, and he attracted and helped many hundreds of men to follow a call to monastic life. He talks a lot about the Twelve Steps to the Mountain of Pride.

He also talked about the Steps of Humility, one of which, he says, is fear of God. “To fear the Lord is to hold God in awe…to be filled with wonder at what God has done, and who he is. It is not a cringing, servile fear, but rather the fear rooted in love and deep reverence for who God is” (cf. Charles Pope, Community in Mission Blog, 12 More Steps: Out of Pride and Into Humility, from St. Bernard) as a loving Father. A fear of offending Him.

It is a look to God and away from ourselves with our egocentric tendencies. Scripture says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” in the Book of Proverbs (Prov. 9:10).

To fear the Lord is to turn to the Lord, to seek answers, to seek meaning, and to realize that God is all wisdom and knowledge. To fear the Lord is to hunger and thirst for His truth and righteousness. To fear the Lord is to look outside and upward from me to God.

Here begins [our] journey down the mountain of pride, a simple and loving look to God who alone can set us free from the slavery that pride and sinfulness created for us.

Another point of this journey to humility, St. Bernard says, is abnegation of self-will: to be willing to surrender our will to God’s will. To let Him make the decisions. The saints say, “If God wants it, I want it. If God doesn’t want it, I don’t want it.”

Obedience, which is the humble submission of our will to the will of another.

Patient endurance. Opening our heart to our spiritual director through sincerity, a great act of humility. Saying those things that we might least like to be known. Letting ourselves be known as we are, with all our miseries.

Contentedness with what we have, which is a form of acceptance of the will of God, of our situation in life. A very great gift to seek and receive. It leads us to thank God and be grateful for the things that we have, for all the good things that He’s given to us.

Humility means lucid self-awareness. No delusions about ourselves. Usually, we may think more highly of ourselves than we ought. We’re often unaware of just how difficult it can be to live or work with us. That lucid self-awareness can help to open our eyes.

Submission to the rule of law. The egocentric and prideful person resists being told what to do and is largely insensitive to the needs of others and also of the common good. With humility, we submit to the common good, the well-being of other people, what people around us need, or what’s right in this particular moment.

Humility can lead to silence, to a respectful admission that other people have wisdom to share and important things to share. The proud person may interrupt frequently, quickly thinking that they know already what the other person is saying or that what he has to say is very important. As humility grows, we become better listeners, appreciating that others may be able to offer us the knowledge or wisdom that we currently lack.

Humility leads to emotional sobriety. Many of our emotional excesses are rooted in pride and egocentricity. Fast temper is fast pride. When we’re proud, we may be easily offended, easily threatened. Fear begets anger.

As we become more humble, we become more restrained in our speech, more emotionally stable, less anxious and stirred up. Our speech and our demeanor can reflect our serenity. Our serenity tends to lower our volume and speed in talking. We are more able and content to speak the truth in love, with clarity, but also with charity.

As we become more humble, there’s a greater congruity between what we are on the inside and what we are on the outside. Hypocrites are actors playing a role that’s not really them. Humble people are transparent. They’re more easily people of integrity, honesty. The virtue of sincerity comes to full flower.

We can always ask Our Lady for a greater gift of this great gift of humility.

St. Augustine said, “Pride is the [inordinate] love of one’s own excellence” (Augustine, City of God).

“Most of the trouble [half of the harm] in the world,” said T.S. Eliot, “is caused by people wanting to be important” (T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “[Hatred of God] comes from pride. It is contrary to the love of God, whose goodness it denies and whom it presumes to curse as the one who forbids sins and inflicts punishments” (Catechism, Point 2094).

St. Francis of Assisi says, “It is in dying to ourselves that we are born to eternal life” (Prayer of St. Francis).

“Let this mind be in you,” says St. Paul, “which was also in Christ Jesus, who, though he was by nature God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be clung to, but emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave, being made like unto men. And appearing in the form of man, he humbled himself…” (cf. Phil. 2:5–8).

Our Lady was the Virgin most humble. “Be it done unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

If we stay close to Our Lady, she’ll help us to see those expressions of our pride and of deeper desires to grow in this all-important virtue of humility.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Note: The second half of this meditation which discusses humility according to St. Bernard of Clairvaux draws extensively from Msgr. Charles Pope’s commentary, “12 More Steps: Out of Pride and into Humility” dated March 21, 2013, which is based on “The Steps of Humility and of Pride” by St. Bernard of Clairvaux.