Jul 5 Sun
Should I try to be docile and humble?
Of all possible rulers, Christ the King is the best.
United to him, we will be able to praise his name forever, both because He deserves it and because we will have eternal life.
Through the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, we can be transformed and united to Christ.
- On Christ’s part, this transformation comes about through the grace He gives us.
- On our part, we need to be docile to this grace, living according to his commandments.
Thus, we must become “little ones” as opposed to being among “the wise and the learned.” That is, we must be docile and not claim a wisdom and learning we don’t actually possess.
It is scary to be humble and docile, which is why Christ promises we can trust him; He himself is humble and lowly and yet the King.
None of us is without struggle. The good transformation we need from within is also a burden, but not imposed on us by violence or threats. Rather, it is an easy and light yoke.
Part of the burden of Christ’s yoke is to “put to death the deeds of the body.” This refers to our evil deeds.
Humility is the moral virtue that keeps a person from reaching beyond himself.
Clearly, there are some ways in which it is good to reach beyond oneself, for example, by improving in anything good.
How can “reaching beyond” oneself go wrong? People can have an unruly desire for personal greatness, which leads to a love of themselves based on a false appreciation of their position with respect to God and their neighbors.
We are always trying to give ourselves a status we don’t actually have, and this is foolish.
A docile and humble person recognizes one’s total dependence on God. Moreover, this person recognizes others as brothers and sisters.
Humility is obviously opposed to pride, yet it is also opposed to considering oneself immoderately abject, thus failing to recognize God’s gifts and using them according to His will.
Although man lost his dignity by disobeying God, Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross made it possible for him to be cured and healed. This transformation and cure is done by God’s grace; man must match God’s gift –he will always fall short– with his loving dedication to God; he must deny himself –at times contradicting the tendencies of his wounded nature– to do God’s Will, imitating Christ.
To do so, man must place his body and his appetites under the command of reason; he must control his passions, practicing temperance, humility, and related virtues (modesty and decorum, meekness, curiosity, fortitude, and daring).
Humility has a specific task in this struggle: to curb man’s inordinate desire for personal excellence and incline him to recognize his own worth in its true light. Thus, it has two functions:
- to restrain the inordinate desire for personal excellence; and
- to subject man to God by man’s recognition that all the good he has comes from his Creator.