Day Three of Forty: The Virtue of Humility
There is a pattern developing. The first days of Lent have inspired posts on virtues that are taboo in the culture around us, even in some Catholic circles. This time, it's humility.
While teaching a class of high school freshmen about the virtues, I mentioned that humility is a great good, a virtue that Catholics and Christians must cultivate. A young man inquired as to how I could make such a claim because humility is shunned in most settings of our lives: education, climbing the corporate ladder, sports, and so on. Because our culture equates humility with humiliation, it is obvious why it is avoided at any cost. We must move beyond such a gross misunderstanding and examine the real nature of this foundational virtue.
Let us simply look at Christ to gain clarity about humility. Our Lord says, "learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart" (Matthew 11:29, NAB). Christ certainly was never humiliated. Rather he always laid down his life willingly so that others might know the love and mercy of the Father, even to the point of death on the Cross.
Based on Christ's example, humility is the virtue by which a person acknowledges God's superiority, His primacy of place in all that exists and happens. Humility allows a person to willingly lay down his or her own life so that another might know the goodness, love, and mercy of the Almighty Creator. All virtue, then, is founded on humility because without it, the virtuous action becomes about me instead of about revealing God's glory.
**Note: Three years ago, The Sower Review published an article that I wrote entitled "Learning Humility from the Our Father." Click here to read it and learn more about humility in prayer.
While teaching a class of high school freshmen about the virtues, I mentioned that humility is a great good, a virtue that Catholics and Christians must cultivate. A young man inquired as to how I could make such a claim because humility is shunned in most settings of our lives: education, climbing the corporate ladder, sports, and so on. Because our culture equates humility with humiliation, it is obvious why it is avoided at any cost. We must move beyond such a gross misunderstanding and examine the real nature of this foundational virtue.
Let us simply look at Christ to gain clarity about humility. Our Lord says, "learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart" (Matthew 11:29, NAB). Christ certainly was never humiliated. Rather he always laid down his life willingly so that others might know the love and mercy of the Father, even to the point of death on the Cross.
Based on Christ's example, humility is the virtue by which a person acknowledges God's superiority, His primacy of place in all that exists and happens. Humility allows a person to willingly lay down his or her own life so that another might know the goodness, love, and mercy of the Almighty Creator. All virtue, then, is founded on humility because without it, the virtuous action becomes about me instead of about revealing God's glory.
**Note: Three years ago, The Sower Review published an article that I wrote entitled "Learning Humility from the Our Father." Click here to read it and learn more about humility in prayer.