Humility is not an easy thing to talk about in the twentieth century. Nor was it in the sixth  century, I’m sure. Patriarchy was an  institution of divine right. Slave and free were sharply  divided. Roman citizenship was the passport to the good life. There was no room for humility here and little tolerance for it either.

In our own generation, humility has at best been labeled neurotic. It is self-esteem and personal growth and getting ahead that we’re all about. If humility has something to do with being passive, meek, and self-effacing, those are not qualities that we call healthy, let alone smart. And I admit that humility as it has been presented has         certainly left things to be desired. 

If I really believe God is present in my life, here and now, then I have no choice but to deal with that. Life, in fact, will not be resolved for me until I do. No manner of other agendas will ever completely smother the insistency of the God one. No amount of noise will ever successfully drown out the need to discover what is most important among all the important things in life. No degree of success will ever feel like success until I am succeeding at the center point of life.

The pride that is opposite of humility is not the excitement that comes with doing well what I do best. The pride that is opposite of monastic humility is the desire to be my own God and to control other people and other things. It is not pride to enjoy my achievements. That kind of awareness is the spirit of the “Magnificat” at its height. It is pride to want to wrench my world and all the people in it to my ends. It is arrogance to the utmost to insist that  other people shape their lives to make mine comfortable. It is arrogance unabashed to think that God must do the same.