Holy Week Vs. The Complacency of the World

As we prepare to enter into Holy Week, I would like to present some reflections on the core of the Christian mystery. In its very essence, Christianity is a contradiction--sort of a paradox that fits. There are too many examples to name of times when we as humans tear down what we have celebrated, when we turn away from our only hope for rescue, or when we are forced to die in small ways so that we may live in large ones. Paradoxes (or simply contradictions) are difficult to wrap our minds around. Sometimes we must struggle greatly to internalize and act upon what we come to believe is true.


G. K. Chesterton said, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." This has to be one of the most true sentiments ever expressed (yes, I am a Chesterton groupie), because it cuts straight to the most vital difficulty in the Christian life. We don't witness the true glory of Christian life because we are not really committed to living it. Of course there are degrees of success with the Christian life, as with anything else we do, but I am very convinced that the World has made the majority of Christians flabby contenders.  We don't train ourselves well for the contests we will face in life.  At least not the important ones.

In my Wabash days ("thy loyal sons shall ever love thee!") I had a somewhat surreal experience that drove this idea home for me. Around the Wabash campus is an arboretum that forms a border with the campus buildings. I would often walk through this stand of trees from one point to the other after dark, and it was an excellent place for a young man to achieve solitude. On one such occasion, as I was crossing the arboretum I happened to cross paths with my friend John (although it was a clear night, I prefer to remember him coming mysteriously out of a bank of fog). I asked him where he was off to, but his response was that he was simply out for some fresh air and to think about death. I suppose this might be thought of as a strange activity for a twenty-one-year-old to engage in, and to be honest, that was my first reaction too. Secular influences have long argued that this type of thinking puts us out of synch with the world around us. We are not supposed to consider our own demise, and think as little as possible about what will happen after that, because it will break us away from what is going on in the here and now. It might make us "sad." On the contrary, thoughts of our own demise put us in orbit with the one certainty we all have in life (yes, quite a bit more certain even than taxes): that we will die some day. Why should it be strange to spend time thinking about and preparing for it? Death forces us to give some serious thought to what we believe about a second life, as well as what we want to leave behind in this one. These thoughts have the power to transform a person, before it is too late to change.

Jesus Christ had enough influence to focus the crowds on how to be better people. He certainly spent some time on this, as the Gospels tell us. However, he never lost sight of the ultimate message he came to earth to send, nor of that message's medium. Suffering and the cross are the words with which Christ speaks to us. This Holy Week, let us become students of the language.

Defining Humility, Part 2: The Words of Our Savior and the Tradition of the Church

In the previous post on defining humility, I tried to tackle the concept as it may appear when "lived out."  Humility, it seems to me, is a very misunderstood virtue, such that we can often pass by occasions to exercise it without recognizing them.  Even when we do try to live out humility, we often take it to some extreme or other.  In "Part 1" I also suggested that there is a difference between beliefs and instincts.  What I meant by making a distinction between these terms is that beliefs are ideas that we give our rational assent to, for example, when someone asks us what we think or when we have an opportunity to reflect on the words of others or events in our lives.  There is a certain distance between our beliefs and our first reactions.  When I use the term "instinct," at least in this case, what I mean is the immediate reaction or tendency we have when certain circumstances present themselves.  My belief is that I am no better than anyone else.  Nevertheless, my instinct when I feel slighted is to lash out in my thoughts at everyone I think I should "beat" in life.  The time it takes me to realize that my thoughts do not represent what I accept as true about myself is the difference between my beliefs and my instincts. 

One purpose of this blog is for me to work on reducing the divide between belief and instinct--or between belief and action--for myself, and to further make an argument that Christians (or all people of integrity, for that matter) should be concerned with enacting this process in their own lives.  The good news is that instinct, in the sense that I mean it, can be trained.  The best place to start improving ourselves through humility, however, is to make sure we are starting with the right beliefs about humility.  Last time we tackled some common misconceptions.  Here we will examine some positive definitions and classifications for humility from the wisdom of Christ and the Church.  St. Thomas Aquinas, the medieval theologian and philosopher, argues within the tradition of Catholic thought and Western philosophy in general that there are four cardinal virtues that govern our moral actions:  fortitude, justice, prudence, and temperance.  Other virtues are classified under the headings formed by these four terms.  Humility finds itself associated with temperance as a virtue that acts against the inordinate desires we might experience.  Other virtues found under the heading of temperance may be seen to fight against specific inordinate movements, such as the virtue of meekness opposing an irascible temper.  Humility is specifically opposed to pride.  As such, it means to have a modest (or simply true) sense of self-worth as opposed to an inflated sense.

Humility is not the most essential virtue in the spiritual life, however, because it is the infusion of faith (the first theological virtue) by God that allows us to enter into spiritual life in the first place.  What humility does is to prepare us for this infusion to take effect.  Jesus gave a parable of seed that is spread across the ground:  some on the path, some in the rocks, and some among thorns.  "But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold" (Matthew 13:8).  If we attach the virtues of faith and humility to this story, the seed represents the faith that God (the sower) offers.  This seed is potent in itself, but needs fertile ground in which to take root.  Humility (from the Latin for "earth" or "ground") would refer to the condition of the soil--or perhaps better, to the process of conditioning the soil--for accepting the seed of faith.  Farmers till the soil (except my Dad, but that is another story) because they know how important it is to have the ground prepared to receive the seed and give it its best chance to succeed.  This concept is what the practice of humility should be for us.  We prepare ourselves through humility to give our faith a place to grow tall and strong.

Unlike the metaphor of the seed and ground, the field of humility can be worked on and better prepared even when faith is already growing.  In fact, it is possible to say that living a spiritual life means a constant return to this field to make sure our faith is getting the nutrients it needs (ok...dropping the plant/field metaphor now).  If we have done a good job of this, our beliefs will have become our instincts and it will be less and less frequent that we regret our first reactions to the situations we face in life.  Humility is a tool of the spiritual life, nothing more or less.  Nonetheless, it is a very powerful tool indeed. 


Please feel free to comment with your own thoughts about the idea of belief vs. instinct, the definition of "humility," the parable of the field, or whatever is on your mind.  Thank you for reading! 

Defining Humility, Part 1: "Lived Humility"

The biggest problem with my master's degree thesis, according to the University of Louisville history professor from my board, was that it was attempting to define the wrong word.  Without getting into too much detail, my thesis was an attempt to define the concept of "lived orthodoxy" according to the medieval author St. Bede (673-735 A.D.), as exemplified in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People.  My point was that the Venerable Bede, through retelling the stories of English saints, kings and laypeople, was attempting to show what it should mean to actually live out true faithfulness to the gospel message in one's own time and geographical location.  I am still unsure whether "orthodoxy" is the right word to cover this issue from a medieval-studies perspective (partly because neither I nor the three professors on my board could come up with anything better), but I bring it up because I think the idea of a "lived" or practical definition is something we should all consider when we throw around terms like "orthodoxy" or "humility."  We have to have some idea of what the concepts would look like if we actually hope to encounter them in our own lives. 

As for the practical definition of "humility," I think that the World and even most faithful people (including myself) have a few mistaken beliefs--or at least instincts--about it.  Perhaps the most obvious misconception about humility is that it is merely a process of self-deprecation.  The idea here is that because humility involves acknowledging shortcomings, the person who puts himself down constantly must be accomplishing the goals of true humility.  A lot of people do this, at least some of the time.  There are at least two problems with this view of humility.  The more naturalistic problem with it is that there is not much attraction to this type of self-thought.  No one enjoys feeling constantly criticized by others; it does not make things better when the critic is the self.  Human nature suggests that this practice of "humility" will ultimately turn out to be toxic and unsustainable.  The more spiritual problem with this method, it seems to me, is that the negativity of consistent self-deprecation is at odds with God's plan of salvation.  If we are meant for eternal life, there is much we will have to leave behind.  But we can become more holy than we are.  If we look at ourselves objectively, we will find that there is bad, which we must call "bad," and there is good, which we must call "good."  The example of the saints tells us that we must give credit for the good that we do to the presence of God with us and in us, but this does not mean that the good is not still part of us.  True humility must also mean embracing the good as a sign of the promise of a future eternal union with God.

Objectivity can help mitigate the first misconception, but it can be taken to extremes as well. François de La Rochefoucauld said, "humility is the worst form of conceit," and whatever his own purposes in making this observation, I think that his words all too often (though certainly not always) ring true.  Humility can become conceit when we participate in another major misconception about humility.  This misconception happens when we look at ourselves objectively, but still within the limiting sphere of humanity--our peers, our generation, our ancestors, or the World in general.  In this case, we apply a relative standard to our objective view of ourselves based on our objective view of those around us.  We rank ourselves as being worse than some and better than others.  The attraction of this view is that it goes along with the standards set by most of life.  As the saying goes, "You don't have to outrun the hungry bear; you just have to outrun the person who is with you."  When we look at ourselves with this kind of objectivity, we can come up with all sorts of ways to feel superior to others while "graciously" admitting that we are not the best.  In the end, this way of thinking rarely constitutes motivation for self-improvement because becoming the best version of ourselves has nothing to do with how good or bad others may be.

True humility needs a standard that is not relative.  This standard is Christ.  And if Christ is the standard, then it only makes sense to observe Christ to see what true humility should "look" like.  This is how I take Jesus' words in Matthew 16:24, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me."  When we are truly living out humility, we will be capable of following this directive. Our own lived humility must "look" like the kind of purposeful suffering that our savior took upon himself for the sake of those he loves. 

We have a crisis on our hands.

Sadly, the above phrase has lost almost all its power through overuse in a world of voices seeking our attention.  Perhaps to say that we currently stand in the midst of a crisis of humility is an overstatement, especially considering that the enemy of humility is pride, and pride is the root vice behind all sin, and human beings have been sinners from the first.

On the other hand, I also believe that the word "crisis" does apply in a very specific way to the idea of humility in this historical moment.  One strong voice on behalf of human wisdom regarding this "mother of all virtues" has lost much of its ability to communicate with the world at large, mostly by forgetting its own identity.  I refer here to the Catholic Church – not in its teaching authority (for this has the guarantee of the Holy Spirit to defend it), but in the laypeople who form the face of the church – the face of Christ – to individuals the world over.  We are surrounded in this age, as in any age, by people who seem to be making a mess of their own lives. This is nothing special. What is lacking in the secular mindset of today is the same thing that was lacking in the corruption and cruelty of the Roman Empire, or in the rise of the European nation-state coinciding with an increase in personal poverty, or any number of movements we can identify in the historical tableau:  an impoverished wisdom about the meaning and value of the human person.  In other words, a lack of understanding about how to be human. If Christ is an example for us of anything, he is an example for us of what the human person should be and how to be it. He was willing to die for sins, even if they were the sins of others. True humility calls us, in the earliest stages of our life journey toward unity with God, to acknowledge our own sins in honesty, day in and day out.

Logic dictates that it is impossible to conceive of a four-sided triangle.  It violates the very definition of a triangle for a figure named as such to have anything but three sides.  As I see it, the person who would call himself or herself a "Christian" without constantly acknowledging the need for an intense, consistent awareness of personal faults and acknowledging the need to take responsibility for them has also contradicted the definition of "Christian." Perhaps it is another overstatement to say that this attitude creates a logical impossibility, but at the very least it blurs the image of the God who humbled himself to come among us and suffer with us that we should be trying to show to everyone in our lives.

I write this post as a man who has recently realized how little attention I paid to how much of Christ I was truly showing to others.  After a long self-assessment, I came to the conclusion that it was my own thinking about myself that not only impeded me from showing Christ to others, but also prevented me from being at peace with myself in my life and situation.   As I explore the concept of humility in these posts, I hope to provide an opportunity to think about and discuss this critical human virtue, always with a mind to how it can bring us closer to the lives we want to live, to the lives we should be living, and to the life we have been made to live by the God who loves us.

A Statement of Purpose

It is very difficult to write about humility.  It can be seen as oxymoronic to discuss a personal virtue whose very essence involves not drawing attention to the self.  Nevertheless, I think this is a subject that does bear special attention. There are various recent events in my life that have caused me to think more and more about this virtue.

One such "event" is an article that I read some time ago about a subject which deeply disturbed me at the time. The article was about what happens when good and faithful Catholics choose to get divorced, despite the teachings of the Church on the subject.  Although I don't remember the source and haven't been able to find it again, this piece really struck a chord with me. The gist of the article was that many Catholics who desired to be faithful to the teachings of the Church somehow found themselves in a position where their marriages were not working out. There was some kind of overwhelming feeling that things had gone wrong, and this feeling led these otherwise faithful Catholics to doubt the validity of their own marital vows. Although retaining their beliefs that divorce is and should be an impossibility, these couples sought annulments from the Church on the basis that if they were truly married they wouldn't feel this way.

My purpose in this post is not to disparage any of the individuals involved:  the writer of the article, the husbands and wives, or anyone who might feel a sense of sympathy for the position that these people find themselves in.  My point is simply to analyze and consider the basic idea represented by these couples' core reasoning. What they are essentially saying is, "Good and faithful Catholics will never feel a sense of disconnection from their spouses, at least not in the long-term.  I am a faithful Catholic, and if that is how I feel, there must have never been a marriage here in the first place." It is my contention that this reasoning process is fundamentally flawed.  The first premise makes an assumption about what life should and will be like for a faithful Catholic. This assumption simply isn't born out by the lives of the saints, to whom we look for guidance in this life.

If God the Father sent Jesus down among us to take up a cross, endure physical torment and ridicule, open himself to betrayal by his closest friends, and ultimately die in agony with his hands and feet nailed in place on behalf of all of us, why should we--we who are trying to be his disciples--not be asked to suffer in ways we may not have ever expected?  If we close our minds to such possibilities, I would say that what we lack is the gift of humility. Humility pierces through the illusions we create of who and what we should be so that God can come in and ultimately and authentically glorify our lives.

The purpose of these reflections is to explore the idea of humility seen in this more ultimate light.  Who and what we are must go through a great transformation if we hope to live lives of meaning that are directed toward the peace that only God can give.  What we feel we can and cannot accept depends greatly on our perception of ourselves.  It should depend much more on what we perceive about our Lord and ourselves as an instrument of Him.