Humility

Humility - Freedom from pride and arrogance.  Enables one to have a sense of one's own unworthiness through imperfection and sinfulness.


Wow - Did today's gospel touch anyone else?  The basic lesson for me was humility.  It was the parable about the Pharisee and the Tax collector praying in the temple.  The Pharisee spends his prayer time boasting of all the wonderful things he has done while the tax collector humbly acknowledges his sinfullness and unworthiness before His Creator and begs for mercy.

Have you ever prayed the Litany of  Humility http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/Litanies/humility?  Red Flag Alert:::: don't pray it unless you are truly prepared to practice that virtue.  It is a very difficult one.  I have been practicing that virtue for almost 20 years and feel that I am no closer to being humble than the day I first prayed that Prayer. I struggle greatly with humility because 1) I am a first born child and by definition, bossy, in almost every sense of the word b) God blessed me with 16 years of being a single Catholic women.  AT which time, I learned as much as I possibly could about my faith.  The second is not where I struggle.  I have  a love and passion for my faith that bears in me a strong desire to share it with others.  However, the combination of  1 and b can make me look like a bossy know-it-all at times.

Practicing the virtue of humility requires you to possess a full knowledge of your sins, failings, weaknesses, skeletons in your closet, etc. while at the same time maintaining a firm confidence in your dignity as a child of God made in His image and likeness, graced and blessed by Him, your Creator.  If you tip too far to one side, you can fall into despair, the other side, self-righteousness.  Maintaining that balance is not easy.  The freedom comes in the fact that I cannot do it alone and I am, indeed, in need of a Savior who lovingly died for me 2000 years ago.  When I am able to acknowledge that and allow Him to save me, I am, at least a little, practicing the virtue of humility.