Bringing Advent to Work - Part 5
With the help of St. Vincent de Paul, I hope you're finding our discussion of bringing Advent to work by cultivating the virtue of humility helpful. But, as we previously noted, a clear understanding and appreciation of humility and the actual practice of this critically important virtue can be two entirely separate matters. Here's what St. Vincent had to say about this:
"How is it, then, that there are so few who strive after it and fewer still who possess it? The reason is that people are content to contemplate it, but will not take the trouble to make it their own; in theory it is charming, but in practice it becomes extremely repulsive, and its effects are unpleasing because they involve the choice of the lowest place and require us to give in to others, to endure slander, to accept contempt, to desire to be despised; to all which things it is natural for us to object. Nevertheless it is necessary that we should conquer our disinclination, and that each of us should make a real effort after some practice of this virtue, otherwise we shall never get any nearer to it."
So there it is: Humility is rarely pursued enthusiastically because it is, in St. Vincent's words, repulsive. Contrast this with other virtues, e.g., prudence, temperance, fortitude. These may be difficult to practice, but they're not repulsive. (If you're still not sure why humility is uniquely repulsive, just re-read St. Vincent's comment.) So, frankly, for most of us, pursuit of the virtue of humility sounds great - until it comes time to really be humble.
Let's dig deeper into this by drawing some distinctions as we approach our daily work. One such distinction would be between being confident and being humble. Are we saying that, to increase our humility, we ought not develop a sense of confidence as we ply our trade every day? That can't make sense, can it? After all, we strive to increase our competence and to use our talents and skills to produce excellent work day in, day out. Does the self-abasement required by the virtue of humility require us to consider what we produce as worthless or useless? The answer lies in making a further distinction: between us and our work. On the one hand, we have our work. We can strive to produce work may be of the highest quality, ideally contributing to the bottom line, helping our business grow, providing concrete benefits to our customers and clients. The work itself certainly isn't worthless or useless. But we are not our work.
Somehow, we need to, in some sense, separate ourselves from our work. As workers producing, ideally, an excellent product, we can first of all recognize that we're doing nothing more than what we get paid to do. Even if we go the extra mile and really excel, there are likely others who also deserve credit for our product: a good boss who encourages us and gives us the resources we need to excel; colleagues who put as much if not more effort into accomplishing a given task or reaching a goal; a spouse who provides us with support and comfort, especially after a particularly hard day or stretch of days on the job. You get the picture.
We can even expand on this and look at circumstances beyond our control. We've likely all been in situations where our efforts on the job were undermined by bad management, an economy turned sour, a new technology that made some or all of our skills passe. So too some of our best work, our highest achievements, may have resulted from circumstances that really had nothing to do with our skills or our efforts. Put another way, sometimes we get lucky, sometimes not.
When we add it all up, what we produce at work involves a lot more than just us. There can be exceptions, of course. Maybe every once in a while we stumble on a great idea, or find a solution to a problem that eluded everyone else. OK. But is that your everyday experience? Likely not. In any case, seen in this light, I think we can more clearly understand why we said, "We are not our work."
To put all this in the context of our spiritual lives, we must turn our backs on the worldliness that leads us away from God. St. Vincent de Paul concisely sums up what we should eschew as well as what we should embrace:
"...if you get satisfaction out of flattery; if you make known the good you have done, even if you are self-complacent over it, - all these things are tokens of the spirit of worldliness. And that we may seize on this and crush it out, it is better to do the thing that makes outward show badly than to be pleased with ourselves because we have done it well...We must surrender ourselves to God, my brothers, that we may be preserved from our secret self-esteem and from the praise of others. In these lie worldliness."
The fact is, without the virtue of humility, even what we do that has value in itself will be turned to an occasion of pride and self-centeredness - in short, sin.
In our next and last installment of our series on bringing Advent to work, St. Vincent will sum up how Our Lord's entire life can serve as an example and encouragement for each of us to not only understand, but to diligently and persistently pursue the virtue of humility.
We conclude today's discussion with our beautiful Advent aspiration:
"How is it, then, that there are so few who strive after it and fewer still who possess it? The reason is that people are content to contemplate it, but will not take the trouble to make it their own; in theory it is charming, but in practice it becomes extremely repulsive, and its effects are unpleasing because they involve the choice of the lowest place and require us to give in to others, to endure slander, to accept contempt, to desire to be despised; to all which things it is natural for us to object. Nevertheless it is necessary that we should conquer our disinclination, and that each of us should make a real effort after some practice of this virtue, otherwise we shall never get any nearer to it."
So there it is: Humility is rarely pursued enthusiastically because it is, in St. Vincent's words, repulsive. Contrast this with other virtues, e.g., prudence, temperance, fortitude. These may be difficult to practice, but they're not repulsive. (If you're still not sure why humility is uniquely repulsive, just re-read St. Vincent's comment.) So, frankly, for most of us, pursuit of the virtue of humility sounds great - until it comes time to really be humble.
Let's dig deeper into this by drawing some distinctions as we approach our daily work. One such distinction would be between being confident and being humble. Are we saying that, to increase our humility, we ought not develop a sense of confidence as we ply our trade every day? That can't make sense, can it? After all, we strive to increase our competence and to use our talents and skills to produce excellent work day in, day out. Does the self-abasement required by the virtue of humility require us to consider what we produce as worthless or useless? The answer lies in making a further distinction: between us and our work. On the one hand, we have our work. We can strive to produce work may be of the highest quality, ideally contributing to the bottom line, helping our business grow, providing concrete benefits to our customers and clients. The work itself certainly isn't worthless or useless. But we are not our work.
Somehow, we need to, in some sense, separate ourselves from our work. As workers producing, ideally, an excellent product, we can first of all recognize that we're doing nothing more than what we get paid to do. Even if we go the extra mile and really excel, there are likely others who also deserve credit for our product: a good boss who encourages us and gives us the resources we need to excel; colleagues who put as much if not more effort into accomplishing a given task or reaching a goal; a spouse who provides us with support and comfort, especially after a particularly hard day or stretch of days on the job. You get the picture.
We can even expand on this and look at circumstances beyond our control. We've likely all been in situations where our efforts on the job were undermined by bad management, an economy turned sour, a new technology that made some or all of our skills passe. So too some of our best work, our highest achievements, may have resulted from circumstances that really had nothing to do with our skills or our efforts. Put another way, sometimes we get lucky, sometimes not.
When we add it all up, what we produce at work involves a lot more than just us. There can be exceptions, of course. Maybe every once in a while we stumble on a great idea, or find a solution to a problem that eluded everyone else. OK. But is that your everyday experience? Likely not. In any case, seen in this light, I think we can more clearly understand why we said, "We are not our work."
To put all this in the context of our spiritual lives, we must turn our backs on the worldliness that leads us away from God. St. Vincent de Paul concisely sums up what we should eschew as well as what we should embrace:
"...if you get satisfaction out of flattery; if you make known the good you have done, even if you are self-complacent over it, - all these things are tokens of the spirit of worldliness. And that we may seize on this and crush it out, it is better to do the thing that makes outward show badly than to be pleased with ourselves because we have done it well...We must surrender ourselves to God, my brothers, that we may be preserved from our secret self-esteem and from the praise of others. In these lie worldliness."
The fact is, without the virtue of humility, even what we do that has value in itself will be turned to an occasion of pride and self-centeredness - in short, sin.
In our next and last installment of our series on bringing Advent to work, St. Vincent will sum up how Our Lord's entire life can serve as an example and encouragement for each of us to not only understand, but to diligently and persistently pursue the virtue of humility.
We conclude today's discussion with our beautiful Advent aspiration:
Divine Infant of Bethlehem, come and take birth in our hearts!
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