Focusing on Fundamentals During Advent - 1

(A re-post to help us work our way through Advent.) 

As discussed last time, we'll focus on that fundamentally important virtue of humility as we begin the new Liturgical Year. Let's start with our definition of humility taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Humility is a repressing or moderating virtue opposed to pride and vainglory or that spirit within us which urges us to great things above our strength and ability.

With this definition in mind, we'll ask Fr. Joseph Schryvers, C.SS.R. (1876-1945), whose work we've quoted many times in the past, to help us better understand the importance of the virtue of humility over the next few posts. Before we turn to Father's remarks today, a few comments about how our work and our relationships at work will improve as we develop the virtue of humility:

• We become more attractive to both our colleagues and our employers, just as we become more attractive to Our Lord.
• We'll gain a clearer understanding of our true value - not some postured or exaggerated sense of self-worth.
• Knowing our true value entails an appreciation for the specific natural good qualities which God has given to each of us as individuals.
• This knowledge will cause us to know, indelibly, that all the good in us comes from God.
• And that knowledge will help us to more easily handle even the most difficult assignments and bear with the most trying circumstances we might encounter during the day.

Let's now look for exactly how humility will help us improve as we read Father Schryvers remarks: 

    “Humility is so pleasing to Him that when Jesus finds a truly humble soul, He is attracted towards her and showers her more abundantly with His graces. Humility is really the basis of religion and somehow or other, we must get it into our lives: into our intellect, our will, and actions. By means of her intellect and her judgment, the soul must learn to appreciate herself at her true value, as she is in the eyes of God. If she does this sincerely, she will become humble in mind. It was in this sense St. Teresa said: ‘Humility is truth.’ To see ourselves as we are before God, in the full extent of our nothingness, with all the fickleness of our will, and all the germs of sin which lie concealed in our corrupt nature; then, without appropriating credit to ourselves, to see all the good God has deposited in us, the graces He has conferred upon us, and all the natural good qualities with which He has endowed us, is to get a truer picture of our true selves and our relation as creatures to Creator. And if once we truly realize that relation, we shall have laid a solid foundation for the fundamental virtue.
    “By your will accept, ratify, and love this knowledge, so that your soul may be at ease in finding itself so small and so infinitely miserable before God, yet rejoice that Infinite Goodness has deigned to stoop and notice such nothingness. This is humility of the will. When that is attained, the soul will desire to treat herself, and to be treated by others, according to the knowledge which she has acquired of herself. As she is nothing, and possesses nothing of herself, she will confess herself unworthy of any consideration; she will exact no notice from others, no mark of esteem or honor. She believes herself always better treated than she deserves. Consequently, she can take more readily upon herself anything that may be trying or difficult. Being nothing, and having no good, whatever, of herself, she can honestly realize that there is no human being inferior to her in merit. If she receives marks of esteem or affection, she will accept them with simplicity, but for the glory of God, Whom others love and honor in her. This is humility of action.”

We conclude today's post with our special Advent aspiration:

Divine Infant of Bethlehem, come and take birth in our hearts!