Serious Advent Stuff About Humility To Help Us On Our Way To Bethlehem - 3
We continue with our special Advent posts, focused on the virtue of humility.
Humility has been a theme we've focused on over the years during Advent. Most appropriate to Advent, consider Our Lord's birth in a stable in Bethlehem on that first Christmas. Could there be a more poignant and powerful example of humility than this?
And so we call on Father Joseph Schryvers for some lessons in humility as we work our way through Advent. We'll want to apply them to our own individual circumstances - and that includes our time at work. For work, we might examine how we apply ourselves to our tasks and how we respond to whatever success we have, or lack thereof.
If successful, do we get all puffed up? Or do we simply note that we just completed a task well done - as it should
be. In that spirit, we recognize that all our tasks should be done
first for the glory of God, next because we want to diligently
perform all our tasks with fervor and exactness, finally because we
simply have paid a debt to our employer and/or our customers and
clients.
If not successful, we might face the facts. Accept either our shortcomings or failure as somehow part of God's Plan. If criticized for less-than-perfect work, rather than defend our actions, we might simply accept the criticism calmly, without resentment or complaint.
With that in mind, here's our 3rd lesson for Advent:“The condition of the proud man has something appalling and repulsive about it. God and all His creatures resist him; the law of universal order, which he upsets, protests against his insane pretensions, but he, in his insolence, defies this opposition. Pride makes a man resemble Satan; it imprints on his brow the mark of the beast: ‘When I meet a pretentious man, who esteems himself more prudent, more learned, or more virtuous than others, I shudder and feel myself confronted by a demon incarnate,’ says St. Alphonsus. The strangest thing of all, and the most alarming, is that no proud person suspects himself of this insidious passion. It is rare to find a person appreciating himself at his proper value, and still more rare, to meet one who regulates his life according to a correct estimate of his worth. Great interior light is required that a man may see himself as he really is: only saints are wholly free from illusions about their personal worth. Where is the man who is not wounded by a want of esteem shown him, or by the failure of an enterprise, or by some humiliation? Who is he that is not pleased on being appreciated or sought after? Who does not dread blame, neglect, sarcasm? Even the most sincere human soul experiences in herself habitual opposition to humility, a permanent contradiction between the good opinion she has of herself, and the judgment which the Eternal truth has of her.
“The very best men, when closely watching their interior movements, have to acknowledge that in nearly all their free acts, they can detect a certain inordinate seeking after self-glorification. In a measure, self is the center around which all the aspirations and all the thoughts of their minds revolve.” - Fr. Joseph Schryvers, C.SS.R. (1876-1945)
We conclude with the beautiful, traditional Advent aspiration:
Divine Infant of Bethlehem
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