Profound Humility

The teaching on Mary's Profound Humility was given by our team member, Melinda:

The Bible defines Humility as the supernatural virtue by which one attains the correct
perception of one’s relationship with God.  Man himself was made in original justice and then
fell; now he has been redeemed in Christ.  The attitude of humility is “I am good only because
of God’s mercy.”  Humility counters pride and seeks to serve God and others, as Mary did.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church Glossary defines humility as the virtue by which a
Christian acknowledges that God is the author of all good.  Humility avoids inordinate ambition
or pride, and provides the foundation for turning to God in prayer.  Voluntary humility can be
described as “poverty of spirit”.
Some wise person once said that humility is simply seeing things as they really are.  In other
words, just knowing and living according to reality. This sounds simple, but we often distort
reality to fit our own ideas.
Many people have the false notion of humility that it involves some sort of self-condemning. 
They confuse it with the word humiliation.  They’re not the same thing.  That’s not to say that
coming to understand reality might not be a humiliation for us.  Sometimes it is but it doesn’t
have to be. 

A truly humble person accepts that God wants to do something great through her. Many people
might think it’s humility to say, ‘God wouldn’t do anything great through me, I’m not worthy,
I’m incapable of any good, I’m nobody.’ That’s not humility. That’s self condemning and having
little faith – and neither one of those does much for the kingdom of God. We must accept the
fact that God can do great things through us, if we have faith and give Him a chance.
Accepting that God could work a miracle through you is just as much humility because that’s
accepting the reality of God’s almighty power.  When you have a correct view of God and His
relationship with you then the balance will be struck between seeing yourself as worthless, and
seeing yourself capable of limitless perfection.

Let’s reflect on Mary.  At the Annunciation:  The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, a virgin
betrothed to Joseph. He said, “Hail favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly
troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel
said to her “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. (Luke 1:26-30) 
Mary, though fearful and troubled by Gabriel’s praise at the Annunciation, replied with humility
saying: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word”
(Lk1:38). Mary demonstrates complete trust.  She gave herself completely with no regard to
consequences.
Although Mary is praised for being the mother of the Lord and because of her belief, she reacts
as the servant in a psalm of praise, the Magnificat. (Bible p.1093)
 ‘And Mary said:
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
 For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness;
behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.
The Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.  Lk1: 46-50
Her whole song is all about how glorious God is, and all the great things He’s done for her. May
we have a similar humble outlook on our lives, realizing the great things that God has done for
us and giving Him due praise.
Mary did not exalt herself. She was to be the Mother of God!  She recognized that she was to
be called blessed because of what He did for her!
 Imagine Mary’s humility when she accepted a manger as the place to give birth to the Son of
God!  How would you have reacted?  Would you have demanded the best facility because, after
all, you were selected to be the Mother of the Son of God?  And yet, Mary accepted in humility
and trust the conditions available to her, with faith and obedience to God’s will.
Scripture says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6   Mary is the
perfect example of resisting pride – and being blessed for all eternity!

Nadine Brown tells us in her book, Bathe Seven Times, “One of the greatest of all virtues is
humility. Humility is based on Jesus.  Humility is total dependence on God and is based on truth. 
Humility knows it is a child.  Humility knows that it is weak.  Humility knows it can do nothing
without Jesus.Two of the main fruits of humility are truth and obedience.  We can not really tell for sure if we are humble.  If a person says, “I think I am really growing in humility,” be careful.  But if a
person is saying, “I am listening more to the Holy Spirit; I am growing more submissive to God; I
am growing more in acceptance of His will for me, His plan, His way,” then that person is truly
growing in humility. When Our Lady said to the servants at Cana, “Do whatever He tells you
(Jn2:5), she is giving us the key to humility: obedience. Humility can only be recognized by its
fruit, and its main fruit will be obedience.Humility is truth. When we say “Oh, I will never do that again,” that is not really truth.  How do we know? We hope we will not do or say something again, but it depends on God’s grace. Becoming like a child is incredibly important because the Spirit will counsel us constantly on what to do and what to say, or not to say, if we will only stop, check it out and ask. That is humility.  Catherine Doherty of Madonna House in Canada often prayed, “Oh Lord, give me the heart of a child and the courage to follow it.” 

Another fruit of humility is gratitude. Are we grateful for all the little things that people do for
us all day long” Are we grateful for all the little and big things that God does for us all day long?
As we become aware of how much we have to be grateful for, we become aware of our
littleness and our poverty and God’s greatness and His generosity and His giftedness.  Our focus
starts to change.  Fr. Michael Gaitley, in his book 33 Days to Morning Glory tells us Mother
Teresa developed an “attitude of gratitude” by following the example of Mary who was always
“pondering in her heart” the “good things” that God had done for her that day and would
reflect on how she was or was not fully responding to his love. 
We need poverty of spirit and emptiness like Our Lady had when she received this gift and said
in her canticle, “The hungry He has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.”
(Lk1:53)  The more we can be empty of self, empty of self-love, self-interest, and self-concern,
then the more we can be filled with good things. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit; the
reign of God is theirs.” (Mt 5:3)  When we have totally surrendered our lives, our wills, and our
preferences into God’s hands, we are in total poverty.  In this surrender, The Kingdom, peace,
joy, love, presence, and comfort becomes ours.

We are limited in every aspect of our lives, but God is not. He made us limited so we would
need Him. He wants to be needed. When we struggle because we cannot do something, we
should accept our limitations.  Accepting our weaknesses is the very act that invites God to
come into us in greater strength and power.  Humility will let us know that we need Him.
 We must put our complete trust in God. In Psalm 131:1, we read:
Lord, my heart is not proud;
nor my eyes haughty.
 I do not busy myself with great matters,
with things too sublime for me.
 I learn from this Psalm to trust in the Lord. Give up self-sufficiency; be “like a babe enjoying the
comfort of its mother’s lap.” 

For some time, I had been feeling an inner call to cut back on activities outside my home so that
I could dedicate myself more to my family and my church.  I had a deep hunger for spiritual
growth.  I began to resign membership to organizations and was about to do so with the last
one, when I let myself be talked into staying to help unite the divided group.  I bargained with
myself saying, “OK, I’ll just complete my term and then I will devote myself to my family and
spiritual growth.”  I will sacrifice myself for the good of the organization.  Sounds good, right? 
But what was my real motive?  Was it pride?  Mary is the perfect example of resisting pride –
and being blessed for all eternity!  James 4:6 tells us: God resists the proud, but gives grace to
the humble.” 
Was it flattery that I could be a uniting force in the organization? Was I exalting myself! 
Philippians 2:3-4 tells us: “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory: rather, humbly
regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests,
but (also) everyone for those of others.”
I put my inner call on hold to pursue my pride!  What was I thinking? Psalms 18: 32-33 states,
“Truly, who is God except the Lord? Who but our God is the rock?  This God who girded me
with might, kept my way unerring.”  However, I was not obedient to God’s call, therefore I
erred! 
Certainly these motives are not substantial for success. I still felt the inner calling to devote
myself to my family and personal spiritual growth.  Wow, I was ignoring the stirrings of my
heart and soul because I thought I knew better?!  How prideful is that?
Needless to say, I did not succeed at uniting the group and I decided that the Holy Spirit had
given me a hard knock on the head to get my attention. I prayed about it and decided to resign. 
The moment I made my decision to resign, I felt peace, freedom and joy. These feelings let me
know I had made the right decision.
Although it took an embarrassing event to show me that pride and flattery had led me down
the wrong path, I was so relieved that the Holy Spirit had not given up on me.  I had distorted
reality to fit my own ideas. I had exalted myself.  Reality was that I could not be the savior.  I
was not acting in a virtuous manner. The Holy Spirit had tried to tell me to change direction and
I ignored Him. I must have thought I could do this myself, without help from the Lord. 
Once I humbled myself and listened to my inner stirrings, I felt peace, joy, and freedom.  I
learned that I cannot succeed when I ignore my inner feelings! 

How do we cultivate this important virtue of humility?  Some of the best ways are frequent
examination of conscience and confession of sin.  These are good ways to cultivate humility
because they help to understand ourselves better.  They force us to look at ourselves in a more
critical – but healthy – light.  Without examining our consciences, we are in the dark about who
we really are, and we might end up seeing ourselves in two alternate extremes: as perfect or as
worthless, depending on how our day in going.

Without this examination, we’re not acknowledging our sinfulness and our mistakes. If we don’t
take an honest look at those things, we’ll never get to a stage of true humility.  However, we
should also be aware that examination of conscience doesn’t have to focus only on the
mistakes we make.  Every night we can give time to our mistakes, but also give time to the good
things we’ve done. If we don’t think about the good things we do, we could start focusing too
much on the negative things.  We need to keep that balance.
Practices to Increase Humility
 Pray with a humble and contrite heart. Humility is the foundation of prayer. (CCC 2559)
 Frequent examination of conscience and confession of sin.
 Frequent reception of the Eucharist
 Give daily time to review the good things we have done
 Let go of anger and envy
 Practice forgiveness.