The Virtue of Humility

I Peter 5:5

“Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble’” (I Peter 5:5). Perhaps no better verse so illustrates the vital role of humility in the spiritual life and encapsulates the major themes of this paper. Most importantly, the double principle to always be kept in mind, is that God gives his grace to the humble but opposes the proud. Opponents of God make no headway in the spiritual life. Also this verse witnesses to the divine and human components of the virtue of humility. Believers are to “clothe yourselves” with humility which corresponds to the human effort of the spiritual life. God’s part is the infused bestowal of grace which further increases humility. How important is the virtue of humility in the life of the believer? From the call to “all of you” in the verse above it’s obviously of universal importance. Of humility’s importance, St. Thérèse taught, “I know that by humiliation alone can Saints be made”.

Definition of Humility

Humility is a virtue and virtues are exciting for the abilities and delights they give to an individual. A virtue is an “operative habit” which is “a quality, difficult to remove, that disposes the subject to function with facility, promptness, and delight” (Aumann 81). Virtues are either acquired (natural) or infused (supernatural) and differ in several ways, one of which is according to their formal object. Acquired virtues have as their object the light of reason and infused virtues take the light of faith as their object (Aumann 82). As concerns the spiritual life, humility is an infused virtue and derives from the moral virtue of temperance by way of the virtue of modesty (Royo/Aumann 490). Humility derives from temperance because it moderates the sense one has of his own worth, especially in relation to Holy God (Tanquerey. 530).
The nature and scope of humility is truth. St. Thérèse bluntly teaches that “humility is truth” (Johnson 57 – emphasis added). Humility gives one an eye for truth as it “enables an individual to see himself as he is in the eyes of God, not exaggerating his good qualities and not denying the gifts that he has received from God” (Royo/Aumann 490). According to Tanquerey (530-531) this knowledge produces a reaction in the believer; thus humility is “a supernatural virtue, which, through the self-knowledge it imparts, inclines us to reckon ourselves at our true worth and to seek self-effacement and contempt”. This seeking of self-effacement and contempt directly relates to St. Thérèse’s teaching above as regards the necessity of humiliation in the spiritual life. As regards the relationship between the truth that humility reveals and the bases for self contempt, this is so because humility is based on two things: (1) truth (about the believer’s self, especially the recognition that all his good comes from God) and (2) justice (whereby he honors and glorifies the giver of those gifts) (Royo/Aumann 491). Tanquerey teaches similarly on humility except that, as regards justice, he emphasizes the attitude of contempt by which man should treat himself, more so than the glory and honor to be given to God (531). According to Fr. Olier, the self-knowledge of one’s vileness and littleness does not fully exhaust the nature of humility (Tanquerey 535). The full nature of humility is to rejoice in that knowledge because the better one knows his littleness the more he sees God’s glory in loving such a wretched creature. Humility, then, reveals to the believer the abject truth about his self and the supreme truth about the power, love, and gifts of God.

Opposed to humility is pride. If humility is concerned with the truth, pride, its opposite, is all about lies. Pride deserves serious condemnation. St. Teresa taught that “there is no poison in the world which is so fatal to perfection” (Marie-Eugène 377). It is the root and principle of all sin (Royo/Aumann 493) because pride is based on a lie. Tanquerey (532) roots this lie in man’s rebellion, when man prefers his will to God’s will, or, in other words, his definition of happiness (ultimately a lie) over Gods definition of happiness (the truth that makes one truly happy). Living a lie obstructs the necessary work of conversion in the believer. By the example in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, Johnson (49) teaches that one of the results of spiritual prides is that it causes the Pharisee to “stop short in himself”. Is not this very stopping short an obstruction to conversion? The humble man, by contrast, is always open to conversion, because he is always open to the truth. Essentially, if God is truth itself and no lie is found in him, this is why he is such a friend to the humble and why he so opposes the proud.

Growth in Humility

Humility, like any other virtue, has the capacity to grow, to deepen its facility, promptness, and delight. The way humility grows is by further clarity of the truth. For the saints, as God revealed more of his infinite perfections to them, they saw with greater clarity the “infinite abyss between the grandeur of God and their own littleness and weakness” (Royo/Aumann 491). For all the saints, but one, this greater clarity would be based on increased knowledge of their sins. The one exception to this process was the Virgin Mary. Her humility was not based on her sin but on her sure knowledge of the gifts she had received from God and her corresponding weakness without them (Marie-Eugène 385).

Believers have a certain acquired capacity of their own to increase humility. One of the acquired aspects that facilitates growth in humility, according to St. Thérèse, is the use of the memory to recall one’s faults. The more surely one meditates on his faults the more deeply the soul realizes to never rely on his own strength (Johnson 63). Meditative prayer on one’s faults, therefore, is a sure path to greater humility.

As a complement to the natural capacity to growth in humility and in time, with a deeper penetration and clarity, God plays a role in the believer’s growth in humility. Jean de Saint Samson, as discussed by Marie-Eugène (389 ff.), classifies humility into two species corresponding to the agent that brings about the humility. The human, acquired, humility is reasonable humility and the divinely infused knowledge that brings great humility he calls fervent humility. An example of fervent humility is St. Thérèse: “God shows me the truth and I see clearly that everything comes from Him” (Johnson 58). To be able to “see clearly” that everything comes from God can only be an infused gift. God’s infused humility is of a much deeper truth than man could ever acquire even after a lifetime of effective meditations. Consequently, since the Divine action, by its nature is infinite, humility is capable of continually increasing (Ruysbroeck as quoted by Marie-Eugène 385). The practice of the virtue of humility is a never tiring, never ending, ever deepening, ever enlightening work of man and God in the spiritual life.

Definition of the Spiritual Life

The spiritual life comprises those aspects of man’s existence which involve his intellect and will in his relationship with the Holy Trinity. The spiritual life is the fountain from which man draws his energies, charity, and peace. The active principle in man’s spiritual life is conversion. As God draws man to himself he exposes man to that penetrating light that both reveals man to himself and reveals God to man. Under this Divine light man exercises his will to conform his existence according to the truth of God. This is the work of conversion; it is the work of receiving God’s definition of happiness, embracing it in the intellect and choosing to live it in the will. Growth in the spiritual life is growth in conforming to the truth as revealed by God through daily conversion. This growth is supremely fostered by the virtue of humility.

Humility Aids Everything in the Spiritual Life

Humility is the fundamental virtue in the spiritual life, but in a negative sense “Without humility it is impossible to take a single step in the spiritual life” (Royo/Aumann 492). Recall that according to scripture God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). Marie-Eugène describes humility, in God’s eyes, as irresistibly attractive (386) as if God must act and pour out his light and grace whenever he encounters humility. According to Tanquerey this is because God “will not give [his] glory to another” (Isaiah 42:8). Therefore, when God sees a humble soul, aware of its vileness and consequently only disposed to give glory to God for all of the good in himself, he dispenses his grace abundantly because he knows that it will redound to his glory (Tanquerey 537). Therefore humility, in itself, is not what God desires from man, but it gives the ability to bring about further glory for himself. Humility is a means to God’s glory.

Similarly, humility is not the virtue par excellence. Its relationship with the other virtues is one of facility and stability. Humility is the foundation of all the virtues in a two-fold sense: (1) without humility there is no solid virtue and (2) with humility all virtues grow in depth and perfection (Tanquerey 537). This characteristic of humility is why humility does not aid everything in the spiritual life (as will be explored below). Tanquerey’s analogy of the soul as a physical space is most helpful at this point. He sees humility’s role in the spiritual life as emptying the soul, thus creating room, vast room, for the infusion of God’s grace (Tanquerey 537).

Conversion

One of the graces that God pours into the space in the soul created by humility is his divine light, the principle of conversion. Humility is based on self-knowledge (Royo/Aumann 492) and one cannot convert without knowledge of both God and oneself. However, there is a battle going on for the soul of the believer, a battle between lies and truth. It is a battle between the father of lies and “the Truth”, Jesus. For it is the devil’s great aim to deceive, to obscure, to hide the reality of things. As this regards pride, the root obstacle to humility, he, (1) blinds souls to the fact that pride is the greatest sin, (2) blinds souls to their own share of pride, and (3) inflames the soul’s love of self so as to make conversion from pride look unattractive (Johnson 54). Thanks be to God there is a savior who is truth itself! Jesus triumphs over the devil when he brings knowledge of self to his beloved friends. After ascending to Heaven, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to continue his mission. The Holy Spirit continues this mission in every person through the medium of conscience. When this happens in an infused manner (fervent humility) it causes a permanent attitudinal change in the soul (Marie-Eugène 391). Likewise St. Benedict, as quoted by Tanquerey (532), saw humility as “an habitual attitude of soul”. Also, as quoted in Johnson (45), St. Thérèse sees that, “Holiness does not consist in one exercise or another, but in a disposition of the heart which renders us humble and little in the hands of God” (emphasis added). Since there is an established relationship between growth in humility and conversion, as humility becomes a permanent attitude, this makes conversion a permanent state of one’s life (see Marie-Eugène 391 above).

According to St. Francis de Sales, the work of conversion involves destroying all affections for sin in order to practice devotion. Tanquerey is interested in a similar destruction of the affections for sin when he discusses practicing humility towards oneself. For Tanquerey the deepening of the virtue of humility follows a progression from (1) humility of mind (knowledge – equivalent to knowledge of sin in de Sales), then to (2) humility of heart (the seat of affections, equivalent in de Sales to the place where we learn to detest sin), and lastly (3) humility of action. This leads to humility extending throughout the whole man (Tanquerey 543) which is nothing other than full conversion.

The Catechism describes humility’s role in conversion with a more forceful term, "confrontation”. In the Catechism humility, as an aid to the conversion, comes through the “confrontation” between God’s revelation and our own life (CCC 2706). St. Thérèse’s witness to the same truth is: “I expect every day to discover new imperfections in me; and I acknowledge that these lights on my own nothingness do me more good than lights on matters of faith” (Johnson 64). Again, this illustrates the process of conforming man’s imperfect definition of happiness to God’s definition. Again, this is the work of conversion and it is made effective in the life of the believer through prayer and suffering.

Prayer and Suffering

Prayer is the normal place where humble man encounters God. It is the humble who approach God all the more readily since they so clearly see their dependence on Him. In the words of the Catechism, “humility is the necessary attitude if we are to receive the free gift of prayer” (CCC 2559) and “Humility is the foundation of prayer . . . Humility is the disposition to receive freely the gift of prayer. Man is a beggar before God” (CCC 2559 as paraphrased by Bushman in CN 150). It is often through meditative prayer, especially meditations on the many humble aspects of our Lord’s historical and Eucharistic life (Tanquerey 538-541), that the humble man learns how to practice humility and grows in desire to do so in imitation of our Lord (see also CN 134). St. Thérèse had the same disposition towards meditations on the Lord’s life for Johnson called the gospels her “Manual of Divine Humility” (Johnson 47, 54). The gospels contain the Lord’s many repeated teachings on the necessity of humility (Luke 2:7, 14:11, 18:14, 22:27, Matt. 5:4, 18:4, 23:12, Mark 9:34, etc.). Therefore it is by humility that man approaches God in prayer and through that prayer, especially meditation, that man and God deepen his humility.

Finally, the object of all prayer is the Holy Spirit (CN 157 ff.). Since it is the Holy Spirit who convicts of sin through man’s conscience, prayer should always lead to humility. With the help of the Holy Spirit, it is by humility that the believer will judge himself and fulfill the scripture, “in humility, let each esteem others better than themselves” (Phil. 2:3) (Tanquerey 542-543). Just here is the connection between humility and suffering. Humility is suffering because it so clearly reveals our faults and the pain they cause both in us and to God. “A readiness to acknowledge our faults is absolutely essential [corresponding to suffering above], but in order to remove our faults we must know them, either directly by Almighty God or by our fellow-men: we must submit to the humiliation of being told” (Johnson 66). Humility then is completely necessary for prayer to effect the work of conversion, which man accomplishes through the suffering of submitting to the just judgment of God on his sin.

Humility does NOT aid everything in the spiritual life

However, humility is not the greatest of the virtues and it is these that are the true objects of the spiritual life. It is the theological and intellectual virtues, as well as justice, which are greater than humility (Royo/Aumann 491). St. Thomas teaches that humility is inferior to the theological virtues because the object of the theological virtues is God himself (as quoted by Tanquerey 536). St. Thérèse agrees since for her humility was the means to union with God (Johnson 57). That’s just it. Humility is always a means to an end, perhaps the most perfect means, but nonetheless, still only a means. According to St. Benedict, the ladder of humility leads to the love of God (quoted in Tanquerey 534). Divine Love is the goal of humility. According to Bushman (CN 135 ff.), charity is the goal of mental prayer, NOT humility. All of this returns to the definition of the spiritual life: man’s relationship with God. The object of any personal relationship is the other person. The activity of such a relationship is the mutual self-giving between the two. Complete mutual self-giving between man and God is the goal of the spiritual life, not humility.

I Peter 5:5 – again

"God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble”. It is through and by humility that God approaches man. If the goal is happiness (according to God’s definition), the means is humility. If the goal is conversion (conforming to God’s happiness), the means is humility. If the goal is intimacy (through prayer and suffering), the means is humility. If the goal is God himself, humility is the most perfect means, but it is only a mean.