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.

John Paul II on Suffering

I thought some of you might enjoy reading my papers from grad school. Maybe not. Just let me know. Here's the first:

Suffering needs no introduction. From the beginning of history until the end, in its many and varied forms, suffering accompanies humanity producing crippling despair, stoic endurance, the frenzied search for release, and universal cry: “why?” However, for those few persons that the Catholic Church calls saints, suffering produces a radically different response: joy. The apostle Paul wrote “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake” (Col. 1:24). Rejoice? For John Paul II, the determining factor between these two responses to suffering is found in a person’s discovery of the Christian meaning of human suffering. Each person must discover the meaning of human suffering, the answer to the question of the “why” of human suffering, in the redemptive suffering of Jesus Christ. In His suffering is joy.

For a correct understanding of the meaning of suffering at least two ideas must be clearly understood. The first and basic idea is that of suffering itself. What is this most universal phenomenon of suffering? In John Paul II’s apostolic letter, Salvifici Doloris (On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering) – the main text that concerns this paper, the late pontiff teaches that “man suffers whenever he experiences any kind of evil” (SD 7 – emphasis in text). Therefore, suffering itself is simply a human experience, specifically an experience of evil. He defines evil as “a certain lack, limitation or distortion of the good” (SD 7) and thus “man suffers because of a good in which he does not share, from which in a certain sense he is cut off, or of which he has deprived himself. He particularly suffers when he ‘ought’ – in the normal order of things – to have a share in this good, and does not have it” (SD 7). Suffering, therefore, always has a double reference, both to the evil experienced and to the good which the person lacks in some manner. Such an understanding of suffering helps overcome the prevalent temptation to deny God, the supreme good, in the face of suffering. For the very experience of suffering is a proof that there really is good; it’s just that one presently lacks that good.

Another and most important aspect of suffering is that, in man, it always arouses the question: “why?” (SD 9) for, as noted above, he knows he “ought” to obtain the good and something has gone terribly wrong when he doesn’t. As noted above, man universally directs this question to God and if he does not encounter God’s answer, he is severely tempted to despair and curse God and bring even more misery down on himself.

Thankfully, according to John Paul II, God expects this question, listens to it, (SD 10) and abundantly answers it through redemption. Redemption is the second of the two ideas that must be understood to grasp the meaning of suffering. While suffering is the experience of evil, redemption is the liberation from evil (SD 14). In a certain sense, therefore, every person is a redeemer when he acts to relieve suffering by overcoming evil with good, such as in doing the works of mercy. Each work of mercy puts good back into the void of evil: bread given to the hungry, clothes to the naked, knowledge to the ignorant, etc. These works of mercy reflect God’s definitive work of mercy, the redemption wrought through the cross of Jesus Christ. These works, man’s and God’s, are called merciful because the “true and proper meaning of mercy does not consist only in looking [emphasis mine], however penetratingly and compassionately, at moral, physical or material evil: mercy is manifested in its true and proper aspect when it restores to value, promotes and draws good from all the forms of evil existing in the world and in man” (DM 6 – emphasis in text). Redemption, the liberation from evil, is therefore the result of mercy. That is why when man responds to God’s mercy (and he needs mercy because he suffers) by conversion he experiences redemption which is “the rebuilding of goodness” in him (SD 12). Mercy is effective; it effects redemption.

The correct understanding of suffering and redemption brings light to God’s definitive work of redemption through the cross of Jesus Christ and begins to answer the question of the meaning of human suffering. According to John Paul II, the suffering of Jesus Christ was unique, in regards to His divinity, and at the same time, in regards His humanity, His suffering was in a certain sense universal (SD 17). As the divine son, Jesus suffered the definitive, unique suffering that accomplished our redemption: “[Christ’s words in the garden to his Father] attest to this unique and incomparable depth and intensity of suffering which only the man who is the only-begotten Son could experience” (SD 18). Later, on the cross when Jesus cries, “my God my God, why have you forsaken me” he experiences “the ‘entire’ evil of the turning away from God which is contained in sin . . . this suffering which is the separation, the rejection by the Father, the estrangement from God” (SD 18 – emphasis in text). This is the suffering that is closed to the realm of man’s experience and yet, there is an aspect of Christ’s suffering that is open and universal to man. Through the cross, Christ has become “in a certain sense, a sharer in all human sufferings. Man, discovering through faith the redemptive suffering of Christ, also discovers in it his own sufferings” (SD 20). It is as if in its very uniqueness, as the suffering of the God-man, the suffering of Christ becomes universal. Outside of salvation history suffering cannot be shared and co-experienced. Even when showing compassion, which is in a certain sense co-suffering, man does not directly experience the other’s suffering, he experiences his own suffering alongside the similar suffering of his brother. But in Christ, because he is God-man and has united himself, in a certain sense, to every man, every man really does share His sufferings with Christ. To an extent, it is an experience of the same suffering. This truth has profound consequences to be discussed in the final section of this paper.

The last point to examine regarding the unique and universal suffering of Christ is in regard to its fruit; what did Christ’s suffering accomplish? Redemption. Bearing in mind the definition of redemption above, John Paul II’s words concerning Christ’s suffering are particularly profound: “In His suffering, sins are cancelled out precisely because He alone as the only-begotten Son could take them upon Himself, accept them with that love for the Father which overcomes the evil of every sin; in a certain sense He annihilates this evil in the spiritual space of the relationship between God and humanity, and fills this space with good” (SD 17). That “love for the Father which overcomes the evil of every sin” is the divine mercy, the effective love that eradicates suffering. This understanding of Christ’s merciful redemption begins to reveal the meaning of suffering.

When man responds to the suffering merciful love of Christ with faith, he gains the fullness of the meaning, and thus the answer to the question, “why”, of suffering. The passion of Christ invites a response from man precisely because Christ has “opened His suffering to man” (SD 20 – emphasis in text). This is in reference to the universal aspect of Christ’s suffering noted above. Man’s proper response to this invitation is to unite his own personal suffering to Christ’s suffering through faith, “for through faith the cross reaches man” (SD 21). By faith, through this unity of suffering, all the fruits of the Redemption flow to man.

John Paul II mentions several of these fruits in the latter half of Salvici Doloris. The most astonishing fruit is that man’s personal suffering becomes redemptive! The following summary text is worth quoting in full:

For, whoever suffers in union with Christ – just as the Apostle Paul bears his ‘tribulations’ in union with Christ – not only receives from Christ that strength already referred to but also ‘completes’ by his suffering ‘what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.’ This evangelical outlook especially highlights the truth concerning the creative character of suffering. The sufferings of Christ created the good of the world’s Redemption. This good in itself is inexhaustible and infinite. No man can add anything to it. But at the same time, in the mystery of the Church as His body, Christ has in a sense opened His own redemptive suffering to all human suffering. Insofar as man becomes a sharer in Christ’s sufferings – in any part of the world and at any time in history – to that extent he in his own way completes the suffering through which Christ accomplished the Redemption of the world” (SD 24).

Man’s suffering, through Christ, is redemptive! Suffering leads to good and does not have to give way to despair and misery! This is, as John Paul II calls it, the Gospel of Suffering.
There is yet more fruit of the Redemption that flows to man through Christ. Suffering with Christ matures man, that is, it rebuilds good in man, so that he can mature for God’s kingdom (SD 21) the final culmination of which will be sharing in God’s glory (SD 22). An essential aspect of this maturing is a merciful love in man that reaches out to his suffering neighbor. John Paul II writes, “suffering is present in the world in order to release love, in order to give birth to works of love towards neighbor, in order to transform the whole of human civilization into a ‘civilization of love’” (SD 30). Finally, as man experiences the mercy of God and he practices mercy in return, he discovers the fullness of the meaning of human suffering and experiences joy:

“Christ does not explain in the abstract the reasons for suffering, but before all else He says: ‘Follow me!’ Come! Take part through your suffering in this work of saving the world, a salvation achieved through my suffering! Through my cross! Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross, spiritually uniting himself to the cross of Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed before him . . . It is then that man finds in his suffering interior peace and even spiritual joy” (SD 26).

Such is the experience of the saints; such is the call, the invitation of Christ to every man. It is also the invitation of John Paul II. Yes, suffering indeed needs no introduction, but the Gospel of Suffering does; it is not natural to man. In ignorance of this gospel, suffering leads to misery and despair, but through this Gospel man may live mercy and experience joy. This is a Gospel worth suffering for.