What is humility?

1 • Humility: trying to convince yourself you’re ugly and bad (?)

A lot of people think humility looks something like this:

In short, there’s a widespread idea that humility means downplaying the talents we have, trying really hard to convince ourselves we don’t actually have them.

And since that’s sometimes objectively impossible (see the Einstein cartoon), people often end up feeling bad because they can’t bring themselves to believe something obviously absurd.

That is not humility.

It’s not even close.

It’s light-years away from what Jesus asks of us when He says, “Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart“ (Matthew 11:29).

2 • An Uncomfortable Virtue

In Greek, the word for humility is tapeinōsis (ταπείνωσις, from the verb ταπεινόω, tapeinoō; see, for example, Luke 1:48; Luke 18:14; Matthew 23:12; Acts 8:33; Philippians 2:8; James 4:10).

The word is connected to ideas of insignificance, humiliation, keeping a low profile, and being small (see the entry for “tapeinōsis” on biblehub.com).

In Latin, the word is humilitas (from humus, meaning “earth”), so here too the idea is being down-to-earth.

Paul of Tarsus wrote:

Riffing on these words, Paul Claudel (1868-1955), a French poet, playwright, and diplomat, put it this way:

Humility doesn’t mean pretending to be incompetent.

It doesn’t mean putting on a show of false modesty (which usually just annoys everyone around us).

Humility means being able to design the best cathedral in the world…

Now, let’s not kid ourselves.

Reaching this kind of humility is a bit like the extra-credit question at the end of the test, the one that gets you an A+.

I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’m barely scraping by with a C…

…case in point: in everyday life, I manage to feel proud even of things I deserve zero credit for…

3 • How do you become humble?

I said earlier that humility isn’t a mental exercise in talking yourself into something.

I can’t force myself to be humble.

So how do you become humble?

In the tradition of the Church (from the Fathers of the early centuries to 20th-century spiritual writers), there’s broad agreement on the remedies for acquiring humility:

• Humiliations
• Temptations
• Falls

The word “humiliation” is terrifying.

Nobody wants to be humiliated.

Personally, the moment I read that the Fathers talked about humiliations as “a path to humility,” I started cranking out excuses:

• “What’s with this ancient idea of humiliations?”
• “Honestly, if I just roll up my sleeves, I can handle this pride problem on my own!”
• “The Church Fathers didn’t know what we know about psychology and psychotherapy!”
• “This whole mortification thing seems a bit outdated!”
• “It’s the third millennium. There have to be more effective methods by now!”

The problem is, the Fathers of the early centuries weren’t the only ones talking about humiliations.

Just to give you one example, here’s what Pope Francis wrote in 2018:

He added:

It’s not about masochism.

It’s not about glorifying pain.

And it’s not about going looking for mortifications (because sooner or later, life takes care of that on its own… trust me, I speak from experience!).

It’s about experiencing that God is a Father, and a good Father at that (Matthew 23:9; Luke 18:19).

And that there is wisdom in the cross (1 Corinthians 1:18-31), which can only be discovered through a deep, gut-level relationship with Jesus.

And sooner or later, this relationship with Him leads down the narrow path of humiliations.

4 • Why humiliations and temptations?

Isaac of Nineveh (c. 613 – c. 700), an Eastern Christian bishop, wrote:

These words echo those of Madeleine Delbrêl (1904-1964), a French mystic and social worker:

Wait…

…what does “among His most beautiful gifts” even mean???

Let me say it again: this isn’t about masochism!

It’s much simpler than that: as long as I trust in myself, in my strength, in my abilities, in my “look how good I am”…

• …I’ll spend my whole life on guard, gritting my teeth and hoping that no wave ever comes along higher than the dam I’ve built;
• …dreading the day the dam gives way and I discover the truth about myself.

When that happens, I have two options:

• Look at myself in the mirror and be crushed by my shattered expectations, by having let myself down, by my superego (shaped by my surroundings, by culture, by what others think, by my pride);
• …or discover myself under the gaze of God, the only One who does not condemn me (cf. Mark 2:16), who is moved by my poverty (cf. John 11:33), who comes looking for me (cf. Matthew 18:12), who promises me that “the best is yet to come” (cf. John 2:1-11), and who gives true peace (cf. John 14:27).

5 • …and what about our falls?

Basil of Caesarea (330-379), bishop and Greek Church Father, says this in a homily on humility, about the moment when Peter denies Jesus:

In fact, all the talents we have, all our virtues, all the gifts God gives us, if they aren’t lived in humility…

Every gift from God can become a stumbling block (for us or for others):

• our looks;
• a physical ability or talent;
• a particular aptitude for a certain line of work;
• money.

So, like humiliations, falls are also a tool God often uses to teach us not to rely on our own strength, but to find our rest in Him alone (cf. Psalm 55:7; 116:6-7):

6 • Rolling up your sleeves and trying to “be good” without humility

Isaac of Nineveh wrote:

…and also:

On the journey of conversion, the initiative isn’t mine, but God’s.

It is God who brings about this change, who stoops down to fill my poverty: in the Creed we say that “for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven.” It is He who comes down.

Without rushing, on His timing and in His ways, not mine:

No wonder Augustine of Hippo said:

Conclusion

A few months ago, I read a book by Fr. Giuseppe Forlai (b. 1972) that included these lines:

Fr. Giuseppe is right…

…it’s just that I’m stubborn, and I often act like the donkey in the fable by Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695), a French writer and poet:

salt

(Fall 2021)