Pride is my biggest roadblock to holiness, acting like the roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8) that paralyzes my ability to submit to God’s will.
A good friend recommended that I pray the Litany of Humility by Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val. With each litany I am renouncing to everything our current culture tells us we need to achieve.
Even when we evangelize, it is easy to fall in the trap of false humility. Which leads to the hardest of the litanies:
That others may become holier than I,
provided I may become as holy as I should.
In this willful society we are taught to willfully seek what we aspire in life, including being holy. And this can be a sinful combination. I am reminded of the instance when the disciples argue about who will be the greatest in Heaven and Jesus gives them a lesson in humility (Luke 9:46-48).
I also look at St. Teresa of Calcutta when she prayed to God that HER suffering would benefit others. Or St. Therese of the Little Flower, when she recognized she could not be like the “great saints”, but that she would be content with just being a little flower and let Jesus take her up wherever He wants.
These types of prayer are so hard for me. I want my suffering to benefit MY soul. I want to become the holiest of all. However, a pure and simple heart wants only what God desires.
Furthermore, even a truly humble heart cannot be “willed”. A sincerely humble heart knows that real humility comes only from God’s grace and from our response to that grace.
Humility is to strip the soul of all “willful” desire. It is to know that we are God’s creatures, and that we are totally dependant upon Him.
The humblest creature, the Blessed Virgin Mary, taught us at the Annunciation how to offer our humility to the Lord. Only in so doing, will we be delivered from the sin of pride.
St. John the Baptist also teaches us a great lesson: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3, 30).
Hence, praying like the Baptist we say:
May I decrease, Lord, so that You may increase.
May I be overshadowed, so that You may shine.
May I disappear, so that You may stand out.
May I be concealed so that only You may be seen.
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