“For Everyone Who Exults Himself Will Be Humbled, but the One Who Humbles Himself Will Be Exulted.”

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By Father Rich Tomkosky

Humility does not mean being a doormat for others; rather it is the virtue, intimately tied into Truth, by which we know our place in the grand scheme of things, in God’s plan. That sometimes means speaking up and sometimes it means being silent. It is also the virtue by which we realize increasingly that without God’s love and grace we are not much.

Humility leads to self-knowledge, realizing both our weaknesses and our strengths, and being honest about them, with ourselves and others. It is an ongoing process. We are never perfectly humble, and if we say we are, we’re probably not!

To grow in humility, we must rely on the Lord in all the areas and activities of our life asking for His strength and beseeching His mercy, so that we can be faithful disciples, and be kind and merciful to others. If we are docile to the Lord and let Him work, we will grow in humility through the many trials and tribulations of daily life in union with Him.

Nothing is more beautiful than a truly humble person. As we hear in Sirach, the greater a person is the more one needs to humble oneself, “What is too sublime for you, seek not, into things beyond your strength search not.” Unvirtuous curiosity, rooted in pride, can lead us spiritually astray. Or to put it another way – directly from Saint John the Baptist, “He must increase and I must decrease.” That should be the motto of every Christian life, along with Our Lady’s response to the Angel Gabriel, “Be it done to me according to thy Word, O’ Lord.”

How do we discover and put into practice this profound humility which was the secret of all the holy men and women of the Bible and of the saints of the Church? By holy silence, reflection, and prayer daily. In those precious moments, the Holy Spirit will reveal to us the pride that keeps us from loving God and neighbor, to remember who we are: servants of the Lord who alone is the source of all that is good, beautiful, true and loving. It is only by dying to self and being obedient to the Lord and our Catholic faith that we learn: to truly live the new life Jesus won for us on the Cross and in His glorious Resurrection from the dead.

How is the virtue of humility lived in daily life? The first thing we need to do with God’s help is to acknowledge who we are.

We are living in a time where an increasing number of people, especially young people, don’t even know if they are a man or a woman. It is not an accident like we saw tragically in Minnesota that an increasing number of mass shooters in our culture claim they are trans in their identity because if you are confused in who you are at the most basic level of being a male or a female, then you don’t believe God really loves you: as “He made a mistake” in your creation, and so you won’t love yourself; and then you won’t love other people either, and that’s a short step to hating to the point of killing others, and yourself in the end, with the demons stirring that pot of madness behind the scenes. In fact, a famous exorcist priest pointed out last year, that Satan revealed in an exorcism that a specific high-ranking demon oversees trying to confuse humans into thinking they are not children of God and that identity as a male or female is not objectively set by God but is “fluid.”

How we need to pray and offer penance for all the people who are confused in their identity that they seek out God’s help and good counseling instead of believing our crazy culture which tells them – just be who you want to be. That leads literally to existential nothingness, which is a foretaste of hell.

If we are parents and grandparents and/or godmothers or godfathers, we need to do all our power to show our children and grandchildren that they are loved first by God and then by us, and that God’s doesn’t make “mistakes.” And by word and most of all example show them to root their identity in a personal relationship with the Blessed Trinity and to realize the Catholic faith is the treasure of our existence here on earth and explains why we are here: to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him and other ppl in self-giving love; and to learn how to humbly love ourselves. With girls to teach them to respect themselves and not to overemphasize physical attractiveness or flaunt their bodies to get attention; and with boys to teach them not to be macho men, strutting around in life, but to be willing to lay down their lives in the service of others. God’s way of humility is not the world’s way, but it is the better way and will lead to Heaven someday with serenity in this life. God bless you.

Father Rich Tomkosky is the Pastor of Saint Thomas the Apostle Parish in Bedford and the Pastor of Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Beans Cove.