The Necessity of Humility
“Humility does not disturb or disquiet or agitate, however great it may be; it comes with peace, delight, and calm. . . . The pain of genuine humility doesn’t agitate or afflict the soul; rather, this humility expands it and enables it to serve God more.” - St. Teresa of Avila
St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, one of history’s masters in mental prayer, goes so far in saying that the virtue of humility is necessary in coming to know God at a deep level. As St. Teresa exclaims not only in her writings but in her very life, genuine prayer is only possible through humility.
Humility is one of the most important virtues in living our faith as Christians. St. Teresa reminds us that to advance in the spiritual life, one must constantly live with humility in their heart. Even just a tiny speck of pride, a minor dent in one’s humility, can have much harm. A student of prayer must be constantly striving for humility. Prayer and humility increase together. When we advance through the spiritual life, we also necessarily increase in humility. True humility teaches us how to properly pray as Christ calls us to. Humility is the very backbone of prayer— it is knowing who we are as sinners and who God is as our Savior.
That is why the saint warns us not to attempt to lift our own souls up to God in prayer. The intention may be good, but trying to lift our own souls up to God would be to act in ignorance of who we are. St. Teresa urges us to never seek or try to invoke spiritual consolation. If the Lord wills for us to taste His sweetness, He will do so on His own accord. We are but only lowly servants who have done much harm to Our Lord. We are sinners, and it is only through the redeeming work of Christ that we are redeemed. The glorious truth is that we are indeed redeemed and transformed by Jesus. And to live with intense humility increases the beauty and great love of that everlasting redemption. How do we know we possess humility in our heart? How do we gain humility?
To understand the virtue of humility, it is essential that we understand what humility is not. Humility is not a suppression of ourselves. True humility does not create agitation, depression, or isolation. True humility gives us true peace. True humility is simply the act of perceiving ourselves as we truly are. It is a saving self-knowing that allows us to express the truth within ourselves. Humility clears the thick mist of illusion and sin of the world. It keeps us grounded in a solid reality given to us by God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church professes the extreme importance of humility when we approach prayer. “Only when we humbly acknowledge that ‘we do not know how to pray as we ought,’ are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. ‘Man is a beggar before God’”(CCC 2559).
The Catechism touches on a crucial topic in understanding prayer— the act of receiving. Prayer is a gift. The more we allow ourselves to receive, the more fully God can give Himself to us as a gift. Through a lack of humility, we tend to view prayer in a wrong way. Many people cannot help but to view prayer as an interaction of exchange. Most of Western society is centered around exchange. Through habit and pride, we cannot help but to think that we must do a certain deed to grow closer to God, or that we must say a certain prayer, or pray for a certain amount of people. By approaching prayer in this way we do not allow God to give Himself to us. There is nothing we have to do in order to earn God’s love. By our very existence we have already gained the immense love of God. What an amazing truth!
If we want to receive the fullness of God’s love, all we must do is be ourselves. To knowourselves. This is accomplished through humility. By knowing who we are at the deepest level, we simultaneously come to know God at the deepest level. This is the “highest wisdom” as St. Thomas Aquinas coins it. But then the question arises, why don’t more people view themselves in this way? Why do we struggle so much with viewing ourselves through this lens? It is because it is terrifying. Possibly the most terrifying thing we can do.
To view ourselves as we truly are can be downright horrifying. To go to those places we keep hidden in the dark. Those parts of us that are so ugly we ignore them and pray no one ever discovers them. Most people will spend their entire life avoiding those roots of shame. And because of that they will never experience God in a genuine way. God yearns for us to go to those places. To confront those roots of shame and pull them out of the darkness. He asks us to bring those parts of us into the light, so that He may take them from us. For it is in those dark roots of shame that God is waiting for us. In the ugliest moments of our lives, when we think no one could ever love us, that is where God loves us the most. That is where God saw us and said,
you are worth the very life of my beloved Son.
