What is Humility? Humility signifies lowliness. It is derived from the Latin humilitas which comes from humus, i.e. the earth, soil, ground. It can be translated as "grounded" or "from the earth."
Catholic Dictionary Definition
"The moral virtue which prompts us to recognize that of ourselves we are nothing and can do nothing without divine assistance; the reasonable evaluation of ourselves and recognition of. our dependence upon God, It is a virtue which is joined to the virtue of temperance in that it moderates the desire for honor, self-glorification, and the esteem of others."
Humility is....
A moral virtue, which means it can be acquired through human effort by repeated action. You can form the habit of humility.
A subvirtue under the cardinal virtue of Temperance. Temperance is the virtue by which we restraint and moderate our passions; humility restrains our inordinate desire for self-glorification.
Humility rightly orders love of self based on a true appreciation of one's position in respect to God and neighbor.
Humility is not only opposed to pride; it is also opposed to immoderate self-abjection, which would fail to recognize God's gifts and use them according to his will.
Humility is truth. Through humility, we come to know ourselves as we really are. We come to know ourselves in relation to God, in relation to other men, and to know our proper place.
St. Thomas Aquinas on Humility
“Humility means seeing ourselves as God sees us: knowing every good we have comes from Him as pure gift” (Summa Q161)
“Humility removes pride, whereby a man refuses to submit himself to the truth of faith."
"Humility, considered as a special virtue, regards chiefly the subjection of man to God, for Whose sake he humbles himself by subjecting himself to others." (Q161, Article 1, Answer 5)
"It is contrary to humility to aim at greater things through confiding in one's own powers: but to aim at greater things through confidence in God's help is not contrary to humility; especially since the more one subjects oneself to God, the more is one exalted in God's sight." (Q161, Article 2, Answer 2)
Humility is a tendency or inclination whereby "a man restrains the impetuosity of his soul, from tending inordinately to great things: yet its rule is in the cognitive faculty, in that we should not deem ourselves to be above what we are."
The first act of humility consists in rendering ourselves entirely subject to God with the greatest reverence for His infinite Majesty, before which we are nothing (2a 2ae, qu. clxi, art. 2 ad 3; et qu. clxii, art. 5)
Everyone can truthfully say and believe he is a contemptible wretch, referring all his ability and talent to God. (Loc. cit. art. 6 ad 1)
St. Augustine on Humility
"O, Lord, may I know Thee, may I know myself!"
Augustine believed humility was the foundation of the spiritual life. He understood humility to be a gift of fear whereby man reveres God. (De Serm. Dom. in Monte i, 4) In other words, man has such a deep respect and awe for God, that he takes his rightful place beneath God.
"Are you thinking of raising the great fabric of spirituality? Attend first of all to the foundation of humility." (De Verb. Dom., Serm. [S. 10, C[1])
"It is one thing to raise oneself to God, and another to raise oneself up against God. He that abases himself before Him, him He raiseth up; he that raises himself up against Him, him He casteth down." (Of Holy Virginity, 31)
From "My Way of Life"
Men have a natural tendency to want to do great things, but since lofty things are often beyond their powers, they need a virtue to keep them from tending immoderately to high goals. The virtue which restrains man from aiming higher against reason is humility. To be humble, a man must realize the lack of proportion between his own powers and the great things toward which his will tends.
Humility does not make a man think less of himself than he ought; it is based on an honest estimate of one's own capacities and enables a man to see what he can't do and to abstain from trying to do the impossible. The humble man does not try to save himself without God.
Pride is the vice opposed to humility. Pride is an inordinate desire or love of one's own excellence. Through pride, a man thinks himself better than he is, or he thinks he can do things which are beyond his own power. The proud man thinks his talents are his own; he does not acknowledge that he owes them to God. or, if he acknowledges that they come from God, he thinks they are due to his own merit rather than to God's generosity.
Pride is Like Stealing From God
A proud man is the worst of robbers because he steals not earthly goods, but the glory of God. The good in us is a pure gift from God; we cannot claim it for our own.
"Behold, you are nothing, and your work is of that which hath no being." - Isa. xli, 24
"I have nothing of my own but my own nothingness, it is sufficient for humility that I should be content with this nothingness. But if I am proud, I become like a thief, appropriating to myself that which is not mine but God's. And most assuredly it is a greater sin to rob God of that which belongs to God then to rob a man of that which is man's." - Humility of Heart
Have we anything that God has not bestowed upon us, or that He cannot take away?
In the sight of God, we are creatures entirely dependent on Him for existence. If we remove from ourselves what is of God, we will find that we are nothing.
John 15:5 Jesus Christ: "Apart from Me, you can do nothing."
St. Augustine: "The Lord does not say, without Me you can do but little, but he says, without Me you can do nothing."
Fr. Jaques Philippe:
"'Apart from me, you can do nothing,' Jesus said. He didn't say you can't do much, but, you can do nothing. It is essential that we be persuaded of this truth"
Divine Intimacy, #334:
"Jesus does not tell us that 'without Him we can do little,' but nothing, absolutely nothing ... in reality not the least atom of grace can descend into hearts if God does not intervene."
Remember What You Are
"To know what our body is in reality, it will suffice for us to look into the grave, for, from what we see there, we must inevitably conclude that as it is with those decayed bodies, so it will soon be with us. And with this reflection I must say to myself: "why is earth and ashes proud?" (Ecclus x, 9)
"Alas! it is hard to imagine how and over what so small a creature as ourself can be prideful. A pinch of dust the size of a walnut: that is what we will become after our death. We certainly have reason to be proud!" - St. John Vianney
"Let us begin by looking heavenward, and then looking into ourselves. Humility comes from seeing the infinite distance that separates Heaven from the abyss." - Padre Pio
"Truly it is hard for me to grasp how anyone with intelligence or common sense can be prideful."
- Padre Pio
"You must not be discouraged or let yourself become dejected if your actions have not succeeded as perfectly as you intended. What do you expect? We are made of clay and not every soil yields the fruits expected by the one who tills it. But let us always humble ourselves and acknowledge that we are nothing if we lack the Divine assistance.“ -St. Padre Pio
Humility is Truth
"What you are in His sight is what you are and nothing more.” -St. Francis of Assisi
"When we observe in ourselves a desire for something brilliant, let us humbly take our place with the imperfect and know that we are weak souls who must be sustained every instant by God." - St. Therese of Lisieux
Like Saint John the Baptist, I must disappear little by little and give place to Jesus. I must be small in my own eyes in order to give God all the space due to him in my life. I must recognize my fundamental dependence on my creator and savior ... A man begins to be great when he becomes small in his own eyes., When Our Lord asks us to have a humble opinion of ourselves, He is simply asking that we stand in our proper place before God and before men. Our Lord simply wants us to abandon the illusion where we often find ourselves, in which we take ourselves for what we are not. " - Fr. Troadec
The Humble Soul Does Not Trust Self, But Only God
It is necessary to humble ourselves when we approach God because God does not regard, nor heed, nor impart His grace except to the humble. - Fr. Cajetan, Humility of Heart
Do you ever consider your nothingness before God? And that all the being you have came from God? And that through intrinsic necessity you depend so entirely upon God that without Him you cannot do anything good? That without God you neither think nor say nor do anything good at all?
Fr. Gabriel / Divine Intimacy
"Humility is the indispensable foundation of the whole spiritual life..." (#334)
"Let us acknowledge our faults and failings without trying to assign any other case for them than our own misery; let us recognize the good that is in us as a pure gift of God and never claim it for our own." (#111)
"God alone is omnipotent; He is the only One who possesses power by nature; we, on the contrary - like all creatures - are without power, incapable of doing anything." (#240)
"If there is something we can and know how to do, it is only because God has shared His divine power with us. Left to ourselves, we could not even formulate a thought or utter a word. " (#240)
"Only God can accomplish great things in us and by us, but He will not do so unless He finds us completely humble. Humility alone is the fertile ground in which God's gifts fructify, while it is always humility which draws down upon us divine graces and favors. " (#176)
Oh! If we were truly convinced that, although God may will to make use of us, He alone possesses the power to make our action fruitful, He alone can produce fruits of eternal life, He alone can give grace to souls, and we are nothing but instruments! In fact, the smaller we make ourselves by acknowledging our poverty, the more qualified..." (#334)
✤
James 4:6:
"God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble"
Luke 14:11: "And he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted."
James 4:10:
"Be humbled in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you." 2 Cor 12:9-10:
"Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me ..."
2 Cor 3:5:
"Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as of ourselves, but our sufficiency comes from God." Phil 2:13:
"For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish according to His good will." My Daily Bread:
Anyone who attributes any good to himself alone, hinders God's grace from raising him to true perfection. Fr. Gabriel:
God delights in choosing the humble to accomplish the most magnificent works.
Imitation of Christ:
"Oh, how much is the pure love of Jesus able to do when it is not mixed with any self-interest or self-love!"
✤
St. Catherine Laboure
St. Catherine Laboure, the French nun who was favored with the mission of propagating the Miraculous Medal, was a farming peasant. When she joined the convent of the Daughters of Charity, she could not read or write. One of her Superiors described her as a "child of duty and labor, but especially of humility."
Regarding herself, Catherine said: "I have been only an instrument; it was not for myself the Blessed Virgin appeared to me. I knew nothing, not even how to write; it was in the Community I learned all that I know; and because of my ignorance the Blessed Virgin chose me, that no one may doubt."
For forty-six years, she led a life of obscurity and hard work, seeking no other satisfaction than that of pleasing God.
At her close of her canonization ceremony, Pope Pius XII said of her: “Favored though she was with visions and celestial delights, she did not advertise herself to seek worldly fame, but took herself merely for the handmaid of God and preferred to remain unknown and to be reputed as nothing. And thus, desiring only the glory of God and of His Mother, she went meekly about the ordinary, and even the unpleasant, tasks that were assigned to her….And while she worked away, never idle but always busy and cheerful, her heart never lost sight of heavenly things: indeed she saw God uninterruptedly in all things and all things in God.”
The saints were aware of the immense distance between God's infinite sanctity and their own poverty. They never attributed anything good to themselves, but only to God. They were aware of their nothingness and admitted it openly.
When St. Teresa performed any good work, or saw a good act done by others, she began to praise God for it, saying that it was entirely his work.
St. Bernard said that we ought to praise, not so much the saints for the works that they perform, as God who operates through them.
St. Philip Neri said, "Never say 'What great things the saints do!' but 'What great things God does in His saints!'"
"Let us," says St. John Chrysostom, "call ourselves useless servants, that we may be made useful."
We, too, can collaborate with God to be the saints that He desires us to be. If we surrender to Him in a state of docility, we will dispose our souls to correspond with all the graces He constantly pours out to us. We must dismiss whatever grand illusions we've created and accept our weaknesses in truth and humility, ultimately becoming a docile instrument in God's hand and allowing Him complete control.
✤
Comentarios