- by Rev. Bob Williams, C.S.B. -

Humility is a noble virtue that is honoured largely in the breach. Everyone loves a humble person, but few people want to be that person. Humility, defined in some circles as recognizing one’s need for God, has often been held up as a Christian virtue, and yet the word’s popular use suggests weakness. In contemporary usage, humility is often associated with denying or remaining silent about one’s accomplishments, or even degrading oneself in order to be less than others. The root word for humility, the Latin humus, means “on the ground” or “of the earth”. The humble person then, is huddled on the ground and doesn’t think very much of him– or herself. Understood in this way, humility is not a source of self-affirmation and self-esteem; it appears instead to be crippling and destructive.
Raising oneself up and exalting in one’s accomplishments would seem then to promote health. Yet, more often than not, such a posture leads to self-righteousness and narcissism. Both extremes, humility and self-exaltation, have the power to keep individuals and communities in the bondage of falsehood.
This problem is confronted in the passage from the gospel according to Luke. The Pharisee in the parable is proud that he is good and holy. He has performed the requisites for holiness as prescribed by his tradition and compares himself to “the rest” in order to make his prayer more convincing. Yet he is not held up as the model of Christian living. Rather, the scriptures hold up the tax collector instead.
Here is suggested a different understanding of humility and exaltation. The humble person, living from the perspective of God’s presence, can acknowledge God’s gifts and recognize her or his own gifts and limits. The humble person is deeply connected with the earth and God’s creative energy and can acknowledge God’s gifts as coming from God. Conversely, the humble can name limitations, aware that everyone has different gifts and no one can “do it all”. The response of the humble to that insight is not resentment but gratitude and stewardship, for they cultivate and nourish the gifts given for the service of the world community. The humble can give life away generously and responsibly because they do not cling to it.
Genuine humility, then, is rooted in a critical self-knowledge and announces a healthy self-perception and self-esteem. “I am happy with who I am,” it tells others, “because I know who I am.” This process of self-knowledge, though never complete, is dynamic and evolving, and it opens us to a deepened and heightened knowledge of God. Faced with this relationship, we are able to acknowledge, in a healthy, way our sins and failure.
The tax collector is repentant and contrite, knowing how he has failed in fidelity to his relationship with God, an awareness that comes only with self-knowledge, the avenue of humility. The humble can thus live with the tension of appreciating their accomplishments, welcoming others’ gifts and acknowledging their occasional unfaithfulness to their authentic sense of self.
The opposite attitude is reflected in self-righteousness. The righteous focus on their accomplishments as their own, especially those that set them apart. They may use the correct religious language as we see in the scripture passage; “I give thanks, O God …”, but they pride themselves in how they have earned God’s salvation. The focus of giftedness and gratefulness is on themselves, they therefore create themselves as self-sufficient, solitary figures, disconnected from the community wherein God is made manifest. This self-exaltation, often acquired at the cost of others, leaves them puffed up and proud; it does not call them into care for others.
Why self-righteous? At first glance, the self-righteous appear to be strong, but perhaps their defensive and reactive position is rooted in personal fear and self-rejection. They may hunger for excessive acclaim and prestige because of the internal void they experience, or they may attempt to externalize the opposite of the internal experience in order to avoid facing the limits of inadequacies, the difficult and painful. Perhaps they are calling out for love, compassion, acceptance, and tenderness to break down the walls that keep them in the slavery of self-ignorance.
The Christian claim to a humble life is an invitation to full and authentic living, helping us to recognize our true need for God, allowing us o embrace honestly and to be embraced in our weaknesses and pain. In this process, we come to meet and know God in new and different ways. Then praise, accomplishment and achievement as well as success, become part of the fabric of healthy living because they are now means to heightened self-esteem rather than ends in themselves. When they are ends in themselves, they are the idols of the self-righteous.
The parable of the two men praying in the temple is not just a study of personality types but an exploration of the polarities within our own selves. If we really are honest, we will admit that only occasionally in our prayer life are we truly vulnerable to God. What usually stands in our way—as it did for one of the men in the story—is out sense of self-esteem, seemingly exonerated by the many blessings conferred on us by God. While behavioural models encourage us to “feel good about ourselves”, real depths of prayer are more traditionally encountered when the veil of self-justification that normally passes for our personality is torn, and conscience prays, from the heart, for conversion and grace.
One commemorator summarized the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector best by saying, “Two people went up to the temple to pray—one did and the other didn’t.”
In the Christian internship of our lives, we know these two persons well because pieces of both of them make their home within us. We know all too well the Pharisee whose interior insecurity takes comfort in the external observances of the law. We refer to our “checklists” of important do’s and don’ts and catch a sense of relief as we can mark off our good deeds. We not only want to do things right but want others to see that we are faithful, upright and a virtuous kind of person. Like the personas in the story, we want to present ourselves into the awareness that we are at least better than others in whatever group we choose for the target of our subtle contempt.
The tax collector has a place within us. In our quiet moments we know the freedom and power of our own honesty and humility. We know that our good practises only go so far in supporting our self-esteem. We can forget about our own self-righteousness as well as what others think of us and admit, in all simplicity, our need for mercy.
It is these two parts of the human person that Jesus addresses in the story. We know that few of us are all Pharisee or all tax collector. Rather these two images exist within us in varying degrees. We know that the graced moments of our lives with God and others are those moments of our lives when we can be who we are without needing to impress the other with what we think they would like to see or hear.
As we look within ourselves to that part that is poor—that part that is hurting, wounded or broken in some way—we can let that part of ourselves be present to us. We can allow it to come to the surface, not to deepen our shame, but rather to know that this is the part of us that can be forgiven or healed, whatever our need. We can return to our homes—”justified”—that is, in a deeper, more true relationship with God and with ourselves.

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