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"Salvation comes through humility"
In his 6 March general audience, Pope Francis
continued his catechetical cycle on vices and
virtues, speaking about pride.
03/06/2024
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
In our catechetical journey on the vices and virtues, today we come
to the last of the vices: pride. The ancient Greeks defined it with a
word that could be translated “excessive splendor.” Indeed, pride is
self-exaltation, conceit, vanity. The term also appears in that series
of vices that Jesus lists to explain that evil always comes from the
heart of man (cf. Mark 7:22). The proud man is one who thinks he
is much more than he really is; one who frets about being
recognized as greater than others, always wants to see his own
merits recognized, and despises others, deeming them inferior to
himself.
From this first description, we see how the vice of pride is very close
to that of vainglory, which we presented last time. However, if
vainglory is a disease of the human self, it is still a childish disease
when compared to the havoc pride is capable of. In analyzing the
follies of man, the monks of antiquity recognized a certain order in
the sequence of evils: one begins with the grossest sins, such as
gluttony, and arrives at the more disturbing monsters. Of all vices,
pride is the great queen. It is no accident that, in the Divine
Comedy, Dante places it in the very first level of purgatory: those
who give in to this vice are far from God, and the correction of this
evil requires time and effort, more than any other battle to which
the Christian is called.
In fact, within this evil lies the radical sin, the absurd claim to be
like God. The sin of our first parents, recounted in the book of
Genesis, is for all intents and purposes a sin of pride. The tempter
tells them, “when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you
will be like God” (Gen. 3:5). Writers on spirituality are especially
attentive in describing the consequences of pride in everyday life, to
illustrate how it ruins human relationships, to point out how this
evil poisons that feeling of fraternity that should instead unite men.
Here then is the long list of symptoms that reveal a person's
succumbing to the vice of pride. It is an evil with an obvious
physical appearance: the proud man is haughty, he has a “stiff
neck,” that is, he has a stiff neck that does not bend. He is a man
easily led to scornful judgment: with no reason, he passes
irrevocable judgments on others, who seem to him hopelessly inept
and incapable. In his haughtiness, he forgets that Jesus in the
Gospels assigned us very few moral precepts, but on one of them he
was uncompromising: never judge. You realize that you are dealing
with a proud person when, on offering him a little constructive
criticism, or making a completely harmless remark, he reacts in an
exaggerated manner, as if someone had offended his majesty: he
goes into a rage, shouts, interrupts relations with others in a
resentful manner.
There is little one can do with a person suffering from pride. It is
impossible to talk to them, much less correct them, because
ultimately they are no longer present to themself. One just has to be
patient with them, because one day their edifice will collapse. An
Italian proverb goes, “Pride goes on horseback and comes back on
foot.” In the Gospels, Jesus deals with a lot of proud people, and He
often went to expose this vice even in people who hid it very well.
Peter flaunts his full-throated faithfulness: “Even if everyone
forsakes you, I will not!” (cf. Mt 26:33). Instead, he will soon be like
the others, fearful in the face of death that he did not imagine could
be so close. And so the second Peter, the one who no longer lifts his
chin but weeps salty tears, will be healed by Jesus and will finally be
fit to bear the burden of the Church. Before he flaunted a
presumption that was better not flaunted; now he is a faithful
disciple whom, as a parable says, the master can put “in charge of all
his possessions” (Luke 12:44).
Salvation comes through humility, the true remedy for every act of
pride. In the Magnificat, Mary sings of the God who by His power
scatters the proud in the sick thoughts of their hearts. It is useless
to steal anything from God, as the proud hope to do, because after
all He wants to give us everything. This is why the apostle James, to
his community wounded by infighting originating in pride, writes,
“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (Jas. 4:6).
So, dear brothers and sisters, let us take advantage of this Lent to
fight against our pride.
EPUB | document generated automatically from https://opusdei.org/en/article/salvation-
comes-through-humility/ (03/19/2024)
