Humility: The Quiet Virtue Speaks

Rabbi Simcha Bunim, a great Polish Hasidic master, taught that “Everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that he or she can reach into one or the other, depending on the need. When feeling lowly and depressed, discouraged or disconsolate, one should reach into the right pocket, and, there, find the words: “The world was created for me. But when feeling high and mighty one should reach into the left pocket, and find the words: "I am but dust and ashes." (Gen. 18:27)

In reality, because when we humble ourselves we are exalted, if you dip into your left pocket, you will always end up in your right.

Left pocket first.

1). As St. Teresa of Avila taught her religious sisters, “humility is walking in the truth; for it is a very great truth, that of ourselves we have no good, but misery and nothingness; and he who does not understand this, walks in falsehood; but he who understands it the best, is the most pleasing to the Supreme Truth, because such a one walks in it. May God grant us the favor, sisters, never to be without this knowledge of ourselves. Amen.”

Humility is a self-regulating virtue; it helps us recognize that we should neither be too high on ourselves nor too low – that we must constantly re-evaluate ourselves and adjust accordingly.

It is more than just the first step of the journey. It’s the very gravel on the path we’re walking on. St. Theresa taught to always read the slip of the paper in the left pocket first so she could assert the authority of her mystical experience given to her by the Lord and to trust what “the Lord taught her through experience.” As one writer put it, her humility was essential for a woman telling of raptures and visions deep prayer in the midst of the Inquisition. Humility here coexists with and even makes possible spiritual authority.

Jesuit scholar Joseph Tetlow, writes, “If you cling to a negative self-image and have no great respect for your gifts, you are not being humble. You are showing no gratitude to God, who gave you the gifts, and this sin of ingratitude provides the deepest wellspring of every other sin...This is a self-deceiving way of telling God, ‘I will not serve.’”

2. There is nothing in Scripture that talks about “intellectual humility” The closest we come is Philippians 2:6, “Though he was in the form of God, Christ did not deem equality with God to be grasped.

Intellectual humility is important at school and at work. E.g. Ask any employer what is the most important motivator of employees besides money and he or she will say, “Recognition.”

A helpful counterbalance to seeking honor is that humility gives one freedom from the control of the “competitive reflex,” which is the impulse to oppose or outdo others, or to auto-react against perceived threats to one’s established sense of self.

Humility is about emotional neutrality. Emotional autonomy. You learn to simply disconnect or de-program the competitive reflex in situations where it's not productive.

Philippians 2:3 says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility count others better than yourselves.”

Humility also reduces defensiveness (Van Tongeren et al., 2016) and may serve to protect us from the psychological burden of being preoccupied with one's self-image, which could lead to destructive outcomes such as self-harm, substance abuse, eating disorders, and masochism (Baumeister, 1991).

It involves an experience of growth in which you no longer need to put yourself above or below others. Everyone is your peer – from the most “important” person to the least. E.g. (From our Gospel today) “Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.”

In Scripture humility is a reflexive verb: (doing something to ourselves). So, humility is not an instinctive quality; it takes a decision or intervention. Pride in some form is the default condition for those who have not practiced this reflexive verb.

In conclusion,

Not everything about us is due to personality traits, rather dispositional factors such as humility help us to live with ourselves and others.

To illustrate:

The story goes that Thomas Aquinas, one of the world's ablest theologians, suddenly stopped writing. When his secretary complained that his work was unfinished, Thomas replied, "Brother Reginald, some months ago I experienced something of the Absolute, so all I have ever written about God seems to me now to be like straw.”

How could it be otherwise when the scholar becomes a seer?

When the mystic came down from the mountain he was accosted by the atheist, who said sarcastically, "What did you bring us from that garden of delights you were in?"

The mystic replied, "I had every intention of filling my skirt with flowers and giving them to my friends on my return.