The Antidote To The Deadly Sin Of Pride

Friday of the Twenty-Third Week in Course 2025

Take a look at the opening prayer for our worship today. We implore God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption, to look graciously on your beloved sons and daughters. We are redeemed by God through the free and meritorious ace of the Son of God, God Himself, Jesus Christ, in His life, sacrificial death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. We are also adopted, once in faith we accept the grace of initiation in baptism and Holy Eucharist. We have become true children of God, brothers and sisters who are free to do good and avoid evil, heirs with Christ of everything created in heaven and earth. Those interwoven truths are almost too much to believe, and, indeed, without God’s grace and the infused gift of faith, we would be unable to believe them.

Today we read the first letter of St. Paul to his “true child in faith,” Timothy, who is probably the bishop or overseer of the church in Ephesus. He calls Christ Jesus—Messiah Jesus—our hope, and prays for Timothy to have grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ His Son. What a great greeting! Contrast that with the typical greeting sent via text message, something like “sup?” Paul practices what he preaches, because elsewhere he exhorts his congregations to pray for each other.

Paul tells Timothy that he was once a blasphemer and persecutor and arrogant man. That is summed up in the deadly sin of pride. Most of us have been, or still are, proud people. We tell others we believe in God, but in so many ways we make ourselves and our own pleasure or power or reputation the highest good, the summum bonum. In a way, we tend to divinize ourselves. But Paul is helpful here. He tells Timothy and the rest of us that God treated him mercifully because he was acting ignorantly in his unbelief. He is admitting that his pride stemmed from his stupidity. But grace, we all should admit, is much more abundant. That’s a reason for hope, even when we are acting stupidly. That grace and forgiveness God offers gives us a path to life and joy, as our psalm reminds us. There is no joy without keeping God close, as close even as our right hand—or our left hand for those of us who are “southpaws.” You can do that by constant gratitude. Give thanks to God for any good word or action you detect in yourself. That's the antidote to pride.

St. Luke’s Gospel puts together today several sayings that appear sprinkled through Matthew’s Gospel. Note that here Jesus is speaking to His disciples, and more specifically to those who will lead the Church after his Ascension. Teachers of Christ’s Law must know more than those they teach, but the goal of every teacher is to raise his disciples’ wisdom to be equal to or better than his own. But in teaching disciples, or raising children, we should remember what Jesus says about finding splinters in other folks’ eyes. It’s vitally important that we not be even more blind, or morally irresponsible, than those we lead. If we are, we’ll fall into a hole, and if we continue like that, we can fall into the deepest hole, which leads to eternal punishment. Christ does not want that for us, so we must pray and work so that we can remove all splinters from all eyes, and, even better, teach others to take out their own splinters, or planks, or whatever prevents attainment of holiness.

Bless God who consistently will give us that grace if we ask for it.