Monday, July 16, 2012

Humility and the Spiritual Life

The first step in the spiritual life, says a Catholic Times journalist, is "to part company" with pride.He defines pride as considering oneself creator. We are not the 'word' but the one that responds to the Word. Jesus is the Word of God; this Word made the world; light appeared, and the Word came to live with us.

We mistake our word for the Word of God. We speak our word as if we are the creators. The columnist wants us prepared to receive the question: Haven't you heartily spoken your own word, when you were sent into the world, instead of speaking God's word?

It's not easy to understand what we are being asked to do here. We have the examples of Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, but we desire to show off ourselves.  God wants us to exemplify his word and to carry it out in our lives. We are to be united in a relationship with God, merciful with those we meet, and in harmony with the world. God has been speaking through the world by inspiring us from the beginning of history. And Jesus has shown us the unity, mercy and harmony in the world by the example of his life.

During the Chosen Dynasty, women were socially restricted. Because of male power and male vested interests, women suffered much.  What was central and missing in all this was not understanding that the center of family life is not the husband nor the  wife nor the children; the center of family life is the mystery that is in God.

We have difficulty in believing in the providence of God and very easily trust in the strength of our human resources. If the viruses we are exposed to daily were slightly transformed, says the journalist, we could all die. It is not what we see with our eye that is important but the mostly unacknowledged graces that come into our life each day: the sun that rises in the East, every day; awakening in the morning, every day, among other commonly taken-for-granted graces that make our life possible.

If we could add some  humility to the many facets of life we think important, much would change. Constancy is important. With this change in our lives, pride would begin to weaken, and our bodies, mental faculties, and our hearts would become more spiritual, more truly what they were meant to be.