6-2-23
So, once again we come upon Pride Month. Every June the alphabet/keyboard people celebrate their pride, rights and culture.
Great, humans are so good at pride. We love our pride, our ego, our me, me, me! This post is not even going to address the alphabet/keyboard people because pride affects us all. The alphabet/keyboard people just have a lot more "flair" about it.
So what is pride and why do we celebrate it so much? According to the dictionary pride is "a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc." According to God, pride is one of the seven deadly sins and is the sin we most share with satan and the fallen angels.
For humans, pride is the basis of all other sins, and started in the Garden of Eden with the ultimate lie - "You will be like God." The word "pride" has been corrupted by prideful humans to mean healthy self-esteem. It is not. It is an inordinate esteem for one's own excellence leading to habits and vices that dispose us to think more of ourselves than we ought.
St. Gregory lists four types of pride:
Thinking that one’s good is from oneself.
Thinking that one’s good is from God but that it is as a consequence of one’s own merits.
Boasting of excellence that one does not possess.
Despising others and wishing to appear the sole possessor of what one has (this is related to the sin of envy).
I fit those four types of pride almost every day, and it’s not a good thing to be “proud of” (pun intended).
Sucks to be you Napoleon, I'm proud of who I am. Now you're telling me I am supposed to be a low self-esteemed doormat?
No, nobody should be a doormat. But what is opposite of pride? Humility.
Humility is a virtue, which is the reverence for the truth about who we are. We have gifts, talents and cultures that God has given us. We should be humbly grateful for all that God has given us. Pride does not do that. Pride sets aside proper and grateful esteem in favor of excessive esteem that is self-referential and and unappreciative of what God and others have enabled us to become.
This is a hard concept for humans to grasp. Our egos rebel at humility, forgiveness, meekness, and submission. Our egos need esteem, control, power and retribution. But there is a happy medium between being a narcissistic, prideful person and a low-self esteem doormat.
I've struggled with that happy medium all my life. If you have read this substack, you can see it in my posts. In fact, my last Dear God post was my ego rebelling and my pride shining through:
My pride was damaged by some personal experiences and so I determined God was "out to get me" or even better, didn't exist at all because I didn't have what other people have. So with my pride hurt, I felt envious and jealous of other people who seemed to live better lives, and maybe even more “blessed” lives. Pride, and the accompanying sins of envy and jealousy were feelings that consumed me for awhile and made me quite miserable.
Therefore, I've reflected over the past month, with lots of prayer and outreach from many readers of this substack (thank you everyone!), and I’ve determined to really work on my pride. Thank God for June Pride month! This is my month to turn it into June Humility month. This month every time my pride rears its ugly head, and most likely it will be every day, I will pray "Lord help me with my humility," and then I will wait on God before thinking about or doing an ego-filled action. It really is all about God. All glory and honor goes to Him. The only pride I should have is for the blessings God gives me. June Humility month is going to be a good test for me.
Now imagine if society did the same. What if we replaced June Pride Month with June Humility Month? What would happen? What if instead of "me, me, me!" people looked to God and others instead? What if we looked to forgive those who hurt us, even if those people didn't ask for, nor cared about our forgiveness? What if instead of lashing out in hurt egos, we sat back and patiently waited on God's direction? Just one month of patience and humility could work miracles in society. I truly believe that. As Msgr Charles Pope notes about a prideful society:
Further, a culture dominated by people who 'forget' that God sees all and that they will have to render an account to Him will suffer increasingly from tyrannical, vicious, and destructive behaviors. Such a culture is dominated in growing measure by those who exercise little or no restraint on their behavior and who act imperiously—even despotically.
Boy, that sounds familiar in our current society!
So let's do the opposite of what society tells us to do. Let's not celebrate pride, the first and worst of all sins. Instead, let’s celebrate humility, a virtue. Join me in June Humility Month.
Great post. I think humility also requires empathy. Empathy is hard when one doesn't like the majority of humans (that would be me). I have been trying to be more empathetic to others actions. Trying to understand why many people do stupid/evil actions. Still coming back to demons being the main players in humanity's stupidity/evil. Could be why Jesus focused on exorcising demons from people. Humanity no longer believes in demons and exorcism.
And satan smiles.
Yes, JUNE HUMILITY MONTH. What a great way to develope an attitude of gratitude for the blessings we have been given!!