I have misunderstood pride most of my life. Because I have misunderstood pride, it has created evil in my life in ways that made me blind to it. As a child I heard: “Pride goeth before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) I took that to mean that I should never believe that I could do anything of significance. If I did have confidence that I could achieve something and actually did it, I noticed sooner or later I would make a mistake, people would see that I was not so competent or morally good after all—and I would “fall” by being exposed as the less than competent or good person I truly was.
That process didn’t make me humble or obedient. It made me a perfectionist and afraid to let others see the “real me.” It created what is commonly known as a “false self.” As an adult, the fear of achievement bound me less, but, still, there has been an ongoing battle within me between “being all I can be” and not falling victim to pride.
In my interior battles I missed the point.
Have you noticed that in this discussion I left God out? How cunning of Satan to make me so self-absorbed in trying to avoid pride that I repetitively fell victim to it!
Pride is about trusting and depending on ourselves instead of depending on God. It is making our own plans instead of letting God show us His plans. That can be true whether we are running for President or deciding what ministry to do at church. Whether the situation is big or small, pride is about keeping God and His concerns out of the equation. It is thinking in “I” terms, instead of the “You” or “we” terms of God. It is believing and living like we know best, instead of believing and living like God knows best.
Pride is the source of much, much evil.
We see that in today’s first reading. Ezekiel lays it out clearly:
Because you are haughty of heart you say, “A god am I! I occupy a godly throne in the heart of the sear!” And yet you are a man, and not a god. However you may think yourself like a god. Oh, yes, you are wiser than Daniel, there is no secret that is beyond you. By your wisdom and your intelligence you have made riches for yourself; you have put gold and silver into your treasuries… Because you have thought yourself to have the mind of a god, therefore I will bring against you foreigners, the most barbarous of nations….Will you then say, “I am a god!” when you face your murderers? No, you are man, not a god, handed over to those who will slay you.
In the Gospel, Jesus applies these concepts to His disciples. He talks about the rich. “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”
The disciples are surprised. As usual, Peter says what they are all likely thinking: “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?”
Jesus is sympathetic to their concerns, yet also sees their pride: “Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones…and everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or land for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
“But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” I’ve often wondered what that sentence means. Today it seems to mean that in God’s economy it isn’t what is accomplished, but what is the state of the heart—Mother Teresa’s “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”
That, today, speaks to me as “pride insurance.” If I do what I do from great love, my actions will be done from God’s direction and point of view. They may be small or great actions to me, but they will be small things to God, because He sees with the needs of the whole world and all its history within His horizons. I need not fear pride if I am motivated by love—love of God and love of neighbor. This love is not feeling, but rather gift of God’s own life entering me. It is my responding to God’s grace to seek the good of God and the good of others.
Such goodness-of-God-and-others unloads me of pride and self-seeking. It puts me in line with God’s plan to overcome evil in the world: to cover the earth, like dew, with the small acts of goodness by millions of people.
By definition, the evil of sin is the evil of pride. Sin says “I choose to do what works for me” instead of “I choose to believe that God knows best.” That was the sin of the archangel Satan which led to the sin of Adam and Eve which led through the generations to my sin now. You can read how all this developed in the catechism, beginning with paragraph 386.
Several sentences and concepts in this section of the catechism stick out to me “To try to understand sin, one must first recognize the profound relationship of man to God, for only in this relationship is the evil of sin unmasked in its true identity as humanity’s rejection of God and opposition to him, even as it continues to weigh heavy on human history.” (CCC 386) At the core is the envy of Satan and other angels who were created as good by God, but who rejected him from envy (CCC 391-395). Satan then tempted humanity (Adam and Eve) in the beginning.
God had made our first parents good, in his image. But to be in God’s image humans had to be free to choose to love—or not. “God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God.” (CCC 396).
Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart, and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of.” (CCC 397) In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good.” (CCC 398)
And thus pride continues to create evil in the world…still today.
Prayer:
Lord, today’s thoughts are sobering. Our whole culture glorifies self-actualization, self-esteem, self-determination. We are encouraged in every way to see ourselves as creators of our destinies. It is interesting to me that when I looked up “Pride goeth before a fall” that the full verse from Proverbs reads, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Whether haughtiness takes the form of “I can do it all myself” or “I must protect myself” or “I know best” or “Others know best” it is all open to direction from pride and self. Lord, help me today to let You be the ruler of my world, my actions. Let me give You my life today.
Link to Today’s Readings: Ezekiel 28: 1-10, From Deuteronomy 32, Matthew 19: 23-30
