“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels”. — St. Augustine
My first memories of mature confessions, not centered around fights with my sisters and forgetting my bedtime prayers, are not very interesting. I was a well-behaved teenager with good grades, who tried to do the right thing; I didn’t drink, smoke, or fool around. You know, the usual cradle Catholic stuff. Thankfully, I did learn pretty early on that sin was not always flashy. And so, those confessions revolved mostly around pride.
Pride may seem like a distant sin to some, one reserved for politicians, CEOs, and millionaires, or maybe for people who refuse God’s love. However, I have learned that pride is one of the greatest temptations during the spiritual journey. Saints and other fervent Christians have struggled with it through the ages. As soon as we start feeling holy, noticing that we have grown spiritually, that we have acquired virtues, that we are admired by our community and perceived as good, pride creeps in, quietly, almost as a by-product of that growth. It often hides beneath love for God and a life with Him, beneath long prayers, tenacious sacrifices, and courageous acts of service. It can slowly transform acts of love into a pat on the back that whispers: See how great you are? You don’t need God. You are like God. The dynamic of this sin is subtle and cloying, just as it was originally for Adam and Eve in the garden.
Indeed, pride is the true sin of Adam and Eve—It made them look away from God’s love because of their desire to be like Him (Gen 3). Sin in our lives is as damaging as it is written in the Bible story: it ruins our relationships with God, with others, and with ourselves. We are proud when we think we are more than we really are; fretting about being esteemed as better than others, always wanting to see our merits recognized. According to the tradition of the Church, pride is the root sin of every other vice. Our tendency to judge others and our intolerance to correction begin with pride. In pride, we compare ourselves to others, and then envy kicks in. It can lead to rage, resentment, vanity, acedia, and deceit. It can make everything and everyone seem like a threat to our desire for power, admiration, and excellence. Ultimately, pride isolates us and makes us blind to Love.
For me, pride has been a constant struggle. I know I’m not the only one. It has made me fall for the lie that my worth comes from something related to me: my talents, achievements, looks, relationships, success, or virtues. Whenever these fail me, I am left feeling worthless, useless, and void. I find myself unable to accept God’s mercy. I forget the Truth that Jesus came to reveal: that my worth comes solely from being God’s beloved child, Whose love and acceptance for me cannot be taken away, regardless of my failures and falls. As John Paul II said: “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, but the sum of the Father’s love for us and our capacity to image His Son.” But, how do I recover this Truth? It can only be done through humility.
Replacing Pride with Humility
As Pope Francis taught in his catechesis about pride, salvation comes through humility, the true remedy for every act of pride.The word humility from the Latin humus, means earth. Paradoxically, it is reaching down to our roots that we reach Heaven. This is another way to express Jesus’ teaching: “Whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Lk 14:11). “God is in love with humility”, exalting us for humbling ourselves, for serving, and not for our gifts, riches, or abilities. His logic opposes that of the world. His love does not ask more of us than to recognise his Greatness and our smallness.
It means choosing to be what we are, faithful to the truth of God’s greatness and our littleness. It is Him, and not us, who transforms. As put by Saint Therese of Avila, humility is to walk in the truth. And this walk is the way to inherit the earth (Mat 5:5).
In this sense, to be humble is not to deny our value, nor to talk wrongly about ourselves or diminish our work, talents, and achievements. On the contrary, it is to see ourselves as God sees us: nothing more, nothing less; accepting our reality. It is in that reality of objective truth, and in no other, that God reveals Himself to us. In His love, we are made new and exalted. Humility allows us to be truly free to be ourselves, under the gaze of our loving Father.
The Litany of Humility
It is not easy to grow in humility. It is impossible to gain it by ourselves, without the grace of the Holy Spirit. The good news is, we only need to ask for this grace.
In my struggle with pride, I came across the Litany of Humility, a prayer composed in 1867 by a “Roman Catholic Clergyman” and popularised by Cardinal del Val, the Secretary of State under Pope St. Pius X.
This prayer can seem harsh at first, as it certainly did to me. Through it, we ask God to remove any desire for honor, praise, approval, even love; and to deliver us from our fear of ridicule, oblivion, and calumniation. It goes as far as asking God “that, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease”.
This is too much, I thought the first time I attempted to pray it, as the words got stuck in my throat. To renounce the desire of being loved, extolled, honored, and praised… it seemed harmful to my self-esteem and foreign to the joy and love I knew God wanted for my life. Because God has put those desires of love and praise in my heart, they are good… Aren’t they?
After a second and third read, I started to understand. The Litany is not about asking God for a life devoid of love and esteem, filled with rejection, humiliation, and loneliness. It is about asking God for a life where the desire for those things—which are good in themselves—does not rule our lives. It is a prayer for greater freedom, to liberate our heart from all attachments, to place our value right back where it belongs: in our divine filiation, in the love that Christ poured out for us on the Cross, a gift higher and greater than anything the world could offer us.
Even after this realization, the Litany was still hard to swallow. Nonetheless, I was deeply committed to ridding my soul of pride. I then started playing the sung version of the litany every morning. I did this for months. I perceived the Holy Spirit healing my need for external validation, my desire to shine, and my fear of rejection. I loved myself more deeply, discovering God’s gaze on me, and His dreams for my life, which were greater than mine and the world’s. Moreover, I was loving others, letting go of comparisons and envy, feeling joyful for their success, for their holiness. And even for my own.
“That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should” (Last line of the Litany).
The Prayer For Those Struggling With Pride
If you are struggling with pride, if you feel that the pressures of the world are too heavy, that your expectations of yourself are too high, that you are constantly comparing yourself to others (social media, anyone?), that you seem to forget again and again the infinite love that God has for you; if your value is constantly hanging by the thread of human recognition or professional success, then you might be thirsting for the water of this Litany. If you approach this prayer with a heart willing to be healed, it will serve as an instrument in your journey towards becoming more free to love, to serve, to thrive, and to be as holy as you—and only you—are meant to be.
Litany Of Humility
O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus. (repeat after each line)
From the desire of being loved,
From the desire of being extolled,
From the desire of being honored,
From the desire of being praised,
From the desire of being preferred to others,
From the desire of being consulted,
From the desire of being approved,
From the fear of being humiliated,
From the fear of being despised,
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
From the fear of being calumniated,
From the fear of being forgotten,
From the fear of being ridiculed,
From the fear of being wronged,
From the fear of being suspected,
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. (repeat after each line)
That others may be esteemed more than I ,
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease,
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
That others may be praised and I unnoticed,
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should.
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