As time moves along, so Christian believers continue their observance of Lent. It’s a season of some forty days that is a call to repentance and renewal. It’s a sacred time for soul-searching, hard questions, and purification. Among the areas that require an examination are the sentiments and dispositions, the “spirits,” within our hearts.
What motivates us? What are the spirits that form our worldview and shape our opinions on moral issues and of other people?
In examining the different spirits within the human heart, the believer keeps her eyes especially focused on pride, the primordial sin in Christian theology. From the beginning of creation, pride has caused creatures to forget their proper nature, their place in the cosmos. It led angels and human beings to distrust God and to seek the divine nature for themselves on their own terms.
The fallen angels abandoned the importance of their own angelic identity and fallen humanity discarded the dignity of its own specific nature. In each case, the creature diminished itself in grasping something beyond it. This is the true darkness of pride.
Pride is a bad spirit not merely because people think more of themselves but rather because they lessen themselves by seeking something outside of who they are. True humility is being at peace with who we are and desiring to flourish and grow within that particular identity. Pride constantly drives us to thirst for those things that belittle our current place in existence and aspire us to displaced or disordered things or positions.
Pride is denounced in the Greek myth of Icarus who flew too close to the sun, or Sisyphus who was forced to roll a rock perpetually up a hill on account of his hubris. Pride is also exposed in the Roman myth of Narcissus who literally adored his own reflection in water and died by such misplaced worship.
And, of course, pride is displayed in the symbolic language of the Book of Genesis as a talking snake convinced the first human beings to eat fruit from a forbidden tree.
In their own ways, the ancient narratives all manifest the evils of pride and its tragic consequences. They demonstrate that hubris not only causes disharmony between a person and God but between a person and her neighbors.
As charity is the central virtue of human life, with all other virtues flowing from it or pointing to it, so pride is the core vice of life. To a person’s downfall, all other vices feed on pride or nourish it within the heart of the person who thinks little of themselves and is always wanting more of the things beyond her.
And so, our task in life is to realize that it’s not so much a question of whether we have pride, but where pride is hiding and how it’s breeding itself within our thoughts, affections, or actions. This is the evaluative work of Lent. It’s the spiritual illness that humility can remedy and selfless service can heal.
As pride eclipses the human heart, humility liberates it and gives it consolation. The person who accepts humility is the one who has a sober opinion of herself. Such a person is comfortable in her own skin (and soul) and looks for ways in which she can deepen and be enriched in herself, and is not worried or anxious about the next step or higher position or exalted role outside of who she is.
The humble person is happy and content with being herself. She only feels obliged to prove herself to her own beliefs and moral convictions. There is no raw craving for more power or influence, no disguised insecurity, masked ambition, or objectification of others. The humble person knows who she is, and is therefore free to accept others for who they are. It allows for bridges and solidarity within the human family.
Pope Francis observed this when he taught about community. He said: “To humble ourselves, and make bridges, always. Always. And this is what it means to be Christian,” and continued, “It is not easy. It is not easy,” but “Jesus did it: he humbled himself until the end, he has shown us the way.”
And so, pride is exposed and humility is exalted. As the Lenten journey continues, every believer and person of good will is pulled by the call of their own hearts to examine and locate the places where pride has caused hurt and harm and to seek a more excellent way, the way of humility, freedom, and peace.
