Being humble enough to love

What a fantastic, and fantastically busy, week it’s has been.  The week was capped off by Family “Day”, which more like family weekend for many of us here.  Don’t worry, we have visitors of friends and family throughout the year; however, the Saturday is specifically geared towards the appreciation of family in their role supporting our individual vocations.  Everything’s going fairly well, although time is rushing by quite quickly and it will be time for final exams before I know it.  Oh, I also got to watch last night’s episode of Doctor Who, which was quite brilliant, and the conclusion was brilliant, though a little sad.  Unfortunately, all Whovians (including myself) will have to wait until the Christmas Special to see the next episode for this season; while I will be awaiting it, perhaps a tad bit impatiently, I know the wait is going to be worth it.  Also, Nebraska beat Wisconsin last night, though it was a close one.  It was a win though and that’s what I like to see from the Huskers.

And transition…Now!  Last week I did my best to lay a foundation for the future posts, which was conveniently involved in the title of the post.  So, love…a glorious, amazing, sometimes painful phenomenon.  I’m not speaking solely about the emotion that can make itself known (which is a splendid experience), rather it is the conviction of love.  It’s the knowledge that while you may not get along with a person, and perhaps never will again, you will always love that person.  Because, as mentioned two posts ago, love is desiring the best for the other person, wanting that person to be in Heaven.
So, what does humility have to do with love?  They are two different aspects of the Christian life, how do they go together?  Well, it would seem to me that the first step is asking how do we even know how to love?  We see how people (especially our mothers) love us when we are babies and young children, so we start to see love expressed.  It is by seeing that love expressed that we begin to understand how to love and how to express it.  But how did humanity learn what love is and how to love in the first place?  God loved us (and continues to love us) first; if He had not shown us, we would not have known.  That can be tough to swallow, as we like to think nurturing is loving.  Really all nurturing does is try to ensure the continued existence of the human race through the education and upbringing of one’s offspring.  Nurturing in and of itself does not guarantee love, although one can lovingly nurture one’s children.  Although, without God instilling the nurturing quality in the human race in the beginning we would not have that ability either.  Again, it’s not necessarily easy to understand and that is why it requires humility.

Other people loving us allows us to grow in humility as well.  Sometimes it’s really hard to understand how we are lovable and we question how anybody can love us.  It is then that we try to start driving those others away because when we wonder how anybody can love us, it’s a sure sign that we don’t love ourselves.  So what’s the remedy for this? Maybe you should ask why those people love you, what qualities you have, what is it about yourself that is so special.  This exercise isn’t meant to be fishing for compliments, it’s meant to really get a handle on being able to affirm your value.  Maybe there are people that just throw up their hands and say, “I don’t really know why I love you, I just know that I do!”  We’re made in the image and likeness of God, right? Right.  So, in each other we should be able to see the image and likeness of God, even though we don’t always realize it.  There are also times we don’t realize what we’re seeing, even though it is there.  When we realize that others see the reflection of God in us, it should be a very humbling thing.  Even through all of our sins, misdeeds, and mistakes, people see the image of God in us.  It’s beautiful and calls us to living Christ-like lives.

What about the other way around?  How does humility feed into love?  Pride doesn’t allow us to love because when we are prideful, we are concerned how we can possess and use others.  Pride allows me to think that I am the most important person in the world and that, really, I should be making all of the decisions.  After all, I am the best, most perfect, smartest, wisest, most beautiful person in the world and everybody else exists to serve me.  However, when I am humble, I realize how I can serve God and others with the talents I have been given by God.   When I am humble, I also realize the value that others have and the fact that they too were made in the image of God.  When I am prideful, I don’t know how to love, I am concerned with taking.  Humility allows me to realize that I am creature, not the Creator.  I am unhappy when I am prideful, as I’m only concerned with how I can get ahead of everybody else or the fact that everybody should like me.  Humility allows me to love and help others when they are having problems, and even if I don’t like the individual, he or she is a person too.  Just as I am, every other person is created in the image and likeness of God, and is more complex than I would like to think at times.
This may seem somewhat elementary and basic, but so be it, it’s been rattling around in me all week and I had to get it out.  Whether it was, or wasn’t, I hope you enjoy it or get something out of it.

So, I’m going to close with a Taylor Swift song, as it was the one that popped into my mind.  It seems to be relatable; while it’s about never growing up, I totally see the idea of never allow yourself to grow prideful.  Maybe it’s a stretch, but I really think it fits, as well as a chance to play a Taylor Swift song, it’s win-win.  God bless you all!

In Which I lay the groundwork for future posts on humility

As the days and weeks progress, it seems that I begin to be more and more fascinated and drawn in by the concept of humility.  However, it isn’t just the concept of humility in isolation; it’s also how it interacts with the other virtues and one’s life in general.  Hopefully, somehow it will be integrated into my life as I go through it.  That’s not all!  You all get to go on this journey with me because, as usual, I’ll be working out some of it as I write it.  So it may not be polished, but how many of my entries have been?  I know, you’re worried, “Please don’t write it all in one entry because that’s a lot of writing.”  Well, there aren’t any worries there, as I’m going to try and go through it thematically.  That is, if I can control my rambling…about that...we’ll see.  Regardless, it will be multiple entries, while the number is still undecided right now.

Shall we embark on this journey? I know I’m going to.  Humility, what is it?  According to dictionary.com it is “the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance, rank, etc.”  The first part of the definition isn’t particularly helpful, so it’s the attribute of being humble, hooray; although, it is a start.  The second part brings in the word “modest”, which is helpful, but I’d say it’s too strong of a word.  So, let’s go to the English root word “humble” (still on dictionary.com): “not proud or arrogant; modest”.  We still have the “modest” thing going on, but I still don’t like it; then we have what being humble is not, which is another way to start from.  How about we move on to the Latin root, (again, still on dictionary.com), humus: “earth, soil”.  Boom!  So modest should only be equal to humble if modest means “earth” or “soil”; which, while the first definition of modesty approaches it, it doesn’t have that grittiness, if you will. 

Why is that a big deal, and why should we be excited that humility seems to entail, in disposition, being close to the ground?  Now, this isn’t the “low-down, dirty, so and so” sense, that’s why.  Humility means knowing where we come from, that we are fallen creatures.  You know what, though?  We start two places, the second place is the fact that God has bestowed His Grace upon us, in order to reconcile us to Him.  The more we respond to this gift of Grace with Faith, the more we understand about how destitute we would be without His Grace.  If we understand that, we understand that where ever God calls us to is a blessing.  Even when we are in negative situations that bring us down, whether through the causation of other people, natural events, or even through the influence of Satan, we always need to do our best to remember that we could be in a much worse place: without the Graces that God provides and unable to enter Heaven, thus being unable to enter into the Divine Life of the Holy Trinity.

That Grace also enables us to realize humility in a heightened sense:  the understanding that while we start out fallen creatures, God provides us the Grace as well as the knowledge that He has created us with unique capabilities and gifts because of who He is.  We are called to recognize those capabilities, gifts, and talents, using them to show the Glory of God to all people, thus putting them to their proper use.  So, when we are denigrating ourselves and abilities, we are denigrating God’s gifts to us; we are called to develop ourselves and these abilities, knowing they are not ours, but that we are stewards.  It is this mentality of stewardship that keeps us from being arrogant and egotistical. 

This Grace infused humility allows us to grow in humility, faith, hope, love, obedience, everything in life.  I’m so looking forward to exploring this subject and growing in my understanding of it.  I realize you may think this was a slow start, but I felt I really had to lay the groundwork, at least for myself.  As many times, I'm ending with a song: Everything and Nothing by Matt Maher.  God Bless you all.

Priority of Love

So, I survived Totus Tuus Colorado Springs 2012, spent a few weeks at home, and made it up to Mundelein for the Fall Quarter.  I’m all settled in and it’s going to be a challenging quarter, but I’m ready as I can be, especially since this is the beginning of the 2^nd week of the Fall quarter.  I’ve got two papers to write, the Seminary Golf Outing to help with, a Doctor’s appointment back in Quincy, and a trip to the city for my Ecclesiology class this week. Is it a busy week? Oh yes, but that’s September at Mundelein Seminary for you.

One of the topics that I will be coming back to again and again, in the future is the idea (and the virtue) of humility.  It’s such a key quality in the life of a Christian person, it blows my mind how integral it is and I hope it, if it doesn’t already, that it will blow your mind as well.

In any case, this blog post is about another thing that blew my mind.  In fact, my mind “explodes” so often that it’s amazing that it’s intact.  I’m sure it’s only through the Grace of God that it’s somewhat functional.  Okay, that’s me rambling again, surprise, surprise.  So, let’s get to the meat of the post, alright? Alright.

So, on Saturday morning, I went next door to Marytown (The National Shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe) to do a Holy Hour and go to Mass.  Which was good, what I thought was going to be daily Mass though, turned out to be a Mass where an OFM Conventual was professing his Solemn Vows. It came into my mind that I had the opportunity to leave on a few occasions, but it always came back to not wanting to miss Mass.  So I bit the bullet and stayed. And I am so glad I did, it was beautiful, it was my first time seeing a Solemn profession, and the homily was spectacular; it truly did strengthen my commitment to the state in life I believe God is calling me too. It hit home on so many levels.

Now that I’ve set the scene, I’m going to go back.  I was prayerfully reading Love Alone is Credible authored by Hans Urs von Balthasar, and it hit me, right in the gut. God deserves the totality of our love.  Now, I knew this intellectually and it revisited me every once in a while, but I don’t remember it hitting me in such a visceral sense before.  Since God deserves the totality of our love, that means we need to put God first, at all times.  It also means that our goal, in every relationship with other people, to help the other person get to heaven; to be catalysts for them to grow in their relationship with God.  We’ve heard that every husband’s and wife’s goal needs to be to help the other get to heaven, which is true and takes a somewhat different perspective than helping, say, your co-worker get to heaven.  However, it’s no less of a goal.

If we are putting God first at all times, that means putting His plans for us ahead of our own.  That’s hard at times, I know, and it requires humility, definitely a virtue I’m praying to grow in.  It’s especially hard when His plans conflict with our own. Of course discerning His plans is key, as we can’t just go around doing things saying, “It’s God’s will”, because we’d probably just be wanting a scapegoat for our actions or simply be crazy.  We have to pray, discern, and ask people we trust to give us answers of faith and reason before taking action.  Eventually we do have to take action, but we always need to discern God’s will.

If our relationships do not have God as the foundation, then how do we change that?  What if a couple starts out trying to build their relationship on God and have fooled themselves into thinking that it’s still based on God, but over time have shifted their relationship onto a foundation of each other or even themselves?  Well, prayer, discernment and communication with the other person.  What I do know is that if one of the people in that relationship tries to shift his/her part of that relationship onto something else, even God, without communicating to the other person, that spells trouble.  How can you build or maintain a relationship without communication? You can’t, I can’t, there is no person that can build or maintain a relationship without communication.  Even if we have an imaginary friend, we talk to that imaginary friend and we pretend that the friend talks back and so we’re communicating.  But wait, what if you had a relationship in the past and you have grown in your love for that person.  You have no relationship to speak of now with that person, you’re okay with that, and you’ve understood it’s actually helped you grow in your vocation, what now?  Pray for that person! Again, I know, it’s hard, trust me, but it’s worth it.  The more you pray, the more you grow in every spiritual aspect and emotional aspect, even though you don’t always feel like you are.  We always need to be mindful that God needs to be our first priority in life and keep Him as that.  Then will we grow in love and that’s a good thing because when we do grow in love, we grow in God, because God is love.  If you made it the whole way through, thank you; if you didn’t, I don’t blame you.  I will leave you with a closing song though.