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Don’t Let Yourself Become Pillaged By Pride

Don’t Let Yourself Become Pillaged By Pride

Last updated on: July 20, 2016 at 8:11 am by Henry Karlson

Don’t Let Yourself Become Pillaged By Pride 2016-07-20T08:11:25-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Detail from the Temptation of St. Anthony by Annibale Carracci via Wikimedia Commons [Public domain]

The brothers praised a monk before Abba Anthony. When the monk came to see him, Anthony wanted to know how he would bear insults; and seeing that he could not bear them at all, he said to him: ‘You are like a village magnificently decorated on the outside, but easily destroyed within by robbers.’[1]

Pride is one of the greatest spiritual dangers which we face. When we do something good, the flattery which we receive becomes a test. Do we become pleased with ourselves, continue to do what we think will receive such flattery, and make for ourselves a fine reputation? Or do we ignore the flattery, seek to continue to do what is good and right, and humbly go forward, knowing whatever good we do is ours in part because of grace and it is good because we have cooperated with grace, lifting us up so long as we cooperate with grace? Do we, when challenged with rebuke and insults, realize the test which lies before us, and the blessing which we can receive if we follow through with humility? St. Peter makes it clear, the proper spirit is to receive all such trials and tribulations with humility:

Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind. Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing (1 Ptr. 3:8-9 RSV).

From birth, we have been raised to think highly of ourselves. We have been told to make a name for ourselves, and so, to follow the path of vainglory and the pride which it produces. When filled with pride, any slight or insult is too much to bear, and so we fight back, showing our true character (or its lack) as we respond in kind. Pride leads to our spiritual demise. Those of us who are filled with pride find its residue affecting us so that our heart is not as it should be, and our charity is not as it should be. We should easily shrug off any and all unjust criticism, not being concerned about it, and we should thank those who give us just criticism, so we can reform ourselves and actually find ourselves growing from virtue to virtue. But with pride, we believe ourselves to be great as we are and we fight against all such correction and think all who confront us to be our enemies who deserve not our love, but our vengeance. Pride corrupts the heart as it says our greatness alone is enough to justify our lack of charity because we think any act we do must be charitable, when the intention and desire, in reality, is for our own good and not of the other.

And what is it that many of us pride ourselves in? Our natural abilities, which, though good, amount to nothing in relation to the goodness needed to be in the kingdom of God. So what if we have some natural skills which allows us to make ourselves look good to others? It is nothing! We might have read a lot, we might be able to write interesting things as a result of our studies, offer indeed some good insight because of it, and in doing so, we can hide from others—and ourselves – our spiritual impurity, our spiritual blindness. We use, borrowing or worse, stealing, from others the good which God worked in and through them, imitating them and what they have said and done as a way to make ourselves look great. But we are following the path which was intended for someone else, not ourselves. What they needed might not be what we need, and so we, once again, hide from ourselves through the pretense of such imitation our true spiritual needs. We become, therefore, unfaithful, not because such wisdom is not without its merits, but because we have used it to hide from ourselves our own spiritual rot. What is left out in such imitation is the interior life which we do not imitate. And so, as we fill the world with reasons for others to praise us, we become truly unfaithful to God and find the kingdom of heaven hid from us. Holy people have encountered this pseudo-holiness often, and it is why they constantly warn us against it. This is not because intelligence and worldly wisdom are bad, but because when they are used solely for worldly gain, or even for the sake of sham spiritual glory, true spiritual glory lost. We hide our spiritual gift in the muck of pride, never allowing our true talent to grow. St. John Climacus properly warns us, therefore:

A man who takes pride in natural abilities – I mean cleverness, the ability to learn, skill in reading, good diction, quick grasp, and all such skills as we possess without having to work for them – this man, I say, will never receive the blessings from heaven, since the man who is unfaithful in little is unfaithful and vainglorious in much.[2]

This warning also follows the admonitions of St. Francis of Assisi; he told us that we should not flatter ourselves over things which we do that sinners can also be seen doing. Sinners can read and write. Sinners can interpret with earthly wisdom the writings of the saints. What they cannot do is what is live out the words properly, following the Lord with holy fidelity, as St Bonaventure recorded in his biography of Francis:

He would often say to the brothers: “No one should flatter himself for big applause for doing anything a sinner can do. A sinner,” he said, “can fast, pray, weep, and mortify his flesh. This one thing he cannot do: be faithful to the Lord. So this is the only reason for boasting: if we return to the Lord the glory that is his, if we serve him faithfully, and credit Him for what he has given us.”[3]

If we continue with pride, if we continue to lift ourselves up with our imitation of holiness through natural means, slowly but surely, we will think so highly of ourselves, we become judgmental of others. We want people to conform to us and our limited, natural understanding – and if they do not, the vehemence which emerges should be a clue to us, and to others, as to how far we are from true holiness. When we do not take note, we rather begin to think even greater of ourselves, let our pride grow even more, creating a cycle in which our pride increases as does our mistreatment of our neighbor, as the spiritual handbook, Unseen Warfare, explained:

Self-love and high opinion of ourselves give birth in us to yet another evil which does us grievous harm; namely, severe judgment and condemnation of our neighbours, when we regard them as nothing, despise them and, if an occasion offers, humiliate them. This evil habit or vice, being born of pride, feeds and grows on pride; and in turn feeds pride and makes it grow. For every time we pass judgment our pride takes a step forward, through the accompanying effect of self-importance and self-gratification.[4]

This is why we should constantly ignore all the flattery and allow ourselves to be tested, again and again, to determine how far the effects of pride have taken over our soul. St Peter of Damaskoks rightfully declared this disease and how blind we are to it until such a test happens:

Thus it is self-satisfied haughtiness alone that can escape notice of everyone. It all but escapes the notice even of its victim, unless he is permitted to fall into temptations which put his soul to the test and allow him to recognize his own weakness and ignorance.[5]

Pride hides itself in our soul by taking the natural goods we have and justifying itself by them. It blinds us from our faults as we look, with much self-loving, at all those goods we see, glorifying in ourselves instead of being open to correction and the grace which allows for such correction. Hopefully, if and when we are put to the test, we will then see how far off we are from the holiness we should have, and upon recognizing that weakness, we then can turn to God in prayer and seek again the kingdom of God instead of the glory we believed we had in ourselves. If we need help at it, then, as St. Teresa of Avila indicated, all we need to do is see how short lived all such human glory is, because then we will realize its insignificance and so not attach ourselves to it:

A great aid to go against your will is to bear in mind continually how all is vanity and how quickly everything comes to an end. This helps to remove our attachment to trivia and center it on what will never end. [6]

This wisdom St. Anthony the Great himself learned through personal experience and spiritual transformation. Clearly, as his reputation spread through the desert all the way to the emperor himself, Anthony had to deal with and fight off the pride which came from it. Humility is always a hard lesson to learn and yet it is the lesson which is needed for salvation. And once he had become guided by it and led by the Holy Spirit from grace to grace, he was able to be used by God as a spiritual director for others, to help them find themselves and see for themselves what they needed for their own spiritual progress. This is why, when a nameless monk was being praised, Anthony knew the monk needed to be tested, to see if the praise was justified, or if it was all based upon an exterior front the monk gave to others to hide from others, and himself, the decayed spirituality he truly followed. When the monk could not bear insults, he had failed his test. What happened afterward, we do not know – we can only guess, as this saying was preserved, he remembered it and was humbled by it, and such words helped lead to his salvation. He was able to come to know himself, and in knowing himself, he was able to see how far he was from what God wanted of him and so to be changed and become the man God wanted of him instead of the pretender he had been. For, as St. Anthony explained in his letters, those who know themselves have prepared themselves for Jesus and so are able to be saved.[7]

[1] The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. trans. Benedicta Ward (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1984), 4.

[2] St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent. trans. Colm Luibheid and Normal Russell (New York: Paulist Press, 1982). 204.

[3] St. Bonaventure, The Major Legend of Saint Francis in Francis of Assisi: The Founder. Early Documents Volume II. ed. Regis J. Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap., J.A. Wayne, O.F.M. Conv., and William J. Short, O.F.M. (New York: New City Press, 2000), 571.

[4] Unseen Warfare: Being the Spiritual Combat and Path to Paradise of Lorenzo Scupoli. ed. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain and rev. Theophan the Recluse. trans. E. Kadloubovsky and G.E.H. Palmer (London: Faber and Faber, 1963),141.

[5] St. Peter of Damaskos, “Conscious Awareness in the Heart” in The Philokalia. The Complete Text. Volume III. trans. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1986), 278.

[6] St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection in The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila. Volume Two. trans. Kieran Kavanaugh O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez O.C.D. (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1980), 76.

[7] “The rational man who has prepared himself to be set free through the advent of Jesus, knows himself in his intellectual substance. For he who knows himself knows the dispensations of the Creator and all that He does among His creatures,” St. Antony, The Letters of St. Antony the Great. trans. Derwas J. Chitty (Fairacres, Oxford: SLG Press, 1991), 9 [Letter III].

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