The Catholic Hermit Considers Humility

Humility is an on-going struggle. It is so deceptive! Frequent confession helps, but then, one must be very open and honest in confession, or the deception can simply hide in the confessional tomb-room. One desires to resurrect from the sins, and leave the confessional refreshed and, well, smelling like a rose!

In the Douey translation, Ps. 131 is subtitled, The Prophet's Humility. The "n" would like to memorize this version.

Lord, my heart is not exalted: nor are my eyes lofty.
Neither have I walked in great matters, nor in wonderful things above me.
If I was not humbly minded, but exalted my soul:
As a child that is weaned is towards his mother, so reward in my soul.
Let Israel [n] hope in the Lord, from henceforth now and for ever.

In thinking of humility, the "n's" thoughts turn to nothingness. One cannot be without something in the externals. There will always be labels, titles, and official stamps. What we do with them is key. The n has a title from the world, and the proof of it is underneath a print of Our Lady of Guadelupe, framed. A few reminders surface, such as when someone sends mail with the title used. It seems odd and distant, for it is from the world long ago. It is nothing.

Then there are labels indicating relationship: parent, friend, child, cousin. These are something but may be diminished in external value, and emphasized as love. There are official stamps: Catholic, bishop, priest, nun, monk, married man or woman, confirmand, baptized, consecrated virgin or hermit. (These stamps exemplify those of the Church world; there are many in the secular world, as well: doctor, president, teacher, judge--those with official credentialing as stamps.) There are minor labels representing [worship] tasks: lector, sacristan, extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, alter server, usher, cantor, organist.

The nothing, then is not totally nothing. The nothing is baptized, confirmed, privately consecrated as hermit, Catholic, lector, sacristan, extraordinary minister of Communion, parent, child, cousin, friend--even enemy. These are somethings. Nothingness, then, can become a possession if one does not consider that it is veritably impossible to be truly nothing in this lifetime.

The desire to be nothing can, in its own way, become something. It can become a possession, and thus it is something. Nothingness can lose the virtue of humility if it becomes a something to be proud of how nothing. A humble nothing (who has the average somethings but keeps them hidden) does less stumbling around in the dark and also in broad daylight.

Sharp outer and inner eyes assist humility to strive to be nothing, and this may be accomplished by not letting others know, for example, that one is a sacristan. One can go quite early to prepare the sanctuary for Mass, before others arrive. In other aspects of the somethings, one can simply not mention them to others, for talking about something makes it not anymore as much, nothing.

How one does one's somethings tend toward nothingness, or yet more something--turning what could approach nothing, into something great in matter and above nothing?

St. Francis de Sales often said, "I am nothing, if not a man." It was his humanity that kept this great saint humble.

By what authority does a nothing (who actually does have something of mediocre labels and titles--but no official stamps now), think, speak and write? Prayerfully, by the mark of the Holy Spirit in baptism and confirmation, but also by the smudges of sin which keeps one very human and thus needy for humility. Who has given any approval to the nothing; whose approval should the nothing seek?

This is the one whom I approve: the lowly and afflicted man who trembles at My word. [Isaiah 66:2b]