May 26, 2003

Pride: Part I

Scripture tells us, "Let the weak man say, ‘I am a warrior' " (Jl 4:10).  That's interesting-the weak one, not the strong man.  A strong man is pride.  A strong man doesn't need God.  In fact, Jesus said, "Bind the strong man" (see Mk 3:27).  So we hear a prayer warrior is weak because, as St. Paul tells us, when we are weak, then we are strong (2 Cor 12:10).  When we are weak we have God's power, His presence, and His authority, and Satan knows it.  You'll know it, too.  You'll know it.  You'll know it by the fruit.

Theologians, saints, and mystics tell us that pride is the sin that is most hated by God.  I don't know how they know that, but it's probably from their own inner lights by God.  Scripture itself talks about pride over and over and over, and it also talks about the penalty.  More than any other sin, we hear God's judgment on this sin of pride.  Lust is most frequently committed, but pride is the most hated by God.  Lucifer's punishment for pride was very severe.  He had just one opportunity, and he lost it.  And so it's forever.  Adam and Eve didn't have that full light and knowledge, what we call a beatific vision, so they were given a second chance.  Thanks be to God, that second chance has been passed down to us.  We get lots of chances.  God forgives us and forgives us because He knows we are still blinded, we are still in ignorance, and many times we really don't know what we're doing.  We don't know the fullness of it, but we don't receive the full penalty of that sin, either.  

In the Book of Tobit, it says, "From pride, all sin took its beginning" (Tob 4:14).  All sin begins with pride.  St. Gregory says that pride is "the queen of vices which conquers the heart of a man and delivers it to the capital sins."  Well, this is a biggie!  And it's deadly.  St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that pride is especially the root of spiritual sloth, envy, and anger.  As we pray through some of the Scriptures and meditate on them in the days ahead, we're going to see how this sin interacts with other sins.  It has a tremendous influence on how we act, how we pray, and how we love or don't love.  St. Thomas saw this interaction with the other sins, in particular the capitals sins of sloth, anger, and envy. 

One of the reasons pride is the most dangerous of all the sins is because it totally blinds our understanding.  Understanding is a tremendous gift of God that He's given to us.  When we don't understand something, we are quite blind.  Remember the beautiful story of Jesus walking along the road to Emmaus?  Scripture says that He opened their eyes to the understanding of everything in the Scriptures that pertain to Him (Lk 24:27).  That's what the gift of understanding does.  It opens our eyes so we can understand what God is doing and what He wants to do in our lives and in the lives of others.  Pride blinds us and our understanding. 

Pride is a spiritual self-delusion.  In other words, we attribute our good qualities to ourselves.  We also give ourselves the right to use our good qualities any way we like.  We're moving rather independently of God.  It's totally in opposition to the First Commandment, the commandment of all commandments, where we are to love the Lord our God with our whole heart, our whole mind, and our whole strength, because pride puts itself first when God should be first.  Pride will not put God first.  Pride will say, "My will be done."  There used to be a song out, "I did it my way."  Sad, isn't it, but that's what pride says - "It's got to be my way, my will."

Bottom line, pride is total independence-independence from God and usually independence from others.  It is always based on Satan who is the father of lies.  Humility is total dependence on God, which is totally opposite of pride.  Humility is based on truth.  Humility is based on Jesus.  Humility knows and accepts its limitations.  Humility knows it's a child.  Humility knows it's weak.  Humility knows it can do nothing without Jesus.  Pride doesn't accept any of those truths.

Several years ago when I was struggling with this, I was asking the Lord, "Why can't we do this?  Why can't we do that?"  It began to become clear to me, because He was starting to enlighten my mind, how very limited we are.  We are not to be struggling and squirming because we can't do these things, but we should accept our limitations.  The very act of accepting our limitations and weaknesses makes God come into us in greater strength and power.  This is when I began to realize, "Lord, You deliberately made us limited."  I'll never forget the day I got that light!  He was smiling.  Have you ever kind of sensed Him smiling like, "Yes, you've got it."  "You made us this way so that we will always need You.  You never, ever, intended us to do one tiny thing without You."  We are limited in every aspect of our lives, but God is not.  And so when we reach our limitations, we have to go over into His.  When we reach our limit of patience, we just draw on His.  When we reach our limit of "I just can't love anymore; I can't be nice anymore; I can't even smile anymore," we go over into His because He said, "I'm not limited.  It's yours just for the asking."  He doesn't want to be left out of anything we do.  He made us limited so we would need Him.  Humility will let us know that we need Him.  We do need Him.  (Teaching on pride will be continued on June 23, 2003.)

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's Prayer Warrior Summit: The Authority of Prayer Warriors," 2002.