Since the days of Adam and Eve, one of the most common obstacles we face in the spiritual life is pride. According to St Thomas Aquinas, pride is “the appetite for excellence in excess of right reason” (Summa II-II,162:1ad7). Pride makes us desire to be of greater importance than we are, a classic example of which can be found in the story of the Tower of Babel. The people of Shinar wanted to build “a tower with its top in the heavens” in order to “make a name for [themselves]” (Genesis 11:4 RSVCE). The building of a tower in itself was not sinful; their sin lay in the fact that they wanted to reach Heaven with it, pridefully believing that they could come to God through their own power. Trying to make a name for themselves was also sinful. In ancient cultures, names had much more meaning than they do today. To name something implies superiority over a thing: God named Adam, Adam named the animals, parents name their children, and so on. By trying to make a name for themselves, the people of Shinar rejected God’s superiority and placed themselves above Him.

We fall into this trap quite often, whether consciously or unconsciously. Saint Gregory gives us four categories of pride: “When they think that their good is from themselves, or if they…think that it is due to their own merits; or when they boast having what they have not, or despise others and wish to appear the exclusive possessors of what they have” (Moral. xxiii, 6). The people of Shinar fall into the first two categories, but pride tempts us all in different ways.

How are we supposed to overcome it? If you are like me, your first inclination upon succumbing to prideful temptations might be to swing in the opposite direction and despair that you will ever be able to overcome your faults. This is actually still prideful; it keeps our attention focused on ourselves and denies the infinite mercy of God. While it is good to recognize and repent of our faults, we shouldn’t beat ourselves up too much about them. Instead, if we truly want to grow in humility, we must take a completely different, and often unintuitive, approach. To grow in a virtue like charity, it is often helpful to have charity at the forefront of one’s mind, so that one is prepared to respond in a charitable manner to any situation. However, C. S. Lewis tells us that a humble person “will not be thinking about humility; he will not be thinking about himself at all” (Mere Christianity, Ch 8). In order to be humble, we must shift our focus from ourselves to serving God and the people around us.

There are many different methods for achieving this shifted mindset. The following one is very general, so if it does not appeal to you, I encourage you to find one that does, because without humility we will not be able to follow Christ. The first step in overcoming pride, like every other sin, is to recognize the temptation when it occurs and take it to Christ in prayer, for only through His grace do we have the power to resist sin. The second step is to make an act of the will to reject pride. Humility is not something that we will one day magically achieve and have for the rest of our lives. Instead, it is a virtue, and like all other virtues, we must choose to pursue it daily. We must make an act to “recognize that all good, all excellence, is in God, and that all creatural good comes from God” (Tour of the Summa, II-II, 161:3). In recognizing that we can do nothing ourselves, and that it is only God’s infinite mercy that saves us from the wretchedness of sin, we let go of our prideful notion that we can do everything on our own, and we open our hearts to be able to love Him as we are called to do. This process can be incredibly hard, especially at first, and there will still be periods of intense difficulty, but like all virtues, humility generally gets easier with practice as we grow closer to God.

The people of Shinar got close to the truth; it is good to desire to be like God. However, they tried to surpass Him in power and place themselves above Him in importance. Instead we are called to be like Him in goodness and love. God laid down His power and majesty to be born on Earth as a little baby, and He allowed Himself to be stripped, beaten, shamed, and killed in place of us. Jesus calls us to be more like Him daily, to honor the Father as He did, and to lay down our pride and humbly carry our own crosses out of love for God. God made Himself lowly for us, and we should strive to do the same for Him! 

If you’re looking to grow deeper in humility, I recommend the book I Believe In Love by Fr Jean C. J. D’Elbee. It’s a personal retreat based on the writings of St Therese of Lisieux, and I’ve found it to be really helpful in growing in virtue. When I’m finished reading it I’ll give a more detailed review! As always, I am praying for you and I hope you have a blessed week!