Cardinal (Deadly) Sins and Blessings – Part II
Types of pride
There are as many varieties of pride as there are people in the world. Everyone has pride in their own way. We usually associate pride with boastfulness, imposing ourselves on others, ruthless use of our power, and so on. We think that pride is contrary to culture. Meanwhile, there are also very cultural varieties of pride, even very "pious". They are much more difficult to recognize, but they can be more annoying and destructive. Analyzing the process of Jesus, one can see how the pride of various groups of people had unburden on Him. He really took upon himself the effects of original sin, and in a special way human pride. Everyone did his own business in His trial: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, Pilate, and Herod. It was not pleasant, but in arranging the world in their own way, each of them achieved temporary success. The Pharisees and Sadducees even went out there to be defenders of God's Law, the nation, and the temple. It was no coincidence that St. Peter had to prove to the Jews on the day of Pentecost that behind all this there was an exorbitant arrogance and pride that these people were not even aware of. They thought they were acting in good faith.
The place where the different kinds of pride are particularly evident are small communities - especially the family. If these communities’ function long time, it is impossible to hide this attitude typical of pride in forcing others to love, the love that they need. The more someone has been hurt, the harsher this demand is. Most often it takes the form of grievances and regrets. Hardly anyone realizes then that behind this attitude there is concentration on oneself (being an idol for oneself) and rebellion against the concrete reality that God has given me. Grievances and regrets are also a strategy of pride and a form of violence, so that others who want to consider themselves good and worthy of love will accept my conditions so that I can be the center of their attention. Pride always has the tendency to limit the freedom of others and to organize the world on my often-unconscious conditions, and it always uses some form of violence, from the most primitive forms of external coercion and violence, through various intrigues, to the induction of guilt and such anguish that the other has no choice but to bend.
A special type of pride is perfectionism. It is a very widespread scourge among sensitive and pious people in religious movements and religious orders. If this profound, existential attitude of pride, which ultimately results from original sin, is not clearly identified and recognized in man, then the pursuit of Christian perfection, which is good in itself, turns into perfectionism. It often becomes an unconscious service to the idol of its own "ideal self", identified with the will and expectations of God. Man, then becomes hostage to his own pride, which he absolutely does not see. He hates his imperfections, especially his sins, tormenting himself with a constant sense of guilt reaching to scruples and anxiety. Since he cannot love himself in this way, he thinks that God cannot love him all the more. A proud perfectionist cannot afford mercy towards himself, and this is because he does not know the nature of God and he ascribes his nature and ideals to God. This is the main proof of self-idolatry. A person in such states may have the impression that he is extremely humble because he feels tormented and worst of all, this is only an appearance. Sad, bitter humility is always a mask of pride.
An old proverb says that pride dies only a few hours after death. There are many reasons for this, although also a large dose of non-Christian fatalism. For it is true, on the one hand, that man is incapable of freeing himself from the existential attitude of pride on his own, and that this attitude affects people for some time after his death, but it is not true that he is in a hopeless situation. The only remedy for pride is a profound experience of God's love in Jesus Christ, that is, God's touching of that place in man from where pride is born. God in Jesus Christ heals man from pride at its very source, revealing in his cross and resurrection love for sinners: love for the proud Peter who denied Jesus, love for the proud Pharisee Saul, who persecuted the Church and had on his hands the innocent blood of the first Christians, love for the proud sinner Mary Magdalene, who sought happiness in impurity, seducing others and probably destroying marriages. So, it is with each of us. Without Jesus and His Spirit, no one will cease to be proud. At most, he will refine such subtle forms of his pride that he will not be able to see it. It is here, more clearly than in any other aspect of life, that Jesus' words prove to be true: "Without me you can do nothing"."
The Poor in the Spirit
The turning point in freeing oneself from pride is to begin to discover one's spiritual poverty. This is the moment when one discovers that all the wealth that has accumulated is rubbish, because it has served only pride and self-deception. A classic example of this phrase is the confession of St. Paul: “I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith” (Phil 3:8-9).
Those poor in spirit whom Jesus calls blessed are those who have no illusions about themselves, who throw off the paradise fig loincloth and no longer hide from God. They are embarking on the path of spiritual emptying. Of course, the road to full spiritual poverty is a long and arduous journey. It is a way of shedding more and more masks of pride, masks that are becoming more and more subtle, and therefore it requires the help of the Church. In the tradition of Western spirituality, it is called via purgativa, i.e., the way of purification. This journey of discovering one's spiritual poverty is accompanied at the same time by a gradual discovery of God's unconditional love for me as a sinner. It is, of course, a path of self-disappointment, but also of growing amazement at God's love for me, beyond all human imagination. One enters the Kingdom of Heaven through poverty in the spirit, which is another name for humility, and humility is the truth about oneself, which only makes it possible to see the full truth about God.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george