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Jesus said (Mathew
7:3-5)
3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in
your own eye?
4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,'
while the log is in your own eye?
5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see
clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.
We never see the evil in us because we always have high esteem for ourselves, if
we sin we think that our sin is never as big the sin of others and therefore we
justify ourselves before God. We have placed ourselves on a pedestal, we are
kings and queens of our little world, in fact we place ourselves in the center
of the universe, we claim the place that belongs to God (Matthew
23:27).
We never speak about our faults, in fact we tend to hide them because we are
dishonest, we presume that we are good and elevate our goodness with our pride.
So in conclusion we don't see ourselves the way we really are, we truly don't
know ourselves well, so the obstacle in our spiritual path is our lack of self
knowledge. We have a problem, we don't know ourselves and therefore we can not
know God (Deuteronomy 7:9).
The concept that I have about
myself is very selfish, I have so much self love that I live to defend and
protect myself from any criticism, which makes me very sensitive and causes my
impatience and irritability.
Now in order to know myself truly, I must obey the words of Christ who says
"deny yourself". To deny myself I must look at all the evil in me with
magnifying glass so that amplified I can see the big monster that I am.
I must see that my pride is so big that I don't accept correction, because I
highlight my perfections and strive to hide my imperfections, I don't behave
with honesty and there is no truth in me.
Jesus says I am the truth, so in order to learn from him I have to behave with
the truth.
My people perish for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6)
Our big problem is our ignorance since we reject the teachings of God because of
our pride. So in order to overcome this we must receive the wisdom of God which
is only given to the humble, as Jesus says: Blessed are you Father, Lord of
Heaven and Earth, because you have hidden the mysteries of the Kingdom from the
wise and the learned but have revealed them to mere children. (Matthew
11:25)
The Wisdom of God and his Kingdom is given to the humble of heart, to those who
can be like little children.
Jesus says (Matthew 23:12) that those who humble
themselves will be exalted but those who exalt themselves will be humbled .
So the great teaching of Christ is that we must become like him who is meek and
humble of heart.
In order to humble ourselves we must see ourselves the way God sees us, we must
realize that there is nothing good in ourselves (Romans
7:18), in fact without God we are nothing. We are just a pile of worms, a
speck of dust in the infinite universe of God.
So if we desire to know God we must ascend through the ladder of knowledge of
God while at the same time we must descend to the lowest part of ourselves where
thrive all the defects, passions and darkness so that we can learn to despise
ourselves and adore God.
The more we know ourselves, the more we will know God, the lower concept we have
about ourselves, the more wisdom we receive about God, so that we can exalt him
and love Him for what He is (Philippians 3:8). (John
17:3) And this is eternal life, that they may know you (Father), the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
To know God is to understand his will. We can not understand God's will if we
don't accept his commandments and furthermore we can not know God who is humble
of heart if we are proud.
Therefore the way to know God is humility, to understand that God has a plan for
everyone of us and that we receive a continuos dose of God's will in all our
activities and interactions with the people around us. When we learn to accept
that plan of God above our desires we begin to know Him more and more.
He who knows God, submits completely to his will, desires to be very small in
order to let the greatness of God appear in his life.
So when can I truly say that I have acquired humility and virtue?
Even though we spend a lifetime of self denial, humility is only found when we
see ourselves without any humility, we can possess virtue only when we realize
that there is only sin in ourselves, in fact we must consider ourselves the
last, and then, the words of the Lord might be for us: the last will be the
first (Mark 10:31). Our life must be a quest for
humility of heart, but if we ever have it, we can not say that we have it,
because this will be a very proud statement.
Jesus said to a man why do you ask me about what is good (Matthew
19:17), since there is only one who is good, so a humble man is truly the
one who rejects any praise because there is only one who deserves all the
praise, the honor and the glory.
Saint Paul witnesses to humility by saying I am working my salvation with fear
and trembling (Philippians 2:12).
Our hearts are purified with humility, Jesus says in
Matthew 5:8, the pure of heart will see God. He opposes the proud but
gives grace to the humble (James 4:6)
The road to sanctity is full of contradictions and difficulties, it is a road of
humility and self denial and presents no other comfort than the cross.
Being disciples of Jesus involves becoming like him, who is meek and humble of
heart. He is the way, the truth and the life, he is our strength, our hope and
our salvation. He invites us to walk his path of humility, where pain becomes
joy, the cross the key to heaven and sufferings the offering to God as
purification for our sins in union with the sufferings of Christ.
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